Tuesday 23 March 2010

Limerick publicans challenge (sort of) Good Friday drinks ban

I had Morning Ireland on earlier while gulping down a few coffees in readiness for the rigours of the day ahead. 

 One feature concerned attempts by Limerick publicans to lift the Good Friday drinks ban in time for the Munster v Leinster rugby match taking place that day, arguing that the game constituted a “special occasion”, and was therefore exempt. 

The case is up at Limerick District Court today, where vintners' representative David Hickey hopes to secure a six-hour exemption for 60 of the city’s publicans.

It seems stunning, to me, that the powerful publicans’ lobby has not taken a case before on the grounds that the drinks ban is unconstitutional, full stop  -  representing, as it does, the values of one particular brand of religion in a modern Ireland of many (and no) religions.  Perhaps the many publicans who sit on local parish-pump cumanns are eager not to compromise their patriotic, traditionalist, Catholic credentials by making such a challenge?

To further illustrate the continuing interference of the religious in secular affairs in Ireland, the monks of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal will hold a vigil outside Thomand Park on the day concerned, arguing that Catholics attending the match are compromising their faith.

 You’d think, in the current climate, they might consider it prudent to keep their heads down, wouldn’t you?

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12 comments:

Anna said...

Lavery’s bar in Belfast- an enormous long established bar which is there 90 years,
Easter hours: Good Friday 5.0 Pm – 10.00 Pm
Sat 11.30 morn - 12.00 night
Sun day 12.30 morn - 10.00 night

www.Laverysbelfast.com
bars in the North can also open on Xmas day
( I think for a short number of hours, but they can open )

AND no-one telling you that you are damming your soul( unusually enough for Belfast….)

BUT it all is a bit much, coming from people who have damned their souls and sullied their own church with vile treatment of children....

Openign hours are short enough in the North on that day...surely people should be allowed to socialise a short time with theri friends?

pat said...

I think I will go North on Good Friday and stand outside Lavery's bar and thump my bible untill I am blue in the face.I may even enlist my old friend, the extremely reverend Willie McCrea to be my guide.

I always laugh on Holy Thursday when I see crowds of anxious people queing up in the off-licenses to stock up for the following day. Kind of reminds me of the way the Yanks panic-buy water when there's a hurricane on the way. As a moderate drinker I am not bothered by the ban and I hope Munster hammer those Leinster gobshites!

Oh good Friday our lord was nailed to a cross
But the vintners of limerick don’t give a toss
No time for the church, not even the state
The shameless attackers of Catholic faith
Bring back the hangman, bring back the rope
Bow to your Bishops and worship your Pope

The Gombeen Man said...

Yes, that's the big irony for me Anna - still preaching and lecturing to society at large, even after all they have done. On a general note, If religous people don't want to drink on days they hold sacred, that's down to them. Also, they can believe what they like, as far as I am concerned, once they don't make it State law.

Ha! Love the poem, Kevin. For my part I'll be stocking up in Tescos the day before. Purely out of protest, you understand...

Anonymous said...

All this fucking nonsense has to stop now. Someone mentioned about the 1972 amendment where the catholic church does not have any special position to dictate anything. What fucking right do they have to tell people when to drink. If people wish to practice religion and acts of worship in their own houses in their own time, all well and good, but this interfering God stuff has to stop. In 1955 I was told that it was a mortal sin to listen to radio Luxemburg or to play soccer. Last week my great grandaughter was told by a nun that it was a grevious sin for her to watch Hanna Montana on television. Fucking Mad !!

Anna said...

As a moderate to very low drinker, I am only in an off licence about once a year, so that's intersting to hear people seem to buy Trolleyloads of booze on Holy Thursday- so they are Hardly abstaining out of respect on Good Friday, are they? Letting people drink just a few hours on Good Friday, and meet their friends Should keep every one happy-I mean how many people will be falling over drunk with pubs open just a few hours?
Is it better for the country to encourage lonely drinking at home? I was in Guernsy in 1989 when Sunday pub opening began in N Irealnd. I was told that when Laverys- my local and an enormous hippy bar in south Belfast- started Sunday opening ,they picked up a few new clients. They bought some orange juices, sat down, read for an hour, and then left.
But they faded away after a few weeks.
A pity, really. They were indistinguisable from the other hippies, apart from the short hair, suits,slim waistlines, shiny shoes,orange juices, clean non-nicotine stained nails( and teeth) and the earnest way they read their bibles, now that I think about it they might have been protesting, well they must have been doing a little socialising as well...

The Gombeen Man said...

Yes, Anna, I remember years ago it was awful in Belfast on a Sunday. Had a friend living up there and you had to go to a hotel (I think you could go to a hotel... long time ago) or some kind of club if you wanted a pint on the old "day of rest!". Was all rather austere.

Anonymous said...

What is your Answer?

On Holy Thursday Jesus dined with the Apostles at the last Supper. During dinner he reputedly said to them “Do this in memory of me”. What were they doing? They were fucking eating!!.

He said to them in Aramaic “feed my lambs; feed my sheep”(loose translation). In other words, he said: "Go out into the world and feed the poor and the children and all the hungry people of the world". He did not say: Beat, Batter, and Bugger children as the Catholic Church has done.

Mr Bob Geldof would not thank me for comparing him to Jesus, but he and the most unlikely of people have performed more Christian actions in terms of the last supper message than all of the sanctimonious, rigmarole of prayers that have ever been recited since christianity began.

