SMOKING OUT THE IRISH QUESTION

By Blair Smith
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

That'll be three-fifty, please. Thank you."

Three pounds fifty, for a pint! That's a bit steep! Ah, but wait a minute, though...it's euros, not pounds. Of course it is - I'm standing in a pub, talking heartily with complete strangers, and drinking creamy, native stout. Where else could I be but Ireland? And what better part of Ireland than Galway?

I've come here as external examiner in general practice for the National University of Ireland, Galway, and this is the night before I meet my Irish colleagues and their nervous students. I have to come to the pub this evening in order to sample the community and society in which the latter will practise, and therefore in which they have studied and will be examined. Thus, this pint of Guinness exists purely in the name of educational research. The eighth rule of travel is "never pass a bar that has your name on it".1

Unfortunately, despite prolonged searching, I have not located Blair's Bar. I have just changed my name to Padraic.

It's a Sunday night, so, as you would expect, the streets and pubs are all but deserted, as a sprig of tumbleweed drifts past, propelled by a lonely gust. Not! I doubt if Quay Street here is ever quiet, and certainly now it is a heaving mass of light-hearted humanity, mostly on that happy cusp between inebriation and sobriety. Old and young, tall and small, beautiful women and even more beautiful women, they tour the precinct, dip in and out of bars and restaurants, and generally indulge in a routine kind of relaxation that Calvin and Knox trained out of us in Scotland three or four centuries ago. Into the bar where I am ensconced comes a solitary seven-year old girl, dressed in a crisp white full-length communion dress. She wanders around awhile, then goes back to the street. Apart from mine, not a single eye bats. This is part of normal life, and I am again reminded that I can only be in Ireland.

Here's a thing, though. Something is different, or not quite right, and it takes a while to work out what it is. I'm standing, chatting and listening to three high quality musicians in the corner, but the atmosphere is not as I remembered it from my last visit. After prolonged puzzlement I realize - nobody is smoking. I can actually see the band. There aren't even any ashtrays. This is the end of May, and Ireland is nearly a month into its ban on smoking in public places. Later I will discover that this is currently the main topic of popular coversation (after Henrik Larsson's departure from Celtic), and that there is a generalised sense of pride in this daring piece of legislation.

Looking around it is clear that the catering trade's fear of lost custom has been misplaced. Indeed, as my new-found friend beside me says, trade may actually be increasing: people such as his wife are happier to come to bars in the knowledge that they will not smell like a stale ashtray when they go home, and that they are not exposing themselves to increased respiratory and cardiovascular risk, amateur epidemiologists that the Irish are.

This new legislation also explains the crowds of people hanging around the pub doors, on the outside. In a scene reminiscent of our hospitals, closer inspection reveals that these al fresco drinkers are less enamoured of the fresh Galway air than first impressions suggested. One of our erudite professors recently defined community medicine wittily as those branches of the profession that practise beyond the ring of smokers at the hospital doorways.

Similarly, a census of Irish people not at the pub (apparently a very small proportion) would have to begin some way beyond the pub doorways. Later, Peter, my academic counterpart in Galway will describe a paper he is planning on the improved social life of pub bouncers since the smoking ban. Suddenly, today, lots of people are surrounding them with little else to do than chat to them. (Of course, it is physically impossible for an Irish man or woman to be within five metres of another and not engage in conversation.)

Later still, my taxi driver, a former pub bouncer himself, will deny that there was ever any problem with his colleagues' social lives, as they were never short of good opportunities, if I know what he means. And I won’t be arguing with him. It seems, therefore, that the smoking ban in Ireland has been a complete success, producing improvements in quality of life and atmosphere, and surprisingly few complaints, even from hardened smokers. Ireland has led the way, and if it works in a country whose entertainment centres so famously around the public house, it must work elsewhere. The long-term benefits in reduced passive smoking-related illness, and increased smoking cessation rates, remain to be quantified, but their potential must be assumed. From 1 June, Norway will follow Ireland's suit, though climatic considerations will probably discourage such frequent open-air smoking excursions. I pray that Scotland will follow these excellent examples.

The last time I was in Galway I was a young and single SHO on holiday with my friend Alan, who was in similar circumstances . A quiet drink before our planned early start the next morning turned into quite a different affair. In a set of circumstances which I still have difficulty explaining, we were caught up in a crowd, whisked off to the Galwegians Rugby Club (where the Western Samoan team was being entertained in standard Irish post-match fashion) and spent the evening singing, dancing and partaking of the mighty craic. I recall my rendition of Bonny Dundee being particularly well received by Polynesian and Celt alike. We arrived back at our B&B just as the landlady was leaving for morning mass. In contrast to the dark looks which we expected the hour of our return to produce on her countenance (and which would have been likely almost everywhere else), her face lit up on seeing us. "Ah, hallo, lads," she welcomed us. "Will ye be wanting yer breakfast now, or when I get back?" We chose the latter.

No such excesses on this (slightly more mature) visit. I am happy to report, however, that the high academic standards of my hosts were matched by subsequent craic. Also that my risk of ischaemic heart disease has remained stable.

Reference and essential further reading
McCarthy P. McCarthy's Bar.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2000.

Other hoolet online articles by Blair Smith can be found at:
hoolet edition 49 - Ethics and Repression in the Bloo Toon
hoolet edition 48 - May The Best Team Win
hoolet edition 47 - Hunting Pink Elephants
hoolet edition 46 - Predictive Texting
hoolet edition 45 - Role Models
hoolet edition 44 - Time To Go Killorglin'
hoolet edition 43 - Salt and Shake
hoolet edition 42 - Stepping up the Pace of Life
hoolet edition 41 - Smoking out the Irish Question
hoolet edition 40 - Not Cricket
hoolet edition 39 - Anniversaries and Predictions
hoolet edition 38 - Is There Life on Mars?
hoolet edition 36 - Onwards and Upwards
hoolet edition 35 - Goal of the Season‘s Greetings
hoolet edition 34 - Chickens and Eggs
hoolet edition 33 - On Shifting Goalposts
hoolet edition 32 - Period Zero
hoolet edition 30 - Annual Appraisal
hoolet edition 29 - Working Towards Scotland's Healthier Children For Us All 2020 and A Framework for Maternity Services in Scotland
hoolet edition 28 - In Memoriam Admiral Byng. A cautionary Tale

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.