The real Irish pub could be doomed to extinction
September 2020 There's a little pub on the quay front in Wexford town, called the John Barry. The building looks like it is a least a couple of hundred years old, and the type of place where the customers often might be of the same vintage. "Old man pubs", some call them, quite respectfully, of the senior citizens who frequent them, usually male, because they grew up in a period when a woman's place was in the home, or at most in the Lounge bar. Being Australian, I can relate to that. However from the historic accounts on the web, it's a friendly, lively little pub with great stout and live music. Music and drink, the twin reasons for being of the Irish pub. Well, the John Barry hasn't been open for six months now, and it bears the dreaded "No dine-in. Beer." tag. So do hundreds of pubs across the country, an estimated 7,000 of them (for a country of fewer than five million). The government allowed pubs which serve food to reopen on June 29, having ...