The homepage of the Licensed Vintners Association’s website has a clock marking the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the government first shut down the pubs on March 15 due to the coronavirus. The tally is 325 days and counting.  There are around 7,000 pubs in Ireland. Some (around one in three in Dublin) have not reopened since the first wave of pandemic restrictions.  Others may not survive the current lockdown. For many struggling publicans the last year has been a living purgatory of government wage supports, landlord negotiations and debt restructuring arrangements with their banks. With public attention increasingly…

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