St. Patrick's Day and the demon drink

Fuinseog

I hear plans are afoot for the off-licences to open after 12 midday so they can sell less booze.

is this really a solution?

If the city organised some entertainment in the form of a funfair like Dublin does the young ones would go to that. I mean what is there for teenagers to do. watch the parade and then what-go home?
even the 1% in the square,if they are still there come Saturday, said they would organise fun activities.

how much a problem around the city is the boozing on our national day?

biko

If the weather is nice there'll be a lot of bushing down the Arch.
If it's p***ing down pretty much nothing will happen.

It's a bit unfair imo to compare a provincial town of 72.000 souls to the nation's capital of over a million souls.
Dublin will of course always have the biggest show and most activities. Limerick is the city closest in size, this is their day.

jkforde

Fuinseog wrote: »

how much a problem around the city is the boozing on our national day?

you serious? would suggest you go into town on Saturday evening and night and make up your own mind... we've a pathetic and insidious blind spot with alcohol and the 17th is the day where we proudly show off this stupidity to the rest of the world. /rant

the keen edge

biko wrote: »

If the weather is nice there'll be a lot of bushing down the Arch.
If it's p***ing down pretty much nothing will happen.

It's a bit unfair imo to compare a provisional town of 72.000 souls to the nation's capital of over a million souls.
Dublin will of course always have the biggest show and most activities. Limerick is the city closest in size, this is their day.

Galway is not a provisional town thank you very much................







it's a provisional City.:pac:

Fuinseog

biko wrote: »

If the weather is nice there'll be a lot of bushing down the Arch.
If it's p***ing down pretty much nothing will happen.

It's a bit unfair imo to compare a provisional town of 72.000 souls to the nation's capital of over a million souls.
Dublin will of course always have the biggest show and most activities. Limerick is the city closest in size, this is their day.

galway has had funfairs in the past. it would bring more people into the town. macnas sometimes does street entertainment after the parade. the point is that the local politician bitch that young people are drinking. I say provide them with alternatives. you could ban alcohol altogeter but it would not resolve anything.

Fuinseog

the keen edge wrote: »

Galway is not a provisional town thank you very much................







it's a provisional City.:pac:

I thought it was cosmopolitan. at least it has the veneer.

Fuinseog

jkforde wrote: »

you serious? would suggest you go into town on Saturday evening and night and make up your own mind... we've a pathetic and insidious blind spot with alcohol and the 17th is the day where we proudly show off this stupidity to the rest of the world. /rant

ever being to the Oktoberfest?
I started drinking at about 5pm last year and did a pub crawl. i saw nothing out of the ordinary.
is this not about kill joys and people who hate parties?

I believe the shops are actually open on the day, which is odd.

antoobrien

Will it stop/curb drinking - not likely. Does the ban on alcohol sale on good Friday stop people who want to have a drink/party from doing so - obviously not.

It's high time this country stopped trying to be a nanny state and treated people like adults, and make them take responsibility for their own actions.

If a shop/pub sells booze to somebody obviously drunk they should be prosecuted (this is illegal).

If somebody is drunk on the streets they should be charged with public order offenses (take your pick, drunk in public, breach of the peace etc). Make them do community service - street sweeping, area cleanups etc - it's not worth jail time.

edit - doesn't matter what time of the year it is, be it Lá Féile Pádraig, rag week or any day ending in 'y'

BhoscaCapall

Sad times when people will even whinge about drinking on St Patrick's Day.

Rob A. Bank

Fuinseog wrote: »

Is this not about kill joys and people who hate parties?

It is... the sad miserable abstemious puritans are always trying to ruin other people's fun.

I for one will be drowning shamrocks and wearing the green with pride, while singing...

O Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!
No more Saint Patrick's Day we'll keep, his color can't be seen
For there's a cruel law ag'in the Wearin' o' the Green."

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand
And he said, "How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?"
"She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen
For they're hanging men and women there for the Wearin' o' the Green."

"So if the color we must wear be England's cruel red
Let it remind us of the blood that Irishmen have shed
And pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod
But never fear, 'twill take root there, though underfoot 'tis trod.

When laws can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow
And when the leaves in summer-time their color dare not show
Then I will change the color too I wear in my caubeen
But till that day, please God, I'll stick to the Wearin' o' the Green.

Doctor_Socks

This attitude towards alcohol in Galway is becoming ridiculous! People think not selling drink until after 12 will make a difference? Most young people aren't up until that stage anyway! I'm 23 and I struggle to be up before then on a Saturday, nevermind 15-17 year olds!

The only way that underage drinking can be curtailed in this city is to punish the young people drinking! Community service rather then just ringing home to their parents.

howyanow

any one know which offys are opening later?do they expect offys in salthill/bearna/ballybane etc to close to even they are not near where parade will be held,that to me is extreme.its all voluntary for now.its still crazy that you can buy alcohol t 10.30 am and not 10.30 pm imo.

