1924

No lack of drink

The Free State has fifteen thousand public houses, so that whatever facilities it may be said to be lacking in, the facility to drink is not one of them.

Even where the legitimate trade is not carried on, there are hillside distilleries which spread their baneful influence in local politics, and that influence was not always used for the good of the country.

Was not the Eloquent Dempsey true to a certain type? The Licencing Bill to be introduced by the Minister of Home Affairs at an early date does not promise to reduce the 15,000 public houses, for suppression of licences would involve compensation, and this cannot be undertaken until a commission has sat and reported on the entire question.

But it has been the general policy of our judges of late not to grant licences, and where opportunity occurs, to discontinue old ones. The new Bill proposes that the hours of business shall be from 9 a.m. till 10 p.m., except on Saturdays when the houses must close at 9,30, and it proposes further that registered clubs shall be put on the same footing as ordinary public houses in this respect.

Pictured: American poet and editor Professor Michael S Harper, a former judge of the Pulitzer Prize and Chairperson of the American Book of the Year Award pictured with the Dutch poet Maria Van Daalen, both of whom participated in the Cúirt International Festival of Literature which opened on April 19 1998. Also in the photograph are Tinker Van Daalen (left) and Paul Fahy, Cúirt Programme Director, Galway Arts Centre, Dominick Street Lower.