April 28, 2003
Last gasp
Christopher Hitchens bemoans the fact that Dublin (and the rest of Ireland) looks to follow New York in banning smoking from pubs. He laments :-
Is there no fiery patriot to denounce the idea that, from now on, the pubs of Belfast will be more authentic than the ones in Cork and Limerick?
Is the national soul so dead that the memory of Flann O'Brien and Brendan Behan has been banished or stilled?
Of course, the proposed ban in Ireland has nothing to do with health and everything to do with passive-smoking lawsuits. Like the man said, Irish people wouldn't make a law to improve their health even if their lives depended on it.
There was a time when ordinary folk were in fear of the church - now, it's litigation. Progress indeed...
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