Pubs reap rewards of St Paddy's Day

Licensees were celebrating along with their customers on St. Patrick's Day as many pubs recorded bumper takings.

With the day falling on a Saturday and a number of high profile sporting events fuelling punters enthusiasm, publicans said they enjoyed their best St Patrick's Day ever.

The day was marked not just by the celebrations of St Patrick's Day but the final of the Six Nations and the World Cup cricket.

Brian Gallagher, licensee of Brogan's in Fulham, West London, described the day as 'humongous'.

He said: "We were 25 per cent up on last year, and have broken the record from takings.

"The writing was on the wall as it was on Saturday, but we also had the finale of the six-nations Rugby, which was tense. We also had the cricket, which we won, which was the funniest thing of the whole day!

"It was a humongous day for all concerned."

Nancy Mooney, licensee of the Flanagan's Apple in Liverpool, echoed the sentiments, and said it had been "our best ever by far".

She said: "We have so many young Irish students in Liverpool now, that we were through the roof takings-wise. It was our busiest ever St Patrick's Day.

"We had bands on all afternoon, with four bands on and three floors of music throughout the day," she added.

The crowd became so big that Nancy said she was eventually forced to operate a 'one in one out' policy.

She said: "They were queues outside from half past one in the afternoon, and they didn't seem to go down until about one in the morning."