FROM THE ARCHIVES:The hoary old idea of legalising poitín as a means of saving the west economically takes off every now and then, with some beneficial effects, according to this report by Michael Finlan. -
JOE JOYCE
THE LATEST plan to legalise the making of poteen for export abroad may not result in a distillery springing up overnight on the stoney landscape of Connemara but it has brought a blaze of publicity to that part of the country which will do no harm at all to its most vital industry – tourism.
It started some weeks ago when RTÉ’s West of Ireland correspondent, Jim Fahy, and cameraman Colm O’Byrne, did a mini-documentary on poteen . . .
The film was notable for the good old-fashioned chase sequence with the Guards in hot pursuit of the moonshiners, though we never really did get to see any of the latter. There was some lively footage of the guards sacrilegiously smashing . . . barrels and stills of the poteen makers.
There was also an interview with Michael Lally, marketing manager of Comharchumann Shois (sic) Fharraige, who with a straight face and no sign of tongue-in-cheek, declared that poteen making should be turned into a legal industry and more or less suggested that it could be the saving of the West.
That did it. Ever since the film was shown, newsmen and television crews from as far away as the United States have almost been queuing up at the headquarters of Comharchumann to get the inside dope on the moonshiners and their clients hoping to go legit. The garda station in Oughterard has become something like Central Casting, with television producers arriving and asking “Hey, babies, any chance of us getting some shots of you busting the poteen freaks?”
Actually, Michael Lally’s suggestion was not entirely novel. Many times in the past it has been suggested that the government should give the cachet of legality and respectability to the ancient art of running the drop but each time the idea has come to naught.
There have been too many obstacles, the chief among them being the notion that somehow the world is not yet ready for the potent distillation of the Irish bogs and mountains. In any event, no law in any country would allow the legal sale of pure poteen which packs a nuclear capability second only to the H bomb.
However, the Comharchumann insists that it means business. In two weeks time it plans to launch a discussion document promulgating the concept of a poteen industry. Mr. Lally, with some justification, has pointed out that a poteen distillery could provide hundreds of jobs in Connemara where the stuff is made on a big scale anyway.
Mr. Traolach Ó hAonghusa, Assistant General Manager of the Comharchumann, said this week: “The idea was first mentioned as a sort of outside possibility but then when we got the reaction of the local people and, indeed, of people from outside the locality, the whole thing began to assume the proportion of a feasible proposition.
“In fact, two people who in the past had put forward plans for legalising poteen have contacted us and have given us their support.”
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