"Pubs fall victim to Ireland's growing affluence." 
from
boston.com, 4/27/08 via Wed.'s Wash Post, by Mary Jordan. Connolley, Ireland
For generations Carney's, the only pub in this tiny village in western Ireland, had been the place to strike up a romance, celebrate a birth, mourn a death, or just sip a pint of Guinness among friends on a damp day. When Carney's shut down last year after more than a century in business, the people took it hard. "Where can we go after a funeral, after work, where can we meet?" When a "CLOSED" sign was posted on Carney's door and on the doors of 1,000 rural Irish pubs in the last 3 years, another sign
of profound lifestyle changes that have accompanied the country's dizzying rise to affluence, came like a sudden death in the family, said A. Scanlon, 51,
a farmer who lives near Carney's. "Everything has changed in Ireland. It's as fast as New York around here."
As recently as the 1980's young people had to leave Ireland to find work, and millionaires were were "as rare as hen's teeth," as the Irish say. By 2005, acc. to the Board of Ireland, a country of 4 million people, had 30,000 residents worth more than a million euros,
or about $1.5 Million. A year later the number of millionaires jumped another
10%! Its per capita income rise is now among the highest in the world,
surpassing those in the U.S., Sweden, and Japan, according to the World Bank.
Wealth has given the Irish more or less time-- a bad combination for the local pubs. More people are spending sunny weekends in Spain, rather than evenings of "craic," as good times are known at the pub. Fewer are farming the valuable rolling green hills around Connolley, about 50 miles south of Galway. More are commuting long distances, with better paying jobs. All over the country when commuters return home, many prefer to stay at home, with a glass of chardonnay in front of the flat tv screens.
Some shrug off closures, saying Ireland had too many pubs, anyway.
Many
say they are delighted there are more fine restaurants and special coffee shops. Older people lament the decline of "touchstone," a place that linked
neighbors, a seat near the fire, where their grandparents and great grandparents chatted. Certain senses of loss are expressed of the coziness and
companionship of pubs. Some elders are feeling isolated and alienated in a faster paced Ireland, where young people's lives revolve around cell phones,
and social networking internet sites, such as Facebook. "Be absolutely sure that people don't want to return to the days of poverty," said
Patricia O'Hara, sociologist and policy manager promoting economic and social development in western Ireland. There is a questioning how much we are
losing, as a result of prosperity, a nostalgia for simpler times, when people had more time for each other."
The town of Connelly sits at a bend in the road, in the middle of County Clare, a little cluster of buildings set around a towering Catholic Church, village life centered around the church, the pub, and the Post Office, that collects mail, cashes checks, and dishes out news. Now these 3 institutions are under pressure.
After Carney's shut, a villager said, he drives to the pub in the next village, "But it wasn't the same." At his own pub, he either "knew everyone in the place or soon did."
In November Liam Mahoney, a villager who'd moved to London and runs a pub and constrution company there, bought Carney's, fixed it up, and re-opened it. "I'm
not going to make any money to write home home about. But it was my local pub.
(Oak could bore y'all with wonderful tales visiting Irish pubs, with friends and family. Loved the one in Dingle, where visitors picked up Irish musical instruments, and sang vintage songs from the surrounding countryside, while others danced, or just told looooong stories. My mother, who "played by ear" had a go at a never tuned upright piano, as the regulars chimed in, picking up the insturments lying about, as she led them in "You're A Grand Old Flag".... And the one near the Robinson farm, in Co. Tipperary, known as the "Tillie Lamps" said to be the oldest pub in Ireland, where revolutionaries plotted to get rid of British rule. Every night, the whole town piled into the cramped little spaces, basically part of an old farm building, so pitch black, lit only by dim kerosene lanterns, it couldn't be seen from the main road. When we "girls" had need for the rest room, Mrs. Pubtender told us
"Tis the Old Way, m'dears," pointing to the field outside with not even a fence to hang onto. much less hut of some sort. a bit awkward for our late mother, in her '70's.
Mrs. Pubkeeper poured the dregs into
a bucket, and brought them out to her horse, each night when the pub closed. 
