It’s a night in the pub, but not as we know it

THE spontaneous nights were the best. The ones where, after some gentle persuasion, you went out for ‘one or two’ and arrived home 14 hours later with a cardboard cut- out of Ray Houghton under your arm, two stray dogs by your side and one less eyebrow than you had the day before.

The advent of cheap off-license alcohol curtailed much of that spontaneity; it led to more drinking from home, it decreased the chances of meeting into a random face from the past, a languid group of ladies, lads, an ould lad who’d tell you all the stories you want if you keep his glass filled.

In the space of a decade half the pubs in the country closed and with them an intrinsic part of Irish culture was lost. But still the pub trade endured, remodelling itself to suit the needs of a new generation of drinkers, surviving despite its produce being available at half the price on every street corner.

This already ailing industry could little afford three months of lockdown. Hairdressers, beauty salons, restaurants, bookstores; most of them will be okay, they’ve never been so popular. Not so the humble public house.

Yet, having been given the green light to reopen, to start trading again, publicans all over the country must adhere to laws so stringent, so counter-intuitive, many must be thinking it’s hardly worth their while.

From next Monday any pub which serves food can resume service. The usual physical distancing and hygiene rules will apply, but anyone who wishes to order a pint must also purchase food to the value of at least €9.

Upon purchasing that food you must bloody well eat it, cabbage and all, before you even thinking about tearing into that creamy Guinness. And you have precisely 105 minutes to complete this task before you are turfed out on to the street so the next contestants may enter. If you want to continue your drinking you must go to another pub and repeat the entire process all over again.

Honestly, what’s the point? Everyone knows you can only line your stomach once. After that you’re usually good to go; 105 minutes isn’t ideal but the committed among us could get through three of four pints in that time, easily.

But then you’ve got to order more food in the next pub, making you all sluggish and tired, negating the little buzz you’d accumulated from the quickfire pints in the last place. Better off just to go home, to flip the night on its head; a couple of early ones in the pub and then home for the big session.

Of course these are only the guidelines, when it comes to drinking we’ve always had a loose understanding of the law. Lock-ins, they’re legal right? If a barman believes you’re 18 then clearly that’s how old you are.

I would never suggest barmen turn the odd blind eye to a group of drinkers ordering a Caesar salad between them. Nor would I suggest they bring that salad back to the kitchen, fluff up the lettuce, and serve it to the next crowd of ‘ hungry’ boozers to arrive. And I most certainly wouldn’t suggest they then move that group to another table when their 105 minutes has elapsed. No, all of those things would be terrible and would increase the reproduction rate of the virus by at least 500%.

In one sense, the insistence that you must order food will provide extra revenue for publicans, but will it really be worth the hassle? I’d imagine it’s hard enough trying to monitor a room full of drinkers without having to check who’s eating what, how much it all costs and when they can end all pretence and do what they came for.

Obviously it’s a complete farce, and after a day or two the whole sorry charade will come tumbling down around itself. Because unless you have a corona-bouncer in every bar no-one is going to enforce this, not the publicans, not the chefs and certainly not the drinkers. Besides if anyone goes get a bit lairy, starts dancing on the tables, chucking beer round the place, actively endangering the welfare of the others, they’ll be straight out on their ear, with no shortage of patrons willing to show them the door.

We’ve seen enough of Covid-19 to know life can’t just go back to the way it was. Noone’s going to lose the run of themselves after a few shandies, and especially not after having a big feed beforehand.