There was genuine conflict among Limerick people and travelling rugby fans about the decision to open the pubs on Good Friday, writes KATHY SHERIDANin Limerick
WELCOME TO Sin City, read the banner on the road into Limerick.
“Welcome to the shimmering alcoholic oasis at the end of the N7,” said Laura Ryan, the city’s friendly public relations face.
In the city, some talked privately and not a little fearfully of the possibility of “one massive stag party”, comprising 300,000, descending on Limerick, as the only alcohol-enabled city zone in the Republic yesterday.
There wasn’t a mini-bus to be had in all of Co Cork, according to street talk; they were even coming from Donegal just for the drink. The media played its part.
The owner of South’s pub, David Hickey, did 12 broadcast interviews alone yesterday with stations from across Britain.
Peter Clohessy, owner of the Sin Bin pub, got a call from a tabloid looking for a photograph to be taken precisely at 6pm, of him holding up a pint against a backdrop of the Angelus on television. He said no thanks.
All week, Ryan had been fielding calls from the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and dozens more.
For all the media focus, what may not have been portrayed was the genuine conflict among Limerick people and travelling rugby fans about the decision to grant the special licence to open the pubs on Good Friday.
In Sexton’s pub, Michael Kieran, a Leinster fan from Drumree, Co Meath, spoke for many when he said – pint in hand – that he didn’t agree with the lifting of the Good Friday drink ban. “I don’t think it’s necessary. Really, it’s to do with the publicans being under pressure and the need to make money.”
But he and his neighbour Brendan Treacy agreed that Limerick had given them a “facility, somewhere to meet”.
In the Ardhu Bar, John McGoldrick from Castleknock, Co Dublin, said – a pint and an empty glass in hand – that he was against the special licence, mainly because this wasn’t what anyone could truly call “a special event”.
His friend Graham Boylan agreed. “I think it’s wrong in an instance like this to have exceptions to the law. It’s driven by greed.”
Clohessy said he never wanted to open on Good Friday, a day normally given to sanding and revarnishing floors in the massive 14,000sq ft premises, since it was the only closed day in the year apart from Christmas Day, “but a Munster-Leinster match is the third biggest day of the year for us,” he said.
“I’d normally be playing golf,” said Hickey. “We never in our wildest dreams thought it would create this media madness.”
He wasn’t “one big worried” about drink-generated trouble.
“There is a big social side to rugby. There’s isn’t a name of any rugby follower in the book in Henry Street [Garda station], for anything and I think people have grown up. They’re very responsible now and responsibility is the name of the tonight.”
Despite the enormous hype, there were plenty of hotel rooms available in Limerick last night. A quick check with bookings.com in mid-afternoon would have landed a room anywhere.
The estimate yesterday was occupancy rates of about 60-80 per cent, no different from a normal Good Friday. None of the trains carrying fans from Dublin was booked out and the only extra train laid on was to carry Cork fans home afterwards.
Every taxi driver in the city was out to work but were sitting in droves at the ranks.
The special pub licence would make no difference to hotels or anything else apart from the publicans, said one industry insider.
“Your average rugby supporter is a middle-class, middle-aged family man. Most of them would have family obligations for the Easter weekend, but next week, for the Heineken Cup match against Northampton, you won’t get a room within a 20-mile radius of Limerick.”
There are rumblings that the same fixture might land on the same weekend next year – but this time, in Dublin. Imagine that for a licence application, mused one strangely interested looking Leinster lawyer.