At the end of the premier performance of O'Casey's 'The Plough and the Stars' at the Abbey Theatre, a member of the audience was reported to have stood up and shouted, "Sir, there are no prostitutes in Ireland"
The evidence points to the contrary
The are around Christchurch Cathedral was a notorious red-light district - the street in which Handel's Messiah was premiered was named Copper Alley, after the cure for syphilis

Here in Clare, Tom Lenihan told us that, as a child he was warned to stay away from a local 'haunted house' - known as 'The House of Blazes' - in his innocence, he accepted the description, but a few years ago we were told it was a local 'Knocking Shop' (sited adjacent to a field of 'hungry grass', the location of an unmarked Famine Grave where, as in other such areas in Ireland, it was claimed that if you walked into it you would be stricken with hunger pains)

Not far away, we were shown a ruined house from which two elderly ladies operated a paraffin selling business
They would set of on a flat-backed car pulled by a donkey and visit local farms selling their wares while at the same time 'servicing' the old bachelors in the district.

Just thought I'd put a little flesh onto the bones of this discussion
Jim Carroll