Amid all the justified concern about the abuse of alcohol and the terrible toll exacted by drunken drivers, it is easy to forget how much the warmth and conviviality of the Irish pub can enhance the quality of life. Especially in rural Ireland, and especially for those who live in isolation, a few drinks in a friendly environment can help to stave off loneliness and depression.
In contrast to the big factory-style bars that dominate some city suburbs, many family-run pubs retain a personal scale in which the flow of conversation, banter and music can be as free as the flow of drink. The pub may have too prominent a place in our communities, but it can still be a rich thread in the fabric of rural life.
Preserving these social benefits, while ending the fatal tolerance for drink-driving, is a hard balance to achieve. The proposal this week by Minister for Community, Gaeltacht and Rural Affairs Eamon O'Cuiv to extend the rural transport initiative to cater for late-night travellers (and thus for those heading home from the pub) makes sense. It would make even more sense, however, if it were not so obviously shaped by the imminence of a general election and if it addressed the wider context of social life in rural Ireland.
Anxiety about the threatened closure of rural pubs would be more convincing if it were matched by a similar concern for the closure of another, equally important, centre of social life: the post office. Last year, post offices, most of them in rural villages, were closing down at the rate of one a week. The rate of closure may well accelerate this year when the contract for the delivery of social welfare payments goes out to tender, potentially depriving many small sub-post offices of their primary source of income. Rural postmasters must wonder why they lack the political clout of rural publicans.
The underlying issue in all of this is social isolation, and it cannot be addressed simply by providing transport to and from pubs. It raises questions about planning policies which continue to favour one-off housing over the development of villages.
Addressing it demands a much more coherent approach to social services for the elderly in rural Ireland and an extension, not just of the hours, but also of the extent of the rural transport initiative, which remains skeletal and somewhat patchy.
The best rural pubs are valuable precisely because they are a vibrant part of the communities they serve but they won't last unless those communities are equally vibrant. Getting home from the pub will be a less urgent problem when there are fewer things to drive people to drink.