TIME TO GO KILLORGLIN'

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

In about one year's time, Scotland will have followed Ireland's excellent lead, and smoking will no longer be allowed in public places, including public houses. The physical health of our nation can only benefit. What, though, of the social and psychological corners of the triangle that we in general practice know to represent our patients' health? Will our waiting rooms be packed with enforced withdrawal symptoms, and will the worsening poverty of hoteliers and publicans increase the prevalence of deprivation-related illnesses? Purely in the interests of primary care medical research, I went to Ireland to find out, accompanied by my trusted colleague, Alan. Killorglin, County Kerry, to be precise.

Killorglin is a small town, with around 1,000 residents, and only 36 pubs. That is, 36 establishments that could be identified as pubs - there were undoubtedly others secreted behind anonymous facades, known only to ancient locals, or masquerading as bicycle repairs shops. The first difficulty was therefore selecting which pub in which to begin the research. We were only there for two weeks, and it was unlikely that we would be able to do justice to many of them. We therefore began, applying traditional academic logic, with the nearest one. The overwhelming impression that registered when we entered was the smell of cleaning fluid, filling the atmosphere because it was not drowned out by smoke. The second impression was of space. Emptiness. It was dead. Where were all the people? It was early evening, a time when Scottish pubs would be filling up with people and smoke, and we wondered if prohibition of the latter was preventing the former. More research was required, so we downed the black stuff and moved on. It was the same in each establishment we monitored over the next few evenings, with the sterile ambience and ghostly silence becoming a familiar accompaniment to the stout. How, we had wondered on first coming to Killorglin, could a town of this size support so many pubs? After the pilot phase of our research in which we found them all to be empty at prime time, this question puzzled us even more, and actually evolved into our primary research question. In one pub we noticed some men playing dominoes, but they were drinking tea. There was no suggestion of the famous Irish revelry, and not even a hint of traditional music. It seemed that the doomsayers might actually have been correct, and the smoking ban would indeed kill businesses. This did not augur well for our waiting rooms in the future.

Then we found the answers. It was late evening, and with a rather disheartened step we set off for a piece of late research, hoping to reach a previously unsurveyed establishment before closing time. This time, though, we were presented with the opposite problem. Every tavern in town was a seething mass of smoke-free humanity, and a trip to the bar to order out two pints was a major challenge, requiring detailed expeditionary planning. In our anxiety, when we eventually reached there, our second question was about the closing time, so that we could plan the rest of the evening's research. (Our first question was, “Can I have two pints of Guinness?”) Laughter was the immediate response. “Closing time? Well, after midnight sometime, I suppose…” Somewhat relieved, we found ourselves with a project on our hands, and proposed a protocol. Our pragmatic route led us to our most important source of data - the Kingdom Bar. We were drawn there by the sound of fiddles, and by the directions given by a man standing in the doorway of another pub, who told us that the Kingdom Bar was better than this one. (The suspicion that he was employed by the former specifically for this purpose was supported by his later arrival in said bar to the administration of a free pint of black.)

Within 5 minutes of our arrival, our origin was widely known, the band was playing “The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen”, and I was being pushed to the microphone to provide the vocals. On learning of our profession, the locals were even more hearty, and were calling friends and strangers from the other side of the bar, or in from the street, to come and meet us. “Hey Finbar, come and see. These two are a couple of Scottish doctors!” “Oh so they are, Padraig. Would you like a pint, lads?” The party swung fully, and we left some time just before dawn, to a busy pedestrianised main street, and a crowded kebab shop. This was the perfect laboratory for our research questions, and I can summarise the findings.

1. Drinking is a nocturnal activity in Ireland, that begins around the time when teetotallers and non-Irish go to bed. This time is also after licensing hours, and the activity is therefore illegal. In Ireland, this means that it must be done with the curtains closed. The benefit of its illegality is that the publican does not feel bound to pay tax on the alcohol sold, since he is not being supported by his government at the time of sale. However he does not reduce the actual price of the drink. These are “black pints” in more ways than one, represent pure profit to the vendor, and explain how 36 pubs in a small town can stay in business. Fortunately the Gardai in Killorglin are fully complicit in the message that a pub's closed curtains demonstrate that no bibulation can possibly be in process, and that the bubbling sounds of revelry are simply the happy night-time cleaning staff, employed to fill the pub with the next day's aroma. It is also fortunate that the customs and excise accept the high volume of spilled or spoiled beer, and do not seek payment of the duty on the barrels that are recorded.

2. Most drinkers, even hardened smokers, are quite happy with the ban on smoking, accept that it was time they did something about their own habit, and enjoy the new smokeless zones in which they imbibe. The real problem was the law (much less publicised abroad) introduced at the same time, that prohibited children from the bar after 9pm. In a tourist dependent country, this was more likely to be a profit sapper than smokelessness, as it included dining areas, and prevented families from sampling the pub culture, which is, as I have demonstrated, nocturnal. It's like banning the perishers from the sea in Majorca, or the piste in the Alps.

There was, we noted, one anomaly. The publicans, though loose with their interpretation of licensing laws, were rigorous in upholding the tobacco laws. One publican, who exiled his after-hours smoking customers to the doorway to satisfy their addiction, was puzzled to find that this huddle drew the unavoidable attention of the Guards. They could no longer use only their blind eye, had to investigate inside, and the licensee was fined for the drinking that they found (to their undoubted surprise) going on. Only in Ireland….

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.