Good Dryday

COMMENT

Good Friday is traditionally the driest day on the Irish calendar. That is the theory at least. Christmas Day, when the general public are also denied entry to the pubs and taverns of the country, tends to have a booze-soaked tinge to it of the homespun variety but Good Friday is an altogether more pious affair.
As I say, that’s the theory. In fact, the number of Good Friday parties that I have heard talk of in recent years has gone through the roof. The day has morphed into an event where you stay at home, get some friends round and engage in consuming the industrial quantities of alcohol everyone has been panic-buying in the days leading up to it.
I can’t imagine the day is a quiet one for the gardaí, as the unregulated nature of the consumption, combined with people’s ability to openly consume drugs as they guzzle, must lead to high jinks of a fairly intense nature.
All these considerations aside, the Good Friday pub ban has recently been in the news for an entirely different reason. The meeting of Munster and Leinster in the Magners League, scheduled to take place in Thomond Park, is set for Good Friday.
Rugby fans of all shades will be crying into their lemonades at the prospect, I’d imagine. One of the sporting highlights of the year is set to take place in Limerick and there will not be an official drop of liquor to be had. Certainly, this will dampen the spirits of the fans but the real loser will be the city itself. Limerick seems to have taken a particularly savage thrashing from the recent economic crisis and an injection of cash in the quantity this game could generate would be very welcome indeed. The Limerick Chamber of Commerce is speaking in terms of €10 million pouring into the city’s economy as a result of the match, a vast sum at a time like this.
This is a perfect example of the old and new Ireland colliding head on. The old Ireland, choked by the Catholic Church, and the new country, which fancies itself as a progressive nation at the cutting edge of culture, sport and economic benefit.
My memories of Good Friday growing up are of a day of staggering austerity. It genuinely felt to my young self like someone had died, someone close and important. RTÉ went to bed for the day and all the mirth was drained from the air.
Moving on into adulthood and away from the shadow of the Church, I realised that it was a day like any other; with one notable exception; the pub was not an option. Needs must in situations like this, so hordes of eager young men and women flooded to house parties to raise glasses flowing and full of alcohol that suddenly felt like contraband. They couldn’t tell us what to do, today we would drink twice as much as normal and stick it to the man. To the youthful mind, this level of rebellion feels delicious.
I’m sure this is on the cards for many people this Good Friday but for the rugby fans of Leinster and Munster, it is not an option. They have a game to attend and the law is telling them they can’t wet their whistles before, during or after. Two great staples of Irish sporting life, the match and the pint, have been separated by an outdated law, which until now has been nothing more than a quirky throwback to the old days.
Meetings are taking place at the moment to see if a solution can be found to this crisis. I do not use that word lightly. This is a genuine crisis for the businesses of Limerick city. Paydays like this one don’t come along every day and to have to sit back and let one pass you by like this is a very serious thing.
A friend has just recently taken over a pub in the city. He is a rugby player, his bar draws a large rugby crowd and big game days are his bread and butter. In a country where the Government is supposed to be encouraging business and stimulating the economy, this Good Friday is looking like a black day indeed.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps this may even be resolved by the time this piece is published but some of the options on the table make me quite uneasy. It is proposed that a six-hour window be implemented for the pubs of the city to open. Said plainly, this means rugby fans are being asked to race against the clock to drink their fill before the law cracks down again and their thirst shall go unquenched. This brings us back to the opening hours discussion, where politicians bemoan our immature attitude to alcohol. They wonder why people can’t drink as people do on the continent where the folks are not subject to opening and closing hours, which force you to gulp your last drink within a half an hour of buying it.
There is also a fairly good chance that if pubs in Limerick are open on the day, a fair few booze tourists will flood in from neighbouring counties. There is a possibility that there will be hordes of people in the city drinking against the clock, only to be turned out on the street at the exact same time feeling unsatisfied and, very likely, extremely drunk from all the guzzling they’ve been engaged in.
Certainly, this is a worst-case scenario but it is a definite possibility. This incident should serve as a perfect example of why the law should be changed. Let those of the Catholic faith celebrate their religious holiday but don’t have the consequences of that holiday foisted on the rest of society.