Bars braced to bounce back with Bank Holiday bonanza

IT’S hello to the first ‘normal’ St. Patrick’s Day Festival in three years with no restrictions on pubs and restaurants as well as the return of parades in villages and towns across Co. Galway.

Throw in an extra Bank Holiday on Friday . . . a ‘weekend’ that started on Wednesday evening . . . the Cheltenham Racing Festival on TV . . . and it all adds up to one hectic four days for publicans, hoteliers and restaurateurs.

However, when it comes to the ‘big spend’ this weekend, there may be an urban/rural divide in terms of the volume of sales as the younger age-groups opt for the ‘in-town’ experience.

Kilconnell publican and councillor, Tim Broderick, told the Connacht Tribune, that there was a huge difference in the volume of sales between country pubs and their counterparts in the bigger towns and cities.

“I suppose it’s just the trend that’s out there, where young people opt to go into town for the weekend, and a city pub could take in as much in two hours as a country establishment would in two days,” said Tim Broderick.

He also pointed out that since the ‘start of Covid’ in March 2020, there seemed to be a ‘new normal’ emerging in terms of people going out earlier for two or three pints and going home a lot earlier in the night.

“Before Covid in country pubs, our peak times would have tended to be around the 10.30 [pm] to 11-o-clock period – now it’s far more of an evening crowd we’re getting, maybe in for a match on the television, and going home a lot earlier.

“There has been a real change in the habits of people over the past two years. Many now feel a lot more comfortable about having a couple of pints in the evening, going home earlier, and feeling a lot fresher in the morning,” said Tim Broderick.

He added however that over the past two-years, Covid had taken its toll with many families having lost loved ones during the worst of the academic. “It has been a very sad time for many families,” he said.

See full coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops as usual this Thursday – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie