100 Years Later… Ladies Night Would Look Very Different If This Man Had Gotten His Way

Ladies night. Getting the girls together and heading for a Friday night catch up in the local, enjoying a glass of wine or two and swapping the stories of your week.

It’s a simple pleasure, but one that might never have been afforded to you had a certain Mr. Drury had his way one hundred years ago…

This newspaper excerpt appeared today on the @Limerick1913 account on Twitter. As the bio explains, the account is part of a local history project tracking what life was like in Limerick 100 years ago, updated by the Limerick City Library Local Studies Team.

The full text reads: 

Mr. Drury said the state of things in Dublin with regard to the drinking habits of women was dreadful. He wished the law would make it a criminal offence to supply drink to women in publichouses by themselves. He thought the majority charged in that court with drunkenness were women who were rearing the rising generation. It was his experience from cases between husbands and wives that what happened was that two or three women, when they got their husbands wages, went from publichouse to publichouse, and drank every shilling, leaving their children starving and their husbands neglected.

Of course it did not become a criminal offence to have a tipple with the girls, no thanks to Mr. Drury. If you’re headed out tonight, we suggest raising a glass to him and his failed efforts. Just make sure you don't leave starving children and a ‘neglected’ husband in your wake…