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Child Item

Pubs Closing Down Rural Ireland

hurler32

Particularly in rural Ireland pubs have closed hand over fist in the past 7-8 years with those remaining in many cases hanging in there unless they've a substantial food business.Whats to blame , probably a number of things including

More and more people on minimum wage with no money

Depopulation of rural Ireland to Dublin and abroad

Young people spending their disposable income on illegal drugs as opposed to beer

Gardai over the top antics on elderly people in particular driving the following day ( as opposed to real crime - catching burglars - drug dealers etc )

Obviously it's cheaper go to Lidl but in rural pubs the pint is circa 4 euro for last ten years and even some tuborg- carling offers are cheaper . I'd prefer to pay a bit more to have a chat with neighbours than drink a can on my own looking out the window at home , or do younger folk only want to be on their phones rather than engage with members of their community ?

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DEFTLEFTHAND

You'd be surprised just how prevalent drunk driving still is the sticks.

wakka12

So what, you can't force demand. Its either there or it isn't, and I don't think we should be trying to enforce demand for pubs anyway. If its loss of community you're worried about, maybe we should thinking about opening other social outlets in its place like a cafe or library or gym.

BattleCorp

Layne Rotten Shackle wrote: »

A good pub with good pints will attract business.

Location, location, location.

If they are in an area that isn't well populated, forget about it.

ohnonotgmail

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

You'd be surprised just how prevalent drunk driving still is the sticks.

sure eating a big meal can be as bad.

seachto7

I hear foreigners who are used to café culture giving out about cafes that close at 5 on a Saturday or aren’t open on Sundays. They don’t want to go to the pub.
Maybe the cafes close to force people into a pub to socialise? I know you can go to a pub and get a coffee or mineral, but I can see their point sometimes.
I’m not sure if drink driving is the cause of rural pubs closing. What about 20 or 30 years ago. There were probably less cars about so people still had to get a lift to the pub if they didn’t own a car no?
Were people less cultured years ago? All they could think of as a form of entertainment was drink?

somesoldiers

Don't go out much but my local sells multi pack Bulmers cans singley for 4.50, having the "do not expect to pay and more than €2 for this can" label on it hasn't stopped him either.
Says a lot when it is cheaper for him to buy retail than through whoever supplies to pubs

PTH2009

The costs of having Sky/BT sports in pubs and the fact cheap alternatives such as Kodi, Android boxes etc exist for homes. Personally love been the pub for big matches for the atmosphere

Health issues, drink driving

Locals been too old to go/dying off, can't get lifts etc

The sheer bordem of heading out to find it's only yourself and the barman in the place

blue note

I think we exaggerate our problem with alcohol at times in this country. Our consumption has gone right down in recent years and we're still trying to convince ourselves that we need to be more like continental Europe. Ourselves, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Finland are all fairly similar in consumption levels. We do tend to binge more than those countries, but I'm pretty sure all types of drinking has gone down over the last few years.

We still have some way to come, but we've been going in the right direction for some time and we're not the nation of drunks that you'd think we are from reading about our relationship with drink.

seachto7

Well coffee culture isn't moving in on pubs. Take Malahide for example. Nowhere really to sit outside to have a coffee. We don't have squares/piazzas/plazas to take advantage of this. Weather dependent too I suppose....

Staplor

Dirty pints and dirty toilets are 2 massive issues. Pubs seem to expect a trade, that they're doing you a favour to let you drink there. So they don't bother cleaning the lines from the keg, they barely clean or dry the glasses, and because there's no toilet seat you can't even take a dump in comfort.

Grab All Association

I never see AGS checkpoints in my area. Thurles traffic Corp only enforce the law in urban areas. You never see them outside the urban areas of Thurles and Nenagh. I’d say 60% of drivers on this back road after 12am are intoxicated. I assume this is why the rural pubs here do very well. I was in Borrisoleigh at 1am and you could see the GAA heads and farmers struggling to walk to their cars and jeeps. My gf at the time called Templemore station and they didn’t even respond to it.

whisky_galore

A neighbour of mine tried his hand at running a public in a rural village. One of his regulars used piss at the counter, he couldn't really bar him though.

buried

Broken Glass everywhere
People Pissing at the counter you know they just don't care
I can't take the smell, can't take the noise
No barista in the village so I got no choice

hurler32

There is no doubt the social interaction in the pub where a twenty something would have a chat with his 50 year old neighbour or even chat about the weather with your mates granddad at the counter was a social glue that kept a community spirit and was good for all .....
Now with pubs closing in many rural spots , there ain't many alternatives and creates social isolation which our Dublin Fine Gael buddies wouldn't be familiar with ....
Sad for the elderly , nowhere to socialise .. sit at home and hope the travellers don't break in and beat you up ... modern rural Ireland is a sad place ...

