10 Things We're Looking Forward To When Pubs Open

2nd Jun 2021

For most people there has been little joy in ‘take away pints’ – which basically means you stand on a windswept street corner on a damp night with a cold pint in your hand pretending you’re having a laugh. Bars opening up again spell the end of that era, along with the poorly poured can of stout out  your back garden. It’s time once again for proper, delicious, creamy pints dispensed by trained bar staff.

9. Cocktails By Pros
They’ll also make you a decent cocktail with the right quantities of everything in the recipe. No more accidentally spiking your own drink and writing off the rest of the week because you added four times more vodka than you were supposed to.

8. Litter Free Gatting
A major downside of open-air bushing has been the litter left behind by big groups. Public areas in the city and many Cork beaches have been left swimming in glass bottles, stacks of empty cans and cigarette butts after sunny, booze fuelled weekends. Mother Nature will be happy the pubs are back.

7. Civilised Slashing
Bars opening their doors again means no more holding your bladder to the point where you start hallucinating. While lads tend to nip into a bush or find the darkest part of a street, ladies aren’t as keen on peeing in public. For pub goers, being able to go to a purpose-built jacks whenever you want will bring real relief. And you can wash your hands there too.

6. No Leggers When the Law Turn Up
Constantly, looking over your shoulder if you’re having a few cans in public takes some of the joy out of meeting up with friends you have seen in ages. It’s a real downer when the twin-bulb turn up just as the craic is kicking off. Especially if you’ve just opened a fresh can.

Suddenly finding yourself legging it through town with hundreds of others like a giant herd of gazelles, juggling an open beer and a bag of cans while trying not to gawk, lends little joy to a big night out.

We’ll all be glad to sit in a pub again without the fear of being prodded by a Kerryman’s baton.

5. Gat Not Gastro
This time round pub goers will be spared having to spend nine euro on plates of soggy nachos and luke warm supermarket pizzas. Now, you can focus entirely on the gat and forget about the gastro. The country will also be spared the tiresome tirade of covid virtue-signallers tying themselves up in knots on social media because a toasted special and a bowl of nuts “IS NOT A SUBSTANTIAL MEAL!!!”.

4. Neighbours’ Peace
If you’ve been garden-gatting with the gang over the last few months then your neighbours are probably sick of you. Now there’s nobody happier about the fact that YOU can go to the pub than the family living next door. No more loud late-night debates about where Kieran Kingston should play Tim O’Mahony or a sudden raucous over who can complete a full Joe Wicks workout after a bag of cans.

3. Intervention Guilt
You also won’t have the fear about having to intervene when a fourteen year old young-wan who has been gatting near wherever you’ve been covid-bushing looks like she might be after slipping into an alcohol induced coma while her hysterically drunk friends scream at each other about what to do. When you drink in the civilised setting of an Irish pub it’s like the country’s chronic problem with underage alcohol abuse doesn’t exist. Enjoy the bliss. 

2. Publicans Not Moaning
It’ll be nice to see bars finally putting up social media posts that aren’t tinged with melancholy and nostalgia. The pandemic has seen endless old photos posted online harping back to a time when we all packed into pubs oblivious to what was coming down the tracks from a wet market in Wuhan. When pub owners are buzzing, their staff buzz too and that feeds down to customers. It’s a mood vaccine even the staunchest anti-vaxxers would willingly take.

1. Living In the Moment
Maybe we’re nearing the end of the pandemic and pubs won’t close again, but who knows? Some experts say it’s going to be with us on and off for another three or four years. Either way, we’re all going to treat every night out like it’s special in case it’s the last one for months. That can only mean more craic. Bring it on!