angelophile | Irish coffee to get back that old tang

THE Irish are breathing a sigh of relief as finally, after hundreds of years, they can adulterate coffee with sheep dung without fear of prosecution.

But burning witches at the stake will definitely be out and it will be illegal to conduct tiger fights in public.

The Irish Republic will abolish thousands of laws dating back to the Norman invasion and earlier.

Only 200 of the thousands of outdated laws written between 1100 and 1800 will be left on the statute books.

Some of the more bizarre laws set for the chop include the 1181 Act banning Jewish people from owning armour, a 1366 Act forbidding English people from marrying Irish people and the 1285 Police Act, which set up a corps of watchmen to arrest suspicious strangers.

Prof Tom Garvin from University College, Dublin, said there was a touch of shrugging off the last vestiges of colonial rule involved in the changes.

"The English tried too make the Irish conform to their way of life," he said.*

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18450138^663,00.html

*When it comes to putting sheep dung in coffee, can you blame them?