The Rape of Lucretia

hurler32 wrote: »

Whats to blame , probably a number of things including :

- more variety of and better quality of options available to people these days.
- a more enlightened view and progress in people desire to gain a higher sense of enjoyment and fulfilment from their spare time than spending it drinking alcoholic beverages
- fewer people living remotely in borderline subsistence agriculture and a lonely lifestyle that can go with it
- improved knowledge of the health damage that frequent drinking causes
- improved roads and car ownership : people can go further than the 'local' to engage in social and recreational activities

Pubs closing down in a dramatic sign of progress in Irish society. Great news indeed.

seamus

BattleCorp wrote: »

Location, location, location.

If they are in an area that isn't well populated, forget about it.

I dunno. Ever been to the Strawberry Hall? It's in Dublin, but it's in the backarse of nowhere in the strawberry beds. Can't take the M50 to get there, can't walk there, and it's a 10 minute drive in all directions before you hit civilisation.

But the place is rammed. Because it's got atmosphere, it's got heart. It's a place where people want to go.

There are few places even in rural Ireland that are more than 15 minutes from the nearest town or village. Get a few local taxis on board, sell more than just a fireplace and Guinness, and you'll find more people willing to frequent.

enricoh

"Pubs closing down in a dramatic sign of progress in Irish society. Great news indeed."

Really? People are just drinking at home instead nowadays. I think it's pretty grim sitting at home half watching TV n flicking through Facebook, boards etc while drinking.
Plus people are drinking more at home as well, if a couple had 60 quid to spend on a Saturday night, that'll get them 10 drinks n a taxi home. No big deal.60 quid in Tesco's gets a bottle of vodka and a slab of cans.

BattleCorp

seamus wrote: »

I dunno. Ever been to the Strawberry Hall? It's in Dublin, but it's in the backarse of nowhere in the strawberry beds. Can't take the M50 to get there, can't walk there, and it's a 10 minute drive in all directions before you hit civilisation.

But the place is rammed. Because it's got atmosphere, it's got heart. It's a place where people want to go.

There are few places even in rural Ireland that are more than 15 minutes from the nearest town or village. Get a few local taxis on board, sell more than just a fireplace and Guinness, and you'll find more people willing to frequent.

Two huge differences.

Taxis are available in Dublin. Good luck getting one in rural Ballygobackwards. No busses either.

And rural Ballygobackwards won't have 50k people only 10 minutes away.

PTH2009

Me and my dad's local is a 10 min walk away from the house but the interesting thing is there are 3 pubs on our street and around the corner 4 others but it's the city rather than a rural village

From passing the pubs on the street the mid week trade looks very bleak but the weekends they seem busy enough. It's the locals who keep them going tbh

Noveight

blue note wrote: »

What are you thinking of? In rural Ireland if you want to meet up with friends after you finish work for the day and have your dinner eaten what alternatives are there? In particular what cheaper, healthier more enjoyable alternatives?

In my own rural area you could get stuck in to the GAA, a walking/jogging club, dance lessons, weight classes, music lessons, genealogy workshop or the Tidy Towns. I think they even had painting classes going for a while. Each of the above take place at least once a week in the village and are relatively inexpensive if not cost free. Of course not every rural area would have such a decent variety but cheaper, healthier alternatives to the pub do indeed exist. Are they more enjoyable? Depends what you're into I suppose, sometimes all I'd want after the day is a quiet pint and a bag of Taytos by the fire.

blue note wrote: »

But I don't like people pretending that there was nothing positive about it. Used responsibly, it was a lovely thing.

Indeed there were many positives about it.

El Weirdo

Staplor wrote: »

... So they don't bother cleaning the lines from the keg...

This is nonsense. Guinness and Heineken clean the lines for their products themselves, and they have done so for ages now.

whisky_galore

Pubs are closing down in cities, let alone rural Ireland.
You have to have something to attract people other than drink; be that food, live music, film shows or gimmicks/giveaways. Compete or close down.

The days of the pub that did nothing other than drink and stale crisps are numbered.

VinLieger

whisky_galore wrote: »

Pubs are closing down in cities, let alone rural Ireland.
You have to have something to attract people other than drink; be that food, live music, film shows or gimmicks/giveaways. Compete or close down.

The days of the pub that did nothing other than drink and stale crisps are numbered.

Yet pub owners still refuse to accept that which is why they lobbied so hard for minimum unit pricing

Agricola

Rural Ireland has far too many pubs in general. I'd have some sympathy where a tiny village had one pub which was closing up but the reality is every blink and you'd miss it little crossroads in the country has 3 or 4 pubs scraping by. Places where'd you be hard pressed to buy bread and milk have any amount of alcohol for sale. It's ridiculous and we don't see it because it's ingrained in our national identity.