It remains a great insult for the Roman Catholic Church to still teach the Christ could have been crucified at the time of the Jewish Passover. Such a thing would have been impossible, and this insistence that Jesus was crucified at the wish of the Jews, remains highly reprehensible.

Barabbas [BAR-ABBA] (Son of the Father) “the man who was referred to as the son of God” was released by Pontius Pilate by the wish of the Jews. Good Friday and Easter Sunday is a myth. The origin of the Roman Catholic Church was founded on jealousy greed lies and deception.

QUESTION: Is the attire and demeanour of the Pope, who used to be carried around on a chair and used to wear a triple crown like the medieval Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne more like Louis XIV or a benign, itinerant preacher like Jesus Christ? So, who has been fooling who?

What is the answer?

Mark Castilano

SaS said...

Any chance of getting the Pope to give his Triple Crown to the Irish rugby team?
If the Catholics are so concerned with abstinence, why do their priests drink wine at mass? Its long past the time that we allowed this bunch to influence our licencing laws...

Anonymous said...

The Roman Catholic Church is not Special!!!
Closing the Limerick Pub on Good Friday is stupid.
Email to:
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Dermot Ahern T.D

finegael@finegael.com

jcrukdata@yahoo.co.uk

Cut the Ritual and Theatre and Feed the People.

On Holy Thursday Jesus dined with the Apostles at the last Supper. During dinner he reputedly said to them “Do this in memory of me”. What were they doing? They were fucking eating!!.

He said to them in Aramaic “feed my lambs; feed my sheep”(loose translation). In other words, he said: "Go out into the world and feed the poor and the children and all the hungry people of the world". He did not say: Beat, Batter, Bugger and Bury children as the Catholic Church have habitually done since it’s inception.

It was John Paul I who proposed to change the idiotic rituals and symbolism. However, they murdered him. The triple crown was never worn after that, and the chair with the canopy was never used again. Would Jesus have worn a Crown?

The Crown of Thorns, The Holy Cross, The Blood of Christ, and the Holy Places of Jesus were not dreamed up until after Constantine had taken control of the church. It was Constantine’s mother Helena who perpetrated this myth and made Jesus into a God, only to realise that there could not be two Gods, so they invented the Trinity to get them out of a hole. That is true.

Many of the historical and philosophical books, texts and writings that the Roman Catholic Church suppressed over the centuries are now in the public domain and are available in even on wikipedia (knowledge not to be trusted). But wikipedia does present the stimulus and does indicate the pathway for finding out greater knowledge and hopefully to the truth.

Mr Bob Geldof would not thank me for comparing him to Jesus, but he and a most unlikely of bunch of people have performed more Christian actions in terms of Jesus’ last supper message than all of the self-righteous, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, rigmarole of prayers, rituals, symbolism and tomfoolery that have ever been recited and practiced since Christianity began.

It remains a great insult for the Roman Catholic Church to still teach the Christ could have been crucified at the time of the Jewish Passover. Such a thing would have been impossible, and this insistence that Jesus was crucified at the wish of the Jews, remains highly reprehensible.

Barabbas [BAR-ABBA] (Son of the Father) “the man who was referred to as the son of God” was released by Pontius Pilate by the wish of the Jews. Good Friday and Easter Sunday is a myth. The origin of the Roman Catholic Church was founded on jealousy greed lies and deception.

This is not the Last Supper, but my last Post,

Mark Castilano

Ponyboy said...

I certainly hope it's not your last post Mark/Old Nick - it's always a pleasure to read your take on things. (Loud cheers of agreement from all sides of the dining room here in the Tasmanian GM Club, oh and accompanied by spirited nodding from some of the more senior members plus a call for a round of drinks by the president to toast your continued posting and Good Health - Cheers Old NickMark)

Anonymous said...

Dear Ponyboy
As you have probably guessed, I am not a stranger to inside The Vatican. I have had a very friendly subtle 'veiled' threat, "for my own good", of course. Communications are always friendly.

I have written this note to Cardinal Brady.

Dear Cardinal Brady
You graciously thanked John Magee for his contribution to the Catholic Church, even after the cover-up of child abuse. Are you completely mad?

Father Magee will go down in history as the last person to see Pope John Paul I alive. He had dinner with him shortly before he died, and was the last man Pope John Pope I spoke to on this earth.

Father Magee walked with him to his bedroom door. The Pope said: “Bouna notte. A domani. Se Dio vuole” (Good night. Until tomorrow. If God wishes). His role in the Popes’ death was not investigated at the time and his role in the aftermath of the death of John Paul I, leaves many questions unanswered.

According to the book “In Gods Name” by David Yallop and many other texts that I have studied, it is possible that Father Magee may have been more deeply involved in the death of the Pope.

With retrospective knowledge about John Magee, it is theoretically possible that he acted in "some way" for Monsignor Paul Marcincus (later archbishop) and Cardinal Jean Villlot, The Secretary of State, to speed the Pope’s demise. The old Roman Proverb (loosely translated) says “you cannot do bad and expect good to follow !!” This is speculation of course, but in view of the recently discovered antics of the Roman Catholic Church, anything is possible, I do mean "anything", even Murder.

Old Nick

Ella said...

A judge has ruled that publicans in Limerick can open for business on Good Friday.

The ruling allows Limerick publicans in the city centre to open from 6pm until 11.30pm.

The Fransciscan Brothers are still considering holding a prayer vigil outside to bear witness, they say, to the true meaning of the day. yeah, whatever...