The Irish pub that stopped selling whiskey and devoted …

Since the first lockdown by the pandemic in March 2020, Irish pub Tara Na Ri has closed and plus a drop of alcohol served. But a new clientele of regular customers has formed. Very different, of course: from swans to foxes. And it became like that in the country’s first wildlife veterinary clinic.

Behind the shutters of this pub in Navan (north-eastern Ireland), the beer dispensers are silent and the main room is deserted. But neighboring rooms are home to a bustling activity: Liam, a two-week-old wild goat receives milk from a bottle, while swans set up their nests in old barns, a fearful fox creates an enclosure, and a volunteer tends to ‘a big eyed hawk.

From Friday, the old beverage cellar became, thanks to the Irish Wildlife Rehabilitation Association (WRI), in the country’s first veterinary clinic dealing with creatures of all sizes and species, regardless of their problem.

“We were used to a certain way of life,” James McCarthy, whose family has owned the pub for more than 10 years, told AFP. “When he was taken from us, we found a void and it took a long time to fill it, in a way we never thought possible.

“We are preparing for the orphan season, which is our busiest time of the year,” says animal manager Dan Donoher, trying to calm a fluttering pigeon on an examination table. “We will have lots of chicks and foxes, which will keep us busy for the next six months.”

In Irish culture, pubs occupy a central place in social life, where important events are celebrated and solidarity between neighbors is created.

In remote rural areas, their role is even more important and the closure of the Tara Na Ri was a blow to the local community, already shaken by the radical changes induced by confinement.

But according to Aoife McPartlin, head of the education section at WRI, the new veterinary clinic has already succeeded in replacing the pub in the hearts of some customers, who gave their time to repair the auxiliary premises.

“We received them, they welcomed us,” he says of the residents, who spared no effort or time to renovate the premises.

Wildlife awareness

Ireland, which has so far recorded more than 4000 deaths from covid-19, is currently in the midst of its third lockdown, set to stop the explosion of cases that arise after a loosening of local restrictions before Christmas.

SAlthough the country went through the first two waves of the pandemic with relatively few cases and deaths, it now has the highest per capita infection rate in the world.

It is because of this “tsunami of infections”, as Prime Minister Micheal Martin has described it, that 45% of deaths in the country from the coronavirus have occurred since the start of 2021.

Since the start of the year, schools, non-essential stores, pubs, restaurants, gymnasiums and cinemas have been closed and citizens are urged to stay indoors except for exercise in a limited scope.

A situation which for Aoife McPartlin has its advantage since with the spectacular increase in the number of people who spend time in nature, the number of injured or abandoned animals found by walkers and then brought to treatment has exploded.

“Nature saved many people during the pandemic,” he says. “They are more aware of wildlife and its existence, and our coexistence.”

Source: AFP