12 Years Ago, This Day, Ireland Enforced First Nation-Wide “Smoke-Free Workplace” Laws

As the close of the Great Saint’s month draws ever-nearer (and we find ourselves smiling widely — at our cousins across the pond — where the luminous but clear dawn of the 29^th very soon will be breaking), and they, just rising there — upon the Emerald Isle. . . let us all acknowlege our debt of gratitude, to the Irish, for being the first country to establish a nation-wide ban on workplace tobacco smoking.

The generational health benefits of that policy almost cannot be overstated.

To be sure, that Irish leadership there, and then — has found most of the western world following suit, here a decade and change later.

So it is, I think, fairly safe to conjecture that — some three decades hence — world health leaders may well look back on that Irish moment, as no less important to human health, globally, than the discovery of the polio vaccine.

. . . .So here’s to our noble selves, for Lord knows. . . there are few like us; and few. . . like us!

Thank you, Ireland — With a quite noticeable twinkle, in my green-hazel eyes, this evening. . . . Goodnight.