For the second year in a row since the lifting of the ban on the sale of alcohol, all three pubs in the village of Drumconrath, Co Meath, remained closed on Good Friday.

“Publicans get two days off in the whole year – just two – so we decided to keep that holiday as well as keeping up the tradition and having a bit of respect for our religion,” said one publican Dermot Muldoon.

“Last year we got a lot of support from our customers – the majority of whom would observe fasting on the day and stay off the drink anyway.”

Pauline Fay, of Fay’s Bar, added the day enables publicans to completely switch off and spend time with family. Ms Fay intends to spend the day with her daughter, Claire, and go for a drive, do some shopping and then go to the Good Friday services.

She said there is a lot of respect from customers for her position, and that nobody passed any remark on the bar staying closed this year.

“The way Ireland is going, a lot of wrong decisions have been made in the last number of years – serious bad decisions. We are not going to go with this one,” she said. “It was a very disappointing decision when there are so many other important things. If the Government ran the country like we run our pubs, this would be a brilliant country to live in.”