Putting their alcohol under cover, a few pubs in Dublin opened up to serve lunch or to show thatrugby match, writes FIONA GARTLANDin Dublin
THE BLACK stuff was blacked out in the handful of pubs outside Limerick that decided to open yesterday.
Pubs that opened to serve food for the first time on a Good Friday carefully covered all of their beer pumps and bottles with black plastic sacking so that no alcoholic product was visible.
The Intoxicating Liquor Act 1927 introduced restrictions on the sale of alcohol on Good Friday and Christmas Day, but in 2000, amendments to the legislation relaxed, effectively allowing pubs to open on Good Friday as long as alcohol was not sold.
Some pub owners decided for the first time to take advantage of the change in the legislation after publicans in Limerick were given special exemptions to serve alcohol because of the Munster versus Leinster rugby match.
Kiely’s Pub in Donnybrook had a few people in for lunch, according to its owner Pat Cremin. Just what do you serve on a Good Friday? “It is a good day for the fish,” he said.
The doors were open to allow for viewing of the Magners League game on TV last night.
“We are a rugby pub and so we had to open for the Leinster- Munster match,” he said. “We have a good core of rugby supporters; many of them haven’t got Setanta Sports, so they had nowhere else to look at it.”
He had had many phone calls about whether he would open, and he warned customers not to bring drink on to the premises.
“It’s like the smoking ban; everyone seems to have accepted there is no drink tonight,” he said. In the future, Mr Cremin would like to be able to open to sell alcohol on Good Friday from 5pm onwards. “We could open after the Stations of the Cross,” he said.
Local resident Barry Keohane, who had lunch at Kiely’s, said he thought it was great it was open.
“I think it is a marvellous idea that publicans recognise they could do other things than just serve alcohol,” he said.
At the Lombard on Pearse Street in Dublin city centre, assistant manager Scott Hilliard said they would only open until 7pm. His custom, by mid- afternoon yesterday, had been 60 per cent tourists and 40 per cent people working locally.
“It is busier than I thought it would be,” he said. “Some tourists have asked for a drink and are surprised when they can’t get one. It is a very unusual thing.”
Among customers at the Lombard were James Elliot and Ed Layton on a weekend away from Norwich with six other friends. They were aware before they came to Dublin that Good Friday was a “very religious day here”, and they would not be able to buy alcohol.
“This is the calm before the storm; we’ll make up for it tomorrow,” Elliot said.
The Bank on College Green was also catering for quite a few tourists. Manager Dave Chawke said they were just trying to provide a service.
Some tourists were disappointed and a little confused when they couldn’t buy alcohol. Others had only come in for something to eat or to shelter from the wet weather.
Luigia Ventura had dropped in for a rest and an espresso. From Rome in Italy, she said not serving alcohol on Good Friday was “very strange”. “We can buy alcohol in Italy any day,” she said.