Some regret at decline in demand for a drop of the `craythur'

Perhaps it is greater affluence. Perhaps it is the effect of education. Either way, a demand for a drop of the "craythur" appears to have dropped this Christmas, with no recorded raids on poitin stills in Connemara.

While gardai in Co Donegal uncovered 20 gallons of the distilled drink near Buncrana last week, the illicit activity appears to have almost died out altogether further south. The Galway County Coroner, Dr Ciaran MacLoughlin, has also noticed a change. He told The Irish Times that there had been no inquest verdicts of death caused by consumption of the drink in his area during 1998 - the first time in many years.

"We have had cases of death associated with legal alcohol, of course, but it would appear that improved education and improved economics is having its effect on poitin consumption," Dr MacLoughlin said. However, Mr Tommie Mac Donnchada, a former labourer from Leitir Moir, Connemara, maintains that there are a lot of misconceptions about poitin, and expresses regret about the loss of a tradition.

Mr Mac Donnchada, who says he quit drinking 16 years ago, told The Irish Times that it had been a valuable source of income for families coming up to Christmas, and had many medicinal qualities.

"They talk about it being toxic, but proper poitin could cure cattle, and it saved many lives during the big 'flu of 1919," Mr Mac Donnchada said. "We never hear reports in papers of people dying of whiskey or brandy poisoning, because people always assume that a death from drink is automatically associated with poitin.

"But there is a double standard here. The distilleries have a licence and pay tax, and once you have both of those it seems it doesn't matter who dies. It was the British who banished poitin. I am in favour of upholding the law, but not Cromwell's law."

Mr Mac Donnchada, who also expresses his views on a Raidio na Gaeltachta documentary on the subject today, said that the fear instilled by priests and "the missions" in Connemara in the 1920s about poitin was still with old people. "You'd be in greater danger of dying from a belt of the cross that the mission preacher used to fire down into the congregation as he ranted on," Mr Mac Donnchada added. "It's a wonder someone wasn't killed."

Ms Maggie Ni Chualain, producer of the RnaG documentary, said that her family had made poitin in the islands area of Connemara. "I think the problem arose when amateurs began making it in the 1970s. There was a skill involved in the distilling of barley, wheat, sugar and yeast, and it did provide a badly-needed income at a hard time of year."

Legalisation of the practice is unlikely to make much difference, however, if the one recent venture is anything to go by. Disappointing sales of the legal Hackler Poitin, manufactured at the Cooley Distillery in Co Louth and initially launched with great excitement by United Distillers, were reported last summer.

However, Bunratty Mead Liqueur Company, a cottage industry which makes legal Bunratty Potcheen, is still in business after almost 10 years. But then it is based near that well-known Co Clare tourist trap.

Maggie Ni Chualain's programme, Tus an Phota, is on RnaG at 10 a.m. today.