Good Friday gone to the bad just to save tourists from enduring a dry day

SIR, We have come a long, long way so we have. At last Good Friday is a day of rejoicing and drinking and there is only one cursed dry day left in the calendar year. As if we did not have enough ‘wet’ days already. The poor barman who looked forward to a day of rest on Good Friday will have to look elsewhere.

One wonders indeed if Christmas day will follow very shortly. After all, if drink means so much to the tourism industry why not go the whole hog as it were.

I wonder how many more new hotels will have to be built to cater for this tourist increase. How many extra jobs will be created to cater for the huge numbers that will be coming to Ireland for a drink on Good Friday?

It was of course shocking that they could not get a drink up to now. Imagine poor tourists having to remain sober for one day of their holiday. A frightful thought indeed, one would wonder why they came here at all.

As for the locals in bars and pubs throughout the land, one must consider what it will mean for them. Will the fact that we have become a much more varied population than just Irish or Catholic bring this new group out to drink?

I for one doubt it. As I look around my local I see nobody who has not been there for the past 20 years. While the population of the area has increased threefold, the new potential drinkers are not there. They cannot afford to be there as they need their money to pay for their mortgages and other family expenses. The young, of course, will continue buy their slabs of beer in the supermarkets.

So next Good Friday I may go down to the local for a pint and a game of cards or I may not. We well might play the card game to the Thursday night as we have been doing all along. After it would be a shame to break the tradition of a lifetime would it not.

Sincerely,

Michael O’Meara,

Faha, Killarney.

Cheers to Good Friday drinking – it’ll surely bring tourists in their droves.