No drinking in Ireland today

April 18, 2014 • 7:42 am

. . . unless you’ve already stocked up on booze. Due to archaic and religiously-based laws, it’s illegal to sell booze in the Republic of Ireland on Good Friday. That also goes for pubs, which are closed there today, although a few restaurants have dispensation to sell alcohol so long as it’s served with a meal. An article in the Independent.ie shows how silly this all is.

Curiously, it’s okay to sell booze on Easter Sunday, but you simply can’t buy a bottle on the day Jesus died. If you must drink, I suppose you’re supposed to drink vinegar.

As documentation, here’s a picture from Breaking News with the caption:

Dunnes Stores in the Blanchardstown centre have come up with a rather unique way of preventing people getting at alcohol on Good Friday.

They have placed the drink behind a wall of toilet paper, it maybe a message to people to ‘soak’ up today’s drinking ban.

BlgNioNIYAAbYkR

I object, even if the toilet paper is named after cats.

Really, it’s time to get rid of all these religiously based laws, called “Blue Laws” in the U.S. Wikipedia has a nice article on the U.S. laws and those of other countries.

h/t: Grania

83 thoughts on “No drinking in Ireland today”

  2. It’s the same in Queensland: alcohol can only be sold with food at licensed restaurants etc. As in so much else, we’re decades behind the rest of Australia.

    1. The ACT has no official restrictions, but all shops close anyway. It just means stocking up a day before hand.

      For me, I took a lovely bottle of Rutherglen durif out of my cellar, and finished the night with a glass of Maker’s Mark. So it was a very good Friday!

    1. There are additional laws for each federal state, too. For instance, in Bavaria, you’re not allowed to play music in a pub.

      1. Through that chart, I just learned the best German word: Memorial Day = Volkstrauertag because the people are sad that day. 🙂 or maybe it should be 🙁

        1. I just noticed that on All Souls Day the only Tanzverbot is in Niedersachsen, but only in those parishes where the Catholic population is greater than 40%. That is definitely not a concession to any secular principles. I’d bet it goes back to some nasty conflict between Catholics and Protestants!

    3. 32 years in this country and I never knew not to go clubbing on Good Friday. Man, all that sin…

  4. KittenSoft? It’s a shout-out to Ceiling Cat! Someone there has a sense of humor!

  5. Notice the toilet paper brand is Kitten Soft, so maybe Ceiling Cat approves of this after all?

  7. We used to have dry Sundays in Colorado – I’m guessing a move supported by much of the industrial beer lobby. 3.2% beer was excepted, which gave them a way to dump tons of that dreck on the market. (the 18-20 y.o. market were generally the only people buying that horrible stuff, and the bingers would compensate by downing cases of it with predictable results)

    We finally joined the rest of the civilized world as our small breweries took over.

    1. New Mexico still has half a day a week of supplication to stupidity. That’s half a day too much.

  8. I can attest to this, although observance is not universal. I was in the County Clare on Good Friday in 2007 and found only one pub open in the village of Doolin and that one was very crowded.

  9. I want some of that toilet paper!! Unfortunately, Ireland is archaic in more ways than this.

  10. I dunno – the idea of cat toilet paper is a bit insulting to the cats. 😉

    I am such a heathen that I completely forgot today was a holiday until someone at work reminded me a couple days ago and then I forgot what the holiday was for.

    What happens in Ireland for the Jews – no yummy passover wine? 🙂 You know there will be some left to drink. Yeah, I actually do like the grapey goodness of that wine.

    1. They can’t stop you from drinking it, only from buying it. I suspect a lot of people here have a stash at home in preparation for today, Catholic or not.

      Ironically, today is not a holiday here in Ireland. It’s like a double insult 🙁

      Fortunately I have a bottle of Mister Walker’s Amber Restorative at home.

      1. Oh that so sucks – no day off and no buying booze! How do they expect you to get through a Friday that other places have off! Jeez!

      3. Well Holy Thursday is short for, “Holy feck there’s no booze and it’s 9:50 pm time to speed to the offie and buy my weight in alcohol Thursday” I took the day off work, kayaked down the Boyne in wonderful sunshine now off to a BBQ, how to make good Friday Great. Although I did make the mistake of reading David Quinn in the indo I balanced it out with Micheal Nugents piece right below.

        1. I always think that David Quinn is secular Ireland’s strongest asset. The more he tells us of the Ireland he envisions, the more people realize that it’s an Ireland they really don’t want.

          1. I avoid reading him too often, the rest of the people in the canteen get disturbed by the swearing.

        1. But just think what you coukd do with it! Not to mention tping trees and buildings…reminiscing about college days

    3. I was puzzled why the stock markets weren’t open this morning. What’s with that?

      1. Tradition. At one time, closing of financial markets was done for religious reasons. It sticks around these days out of tradition and to give the traders a long weekend.

    4. “no yummy passover wine?”

      I can only assume you have never had kosher wine, else you would realize this phrase is an oxymoron.
      😉

      1. I know it’s a controversial taste but I do like that wine and I like real wine too. Passover wine is like Welches for grown ups. 😀

  11. Apart from lobbying for gay marriage, revoking blue laws is the only politically motivated thing I do. Like roadside memorials, they need to stop. They are an annoyance and a continual, repulsive reminder of the willingness of people to accept ignorance reinforced by religion.

    1. Are you in Ireland? I absolutely loved that campaign ad with the young fellow going around asking all and sundry whether he might have their permission to marry Sinead, pointing up the absurdity of subjecting the question of gay marriage to plebiscite.

