'It's an absolute disaster for us'

Apart from a couple of weeks last September, Brendan Kennedy of Kennedy's Market House Tavern in Birr has been closed for business since the start of the pandemic.

With no outdoor seating available at his pub, he had been looking forward to reopening its doors for indoor service from next Monday. Kegs of Heineken and Guinness were delivered in recent days, but then came a hammer blow as the Taoiseach announced another reopening delay for the hospitality sector.

"I feel very deflated by it," Brendan told the Offaly Independent. "We had been given a date, we had done some prep work to be ready to go, and then you end up back at square one.

"I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs again, and God knows for how long. So it's frustrating and disheartening.

"When the pandemic started, we closed things down. We tried to do the right thing, and we took the hit. But I'm really not in the form for taking the hit this time."

He said he was struggling to understand the basis for this week's decision by the Government.

"Everything is so negative at the moment, and yet people are not dying. The vaccines are supposed to be working. Elderly people are vaccinated. So you have to question

what we're doing," he

commented.

He also said he would be firmly opposed to the idea of introducing a system of only allowing fully vaccinated or Covid-recovered customers to avail of indoor service in pubs and restaurants.

"What a can of worms they're opening there! I think if anyone had a bit of common sense, they'd see that as a non-runner from the word go," he remarked.

"Hypothetically, a family could be away for a vacation, with parents in their 50s, and a son or daughter of 18 or 19. And we'd have to say, we can serve the parents, but the son or daughter can't come in because they don't have a vaccination?

"I think that's crazy. It's a non-runner, and I don't think people should have to prove they're vaccinated, because it's kind of a personal thing anyway."

The Thatch Bar and Restaurant in Crinkill, Birr, reopened for outdoor service in early June. Its owner, Des Connole, described this week's news as a "disaster" for the sector.

"We feel that we're being discriminated against, really, because you can't come in to the Thatch or any other such premises but you can eat (indoors) in a hotel.

"As a friend of mine put it yesterday, you can eat in a cinema but not in a restaurant," he said.

"So it's really not good for business. This is our busiest time of year, and it's after 15 or 16 months of hardship.

"The Government has given good (financial) supports to our industry, but we're now coming to the end of our tether," said Des.

He said The Thatch was lucky to be able to serve a limited number of customers outdoors, but the weather had generally been less than ideal so far.

"Outdoors is fine if the weather is good, but the weather hasn't been good up to now," he said.

"We're in Ireland, we're not in Portugal or Spain, so at 10 or 10.30 it gets much cooler. Our energy costs have gone up drastically, because when we put on heaters there's extra costs involved."

Des felt that the mass vaccination of the public seemed to be the only long-term solution for the industry, but personally he was still waiting for his second AstraZeneca jab, and he said his young staff had not been vaccinated at all.

"Hospitality has a lot of young, seasonal staff and they're not vaccinated. And I can't really see them doing priority (vaccines) for hospitality staff when they didn't do them for guards and teachers."

At The Chestnut Bar in Birr, proprietor Clodagh Fay was "disappointed and numbed" by the Government's announcement.

She made the decision to reopen for outdoor service in her pub's beer garden in recent weeks and said she was now very glad to have done so as she has heard speculation that indoor service might be postponed until September.

"I'm working out of an outside bar, and I was expecting that after a couple of weeks we'd be able to move everything back in.

"Now it will be definitely be outdoors for another three weeks. There's a strong possibility that it will be for longer, and it could even be for the whole summer.

Clodagh pointed out that the news this week was also another major setback for the live music industry.

"People involved in live music are in the dark, as much as we are, about when it can return to pubs and other venues," she said.

“Very disappointed” was the reaction of Joy Gallagher from The Pull Inn, Pullough, to Tuesday's announcement that indoor hospitality would not open on July 5, coinciding with their 50th anniversary.

“Our regulars don't want to be outdoors,” she said, adding that Ireland's weather isn't really conducive to outdoor dining and drinking.

“It's good when it's a good day like today, but then you have the rain and the cold and you have nobody. We're not in Spain or France,” she said.

While she doesn't see a major problem with the idea of showing vaccination cards to get served, Joy just hopes they get a bit of the summer to trade indoors.

“It's too hard. We have to pay bills too, it's tough going. The outdoors keeps you ticking over but that's all. We're keeping to our own (family), we can't bring staff back yet,” explained Joy, whose father Joe first opened the legendary pub five decades ago on July 3, 1971.

“We hope to have a party once Covid is over. We're not going to let it pass,” she vowed, saying they are hoping that maybe in September they might be able to hold a mini-festival for the village.

The one bright spot on the horizon is the boost provided by the cyclists using the newly opened greenway according to Joy, who says they hope that more boats will return there in the future, while there are plans for a toilet in the village, and their own proposal for a campervan van area will add to that.

Over in Daingean, Mark Feely owner of The Sportman's Inn with partner David Farrell, is trying to stay positive despite the gloom.

“It was disheartening on Tuesday, we only got our first year of trading, and then we are closed for 15 months. It was a double whammy for us,” he said, adding that thankfully they had a social housing project at the rear of the premises that kept them busy in the interim. Because of that, they have no scope for outdoor trading and he finds it hard to see many pubs opening this side of Christmas with autumn traditionally a quieter time.

The Sportman's Inn, previously the Midway Hotel site, was closed for ten years, and since it opened up again it has been very much a community pub, hosting a book club, aerobics and social dancing during the week, added Mark, who said his wife Clare was instrumental in developing that. Having that meeting place is a big loss to the area aside from not being able to come in for a drink or stay in their accommodation, said Mark.

Despite everything, he is thankful for the government supports given to publicans, noting that construction didn't get anything,

“It is what it is, you have to try to keep positive and move forward,” he commented philosophically.