Your Irish pub stories, please.
from
boston.com, 4/27/08 via Wed.'s Wash Post, by Mary Jordan. Connolley, Ireland
For generations Carney's, the only pub in this tiny village in western Ireland, had been the place to strike up a romance, celebrate a birth, mourn a death, or just sip a pint of Guinness among friends on a damp day. When Carney's shut down last year after more than a century in business, the people took it hard. "Where can we go after a funeral, after work, where can we meet?
" When a "CLOSED" sign was posted on Carney's door and on the doors of 1,000 rural Irish pubs in the last 3 years, another sign
of profound lifestyle changes that have accompanied the country's dizzying rise to affluence, came like a sudden death in the family, said A. Scanlon, 51,
a farmer who lives near Carney's. "Everything has changed in Ireland. It's as fast as New York around here."
As recently as the 1980's young people had to leave Ireland to find work, and millionaires were were "as rare as hen's teeth," as the Irish say. By 2005, acc. to the Board of Ireland, a country of 4 million people, had 30,000 residents worth more than a million euros,
or about $1.5 Million. A year later the number of millionaires jumped another
10%! Its per capita income rise is now among the highest in the world,
surpassing those in the U.S., Sweden, and Japan, according to the World Bank.
Wealth has given the Irish more or less time-- a bad combination for the local pubs. More people are spending sunny weekends in Spain, rather than evenings of "craic," as good times are known at the pub. Fewer are farming the valuable rolling green hills around Connolley, about 50 miles south of Galway. More are commuting long distances, with better paying jobs. All over the country when commuters return home, many prefer to stay at home, with a glass of chardonnay in front of the flat tv screens.
Some shrug off closures, saying Ireland had too many pubs, anyway.
Many
say they are delighted there are more fine restaurants and special coffee shops. Older people lament the decline of "touchstone," a place that linked
neighbors, a seat near the fire, where their grandparents and great grandparents chatted. Certain senses of loss are expressed of the coziness and
companionship of pubs. Some elders are feeling isolated and alienated in a faster paced Ireland, where young people's lives revolve around cell phones,
and social networking internet sites, such as Facebook. "Be absolutely sure that people don't want to return to the days of poverty," said
Patricia O'Hara, sociologist and policy manager promoting economic and social development in western Ireland. There is a questioning how much we are
losing, as a result of prosperity, a nostalgia for simpler times, when people had more time for each other."
The town of Connelly sits at a bend in the road, in the middle of County Clare, a little cluster of buildings set around a towering Catholic Church, village life centered around the church, the pub, and the Post Office, that collects mail, cashes checks, and dishes out news. Now these 3 institutions are under pressure.
After Carney's shut, a villager said, he drives to the pub in the next village, "But it wasn't the same."
At his own pub, he either "knew everyone in the place or soon did."
In November Liam Mahoney, a villager who'd moved to London and runs a pub and constrution company there, bought Carney's, fixed it up, and re-opened it. "I'm
not going to make any money to write home home about. But it was my local pub.
(Oak could bore y'all with wonderful tales visiting Irish pubs, with friends and family. Loved the one in Dingle, where visitors picked up Irish musical instruments, and sang vintage songs from the surrounding countryside, while others danced, or just told looooong stories. My mother, who "played by ear" had a go at a never tuned upright piano, as the regulars chimed in, picking up the insturments lying about, as she led them in "You're A Grand Old Flag".... And the one near the Robinson farm, in Co. Tipperary, known as the "Tillie Lamps" said to be the oldest pub in Ireland, where revolutionaries plotted to get rid of British rule. Every night, the whole town piled into the cramped little spaces, basically part of an old farm building, so pitch black, lit only by dim kerosene lanterns, it couldn't be seen from the main road. When we "girls" had need for the rest room, Mrs. Pubtender told us
"Tis the Old Way, m'dears," pointing to the field outside with not even a fence to hang onto. much less hut of some sort. a bit awkward for our late mother, in her '70's.
Mrs. Pubkeeper poured the dregs into
a bucket, and brought them out to her horse, each night when the pub closed.
Your Irish pub stories, please.
