It was a Friday night in 1995 and I was enjoying the craic after work in the Top of Coom, the highest pub in Ireland. Earlier that evening I'd had four pints, and I had just had another four pints. Though I felt merry, I didn't consider myself drunk.

I decided to take a chance on it. Out I go and into the car. The Top of Coom is just over the Cork border in Kerry and around five miles from home. It's downhill all the way to my front door.

I wasn't 300 yards down the road when there, in front of me, was a Garda checkpoint. I was surely caught. This would stop my gallop for sure.

As they stopped me, I rolled down the window.

"How are you, Garda?"

After the pleasantries were dispensed with, they asked had I drink taken. "Well, I had one or two pints," I replied. There didn't seem to be any point in denying it.

Then the inevitable. "Would you mind blowing into this bag?" they asked.

So I blew into the bag and I waited for the verdict, a range of scenarios playing on my mind, none of them pleasant or attractive. Losing my job, explaining to my parents, not having at my disposal my yet-to-be-paid-for car. An appalling vista.

They came back and told me, "That's fine, go on home." Or words to that effect.

That was an offer I couldn't refuse and, slightly shaking but affecting a brave attempt at nonchalance, I thanked them and went on my way.

I was stunned. I couldn't understand how my results showed up negative. The only thing I can think of that helped me beat the system was my size. I was a lot heavier in those days, and I presume my body weight and great metabolism helped my system process (or hide!) the alcohol to such a degree that I had fooled the little sensor in the bag. What a relief. I was fit to drive another day.

But I had also learned a valuable lesson.

I know people who've not been as lucky as I was that night. They'd probably had less to drink when they were caught and banned than I had when I got away with it.

Then I was young, out for a good time and with no responsibilities in life. Now I am a married man with a wife and young family. And there are two cars in the house. We're back living in the vicinity of the Top of Coom and, on occasion, I've had an opportunity to revisit the scene of the drinking.

Last Saturday, I went out to meet up with my brother and sisters and their spouses. It was a family occasion, as earlier that day my niece had been baptised. This was the traditional "wetting the baby's head after the Christening" shindig.

Except I wasn't drinking. Well I wasn't drinking anything alcoholic. Diet Coke all the way.

And, still, the craic was good. We went to one pub, the Hibernian, mentioned in Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Michael Collins as a meeting place for the IRA prior to the fatal ambush of the Big Fellow at Béal na mBlath. The place was full and boisterous and it was late when we decided to travel on to the Abbey, a family-run hotel where we found a session of music and song in full swing.

It was righteous stuff -- even if it wasn't riotous. I stuck to my guns on the Diet Coke and watched and listened as others drank their fill. It was a great night, even if it dragged on a little in the end as stragglers dallied over their last drinks.

In the village's other pub, the rafters were being raised by local wannabes -- and there nary a Jedward to be heard -- in The Mills Inn's Got Talent. By all accounts it, too, was a great session.

All this goes to show that the talk of the death of rural Ireland due to the impending clampdown on drink driving is exaggerated.

Rural pubs are fighting back -- and it's high time that we followed suit, rather than running to Joe Duffy or our local backbench Fianna Fail TD every time someone looks at us sideways and tells us that the times that are in it mean things won't be quite as cushy as they used to be in more prosperous times.

Most of the local pubs have organised some sort of ad hoc bus or taxi service so that their patrons can get home from their hostelries, and many's the Sunday morning I've had to cycle the couple of miles down to the Mills to get the car, left there the previous night.

These days, nights out aren't as frequent as they used to be. Between the cost of the babysitter, the drinks and soft drinks, they have not been a weekly occurrence.

But it's a good thing to get out of the house, and with the extra efforts being made by the pubs, when we do get out we make it worth our while without having to be poured out of the place.

And if, once in a while, you have to do a turn as designated driver, what's the harm? The next pint you sup after that will taste all the better.

Sunday Independent