BhoscaCapall

Doctor_Socks wrote: »

This attitude towards alcohol in Galway is becoming ridiculous! People think not selling drink until after 12 will make a difference? Most young people aren't up until that stage anyway! I'm 23 and I struggle to be up before then on a Saturday, nevermind 15-17 year olds!

The only way that underage drinking can be curtailed in this city is to punish the young people drinking! Community service rather then just ringing home to their parents.

Your post was going so well until the second paragraph.

Fuinseog

howyanow wrote: »

any one know which offys are opening later?do they expect offys in salthill/bearna/ballybane etc to close to even they are not near where parade will be held,that to me is extreme.its all voluntary for now.its still crazy that you can buy alcohol t 10.30 am and not 10.30 pm imo.

its also something novel idea. Some dude from the Galway's labour party was on radio one about it yesterday.

I remember the ri ra when a match was on on a Sunday and pubs opened during the holy hour.

apparently the earlier closing times are there to discourage people hanging around too late around offis.

I find it gas that you can buy a bottle of wine at a petrol station but no beer.

RINO87

offies cant open till 12 on patricks day anyhoo, its the same as a sunday.

desaparecidos

Fuinseog wrote: »

...people who hate parties?

Jasus there's nothing more I hate than a bunch of **** having a "party". As if it's their god given right to disturb all those who live in proximity for hours on end.

hoody

http://www.galwaynews.ie/24746-earlier-parade-start-welcomed-retailers

7 of 17 city centre off licence retailers aren't opening until 2pm on Saturday, which is fair enough. People are people though, those that want to drink earlier than that will do so. Agree with the poster who said the existing laws should be upheld - if yer drunk and roaring on the street at 4 in the afternoon, that's a breach of the peace and you should be fined, for example.

Hopefully it'll be a good natured day like any other St Patrick's day I've spent in Galway.

BhoscaCapall

For anyone effect by this fascist bureaucracy, pop into Tesco this week 2 crates of Bulmers/Heineken/Coors Light for €30

Fuinseog

desaparecidos wrote: »

Jasus there's nothing more I hate than a bunch of **** having a "party". As if it's their god given right to disturb all those who live in proximity for hours on end.

make merry in town, sleep in the suburbs. I do not know why we celebrate it. Parick brought christianity and we have moved on to being post christian.

sad that shops are open as usual on our national day.

BhoscaCapall

Fuinseog wrote: »

make merry in town, sleep in the suburbs. I do not know why we celebrate it. Parick brought christianity and we have moved on to being post christian.

sad that shops are open as usual on our national day.

Are you having a laugh... this country has not moved on from being a Catholic state. Even England has only weak claims to being a secular nation, and Ireland is very far behind in that regard.

DRakE

everyone loves a whinge don't they

Doctor_Socks

BhoscaCapall wrote: »

Your post was going so well until the second paragraph.

I'll agree with ya on that, was more of a rant on the second paragraph! Just getting incredibly sick of some of the underage people drinkin in Galway. I don't mind young people drinkin as long as they do it indoors somewhere where they won't shout abuse at people walking past or vandalise things. My parents always let me have a few cans at home when I was younger, it didn't teach me not to abuse alcohol but it did teach me that you don't always have to get sh!tfaced to enjoy alcohol.

Most Friday nights when i'm walking home, not going to say where home is, I get abuse shouted at me from a bunch of young lads about having long hair. Never cared about it that much until two cans came flying towards me from them! Also had a girl try to spit on me at one stage walking to a friends house! Not much I can do about it except ring the guards and they do feck all about it.

On the subject of Paddys day, not much can be done to curtail underage drinking because they see everyone above the legal age tanked all day and of course they're going to replicate it! I was a big hurler when I was younger, never really drank to excess but when days like Paddys Day or Ladies day during the races came along I got hammered so extra community things didn't really help there!

BhoscaCapall

Doctor_Socks wrote: »

I'll agree with ya on that, was more of a rant on the second paragraph! Just getting incredibly sick of some of the underage people drinkin in Galway. I don't mind young people drinkin as long as they do it indoors somewhere where they won't shout abuse at people walking past or vandalise things.

From my experience, most people who do this tend to be "of age".

My parents always let me have a few cans at home when I was younger, it didn't teach me not to abuse alcohol but it did teach me that you don't always have to get sh!tfaced to enjoy alcohol.

Agreed, and same here. But demonising alcohol will only encourage parents to do the opposite of this, and to feck their kids out the house for the day.