Plenty of other cultures around the world get on fine without having a dozen pubs within 3 Sq miles of everyone's house. We'll manage.

blue note

Noveight wrote: »

In my own rural area you could get stuck in to the GAA, a walking/jogging club, dance lessons, weight classes, music lessons, genealogy workshop or the Tidy Towns. I think they even had painting classes going for a while. Each of the above take place at least once a week in the village and are relatively inexpensive if not cost free. Of course not every rural area would have such a decent variety but cheaper, healthier alternatives to the pub do indeed exist. Are they more enjoyable? Depends what you're into I suppose, sometimes all I'd want after the day is a quiet pint and a bag of Taytos by the fire.

Do you actually think that the list you've given is a realistic alternative to the pub for the people most affected by their closures or their inaccessibility due to the drink driving laws? The people that are most commonly affected by this change are older men - retired men living in the country and older farmers and the like.

Of your list - what does getting stuck into the GAA mean? They're hardly going to start playing at their age. And if they haven't been involved up to now they're probably not going to be too sought after for training teams. So you're left with committee work? Not everyone's idea of fun.

Walking / jogging clubs are nice, but again you're talking about a lot of elderly people or farmers who need the daylight hours for work. And for elderly people, a walking club might not be suitable.

Dance / weight classes - of the people most affected these would hardly be used. Same for genealogy and music classes. The tidy towns is something that doesn't sound fun to a lot of people too.

Then of course, they have to find activities that they're friends are also interested in. It's no use if you're the only one from your social group taking these things up, you're losing your friends if that's the case.

I'm not trying to be overly negative and as I say overall I think the pub culture dying out is a good thing. But I do think there are human casualties of it and pretending that activities such as the ones you've mentioned are adequate to help these people adapt is at best naïve. I think it's a problem that society is burying their head in the sand about while these people die off.

Chrongen

whisky_galore wrote: »

Pubs are closing down in cities, let alone rural Ireland.
You have to have something to attract people other than drink; be that food, live music, film shows or gimmicks/giveaways. Compete or close down.

The days of the pub that did nothing other than drink and stale crisps are numbered.

I would disagree. There are loads of pubs in Dublin that are just as you have described. Handful of taps, Manhattan salted peanuts on a piece of cardboard by the till and the decor hasn't changed in 1000 years. They are doing fine. They aren't competing. They have their regulars and that's that. There's scores of thee pubs, McNeils, Board Head, Nealons, Lord Edward, Brogans', the list goes on and on. These places don't offer gimmicks or gastro grub or 100 lousy craft ales on draught. McNeils has a bit of a trad session now and then and boars' head does pub grub. Whopee.

Chrongen

I'd say there are multiple reasons why country pubs are closing. Tougher drink-driving laws and responses discourage a lot of people from "chancing it". This is obviously a good thing but in reality have the tighter controls resulted in a reduction in road accidents in the rural areas?
Also the smoking ban probably had a detrimental effect. A lot of these pubs were frequented by oul lads who would have a few pints and a few smokes. If he has to stand outside now he might as well not bother going.

Also back in the day you had Rte1 and Rte2 in the bog. There was nothing on telly half the time so going to the pub had some entertainment value. Now houses in the farthest flung areas of Kerry, Mayo or Donegal have satellite/cable tv 24/7 as well as internet.

buried

Yeah the internet and the entertainment can be got from being connected is a big factor. Watch now in a few years the dangers of the internet will be ramped up to the max like the health dangers of having 3 or 4 cans of beer at home

hurler32

Up or Down the Rural Pub was a lifeline for many in terms of interacting with other members of their community and was a social outlet that helped many mentally from isolation.....
Now we have the Elderly isolated and a high risk of burglary down on top of it....the young seem to be happy with their 2000 alleged friends on facebook looking at their phone 24/7 rather than have a conversation with their neighbour.....

blue note

enricoh wrote: »

"Pubs closing down in a dramatic sign of progress in Irish society. Great news indeed."

Really? People are just drinking at home instead nowadays. I think it's pretty grim sitting at home half watching TV n flicking through Facebook, boards etc while drinking.
Plus people are drinking more at home as well, if a couple had 60 quid to spend on a Saturday night, that'll get them 10 drinks n a taxi home. No big deal.60 quid in Tesco's gets a bottle of vodka and a slab of cans.

The alcohol consumption stats in the country are way down on where they were 10 years ago. It's not the case that people are just drinking at home instead. Overall we're drinking considerably less.