Dublin - Ireland's drinks industry is suffering from withdrawal with pubs closing at the rate of one a day, as the party years of the Celtic Tiger boom become a blurred memory. The economic downturn allied to a changing drinking culture has led to 400 pubs closing over the past year, according to Michael Patten, chairman of the drinks industry representative body.
The Irish pub, if not quite dead, has entered into a serious decline, according to a recent report commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) to coincide with new laws limiting the hours off-licences will be allowed to sell alcohol.
But surely the news that Ireland is beginning to dry out is positive for the health of a nation renowned for being as soaked in alcohol as rain?
Anthony Foley, of Dublin City University Business School, who compiled the report for DIGI, does not think so.
"The drinks industry creates in excess of 60,000 full-time jobs," he says, "and generates 2 billion (euros, 3 billion dollars) in revenue annually. Irish drink exports are worth 1.3 billion, which is more than dairy exports at 1.2 billion," he told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.
The decline of the Irish pub is not just bad news for the economy, according to Foley, who pinpointed the social costs associated with the decline of pubs.
"Pubs are good for social cohesion. People meet in pubs, gather and form a sense of community," he said.
The "ruination of rural Ireland" is how Mona Fitzpatrick, who is part of the farming community in the north midlands, describes the decline of the pub.
Fitzpatrick who lives in the small village of Ballyhaise, 120 kilometres north of Dublin, has also noticed that local pubs are emptying fast, she said.
"There was a time when we'd go out to the local pub and expect to meet local people. Now there's nobody in there except a few hardened drinkers," she said.
"People are drinking wine at home because they can't get out to the pubs. Not the other way round. The drink driving laws mean that old boys, who used to be able to get out to the pub, are now sitting at home because they can't get lifts to the pubs."
"The publicans would need to put on some transport, but that won't ever happen," she added.
Foley feels that current trends, where 50 per cent of alcohol consumption in Ireland occurs in the home, will not be reversed.
"Unless public transport was improved dramatically, we will never go back to the good old days of the pub," he said.
"When people are short of money, they tend to entertain at home. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in public transport this won't change," he predicted.
Helena Hever, who lives in County Roscommon, in the north-west, is a regular user of a government-funded rural transport initiative, the Rural Lift, which provides lifts to pubs on a Saturday night as well as transport to shops.
"The bus is terrific. It means that my husband and I can have a drink together. Before that, one of us would have to be the designated driver."
Hever said the couple wouldn't bother going to the pub on a Saturday night without the scheme as taxis would cost 30 euros in addition to the price of the drinks.
With many Irish drinkers thinking along the same lines, it would seem that radical action is required to save the Irish pub.
