An alcohol-free bar? In Ireland? Risky business indeed

I wept into my alcohol-free beer last month on reading that the Virgin Mary Bar on Dublin’s Capel Street had closed, due to lack of interest. It sold alcohol-free drink only, which was, apparently, a handicap. An Irish pub without alcohol, shurely shome mistake? Bad enough, but to name it after the Virgin Mary was bordering (verging, even) on the ridiculous.

Who in their right mind would name an alcohol-free pub after a woman who not alone persuaded her young fella to create wine out of water as his first miracle but did so when all around them, at that Cana wedding, guests were already out of their minds, having drunk the place dry?

[ Nurse Ratched works in a hospital in Ireland ]

And not satisfied with doing what she asked, the wine he created was of far, far better quality than what had run out. So they said, or were so drunk they thought so, with not a single “Drink Responsibly” sign to be seen. Dear God Almighty, at his age most other young fellas specialise in the opposite: turning wine into water.

Still, closure of the Virgin Mary pub is proof, were it needed, that virtue never pays. It just doesn’t sell. And they tried at The Virgin Mary Bar for almost four years. The pandemic didn’t help, of course.

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Every time I travel abroad I am gripped by the fear that Ireland is making a fool of me

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Another example of defeated virtue was the closure last autumn of Vegan Sandwich Co shops in Rathmines and St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. But all is not lost for the would-be pure among us. The Virgin Mary Bar (TVM) is going mobile and will be at events, festivals and pop-up venues around Ireland. Be there. Be square.

Alternatively, there’s the Confession Box on Marlborough Street in Dublin, a small pub where no one does penance. It is next to the Pro Cathedral, main church of Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese, for more years than anyone likes to be reminded, and is noted for its Guinness, I am told. (How would I know?)

The story goes that the then Maid of Erin pub was used during the War of Independence as a place where sympathetic priests from the nearby cathedral heard the confessions of volunteers on the run from British forces. And, lo, it became the Confession Box, though of a different kind. With drink.

Virtue, from Latin virtutem, (vir, for “man”) meaning “moral strength, goodness; manliness”.

inaword@irishtimes.com