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ALCOHOL
AND ALCOHOLISM
AMONGST
THE IRISH
IN LONDON
from
‘The Irish in Britain’ by Kevin O’Connor
In 1966, when the Irish formed 3 per cent of the population
of London, a study of London’s ‘Skid Row’
showed that the Irish formed 37% of the sample studied.
And the report of the Council for Social welfare,1970,
was that Catholics in Britain have a higher proportion
of alcoholics than any other religious denomination.
 In the light of the above, it is almost facile to suggest
that any discussion of alcoholism and the Irish should
proceed from the acknowledgment that alcoholic drink
permeates all levels of Irish life. Yet it is a premise
from which to proceed, .for it explains the failure
to contain the problem, and the reluctance to tackle
a ruinous disease. The fact is that alcohol is enshrined
in Irish life, and has been for centuries. In rhyme,
song and story, drink has become something of a sanctified
Irish institution, by turns cursed and praised but
never ignored:
Be you Cook’s son, Earl’s son or Duke’s
son
Not one penny goes past the tombstone’s brink
So join the chorus, we’ve life before us
When we put our true trust in drink
from the Gaelic of ‘Preab san Ol’ (Trust in Drink) by Brendan Behan
It is tempting, as in so many other areas of Irish life,
for Irishmen to blame the English for the national
weakness for alcohol. History is rife with such comforting
evidence and the case is easy to construct. One could
begin with the fact that alcoholic drink was thought
of as a reliever of stress and of untenable situations,
and proceed to demonstrate that the vicissitudes of
Anglo-Irish history reduced the Irish psyche to a state
of stress lasting for centuries.
One could show that the essential psychological attractions
of drink, the sense of escapism and hazy well being,
are particularly relevant to a people born and living
with a sense of inherited dispossession. One could
thus so easily place the burden of moral culpability
elsewhere and yet be left with the problem and the
overriding evidence that from within the Irish community
little effort has been made to contain it.
>Indeed, membership of the Irish community is to be statistically
more prone to becoming part of the problem . As a London
conference of alcoholism was told in 1970: "In
Alcoholics Anonymous they say you don’t have to
be Irish or Catholic but it gives you a head start".
The speaker, an Irish social worker (and former alcoholic),
declared that 25% of the treatment beds maintained
by the Salvation Army in London were occupied by Irish
vagrants, yet the total number of such beds attributable
to Irish Catholic agencies was minute.
In other areas of rehabilitation and after care concern
for alcoholics, the proportion of Irish candidates
is similarly high, while the Irish share of help is
dramatically low. Undoubtedly the disparity is due
to the peculiar position of drink in the Irish ethos,
and the attendant intricate attitudes towards those
who become addicted. Generally, there is a marked reluctance
to face the reality of addiction: the word ‘alcoholic’
being regarded as an impolite noun in many levels of
Irish society.
Rather there exists a gamut of euphemisms which cushion
the medical reality. Phrases such as: ‘He has
a liking for the hard stuff’ are used to describe
what is most often a condition of whisky addiction.
Or, ‘he has a weakness for the drop’ may
sentimentally cloak the distress of a friend or colleague
who cannot see the day through without a substantial
intake of alcohol. Indeed addiction sometimes takes
on the aura of praise: ‘The good man’s fault’,
a commonplace expression, reflects the inherited sexual
puritanism of the lower-middle classes: the implication
being that indulgence in drink is less culpable than
indulgence in sex..
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