      Here it is:
      Sinead’s Hand

  12. Here’s to Ireland. I’m going to have a Guinness and fart in the general direction of Rome.

    1. If you’re in the Vatican today, you are allowed to drink as much as you like, amusingly.

  13. In Switzerland most shops are closed on sunday, but if it was historically based on religion, today the trade unions ferociously fight against any liberalisation (sunday or night opening) with the quite secular argument: if YOU don’t work, why should WE ? Curiously they impose their view even to shops managed by the owners themselves.
    But bars and restaurants are open without restriction and have a closing day during the week (usually monday).

  14. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand why anybody would want to grab a kitten and rub one’s netherbits with it. Even ignoring the unspeakable insult to the poor cat…does nobody realize that, in addition to the delightfully soft fur, those things have lots of razor-sharp appendages and more than enough intelligence and musculature to positively shred one’s privates?

    If you’re looking to self-sterilize, there are far less uncomfortable and unsanitary ways to achieve that goal.

    b&

      2. So, akin to the use of Saint Bernard d*gs to deliver spirits to freezing avalanche victims, we can rely on friendly lions to deliver toilet paper to public restrooms that’ve run out?

        Works for me!

        b&

        1. Out of toilet paper? Don’t want to ask the stranger in the stall next to you if he/she has any? Simply text hakunamatp & we’ll send one of our helpful TP lions right over to sort you out!

    3. And here I was thinking, “BRILLIANT! Some Genius in Ireland has trained a cat to use toilet paper instead of wiping its ass on the carpet!”

      Oh well. That would have been most helpful for me. I have been able to convince my current cat to use the toilet instead of a litter box (soooo nice), but I can’t get her to stop wiping her ass on my carpet! And when I try to wipe her ass for her she threatens me with violence!

      1. Lightheartedness aside, you should check with the vet. There are some physiological conditions that can cause a cat to do that, and some (not all) of them can be serious. And I’m pretty sure solutions are generally not that much of a deal.

        b&

        1. In truth it is not a frequent occurance at all. And our vet says she is in beautiful shape, nothing he can find. The staff there loves her, they watch her for us when we go out of town, and then she has the run of the place. They call her “The Tiger.”

  15. Years ago, parts of Wales were “dry” on Sundays (including Aberystwyth whilst I was there) and so all the pubs were closed. There was – and is – a pub in a small border village called Llanymynech through the middle of which the border ran. The “English” bar was open but the “Welsh” one remained firmly shut …..

    1. Could you buy a beer at the English end of the bar and then walk to the Welsh end and drink it there?

      2. I can’t comment on that but there was a lovely story – probably apocryphal sadly – that did the rounds whilst I was at uni about a pub in Borth which is a few miles north of Aberystwyth. The pub open discretely on Sundays with only the back bar open. The local copper warned the landlord about possible raids otherwise he enjoyed a civilised pint himself. Until the day came when the authorities didn’t tell the local police about their actions …….

  16. In an effort to pass the buck my state put Sunday sales up to vote in every county and city in the country.

    I have family who own a service station that’s within country jurisdiction but outside of the two nearest cities. Both cities voted to allow Sunday sales but the county did not (ironically due to city-based church groups canvassing the county).

    Needless to say my relatives lost a lot of business on Sundays.

    1. Er, obviously I meant to say “every county and city in the state,” not “in the country.”

  17. During my youth in Kansas, I recall an ambitious state attorney general who tried to keep airlines from serving booze on flights while passing over Kansas airspace on the principle of ‘as below, so above’.
    I believe it was shot down.

    1. “I believe it was shot down.”
      The airplane? Wow, that’s a pretty harsh penalty!
      😉

  18. I recall that when I lived in Vancouver we used attend Sunday morning “services” in Point Roberts; A geopolitical oddity, Point Roberts is a part of the mainland United States but is not physically connected to it, making it a pene-exclave of the U.S. It is located on the southernmost tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, south of Delta, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, and can be reached by land from the rest of the United States only by traveling through Canada.

    This was back when Sunday drinking was illegal in British Columbia.

    1. Many Vancouverites receive mail from the US there, hoping to avoid customs. The BC authorities are onto it however.

    1. A much more sensible, and ethical, cause for celebration than what the christians came up with.

        1. Well, now that you’ve explained it more clearly for me, it doesn’t really sound all that bad does it?

  20. I have a certain nostalgia for Blue Laws. On Sunday, we used to fly control line model airplanes on empty paved shopping center parking lots. Now I drive 50 miles one way to a place where I can fly.

    Still can’t buy alcohol before noon on Sunday here in Texas.

  21. New Zealand was largely closed Friday and again Sunday. Most shops, pubs etc sort of-pubs can sell alcohol with a “meal”, which includes fries and a bit of sauce. Attempts at reform defeated by christian MPs combining with unionists living in some 50s fictional working class ideal where Dad and Mother and kids sit around all day discussing the sociaist ideal.

    1. At least you can bring your own wine to a restaurant. In Canada we can’t do that. 🙁

  22. I bet the ban on selling alcohol doesn’t greatly affect the amount of consumption.

  23. In the UK we have ridiculous Sunday trading laws, limiting large shops’ opening times. And on Easter Sunday, large shops can’t open at all. (Maybe with some exceptions.)

    /@

  24. In my home state of Victoria, Australia, football is banned on Good Friday. Well, not exactly banned but…

    So, instead of having four days of worshiping football, we have only a measly three days. It’s scandalous!

    To be fair, the football administrators are itching for public sentiment to turn so that they can play on Good Friday as well.

    1. I was really disappointed to turn on the TV last night and find no AFL being played. What good’s a public holiday without some footy on the TV? At least my beloved Swans will be playing today.

      1. Congratulations on them beating Freo, I would never have picked that. I’ll bet a lot of people in tipping comps would never have seen that one coming.

    2. I think the ban is self-imposed. There’s talk about who might play on Good Friday next year, I think North want to be in on it.

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