Limerick pubs allowed to open on Good Friday for rugby match
NOT since the Irish Republic was founded has a pint of stout been allowed to emerge from behind a pub bar on Good Friday.
However, a legal ruling now means that Limerick is the place to be on April 2, Christendom's most solemn day, for those wishing to witness a peculiar - and perhaps slightly unsteady - piece of Irish history being made.
Publicans in Limerick, the capital of Irish rugby, have been granted a special exemption and will be allowed to open on Good Friday for the first time since 1928. In a country racked by the Catholic Church's sex abuse cover-ups it is tempting to see the move as a blow struck for secularism.
The truth, however, is more prosaic: more than 26,000 rugby fans will descend on Thomond Park in Limerick to watch Munster play Leinster, and they will want somewhere to celebrate or to drown their sorrows....
Read entire article at The Australian (AU)
However, a legal ruling now means that Limerick is the place to be on April 2, Christendom's most solemn day, for those wishing to witness a peculiar - and perhaps slightly unsteady - piece of Irish history being made.
Publicans in Limerick, the capital of Irish rugby, have been granted a special exemption and will be allowed to open on Good Friday for the first time since 1928. In a country racked by the Catholic Church's sex abuse cover-ups it is tempting to see the move as a blow struck for secularism.
The truth, however, is more prosaic: more than 26,000 rugby fans will descend on Thomond Park in Limerick to watch Munster play Leinster, and they will want somewhere to celebrate or to drown their sorrows....