Madam, – Unlike Joe Mellett (January 26th), I don’t regret that Swinford now has only 12 licensed premises, as against 83 in the 1930s. For a town with an adult population of about 1,200, I imagine that a dozen pubs provide adequate social liquidity, while keeping their owners in moderate comfort.
If there were seven times as many, both the public and the publicans would be living in misery and Ireland’s modern apostle of temperance, Dr Michael Loftus, would have an added local reason to lament our gravest addiction. – Yours, etc,