Is Munster rugby club bigger than God?
In Ireland the thought of crossing the threshold of a licensed premises on Good Friday and ordering a pint carries a delicious whiff of the forbidden. Nobody would expect to turn into a pillar of salt when the first sup of Murphy’s passed their lips on the most sacred day in the Church calendar, but if it happened we would probably feel it was only as we deserved. So a court ruling that pubs in Limerick are to be allowed trade on Good Friday for the convenience of 26,000 rugby fans attending a match in the city was a bombshell. Feeling the full force of the recession – across the country it’s estimated that each day another pub closes – bar-owners in Limerick, the home of Munster rugby club, petitioned a local court for a dispensation. A crunch tie with rivals Leinster qualified, they argued, as a special event and could thus exempted from the prohibition on pubs opening. Speaking to the local paper after the ruling, former Mayor of Limerick Kevin Kiely caught the mood in the city. “Th
