“St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin Was a Prohibition Day” from the April 16, 1925 Door County News
St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin Was a Prohibition Day
“All drink shops in Dublin were closed on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, and no drinks could be obtained in hotels except by residents.” says an Associated Press dispatch. “In certain suburban districts the temporary dry law was modified by the exemption of bona fide travelers. Anyone who travels three miles may obtain a drink within certain hours on Sunday and the point of whether or not St. Patrick’s Day should be counted as a Sunday or should be bone dry, was decided differently in different districts according to interpretation of the latest liquor act.” The Associated Press dispatch further says that “even when the interpretation was lax there were no scenes of drunkenness. In recent years voluntary closing by the publicans of the drink shops has been abandoned and accordingly the Legislature this year declared compulsory closing. The crowds of holidays makers were larger and no complaint was made of the absence of all drinking facilities except objection that was offered from the license trade.”
Absence of drunkenness during the celebrations on a great holiday with public drink shops closed, proves that prohibition prevents drunkenness. Another significant statement in the Associated Press story quoted above is that the objection to closing the drink shops came not from the people but from the license trade. That is where, the objection comes from in prohibition America. Which simply goes to show that the booze trade is the same the world over in that its ruling passion is greed.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[This was part of a larger W.C.T.U column.]
Articles about Prohibition
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/prohibition
St. Patrick’s Day-related articles
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/st-patricks-day