Irish pub owners are celebrating after a 90-year-old ban on the sale of alcohol on religious holidays was lifted.

The ruling means that pubs in the country can serve alcohol on Good Friday for the first time in almost a century.

The law, entitled the intoxicating liquor bill 2017, was unanimously supported as it passed the Dail - the Irish parliament. It will now be enacted in time for Good Friday 2018, which falls on March 30.

“It is a very significant change,” said Gillian Daly, of the Licensed Vintners Association in Dublin.

“Easter is a big weekend with tourists flocking to Ireland, and a lot of them show up for the world-famous Irish pubs and are shocked to find they are not open. It has been a long wait for this.”

Introducing the bill in the Dail, David Stanton, minister for equality, immigration and integration, said overturning the ban on selling alcohol was a sign of “changing demographics and increasing diversity in our population”, which he said had “led to a reduction in traditional religious practice” in the country.

The church and state were once so intertwined in Ireland that there were also bans on divorce and contraception, both now long gone.