Easter licensing laws in Northern Ireland had become an increasing anomaly and the sensible reforms can now be assessed as to how they work in practice

When dates in the calendar that are different for cultural or religious reasons lose their status, it is often a sad moment.

Few people would want Christmas, for example, to lose its special allure as a popular holiday and become a day of work and commerce. And so it remains a treasured day for family, giving and celebration.

Easter has a different resonance with the public, however.

It is not taken as a holiday by everyone, and for those who do so, some take Good Friday off in the run-up to the weekend, others take Easter Tuesday after it.

Easter is a central date in the Christian calendar, celebrating the resurrection of Christ. This is why the licensing laws were made more restrictive over Easter, which was a time of reflection and rest and church going.

But it is possible still to observe this Christian festival and to recognise that the limits had become increasingly anomalous with the social demands of swathes of the population.

Plenty of people who will attend a service of commemoration on Easter Sunday might still think it reasonable to purchase a drink in a pub after 11pm on Good Friday, which was not permitted until licensing law reforms were introduced in Northern Ireland recently.

Likewise that it is reasonable to buy drinks after midnight on Saturday whether or not you think the following morning represents a holy point in the calendar.

The new licensing laws have ushered in a range of sensible reforms, such as facilitating limited numbers of late night openings, but also and longer drinking up times of up to an hour so that the effects of alcohol have more time to wear off before people are turned on to the streets.

A more radical overhaul of the licensing rules, however, could have led to people in certain areas being disturbed late on a regular basis, or to a facilitation of excess drinking.

Now we will be able to observe how the new reforms work in practice and so better assess their value.