This article is from page 6 of the 2011-01-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
ALMOST 40 pubs closed in Clare in the last year, making 2010 one of the worst years on record for pub closures in the county. According to figures released last week a total of 36 pubs closed in Clare over the last 13 months resulting in the loss of more than 100 jobs in the local economy.
The majority of these closures were in rural parts of the county where cheaper alcohol in supermarkets, the smoking ban and the stricter drink driving legislation is driving many rural publicans out of business.
One rural pub which has been hit badly in recent years is Cassidy’s in Carron, where a 60-year-old weekly card game died out last year as a result of the stricter drink driving legislation.
The pub has had to drastically cut back its winter opening hours and according to owner Robert Cassidy, it would not be able to survive it if wasn’t for the summer tourist and food trade.
“One of the big things that effects us here is the drink driving laws. We have only one customer who is close enough to actually walk to the pub. Everyone else has to drive because of the distances involved,” Robert claimed.
“We are in the middle of the Burren so we are talking in a catchment area of nine miles all around us and the people just can’t get here. The peo- ple who are being hurt by this are the older people who might have come up here for a couple of glasses on an evening and they just can’t get here anymore,” said Robert.
“The problem is that we have people up in Dublin making laws for rural people who live out the country where there is no possibility of getting transport. Then there is the same penalty for someone going down the road at 30 miles an hour after drinking two pints as if you were caught on a dual-carriageway doing 70 miles an hour with six or seven pints taken. It is the same penalty for both things which I think is totally wrong. If people are living within a certain distance from the pub and are obeying all the other rules of the road there should be some adjustment made on the penalty.
“The young people are going to the big pubs in the big urban centres and that is where the damage is being done but we are taking the brunt of it. I agree that people should not drink and drive but in circumstances like this there should be some allowance made.”
Carron is located in the centre of the Burren – in a 300 square mile rural area where only 400 people live. The pub has been the traditional meeting place for the local community for more then 100 years and its difficulties are leading to a marked increase in rural isolation in the area.
“We had a game of cards going here for 60 years every Thursday night and it just died away because people could not take a task. This is older people, older bachelors who could come down, have a few glasses, play the cards and have a bit of craic with their mates. If they didn’t meet them for cards, the next time that they would meet them would be mass on Sunday or cards again the following week. This is a big big loss for those people,” continued Robert.
“You can’t make rules and tie the judge’s hands. There should be some discretion and some understanding for the man who is caught driving home at 30 miles an hour, in a rural area with no taxi and no other social outlet. These people should be allowed to make a case. This is not to say that people should be let off with drinking and driving but the guards and the judicial system should have some level of discretion – things shouldn’t be as clear-cut as they are.”
According to Clare TD Joe Carey (FG), the Government has not had the bottle to deal with the problems faced by rural publicans.
“The pub holds a unique place within Irish culture. I am a firm believer in the conscientious publican as a good dispenser of alcohol within tight legal age qualifying regulations. The problem we have now is that you can buy a bottle or can of beer cheaper than a litre of milk or bottle of water and that is killing the pub trade,” he said. “In each of the recent budgets, Government have lost their bottle in this regard and have not tackled this issue. As a result we are seeing good businesses go to the wall and a sig- nificant loss to the Irish tourist product with it.”