'The Oirish'

It’s a typical night in a student bar. You see an Irish student slumped over his beer, which clearly wasn’t his first, or first dozen. Typical, right? What does Ireland bring to mind: Wilde or Walton? Heaney or Joyce? C.S. Lewis or W.B. Yeats? “Well,” answers a Masters-level student at UBC, “it means they can drink, right?”

It’s a popular stereotype, known from Auckland to Alberta to Azerbaijan. The Irish drink harder, better and faster than any other ‘race’, or so the story goes, which can be lauded or denigrated as a national trait. In student newspapers, recent articles have attacked the appearance of “the Irish” during the summer months, who cause damage and offence with their drunken debauchery. “The Irish” are destroying our culture, so avoid or reform them. Of course, keeping to national stereotypes, rather than digging any deeper, simplifies responses. We’re left with hackneyed solutions, and easy column inches.

Does that mean we should attempt to forget such stereotypes entirely? I think not. For one, worrying about shibboleths misses the true malaise. Whatever our national identity, why do we all abuse alcohol? After the end of the Cold War, three million Russians are estimated to have drunk themselves into an early grave. Of course, not all cases are so extreme, but the Lancet estimates that alcohol is the primary contributor to 4% of global deaths. It’s easy to say that someone is a heavy drinker because they’re Irish, or in a fraternity, or play a specific sport; but it turns out most of us are at it. These statistics only consider the increased death rate of abusing alcohol, before the additional strain on medical services, social damage, policing costs, etc.

The alternative response would be to negate the stereotype entirely, i.e. “it’s all a myth, the Irish don’t really drink more”. Unfortunately, as much as I wish that were the case, it’s not. There are different ways to measure alcohol consumption, but by the WHO’s preferred methodology, Luxembourg comes top. It’s largely an anomaly, with the position attributable to Belgian and French shoppers crossing the border for some of the EU’s cheapest booze. With this case excluded, who’s king of the drinking hill? Ireland. My homeland drinks more, binges more, and experiences more alcohol-related diseases than any other major country. I find this something to be dismayed rather than celebrated, but the facts remain.

So what can you do? Consider the prism through which you see the world, whether you choose to divide by height, sporting affiliation, or the words stamped on a passport. The next time you see a Russian or Irish student drinking heavily (or any other culture with such a reputation), ask yourself why that might be. Perhaps they drink because they lack the confidence to socialize sober, or have developed a dependency on alcohol. Arguably even sadder, perhaps they drink because the sociological feedback in the Western world tells them that’s all their culture is good for. Don’t slap him on the back, take him home.