Tag Archives: Good Friday

Good Friday At The Dogs

It’s Good Friday today and yet again all the pubs in Ireland will be closed until just before lunchtime tomorrow. It’s been like this all my life, though I have drank porter in Irish pubs on this day in the past. Two years ago, I did so legally and I’m going to be supping legal pints in a licensed premises this evening as well. Alcohol will actually be available today on trains and at train station bars, but only for people who produce a valid train ticket as proof of travel that day. I’ve no idea why commuters are given this privilege, as travelling by train is the safest form of journey you could take. However, there’s another option available for connoisseurs of drink in four Irish cities today. For some reason, greyhound racing is also exempt from Good Friday restrictions, presumably because it makes the sport more interesting. The four lucky venues are Galway Greyhound Stadium, Limerick Greyhound Stadium, Curraheen Park, Cork, and Harold’s Cross, Dublin. For just under €40, you get a four-course meal, admission & a race programme. You also get a drinks service and someone to take your bets. I was there a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed it, though only two of my dogs won. Hopefully, Jesus can bring me better luck today

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Scrimpier Cottonwoods (9, 11)

Across

1. “Walking silent through the snow/Drifting softly to your door” (4, 4, 3, 4)
7. “If you still want me, please forgive me/Because the spark is not within me” (5, 2, 4)
8. He once fell to earth (5, 5)
10. “We fool around now and again/We’re looking good, but just as friends” (6)
12. “Went to the fortune teller/To have my fortune read” (7, 6)
15. Bob, Bruce and Randy have all got one of these on their mantlepiece (5)
18. Cale, Cash, Peel and Devane all have this in common (4)
19. Zooey and who’s he? (3)
22. “The book of love is long and boring/And written very long ago” (3, 4, 2, 4)
25. M. Ward’s better half? (3)
26. Keeping up with Mick, Brian and Tom? (5)
27. They had to build a special runway just to get this singer’s plane down (6, 6)
28. Employs a large band (5, 11)
30. Kathleen Brennan is married to this singer and sometime actor (3, 5)

Down

2. “Then Sue came along/Loved me strong/That’s what I thought” (8, 3)
3. “And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river/I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water” (5)
4. English folk punk singer (5, 5)
5. Plays Thomond Park, Limerick, this summer (3, 5)
6. “Cried all night ’til there was nothing more/What use am I as a heap on the floor?” (10, 5)
9. Barry’s brother (7, 5)
11. The stage name of Declan McManus (5, 8)
13. “We made a connection/A full-on chemical reaction” (7, 5)
14. A Northern Irish band fond of a few smokes? (3)
16. The stage name of Chan Marshall (3, 5)
17. This solo singer started out playing guitar for Longpigs and Pulp (7, 6)
20. The musical career of this Irish singer has been up and down (4, 8)
21. “I don’t want to be your friend/I just want to be your lover” (5, 2, 5)
23. Later with Jools Holland is shown on this TV station (1, 1, 1)
24. “We know your house so very well/And we will bust down your door if you’re not there” (5, 2, 4)
29. A band often found in dreams (1, 1, 1)

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Publicans Raise Spirits After Nailing Good Friday Opening Hours


You remember that the pubs in Ireland used to close every Good Friday? Well, not this year. At least, not in Limerick anyway. On April 2nd, the Munster rugby team takes on their Leinster counterparts in a Magners League game at Thomond Park in Limerick. Due to concerns about player safety and also television rights, the game was scheduled for the unusual date of Good Friday. The publicans and bar owners in Limerick weren’t too happy about this as it meant that the public wouldn’t be able to watch the match on the TV screens in their bars and pubs. In addition, the 26,000 or so thirsty rugby fans who attended the match wouldn’t have the option of celebrating victory/drowning their sorrows afterwards. The publicans and other Limerick business people did their sums and reckoned that they would lose around €10 million if the pubs remained shut. I don’t know exactly where they got this figure from, but it would mean that every adult in Limerick would have to drink ten pints on the day, admittedly not an impossible task. At first, the publicans tried to get an exemption from the State that would allow them to open for a few hours on the day in question. When this didn’t happen, they applied to the Limerick courts on the basis that the match represented a ‘special occasion’. Of course, as every Irish person knows, with only 52 Fridays in the year ANY Friday is a special occasion. Amazingly, Judge Tom O’Donnell announced that he would allow Limerick publicans to open their doors on Good Friday from 6.00pm to 11.30pm. Even more amazingly, Judge O’Donnell’s reason for allowing them to open wasn’t because he felt it was a special occasion, but for “health and safety” reasons! Nice one, Judge

