David Quinn
Alcohol sales are restricted in Ireland in all sorts of ways. For example, an off-licence cannot sell alcohol before 10.30am from Monday to Saturday, or before 12.30pm on a Sunday, and never after 10pm. Pubs must close after a certain hour. ‘Happy Hour’ – selling alcohol at a reduced price during a certain time of day – is prohibited. Alcohol cannot be sold to anyone under 18.
There are two days in the year when pubs and restaurants cannot serve alcohol: Good Friday and Christmas Day. From next year on, that will be down to Christmas Day only, because the Government has backed a move to turn Good Friday into a normal drinking day. It backed a Private Members’ Bill that passed all stages in the Seanad last week. It will now go to the Dáil and inevitably pass there as well.
The main sponsor of the bill, Senator Billy Lawless (a restaurateur by trade, incidentally), seemed very pleased with himself as his initiative was passed by the Seanad with the Government ensuring a minimum of debate. (This despite the fact that an opinion poll conducted by Amárach Research on behalf of The Iona Institute showed that the public are split 50/50 on the matter.)
Pluralist
Lawless hailed the passage of his bill as “another progressive step in Ireland’s long journey towards separation between Church and State”. He said it sends a message that “Ireland is a pluralist, globalist, forward-thinking country”.
One of the Bill’s co-sponsors, Gerard Craughwell, said the bill would not force people to take drink on a Good Friday “but merely leaves the option open”.
He assured the public: “We are not trying to trample all over the religious beliefs of people in Ireland. The people who have religious beliefs will continue to observe them. The people who wish to have a drink will do so.” (Newsflash; they could already drink at home.)
So, there it is: another victory for liberalism, for pluralism, for secularism, for globalism, for forward thinking, for individual freedom. A great day indeed. The Irish people can now go into pubs 364 days of the year, instead of a mere 363.
Let’s call out what is really going on here: any Irish law that has a religious origin is being targeted as an unacceptable restriction on freedom, a violation of Church/State separation. But all kinds of other restrictions can be permitted, hence the list of restrictions on the sale of alcohol I listed at the top of the article.
Why didn’t Senators Lawless and Craughwell campaign for the lifting of most other restrictions on the sale of alcohol on the grounds that these restrictions, like the Good Friday rule, interfere with personal freedom?
It could equally be argued that off-licences should be allowed sell alcohol at any time of the day or night. If you don’t want to buy alcohol at 3am then don’t. But don’t stop anyone else from doing so if that is what they want. Personal freedom is personal freedom.
So why didn’t Senators Lawless, Craughwell et al campaign for this as well? They might argue that these restrictions are for health reasons. But isn’t that the ‘Nanny State’ at work, and isn’t the ‘Nanny State’ a sort of new version of the Church? (The Church would have argued that closing the pubs on Good Friday was for the good of our spiritual health.)
Conclusion
Again, it is very hard to avoid the conclusion that the Good Friday drinking laws were targeted because anything connected with the Church is the easiest of easy targets in Ireland presently. It also gives politicians an unrivalled opportunity to ‘virtue-signal’. Boasting about ‘pluralist’, ‘globalist’ Ireland is the modern equivalent of boasting in days gone-by about ‘Holy Catholic’ Ireland. You can be sure of applause in fashionable quarters.
We saw the same kind of thing from Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty in an interview in the current edition of Hot Press. Hot Press loves to ask politicians cringe-inducing questions about their sex lives and it is also the done thing to ask them about religion. In both cases politicians are invited to show that they aren’t the least hung up about either sex or religion and for the most part the politicians are eager to oblige (‘Look how cool I am’).
Regina Doherty did not disappoint. Admittedly she kept her dignity intact when asked about her sex life, but gave Hot Press almost all it could have hoped for when it asked her about religion.
She considers herself to be religious, but for her, religion is mainly a personal thing. Her relationship is with God, not with the ‘Church’. (But the Church is the community of believers. Doesn’t she believe religion has a communal aspect?)
Anyway, having confessed to being religious in her own personal way, she rushed to reassure her interviewer that there is a “bucket load of stuff that I don’t believe that the Church will tell you – buckets and buckets”. (Is it the same with Fine Gael? She was the Fine Gael Chief Whip which is all about ensuring the members toe the party line. Irony, anyone?)
She wants the pro-life amendment to go (in the 2011 General Election she was all for that amendment). She wants the Angelus to be banished from the airwaves. She thinks the church collection should “probably” be taxed, even though people contribute to it after having paid their taxes. (Should the Fine Gael collection be taxed as well?)
No doubt she’s also fully in support of opening the pubs on Good Friday. This is how most of our politicians are these days. A previous generation was all about showing how Catholic they were.
Today they want to flaunt their ‘progressive’ credentials as happened in the Seanad last week and as happened in the pages of Hot Press in the case of Regina Doherty.