Good Friday Drink related megathread thing.

fryup wrote: »

can the irish not go one day, just one day without drink???

Absolutely not. Many years ago I worked in my local Dunnes Stores and one Holy Thursday myself and another guy were drafted in to give a hand in the off-licence, mainly to keep the shelves fully stocked. The queues were out the door (actually out the door rather than a figure of speech) for almost the entire day from the moment we opened. It was complete lunacy the amount of booze people were buying for the one day that they wouldn't be able to get their hands on any. I can honestly say that that is still the single hardest day's work I've ever done.

fryup wrote: »

no no i'm not a do-gooder by any means...but i do think its not much to ask not to drink on good friday its just one day ffs

Generally speaking I don't think people have a problem with not drinking for one day. Most people probably do it several times a week without even thinking about it. I think the issues people have are a) that they're being told they can't drink rather than being given the choice not to; and b) the actual reason why they can't drink. Given that a very significant minority in this country are now either non-Catholic or non-religious, to have a drink ban imposed on them purely because of a decree from the Catholic Church that a past government felt the need to write into law is a hard one to accept. And that's before you include the countless numbers of practising Catholics who will still ensure that they're fully stocked up for the day.

It's not going to happen in the next 10 years, but I don't think the day is too far away when this law is removed and people will be free to buy alcohol on Good Friday. When that happens you can be sure that people won't actually care whether or not they can drink on Good Friday.