Irish Smoking Ban Good for Lungs ... of Instruments

The air isn’t the only thing that’s cleaner in Ireland’s pubs these days. Since the country stubbed out pub smoking in 2004, musicians have been getting clearer sounds out of traditional Irish instruments. It’s a lot easier to keep clean bellows-driven devices such as accordions and bagpipes, the AFP reports, when they aren’t guzzling smoke.

Doctors writing for the British Medical Journal surveyed six of the country’s seven accordion-cleaning experts, who unanimously agreed that instrument interiors look cleaner now than before the ban, when soot-like dirt was prominent enough to affect reed pitch. The doctors say the findings prove the ban has been “music to the ears of the people of Ireland.” (More smoking ban stories.)