Goodbye country pubs, hello dull Norwegian clean living

Goodbye country pubs, hello dull Norwegian clean living
Excellent news! One thousand pubs have closed since the ban on smoking in the workplace, and who knows what further social and cultural glories might follow, with the present generation of Pecksniffs in power? For when they decide that something shall happen, so happen it usually does -- but in an unfailingly dysfunctional and unintended way. Thus the relationship between the State and the Irish country pub: sooner or later, the former will be the death of the latter -- and not through design, but through busy-body stupidity and bone-headed arrogance,

Now, when the smoking ban was introduced in pubs five years ago, I warned that the consequences would be horrendous; but even I was not prepared for the slaughter which was to follow. Pub licences which once changed hands for hundreds of thousands of pounds are now as useless as Hospital Sweeps Tickets from the 1950s. A social calamity is befalling one of the great staples of Irish life, with worse to come.

The same is true in the North, where the Republic's pioneering in blundering, statist intrusion into people's private lives is being followed with a slavishness which must make Craigavon turn in his grave, and cause Brookeborough to wonder why he ever bothered. The smoking ban there killed 100 pubs in its first year alone, with hundreds more to follow. And these things accelerate, as people realise how uncomfortable smoking outside is, especially in winter, and they gradually start to drink at home instead.

I loathe cigarette smoke, and it was monstrous that we non-smokers should have had to endure smokers' bronchial waste in our lungs and in our hair. But proportion in all things: a happy medium was possible -- such as, certain pubs being licensed to allow smoking, or for pubs to have allocated particular rooms for smoking, with effective air-conditioning. But no -- we went down the absolutist route of His Eminence, John Charles McQuaid: one total authority, laying down the law, without subtlety or nuance or human understanding. That was the austere, ranting Calvinist God in ornate Catholic vestments, Ireland's unique contribution to Christian practice. Thus the Ireland of yesterday, which banned condoms, divorce, abortion, hundreds of magazines and thousands of books, and which treated personal sin as legal crime.

Well, the archbishop is gone, and so, too, is his God, as Irish Catholicism morphs into an agnostic and unprincipled mishmash of whatever you're having yourself, Father Sean. The place of the hierarchy has been taken by a political caste of secular authoritarians, a blessed tribe who -- like John Charles and Dev himself -- merely have to look into their own hearts to divine what is right for the Irish people. And from its particular cardiac organ, the Road Safety Authority has decided that the blood-alcohol level should be reduced from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood, and -- this is the best bit -- that for learner drivers it should be 20mg.

So the RSA thinks learner drivers should be able to have a little drink before they drive? Are they mad? Learners shouldn't be allowed anywhere near drink, at all: and nor should experienced drivers. Yet the RSA also thinks that the blood-alcohol level for mature drivers should be cut by nearly 40pc of the present level.

B ut there is no evidence that people who are drinking a couple of pints of beer are causing road-deaths. Indeed, we know that reckless youngsters -- who are ignoring both alcohol and speed limits -- are the primary drink-driving threat to others' lives. Punishing the rest of us because of their excesses is not merely crazy, but it is economically and socially ruinous.

Firstly, our brewing industry cannot survive these assaults on their main outlet: off-sales will not compensate for the loss of the pub. And rural society will be infinitely poorer if isolated farmers are unable to gather over a few leisurely drinks, without risk of prosecution. For how many drinks does the 50mg limit allow? And who is going to risk it, as the entire weight of the law, the courts and the insurance industry is lined up to punish some lonely old farmer who has merely had a couple drinks, and who is driving reasonably skilfully and safely homewards?

The proposed law will be either ignored or enforced. With the former, it joins the vast plethora of laws which Dail Eireann regularly passes, and which it no more intends to be enforced than it means to re-route the Liffey back into the Wicklow hills. But if it is enforced, it will solely punish moderate drinkers, who have not harmed anyone, and are not likely to. Indeed, they are its target-group, and this is morally infamous and legally inexcusable.

Finally, traditional music -- the great and unique glory of Irish life -- has always depended on the rural pub for a venue: the publican got the business, the musicians got some drink free, and maybe a few quid, and the customers got the music and the crack.

This was a three-way unwritten, cultural contract, which benefited everyone and which gave social cohesion and pleasure to the most remote communities in Ireland. With firstly, the abominable and totalitarian smoking ban, and now the proposed drink-driving laws, say goodbye to the lot, and mumble despairingly, hello Norway.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers
http://www.independent.ie