Some Irish pubs are keeping up with tradition and refusing to open on Good Friday.

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Despite a new law which allows Irish pubs to open and serve alcohol on Good Friday, some Irish pubs are not having any of it.

The law recently signed into action by President Michael D. Higgins will allow publicans to open and serve alcohol on Good Friday (March 30, 2018) for the first time in 91 years.

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However, owners in some Irish towns have declared that they will remain closed to honor the long-term Irish tradition, which has been in place since 1927 to observe a traditional day of fast and abstinence.

In Drumconrath, County Meath, three local pub owners have joined forces to keep the Good Friday tradition intact.

Dermot Muldoon, Pauline Fay, and Pat Dempsey have all declared they will closing up shop as usual come March 30th.

“Publicans get two days off in the whole year – just two – so we decided to keep that holiday as well as keeping up the tradition and having a bit of respect for our religion,” Muldoon told The Catholic Herald.

“We’ve received a load of support from our customers; after all it’s only one day,” he added. “We were known for closing on Good Friday throughout the world – it was something different about Ireland, and now that’s gone. Slowly, all the Irish traditions are being stripped.”

Pauline Fay of Fay’s Bar added that she will be following suit in order to spend the day with her family.

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“Quality of life has no price. I always spent the day with my children and continue to do so," she told the Irish Independent.

Meath publicans are not alone either. Several pub owners in Newmarket, County Cork, have also vowed to remain shut.

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Mother of nine Joan Hourigan has worked in Hourigan's for over half a century, but never worked any of the fifty past Good Fridays has stated that it is a tradition she wants to "maintain" and "cherish".

With five of her children involved in the family business, it is one of two days a year (along with Christmas Day) that they can spend together, she told the Irish Times.