Good Friday In Modern Ireland


Yesterday Judge Mary Fahy of Galway District Court found herself presiding over some interesting charges brought against nine Galway City restaurants.

The nine restaurants were found to have on Good Friday last offered patrons wine with their meals. As booze drinkers countrywide will well know, this kind of carry-on does not jive well with the law of the land. Sure, what would Holy Jeebus say if he heard of such a thing? "You should have stocked up with a few cans from the offie last night", no doubt.

Though well aware of the rules in this regard, Judge Fahy decided to cut the crap and say what all the rest of us were thinking. Branding the prosecutions 'ridiculous' in today's world, she declared that, while the GardaĆ­ were technically right in bringing the cases before the court "I myself think it's absolutely ludicrous that people on holidays especially cannot have a glass of wine with their meal".

Three cheers for common sense!

I'd like to advocate further progress along these lines and call for Off Licenses to be allowed open on Good Friday... but with their already losing a substantial amount of business with the latest licensing laws I'd hate to deprive them of the windfall that always comes with panicked booze purchases on Holy Thursday.

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2 comments:

September 11, 2008 at 3:54 PM Anonymous said...

I just find the entire thing to be embarrassing. There is neither political cause nor electoral support for such an incredibly outdated law. And with the recent changes that were made with zero consultation with the electorate, wouldn't that have been a good moment to roll back this particular relic of a bygone age?

And BTW, if Jesus were to hear about this, he'd say "What the hell am I doing turning all this water into wine then? You think I don't LIKE wine? Can you douches get ANYTHING right?"

September 14, 2008 at 5:48 PM Anonymous said...

Hadn't heard about this. Hafta agree, the entire issue is such a load of crap. Understandable back in the day when Pioneer hearts were selling like hot cakes...do away withe whole outlandish notion...