Travellers wet their whistle while waiting on a train that might not come

FREE TRAVEL passes for the over-65s were on show in the bar at Connolly railway station in Dublin yesterday, where alcohol was being served to anyone with a valid inter-city ticket.

Despite the Good Friday prohibition on the sale of alcohol, bars in railway stations are exempted as they have railway refreshment room licences, according to Barry Kenny, spokesman for Iarnród Éireann.

“I think back in 1902 it was regarded as inhuman to expect someone to undergo a railway journey without recourse to alcohol,” he noted.

Robert Connor, from Ringsend, Dublin, had a ticket for the Belfast train. Supping a Guinness, he said he was a retired sea-man.

“I got my ticket with this,” he said showing his free travel pass. “I missed one of the trains already. I’ll decide if I’ll go later. You know I’d say 99 per cent of the people in this bar won’t be travelling anywhere.”

John Geoghegan, from Spencer Dock, Dublin, said he came to the bar every Good Friday. “I’m going to Newry,” he said. “I go every year, to have a pint and then come home.”

Dora O’Brien, Killarney Street, Dublin, also using her free travel pass, had a ticket to Drogheda. Asked would she go, she hesitated before saying: “I’ll go, but it might not be today.”

On her second pint of Heineken, she said Good Friday was “gone too quiet. The people used to put white cloths out over the altar for all the Passion. There’s nothing like that any more.”

Bar manager Declan Carmon said: “A Dart or Luas ticket is not enough [to be served]. I think the cheapest ticket you can get is €15 to Drogheda.”

Jacqueline Crenin, a young woman from Sligo, was reading and drinking West Coast Cooler.

“It’s desperate all these people in here drinking just to drink on Good Friday. I suppose, though, it’s a bank holiday weekend and people are off work.”

Also off to Sligo were Fergus Hughes and his brother Robert, Eoin Kelly and Alan Horan. Each had a pint of Guinness and a vodka and coke. They said the ban on alcohol was “useless”.

“It’s one religion’s take on a day,” said Kelly. “Why should it rule how a society lives? Catholicism is becoming less and less important.

“If people don’t want to drink on Good Friday, they don’t have to. If pubs don’t want to open, they don’t have to, but it should be a free choice.”

Drew Cluely from Pennsylvania, who was waiting for a train to Belfast and drinking Guinness, had only heard of the Good Friday drinking ban on Thursday.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see the bar open, as I have an hour to wait. I suppose I could drink coffee, but I drink coffee in the morning.”