Easter and the religious hijacking of Northern Ireland councils

Easter has never really been a religious thing for me. It seems an odd thought, but Easter to me meant school holidays and a long car journey to see family and play with my cousins in the woods that surrounded my great uncles country house, then it meant days off work and early morning flights to Amsterdam , Dublin or Barcelona for field hockey festivals. Now it means days by the beach and lazy afternoon barbeques. Australia has a much more relaxed lifestyle than Ireland , North and South, especially when it comes to religion. Ireland uses religion as an excuse for everything. It doesn’t do to break with tradition, be it Sunday trading, or marching down a road on the 12^th of July dressed in black bowler hats and orange sashes to celebrate a war between an English king and a Dutch Prince in a foreign country. The majority of local councils were dominated by religious traditionalists who made sure council facilities were closed on the Sabbath, meaning Muslims were unable to go for a swim or use a library on a Sunday, when it wasn’t their holy day. They took it to court, but tradition won that day. It almost won again when religious nuts barricaded shops who tried to open on a Sunday. My parent’s local supermarket opens 24 hours a day, apart from Sunday when it is open (grudgingly) from 1 – 6pm. The high court cleared nationwide supermarkets and large retails to open on a Sunday, causing a meltdown with local talk radio stations. Northern Ireland is a country stuck in the past. From my point of view it is in great danger of becoming irrelevant and falling behind its European neighbours in tourism and general standard of living. I recently read that my hometown Belfast is one of the hottest venues in Europe for a weekend break. I can’t imagine why.