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The Pub’s Got No Beer!

no-beeer

Easter has arrived again and tomorrow is Good Friday, also known as Great Friday or Black Friday. From midnight tonight until just before lunchtime on Saturday the sale of alcohol in public houses, supermarkets and off licenses is not permitted in the Republic of Ireland. Apparently, it will be possible to buy drinks on trains and at train stations with a bar, although you will need to produce a valid rail ticket as proof of travel. A small price to pay, surely. Not only that, but most supermarkets and off licenses will be extremely busy tonight as people stock up on beverages for tomorrow. The irony is that there will probably be more alcohol drank tomorrow that there would have been if the pubs remained open. It is, of course, always more fun to engage in a regular activity when that activity has been prohibited, even if it is only for 24 hours

I had considered attending the Great Friday Festival, a music event that will take place at a secret location in the environs of Limerick city. Unfortunately, that secret location will most likely be a field and the amount of rain falling at the moment has put me off the idea. If you don’t mind a little rain, you can find more information about the trip on an earlier post here. Instead, I plan to travel to rural Tipperary tonight to sample fine wines, even finer food, and the finest conversation at a restaurant called Roots. I’ve heard that the chef is quite accomplished, even though he’s from Australia. In the meantime, here are a few tunes for the day that’s in it, beginning with one from the land down under

Slim Dusty was a country singer from New South Wales whose Pub With No Beer (1957) was the most successful single up to that time in Australia. The pub does have some wine, but the clientele agree that “there’s-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear/Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer”. The song was translated into different languages and was quite popular in Belgium, Austria and Germany in the 60s. The song has also been recorded by The Dubliners and by Johnny Cash

Pub With No Beer – Slim Dusty

Jens Lekman is a Swedish singer-songwriter who now calls Australian his home. For folks in rural Sweden, according to this song, Friday night is bingo night. It’s quite a bouncy, humorous ditty with witty lyrics that seems to be both a celebration and a critique of Swedish country life. I don’t know if bingo is also prohibited in Ireland on Good Friday but, if it’s not, it might be an exciting alternative for anyone who’s at a loose end tomorrow

Friday Night (At the Drive-In Bingo) – Jens Lekman

Finally, I’ll part with a Celtic drinking song from a band that’s had more drinks that some small nations. The Parting Glass originated in Scotland at the end of the 18th century, though its tune was around a few centuries before that. The song travelled to Ireland where the lyric changed over the years. On his 1964 album, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Bob Dylan used the tune, but changed the words, for his own song, Restless Farewell. So, join with me as I raise a parting glass in the company of The Pogues: “Good night and joy be with you all”

The Parting Glass – The Pogues

Limerick’s Great Friday Festival 2009

2009 Good Friday Music Event

2009 Good Friday Music Event

St Patrick’s Day is always full of the festive spirit for Irish people around the world. Even people who have given up the drink for Lent make an exception on this day. Conversely, and even perversely, the beginning of the weekend that signals the end of Lent has traditionally been a “dry” day in Ireland. Good Friday kicks off the Easter weekend as one of only two days, along with Christmas Day, when pubs, off licences and everywhere else that is entitled to sell alcoholic beverages is, well, NOT entitled to sell alcohol. Recent years have seen off licenses become quite busy on Holy Thursday as revellers load up on cans and bottles.

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