11th July 2002
One of my husband's cousins was a wild goose. She went off to France in the early 70s to check out what was then the E.E.C. for the rest of us. She liked it so much that she married a Parisian and now lives outside Paris. It has been a handy place to stay when driving almost anywhere on the continent so the French cousins have seen much of their Irish relatives.
When the invitation came to go to the cousin's daughter's wedding we all felt it was our duty to go en masse, not to mind the fact that we reckoned it would be a very good party.
And a good party it was indeed. We assembled at the local church at four o'clock, the civil marriage having taken place that morning with just the bride's and groom's families in attendance. After the church service we took over the little square in front of the church for about half an hour with no one lurching into pubs, and then off back to the bride's family home for dinner.
As one would expect in France the food was delicious and the wine excellent and champagne was served at all the right moments. There were speeches, cabaret acts including one son acting as a magician, can-can dancers (anyone could join in - I refrained and some others would have been wise to do the same), fire eaters, horn blowers and so on until the dancing started at about one o'clock. I sang "The Wild Colonial Boy" for about ten people at the table at which I was seated. They clapped but did not ask for an encore even though I was ready to get going with all seventeen verses of "Paddy McGinty's Goat"!
We went back to our hotel at about 2.30 am and the party was still rocking the little village. Wisely all neighbours seemed to have been asked to the festivities so noise was not a problem. The band stopped at 5.00 am I was told the next day and everyone had gone by 6 o'clock.
I did not see one drunk person during the entire celebrations. "What," said someone to me when I got home and told her about the party, "not even one of the Irish revellers?" No, not even one of our own.
It was one of the wildest weddings I have been at for years yet the consumption of alcohol seemed to be under control. This would be hard to say about an Irish wedding.
There are more and more reports in the papers about the incredible increase in the consumption of alcohol in this country. If we are not top of the league in drinking spirits within the EU one can be sure we are for beer. And the most unfortunate thing is that our increased consumption does not seem to be making us any happier. It really does seem to be a case of "drowning our sorrows".
I had thought that when the opening hours were more relaxed there would be less frantic "drinking up" in pubs and we might become a little more like continentals, but this has not happened. Instead, and I know because I live in the city, people seem to fall out of pubs at any hour and into fast-food outlets and I don't know whether it is the drink or the food but the combination leads to pools of vomit all over Leeson Street and Baggot Street. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a closing time for Abrekebabra, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger Macs, et al because the combination of food with an excess of drink, taken late at night, is making walking in the city a grim experience.
Repeatedly doctors like Joe Barry in Public Health, psychiatrists like John Connolly and others, and Mary Holohan of the Sexual Assault Unit in the Rotunda warn us of what an excessive consumption of alcohol is doing to our society. We have problems with drink driving, with accidents in the home and at work and with domestic violence where alcohol has been implicated, too. But we don't seem to be really serious about tackling the issue of alcohol. When we speak about the drug culture or problem we certainly do not include alcohol.
Our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, seemed to be opening pubs once or twice a week all last year and photographs of him in the papers with large pints in his hand were frequent. Because many politicians hold their clinics in pubs they are naturally beholden to the publican but should these premises be seen as the centre of life in Ireland? There are publicans I know who say they are seriously worried by the increased consumption of alcohol by young people in particular and young women even more than young men.
Some time ago I read a letter in the Irish Times by a man who had watched the early World Cup games in cafés in Italy and he contrasted this with the experience of watching the later games in pubs in Ireland when he returned where, at the end of the match, people fell out of the pub lifeless. And now the FAI wants everyone to go to pubs to watch Sky Sport if they are to see big soccer games live! It is amazing.
Is it the weather that has made us so mad for drink? Having the money to spend on it has been important, of course, but could someone tell me if we have some deep national sorrow we are trying to assuage. I had never thought of the French as a particularly jolly nation but I can tell you they were mad with joy the night of the wedding and we managed to be mad with joy, too, without drink for a change.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
