The Furman history department recently discovered a document that showed that Connolly’s Irish Pub was actually founded on Furman’s campus. The Horse got our grubby hands on that document and ignored all warnings against publishing it. Below is the true history behind Conns:
Connolly’s Irish Pub was founded in 1827, by the noble Cormac Connolly, one year after the founding of the Great University of Furman. Upon the dried bed of yon “Swan Lake” did he raise his house of mirth and mead. There gathered scholars and townsmen alike, in peace and revelry.
In the years that followed came a rival, a house called “Sip,” born upon the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Yet its candles dimmed, and its doors closed anon, for none could best the mirth of Connolly’s. Sip eventually moved its base to a roof in Downtown.
Forsooth, “Conns,” as the scholars named it, was a hall of laughter and ale, where all might rest between their scrolls and lessons.
In those days, any youth might sip or cast darts therein, even with the most wretched counterfeit parchment of age. Athletes, Knights of Pi Kappa Phi, and the kitten maidens of the Discord did all gather within its wooden walls, seeking joy, camaraderie, and a night free from dread of the Sunday’s toils.
Lady Aoife O’Connolly, the fair yet fearsome wife of Lord Cormac, did rule the tavern’s gates. With eyes like smoldering peat and arms strong as oaken limbs, she did guard the door and judge the worth of each man’s token. Should he bear proof of one-and-twenty winters or a cunningly forged writ, she would grant him passage into Conns, where Guinness flowed like the River Reedy and mirth knew no end.
Upon the First Day of Class, the Feast of Homecoming, and the Eve of All Hallows, the tavern brimmed with souls so dense it seemed the very walls might burst.
At length, stewardship fell to Cormac Connolly the Younger, son of the Founders. Yet lo, in 1959 when Furman removed its great halls to Poinsett Highway, the skies darkened, and a tempest most dreadful did arise.
“Avast, ye land-lubbers!” cried Cormac the Younger, as he clung to a splintered beam upon the rising lake. The heavens rent with thunder, and the waters of Swan Lake did swell with fury, swallowing Connolly’s whole. The mugs, the laughter, the songs—all sank beneath the waves, drawn down the Reedy River, lost to mortal sight forevermore.
“All is lost,” spake Cormac, as the last light faded and he was . “Mayhap I shall build anew, in yon downtown Greenville, where scholars must pay fifty silver coins for their twenty minute carriages.”
And thus was Connolly’s gone—yet not gone. For beneath the quiet waters, deep below the reeds and stones, there glimmers a faint light. Some say that on misted nights, if ye listen close, ye can hear the faint clink of glasses, the echo of laughter, and the voice of Lady Aoife calling, “Show me thy papers, lad, or be gone!”
Many believe that Connolly’s upon Swan Lake became as Atlantis — a sunken drunken kingdom of joy and Guiness, waiting to rise again when the students of Furman prove themselves worthy of its mirth.
