Posted on 03/26/2004 8:11:28 PM PST by ijcr
From Monday prison cells and psychiatric wards will be the only workplaces where you can light up
In McClafferty's bar in Letterkenny, under a cloud of smoke, Michael Breen lit something like his 60th John Player of the day and supped his Guinness. But the sight of a five packs a day man like Mr Breen in full puff in the snug will soon be as rare in Ireland as the plastic pub ashtrays which are about to become collectors' items.
At midnight tomorrow the Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in the workplace, and it has been called the most calamitous cultural change in the country since the Great Famine of 1847, which claimed more than a million lives and caused millions more to emigrate.
The ban outlaws smoking in every workplace, from pubs and office blocks to nightclubs, fishing boats, company cars, tractors, theatres and even film sets - ending at one stroke the cinematic cliche of the smoky nicotine-stained Irish pub.
From Monday smokers like Mr Breen will have to leave the warmth of the pub and brave some of the worst weather in Europe. Given that it rains horizontally in Donegal, in the extreme north-west corner of Ireland, Mr Breen, a village publican himself, predicts dire consequences. "It'll be murder. I won't go out for one if it's raining or snowing so I hope it's a good summer."
But with a whole country going cold turkey all at once, it is the "mood swings" that worry him in a place where people traditionally go to relax. "People are going to be at one another's throats."
Irish pub-goers scared of pneumonia or a row could overturn the habits of a lifetime and take a bus ride a few miles over the border to Northern Ireland. Ironically, puritanical Northern Ireland - a place more famous for born-again Christians and tea-dances fuelled by orange squash, where not that long ago pubs shut on the Sabbath and playground swings were tied up - is bracing itself to become the refuge for diehard drinkers and "cigarette tourists" desperate for pint and a fag.
Prisons, hotel rooms and psychiatric wards are exempt from the ban but there will be no excuses in Ireland's 10,000 pubs, where interpretations of the law, particularly the rules on closing time, are traditionally ultra relaxed.
Smokers or landlords caught breaking the law by "tobacco control" officers may be fined up to €3,000. There will be a national hotline to grass on smokers.
The police are livid about the prospect of having to deal with recalcitrant smokers, one member of the Garda Representative Association calling it "the most ill-conceived legislation ever conceived in this country".
The force would become "the laughing stock of the world", he said. Although Ireland's non-smokers can't wait, the country has been convulsed for months by the implications and "idiocies" of the ban: hauliers warned of road rage because cigarettes are banned in lorries and student unions feared more homophobic attacks.
But it is on the border that the Irish government fears its greatest revolt. Since the beginning of the 30-year Troubles thousands of people from the North have flooded into Donegal every weekend to escape the tension.
Letterkenny, 15 miles from the border, has become the entertainment capital of the north-west. Now it is feared that pubs and nightclubs will be forced to close and hundreds of jobs lost if northerners stay home to smoke.
Already private coach companies are planning trips to the city of Derry, three miles from the border. Dozens of weddings booked by northern couples in Donegal have been cancelled.
Ireland's most famous feminist and smoker, Nell McCafferty, called the ban the biggest national disaster since the famine. "At least with the famine, the British gave us a sporting chance, they didn't actually ban the potato," she said yesterday.
On Letterkenny's parade of bars and nightclubs, the mood was mixed. "This ban could never happen in Northern Ireland, the paramilitaries wouldn't put up with it," said a 20-a-day man who owns pet shops on both sides of the border.
In McClafferty's bar, Denis McClafferty said half of the town's trade at weekends was from the north. His pub alone was expecting to losing €200,000 a year.
At McGinley's, down the road, the barmaid Dolores Devenney said: "What happens at 11 o'clock when a couple of guys from Derry come in and you have to tell them to stub out their fag and they try to stub it out in your face?"
Gerry McCloskey, of the Monico bar in Derry, was preparing for a burst of smoking ban refugees this week, but said he wouldn't be celebrating the rise too soon. With only 41 officers policing all of Ireland's pubs and bars, and another 300 policing the wider workplace, he feared the ban would be impossible to enforce. "A bad law is no law," he said.
I'm more worried that ex-NATO intel analysts will go to air museums, and regarding a banged-up MiG-15 on display, exclaim: "Just look at that ugly Faggot!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.