It can be frustratingly difficult to learn basic facts about the sale
of alcoholic beverages.  May I ask for help about the end of Sunday
Closing in Scotland and Ireland (both Northern Ireland and the Irish
Republic)?  In Scotland local authorities obtained the right to allow
the sale of alcoholic drink on Sundays in the 1970s.  I assume that
today Sunday Closing has disappeared entirely in Scotland.  Does
anybody have the date?  What about Sunday Closing in Ireland where in
the late nineteenth century it existed outside the major cities?  I
assume that it has disappeared in the Irish Republic.  Date?  I am
less certain about Northern Ireland.

Sunday Closing for alcoholic drink was mostly a consequence of
sabbatarianism, and sabbatarianism has virtually disappeared.  Growing
up in New York State in the late 1940s, I recall that it then was
difficult to buy an innocuous bottle of milk on Sunday and on holidays
such as today's (Memorial Day).  All the big stores were closed,
whether by law or custom.

David M. Fahey