Not your bog-standard Good Friday, oh no...

... but a good Good Friday. A historic Good Friday. The first Good Friday when a fresh pint could legally be procured since 1927! 
No more scenes of panic on the Thursday evening before Good Friday. No more stumbling out of a house party at midnight on Good Friday to go to one of those nightclubs opening at 00.05 on Saturday morning. 
There was real sense of excitement today. The giddiness was palpable on the streets of Dun Laoghaire. I couldn't not go for a pint in Lockies, and see for myself how the old dudes were doing, lashing into their pints of the black stuff for the first time ever on a Good Friday. Even the older member of the congregation. And there are some very very very old ones in Lockies!

I managed to have just the one pint, another miracle on a miraculous day. And a great 20 minute conversation with a kelp specialist. Who gave me the recipe for the genuine Black Velvet. Half bottled Guinness, half Champagne, at room temperature (he was very insistent on that crucial point). I know a few guys in Epernay who would be absolutely horrified to hear of that most Irish of cocktails...