by Naoise Bierney

Created on: May 07, 2009   Last Updated: May 13, 2009

Death of the Irish Pub

The Irish Pub has, in the past, been the centre of Irish social life. It is here that life was celebrated. Shortly after a child was born the father would be taken out to the pub, and together with friends and family it was an occasion to wet the baby's head. It was the place where everyone gathered to celebrated life past. In fact the Irish Pub was where virtually all celebrations took place.

Celebrations still take place in the pub, but there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of gatherings for such occasions. We now carry out our gatherings and celebrations at the home-place. The pub is becoming a place visited less frequently.

Although some of these establishments have been gone to great lengths to be popular to alcoholic and non alcoholic drinkers the amount of customers has dropped. And one of the most popular excuses for this drop in numbers is because of the smoking ban.

The smoking ban took place in Ireland in 2004. It was a sad day for many who enjoyed having a cigarette while drinking their chosen beverage. Pubs attempted to keep their smoking clientele happy by creating smoking areas outside and even redesigning their buildings to incorporate beer gardens where smokers and non smokers could still socialize.

Unfortunately, Irish weather does not make the open air beer garden or smoking area very popular. Rain and cold make standing outside a rather uncomfortable experience. In the midst of our winter season even the hardened smoker would be happier to sit at home in own warm comfortable environment.

It is a sad experience when we now walk into our local pub and find that there are three people present. This would have been full of customers chatting about nothing, arguing about politics (another Irish favourite past time) and in some there would be singing (yes, that's another favourite past time too!) and laughter would fill the air. You would find it hard to now find any of these premises even half full with the exceptions of perhaps Saturday nights.

Indeed, the pub is still the hub of social scene when it comes to St. Patrick's Day evening and New Year's Eve but these occasions are even in danger. The nights of visiting friends houses and being able to hear each other talk while sitting in seats you did not have to queue up for these are now our social scene. More comfortable indeed but we are quickly forgetting that the Irish pub is a great place for meeting like-minded people and enjoying the craic. It would not be over-dramatic to bid our most loved Establishment's goodbye. Goodbye to the Irish pubs, you will be missed.

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