The pint of plain has had a stay of execution following a climbdown by EU regulators.
The European Commission said yesterday it would allow Ireland and Britain to keep their traditional measurement units like a pint of beer and a pint of milk indefinitely. It will also allow both states to use imperial measures such as miles, yards, feet and inches on the roads although in practice this derogation will not affect the Republic, which made the switch in 2005.
Head of the European Commission representation in Dublin, Martin Territt, said the pint could stay because its continued existence would not affect trade or undermine the single market.
"It's a case of diversity rules," said Mr Territt, who added the Commission did not want to interfere with dearly held traditions.
Since the early 1980s the Commission has waged a campaign to standardise units of measurement in the EU around the metric system to help boost trade. It had proposed forcing both Ireland and Britain to switch from pints to millilitres by 2009, a move that caused concern among traditionalists and some pub owners.
Diageo Ireland, which owns Guinness, said it was pleased with the EU decision to keep the use of the pint and its terminology. "The pint is still iconic with the pub and the pub experience. We have used this term in many of our famous advertising campaigns," said Rhonda Evans, a spokeswoman for Diageo.
Aside from the traditional attachment to the pint in Ireland - perhaps best illustrated by Flann O'Brien's famous line from At Swim-Two-Birds, "A pint of plain is your only man" - hard economics may also have been a factor in the campaign to save the pint. After all a pint measures 568ml and any move to switch to a half-litre measure could have hit the pockets of pub owners across the country.
But the permanent derogation announced for the continued use of miles, yards, feet and inches comes too late for the Republic. The Government completed its switch to kilometres with the introduction of speed limit road signs back in 2005 at significant cost.
But Patrick Farragher, director of Legal Metrology at the National Standards Authority of Ireland, said there is little chance the Government would have retained the imperial system on the roads even if the derogation had been announced earlier.
"We were following a basic government policy to switch to a single measurement system since the late 1960s," he said. "This process was part of Ireland's effort to diversify away from our dependence on the British economy and export to Europe." However, one unfortunate consequence of the decision by the Commission is that Northern Ireland will probably continue to use imperial road measurements for the foreseeable future.