Scottish worse for drink culture than us?

If the Simpsons has taught us nothing else, its that the Irish are all alcoholics.

So to answer your question, NO.

from talking to scottish friends the irish drink more but spread it over a few hours instead of in scotland where they seem to drink as much as they can in so called "happy" hours where spirits and pints can be as little as £2 each

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Irish people do like a tipple alright, but Scotland, and most of England tbh has a worse drink culture than us. On many visits over yonder, I've noticed people there start drinking a lot earlier than Irish people.

Thats because the pubs and clubs close much earlier isn't it though (in London the pubs kick you out at 11.30)? Thats definitely the case in England anyway, not sure about Scotland.

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

you can legally drink on the street in scotland as far as a I know.

From my experience Tralee is very similar. Lads drinking cans while the guards peer on. However down there at the minute is not the nicest place in the world.

Sounds like a challenge to me.

I've spent a bit of time over there.
They're similar enough to us.

Except they have the magical hangover curing properties of Iron Bru.. (Ir'n Brú) more readily available to them.

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

you can legally drink on the street in scotland as far as a I know.

Drinking on the street was banned a good while ago.

I'd say the Irish drink more than us, we have to leave some room for heroin and shortbread....

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Ah but the Irish don't get so pissed that we paint our faces half blue.

No just some sort of a vomit green.

We always were known as the alcos of the world and I don't see that changing. The french used to have far more alcohol problems but they managed to turn that round over 20 years or so but to the life of me I can't work out how they did it, you still see them having a bottle of wine at lunch and dinner.

I was listening to Marian Finucane about a year ago and some expert was on saying that there is awful lot of noise about young people going out drinking loads of shots and puking their guts up but on the whole most will grow out of it. The real danger is the middle class 'alcoholics' who may put away a bottle of wine between two every night and have 3 or 4 bottles over the weekend. They will keep doing it until they find out their health is suffering as they don't see this as binge drinking or even social drinking.

The Irish are pretty civilised in the grand scheme of things IMO, and I say that as someone who lives in Dublin on Parnell street, works in clubs, goes out most weekends, walk up and down O'Connell street most nights..

There's a big gap between the breathless reports of a booze-ridden savagery and carnage on the streets that you'd read in the papers and the actual facts on the ground... Sure people drink, people get drunk, occasionally pee or throw up somewhere but you'll have a very hard time finding a city where that isn't the case IMO

The main problem with Ireland (well, I can only speak for Dublin here) is that we close everything inordinately early, and kick everyone out on the street at the same time with less than half an hour to spare before the last public transport, at which time people are completely dependent on Taxis which are in very short supply, so they end up being stuck in town wandering around cold and drunk; it's a complete recipe for disaster and it beggars belief how it's allowed to continue considering the amount of extra pressure it puts on emergency services, the Gardai (who by and large do a great job) and the casualty departments.

Of course it also contributes to a more serious culture of after-party drinking, with noise disturbing neighbours (irish building codes allowed the Celtic Tiger construction boom to not bother actually putting reasonable sound proofing between houses sold off or rented to young childless couples), and of course the fact that house parties tend to be far more anarchic affairs where drug use can take place openly...

Any fool should be able to see that extending the opening hours by another two hours with a ban on alcoholic beverage sales in the latter of the two hours would result in people leaving more gradually, putting less pressure on public transport, crowding the after hours eating establishments less, causing less hassle to pissed off neighbours, less aggrivation, a decline in after-party drug use (the sort of after parties that killed all those young people in Waterford who took that contaminated cocaine and the sort that killed Katy French...), not to mention giving Ireland the capacity to compete with other capital cities for a better class of cultural tourism than Temple bar gets with it's stag and hen nights...

But that would be far too sensible for an Irish government.

orourkeda wrote: »

Glasgow is worse than anything in Ireland by far.

On the whole I would Ireland is probably worse. Glasgow is a toilet pot.

If we're talking Ireland on the whole, all I can really speak with authority about is Carlow; granted it's a few years since I was there last, but by God I've never in my whole life seen as much street violence and aggro after closing time down there... It's unreal, mass streetfights, women bating each other with their heels...

I only talk about what i know though!