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The staff and owners of Paddy Macs and Jack Macs Pub taking part in the #Supportnotsympathy campaign on Saturday. From left; William McCarthy, Aria and Patrick McCarthy Jnr, Millie and Johnny McCarthy, Tommy McCarthy, Patrick McCarthy and Paul O’Sullivan with his two children. In front is Holly, Evie, Louis and Ella Mai McCarthy.
SATURDAY saw publicans all over the country take part in the ‘Support not Sympathy’ campaign, to voice their frustrations with the lack of Government support for ‘wet pubs’ which have now been closed since March 15.
The five month shutdown of more than 3,500 of the country’s pubs has affected over 25,000 people and the grassroots campaign, which was supported by the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) and the Licensed Vintners Association (LVA), saw pubs from every county in Ireland take to social media.
Thousands of photos were posted across social media on Saturday under the #SupportNotSympathy campaign, targeted at national and local politicians.
Two such pubs in Tralee taking part were Paddy Macs on The Mall and Jack Macs around the corner on Ashe Street, both owned by the McCarthy family.
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Because of space restrictions, it wouldn’t be feasible to open and serve food, so they are in limbo waiting to see what supports the Government can offer, especially if they are deprived of the chance to reopen on August 31.
“The staff are without jobs, the pub is without income and there is no plan from the Government,” said Patrick McCarthy.
“We have ongoing costs and we have no idea when we will be open. My three sons work in the businesses, there’s mortgages to pay and they have small kids. We need to know what’s happening,” said Patrick.
Patrick understands that going back to regular pub opening hours won’t be possible at the moment, but they are hoping that they will be given the chance to earn a living safely.
“Even if they left us open until 11pm like the restaurants. We understand we can’t be open until 12.30am on weekends, but we’re willing to compromise. We’re also missing a lot of our daytime trade in Paddy Macs. Because of where we are on the main street, the older generation would come in for a pint and read the paper. They don’t want something to eat, so they have nowhere to go now. We just want a chance to show we can operate safely.”
“We would hope that the Government will allow us to open but they’ll have to compensate us if we can’t, as we were forced to close in March. There’s no concrete plan there yet,” he said.
With cases rising and the schools about to reopen in two weeks, publicans are hopeful rather than optimistic that they’ll be back in business on August 31. They won’t have too much longer to wait and find out.
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