O'Canada

The authors, have noticed some amusing differences in exit signs, between Ireland and Canada.

An exit sign, typically found in buildings in Ireland (note this isn’t necessarily an emergency exit sign!) is shown left. It stirs up a sense of urgency, and conveys a “run for your life” type of message. You’d better hightail it out of here, don’t even think of strolling or ambling, exit and exit fast, mate!

In contrast, the Canadian exit sign (shown right) is a whole lot less alarmist!

Exit sign in Ireland

Exit sign, Canadian style.

In Ireland, if you need to go to relieve yourself, and were in a restaurant or pub etc., you’d ask where the “toilets” are. If you were feeling the need to be posh, you might say “bathrooms”, but you’d not say “washrooms”.  If you were at home, with people you know well, you might speak in terms of “the loo”.

In Canada, everyone talks about “washrooms”, that’s the common lingo at home and while out. I guess there is a preference to focus on the washing that goes on, while you are engaged in your personal business, rather than the other aspect of it. And fair enough, seems discreet, reserved, and inoffensive, and perhaps, rather Canadian.

This certainly merited a photograph, we thought. It's taken in Portmagee, a beautiful village on the Ring of Kerry. And they have such fine public toilets, that they won an award.		If you gotta go, look for this kind of sign in Canada.
While Portmagee, won an award for best public toilets, Bar Pinxto, a tapas bar in the Temple Bar area in Dublin, might deserve at least a notable mention, for its toilets.

Purchasing alcohol looks quite a bit different in Ireland and Canada, with Quebec being a bit of an exception, and closer to the Irish way of doing things.

In Ireland, you can purchase alcohol very easily and in many places. That’s not to say they don’t ask for ID in these places; they do. Also a Canadian visitor friend of mine, who wanted to buy some whiskey to take home, noted that you can’t purchase any alcohol in stores before 11 a.m. – seems reasonable enough! But in Ireland if you want to buy alcohol you can go to a supermarket, a local grocery store, or an off-license. Off-licenses sell alcohol only, a bit like the LCBO in Canada, except they are not government owned, but rather private enterprises. Sometimes off-licenses are stand-alone affairs, and other times they are attached to a pub, as shown in the picture below, or may form part of a store.

In Canada, the sale of alcohol is closely regulated, and (except for Quebec) it can only be sold in a few locations. In Ontario this is called the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), a crown corporation, and the only other place you can buy alcohol is The Beer Store, a privately owned chain of retail outlets. While the Beer Store is privately owned, the nature of government regulations for the sale of alcohol, means that the Beer Store commands a near-monopoly on the sale of beer in Ontario. In other provinces there is a similar set up, though because each province has it’s own control board, the names differ. The only exception to this tends to be retail establishments owned by wineries, where they have a license to sell their own labels.

So in Canada, you’ve got to be organised, when you need alcohol. You can’t just decide on a statutory holiday, that you’d like a bottle of wine, or very late on a Sunday evening, ’cause the LCBO and Beer Store type of establishments are going to be closed. Also depending where you live, you may have to walk a bit. In contrast, in Ireland, the grocery store type affair stays open late, and some supermarkets, e.g. Tesco, are open all night, in some locations. Also given the range of options for purchasing, a drop of the hard stuff, is never far away.

A A pub called “The Malt House” in Dublin with off-license attached. This is quite a common site in Ireland.	The Liquor Control Board of Ontario regulates the sale of alcohol in Ontario and the LCBO is the only place where you can buy all types of alcohol. Similar regulatory boards exist in other provinces.
Here you can see wine for sale in a Spar, a common chain of grocery stores in Ireland.	The Beer Store, also government regulated in Ontario, sells beer from all over the world, as well as stocking many varieties from Canadian microbreweries.	When you enter a beer store in Canada, this is typically what you'll see. The actual beer itself, isn't on shelves, but the brands available are clearly viewable. You then ask for what you want, and it gets retrieved from a back storage room.