It’s that time of year again when the opposing camps of ‘Can ye not go one day’ and ‘It’s an archaic practise’ battle it out to decide whether the good friday prohibition on selling alcohol is good practise or not. Whatever the outcome of that argument, we have a list of places where you can possibly get served on good friday and what, in general, your options are.
1) Throw a house party and buy in advance. Don’t worry, we’re just putting the most obvious choice up front. The actual options will follow.
2) Take a flight or ferry journey. Both of these are exempt from the intoxicating liquor act. Cheeky trip over to Holyhead anyone? No? Thought not.
3) Go to the Leinster vs Treviso game in the RDS. The bar will be opening and serving from 3.30pm until an hour after the game. There’s still tickets available from €22.50 each.
4) Go to a greyhound or horse race meeting. There’s greyhound racing on Friday nights in Harolds cross and they’ll have a full bar and restaurant service.
5) If you miss the 10pm cut off in off licenses and still want to buy a drink for the following day, buy a growler. A growler is a jug that you can buy and get refilled in several bars around town. You can buy a growler filled with JW Sweetmans own craft beer for €19.95 (that’s 4 pints). Refills are €12.
6) Hotels are allowed to serve alcohol, so long as it’s accompanied by a meal. I think it’s fair to say that hotels will usually throw out a few sandwiches to cover themselves. It will differ from hotel to hotel whether you have to be a guest to drink there, so best to call ahead first.
7) If you have booze, you can bring it to BYOB or BYOW restaurants. The following will be doing BYOB or BYOW on the day -Odessa on dame court will be open for lunch and dinner and have a BYOW policy on the day. -Pitt brothers BBQ on Georges street have BYOB. Meat and mead as one of our publiners put it. (We’ll update this as we find more)
8) Join the military. Military canteens are spared the toil of looking of looking for an open pub on Good Friday. Firearms and alcohol are obviously a good match.
9) Train stations. You must have a train ticket to be served. How much does a child fare cost these days? Madigans in Connolly station will be open for the day, as will the Galway Hooker in Heuston station. As we said, just buy an inter city train ticket.
10) Some clubs are given authorisation to sell alcohol for 6 hours on good friday. I think that’s a long enough period to have an acceptable evening. I don’t mean nightclubs, these can be private members clubs. Unless you’re already a member of the Freemasons or Stonecutters, you’re bum out of luck.
11) Fibber Magees on Parnell street will be opening at 11.30 for soft drinks and will then, after midnight, be selling drinks until the wee hours. It’s also their 24th anniversary, so you can help them celebrate in style. It’s €2 entry and they have plenty of drinks specials for you.
3 bottles of Sol
€10 Pint bottle of Kopporberg/Rekorderlig
€5 Pints of beer from €3.90
3 Jagger Bombs €10
Mickey Finn/Jager shot €4
2 Spirits + Dash €5
2 Cocktails €10
Vodka + mixer €14
Jack Daniels/Southern Comfort/Captain Morgan €16
Beer from €11
Pizza €7
Pizza and a pint €10
Here’s a handy infographic summary of your options.
