News From An Irish Paper
For the first time in over a year, I bought a paper.
The Irish Times is 1.70 euro which at today’s rates of exchange is $2.48. However, just an hour up the road, in Northern Ireland the same paper is 80p sterling, which is only $1.66.
So if you’re traveling from the United States to Dublin, it might be worth your while to stop off in Belfast and pick up a paper.
In any currency that’s a lot of money, so I’m reading every word to get my money’s worth. And here’s some of the words that caught my eye and made me go, hmmm:
• Rural pubs are disappearing at an increasing rate. 450 fewer pub licenses were issued or renewed in 2006 compared with 2005. Almost 1,000 pubs have gone out of business in the past 3 years, most of them rural pubs.
• 2008 is the United Nations designated International Year of the Potato, and from February to June Irish primary schools (elementary equivalent) are having a national potato growing competition. Size matters.
• Danish citizens under 24 can no longer marry or live with their husband or wife in Denmark if he or she is not a citizen of an EU country. Diplomats in Denmark’s own foreign ministry have received letters refusing permission for their wives and children to live with them.
• Concrete barriers are being erected on the road in Kerry over Coomakista Pass between Caherdaniel and Waterville. They are to replace existing locally built stone walls in need of repair. Local complaints say the barriers are too high to allow clear views from a normal car.
• Profits at the Irish arm of American food giant McDonald’s rose by almost 49% last year to 11.9 million euro. No dividend was paid to the American parent company. In 2006 McDonald’s had 22 company-owned stores in Ireland and 53 operating as franchises.
• The surname Ross, according to Sloinnte uile Éireann (all-Ireland Surnames), is very numerous, mainly in east Ulster and north Leinster. The Irish is given as Rosach, though no explanation is given.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
The news stories from the Irish paper are interesting. One that concerns me is the rural pub closings. What is up with that? What is the cause of the closings? Does the smoking ban have anything to do with it? Is there mention of how all of the closings might effect tourism in Ireland? Myself, I consider this a tragic event. Rural pubs in Ireland are my favourite stop when visiting the Isle.
By the way, in response to Pete’s comment on the new “Irish” pub in the P/L district, specifically about the butchering of pouring their pints, I find it disgraceful and down right horrible. As a fan of Guinness, I am continually experiencing pubs around KC pouring shite pints. If you dare mention the fact or return one for repair most bar tenders look at you like you are an idiot and respond like a spoiled step child. They don’t give a rat’s tail end. At this stage if you get a “bishop’s collar” under an inch in heighth I guess you have to consider yourself lucky. Sickening! Cheers! Have a nice one for me.
The pubs closing thing is a long post in itself which I’ll do another time. Ther are many factors of which the smoking ban is but one. Bigger factors would be drink driving going out of fashion, and also the actual cost of drinks.
Society has changed and pub attendances in rural areas and in regular urban locals have been declining for many years. What still does well are destination pubs, mostly in urban centres.
It does affect tourism but not greatly in that tourists mostly go to watch Irish people being Irish. So the problem is in the Irish people themselves not going rather than in the non-drinking tourists not having a lot to watch.
Many pubs have now converted to restaurants at least for part of the day, where once upon a very long time ago a meal in a pub didn’t make any sense - but this has been happening for 20 years now.
So while Ireland has been exporting fake and dated concepts of what Irish pubs are to all over the world to act as restaurants, it won’t be too much longer and those pubs at home will be just like the nonsense we exported.
So does that mean once upon a time us tourist types wouldn’t have been having lunch (soup in my case) each day in a pub?
Yep. The pub was a place to drink - and socialise - not to eat.
But eventually basic food came in, in the form of pub grub - pretty much the equivalent of your bar food, though only at limited times because crowds and busyness would have rendered eating, and serving for that matter, impractical.
With the smaller crowds it then became possible to expand to carvery lunches and eventually dinners in many cases, and indeed was then deemed necessary to bring back the decreasing pub-goers.
As a loungeboy (waiter floor staff) in 1981 I once took an order for a toasted cheese sandwich when the pub was busy and almost lost my job over it. I went past that pub late on a Monday recently and the barman was manning an empty pub.