How are the Stricter Drink Driving Laws Affecting Pubs in Rural Ireland?
The Morning After …
By Lynda Cookson
In shoes big enough to float him to America, a work-worn suit with the jacket threatening to drown him, and a battered cap on his head, a local Connemara man nods his greeting as he rolls into the pub in Maam with a walk unique to himself …. long, measured steps which he’s cultivated to compensate for his slight build, or maybe so that he can cope with those huge shoes! He heads straight to the local's corner for his pint and a hearty conversation with his mates. Have the recent more strict drink driving laws affected his social and drinking life? Possibly only in that there are now less people to give him a lift the few kilometres home.
It was a Monday evening about 8.45 pm when I spoke to a couple of regular drinkers in the pub in Maam, deep in Connemara. Keane’s Pub (with its excellent reputation for an outstanding pint of porter) is the only pub Garrett Keane frequents – he lives hardly 200 metres down the road and always drives there and back: ‘The social lives of the older folk are going down the tube fast. There are no taxis here, and the locals’ cars are their lifeline, so they come in for their pint about 6pm and are out home by 7 pm. They can’t risk losing their licences. It’s a battle because country folk are not great TV watchers either and it doesn’t leave much else for them in the evenings. The eighteen and nineteen year olds have grown up with the drink driving laws – they’re used to them – and have no problem designating a driver for the evening so it isn’t such a problem or such a huge social change for them.’
Sitting next to Garrett was Martin Berry who found his solution before the problem arose – he gave up drink a long time ago, before the drink drive regulations, and now enjoys pub social life with a soft drink on the counter before him. So perhaps you don’t have to drink alcohol to be a part of the pub scene.
In O’Malley’s pub in Cornamona on a weekday at 4 pm I found Maggie behind the counter serving pints to five regulars - Martin Monroe, Michael Anthony, John Walsh, Sean Sullivan and Seán O’Gabháin. Not letting the changes get them down they declared there was no problem at all with the recent tightening in law. With at least one taxi operating in the area and a generous offering of lifts to and fro by neighbours and friends plus the added advantage of having feet on the ends of their legs ... ‘and hopefully you don’t walk into a heap of briars!’ … it didn’t seem to worry anyone. However, a little more chat revealed that the taxi service is a bit hit and miss and increasingly Maggie is hearing: ‘A coupla pints only please because I’m travelling in the morning.’
I heard these words from more publicans and regulars drinkers than just Maggie: ‘The recent random checks and morning-after checks have hit pub life big time. It’s a huge problem and rural pubs are closing down nationwide. Sunday night is a really bad night now because people have to drive to work in the morning and can’t risk the checks. Social life has taken a big drop.’
On the other side of Galway city, at the edge of Kilcolgan, is O’Donohue’s pub run by Michael and Mary O’Donohue. They’ve been there twenty-seven years and run a B&B as well as the pub. Mary outlined their struggle to keep going: ‘Yes, people have definitely stopped coming since the random testing was introduced. No-one is taking any chances now and it’s a disaster. The pub business peaked in 2001 and then fell away with the smoking ban making a small difference – we were hoping it would level out but it didn’t – and now the drink drive regulations have extinguished that light of hope. The taxis in the area are not reliable and I don’t feel I should have to organise lifts. We provide top quality pints, a warm pub with TV and quiz evenings but feel we are fighting against the wind. There are not so many older folk, with their card evenings, left now and the younger crowd here are different – drink is not their first priority.’
A little way down the road from O’Donohues pub is Raftery’s Rest, a cheerful pub and restaurant with lively session music one night a week. I spotted a shiny white courtesy car parked at the entrance to the pub and was told that it’s used to ferry drinkers home, at no set time, simply whenever the need arises. Albert Hynes was one of two men resting their elbows on the counter next to their pints late that afternoon and this is what he had to say: ‘People drink less and there’s a lot more home drinking now even although many people do live within walking distance. I usually have a family member drop me off and fetch me but it’s inconvenient and my lack of independence makes it a drag.’ Are some drinkers too embarrassed to use a courtesy car emblazoned with the pub’s logo?
The inevitable and necessary drink driving laws are badly affecting both pubs and drinkers in the rural areas, literally bringing it down to the survival of the fittest. So where will it go from here? Change always brings in new things and loses some of the old and familiar; it closes doors and opens others to fresh potential … are we game for sessions of music and companionable chat in bright new coffee shops in the back of beyond?