My stand out memory of embarrassment for Galway during Paddy's Day was last year, when half the town stood gawping/laughing at a sizeable gang of young ladies from a certain 'community' or 'culture' prancing through town plastered in make-up and wearing what looked like Turkish belly-dancing attire. Most people agreed that with the number of tourists around, this was far more embarrassing than some lad puking his ring up in Eyre Square or whatever.

Most people seem to forget what St Patrick's Day means to most people around the world, Irish or otherwise. Or maybe they just want to forget. I don't think many tourists will visit Galway this weekend and return home saying "golly gosh, it was nice but oh my! The number of drunk people! It absolutely ruined my trip to Ireland for St Patrick's Day!"

mallachyrivers

Doctor_Socks wrote: »

I'll agree with ya on that, was more of a rant on the second paragraph! Just getting incredibly sick of some of the underage people drinkin in Galway. I don't mind young people drinkin as long as they do it indoors somewhere where they won't shout abuse at people walking past or vandalise things. My parents always let me have a few cans at home when I was younger, it didn't teach me not to abuse alcohol but it did teach me that you don't always have to get sh!tfaced to enjoy alcohol.

Most Friday nights when i'm walking home, not going to say where home is, I get abuse shouted at me from a bunch of young lads about having long hair. Never cared about it that much until two cans came flying towards me from them! Also had a girl try to spit on me at one stage walking to a friends house! Not much I can do about it except ring the guards and they do feck all about it.

On the subject of Paddys day, not much can be done to curtail underage drinking because they see everyone above the legal age tanked all day and of course they're going to replicate it! I was a big hurler when I was younger, never really drank to excess but when days like Paddys Day or Ladies day during the races came along I got hammered so extra community things didn't really help there!

Walk home on a different route and you think underage drinking is bad because it affected your hurling career! You gave in to peer pressure, your fault!

Diabhal Beag

Nothing good happens after 5 on shop street. The site of leaflets for some awful cause that were handed out in their thousands during the parade floating about the place like a ghost you have to shoot in Time Crisis. The last remnants of the secondary school students passed out beside ye olde Zhivago with still half a bottle of Buckfast left. The first of the college students (some of you may already be starting to type long posts out just at the thought of students drinking) who will be fighting each other outside Fibbers.

So yeah, enjoy Paddy's Day guys.

ben.schlomo

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Walk home on a different route and you think underage drinking is bad because it affected your hurling career! You gave in to peer pressure, your fault!

Why should he walk home a different way just because these 'junior scum' are out drinking and generally being skangers?

Parents should be held responsible if their little Mary or Johnny are out causing trouble while intoxicated while underage, simple as.

mallachyrivers

ben.schlomo wrote: »

Why should he walk home a different way just because these 'junior scum' are out drinking and generally being skangers?

Parents should be held responsible if their little Mary or Johnny are out causing trouble while intoxicated while underage, simple as.

Maybe he should stand up for himself!

zenno

BhoscaCapall wrote: »

Sad times when people will even whinge about drinking on St Patrick's Day.

The reason for this is because it always ends up with too many people stabbed or assaulted and it's true. paddy's day is just an excuse for people to let go and go mental on the drink, i've been through 30 of them and it's always the same.

mallachyrivers

zenno wrote: »

The reason for this is because it always ends up with too many people stabbed or assaulted and it's true. paddy's day is just an excuse for people to let go and go mental on the drink, i've been through 30 of them and it's always the same.

Whats the point of giving out about it if you have no opinion on how to tackle the 'issue', which i don't really think there is, not the prettiest side to our society, but it is, grow up and deal with it!

zenno

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Whats the point of giving out about it if you have no opinion on how to tackle the 'issue', which i don't really think there is, not the prettiest side to our society, but it is, grow up and deal with it!

lol, i'm grown up enough but my point was in my previous comment as a lot of people don't enjoy it when they see the braindead drunk arseholes stabbing and attacking people all in the so-called happiness of paddy's day.

I will be enjoying myself regardless but i won't be celebrating paddy's day because i think it's a pile of hemorrhoids.

the publicans love it and spew out the spiel to get paddy into the pub and paddy whacked, all really oblivious to what it's all about.

an excuse I did say....

Saint Patrick..

Little is known of Patrick's early life, though it is known that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father and grandfather were deacons in the Christian church in Ireland. At the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave. It is believed he was held somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship and return to Britain. Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest. lol and you are all celebrating this... good luck. A brainwashed nation in relation to a very old person that has no real meaning or helpfulness to Irish society and of which never did.

ben.schlomo

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Maybe he should stand up for himself!

So he should engage on his own with a bunch of young drunks who clearly as stated above are looking for trouble!!! Why shouldn't they just shag off and not bother regular joes?

schween

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Whats the point of giving out about it if you have no opinion on how to tackle the 'issue', which i don't really think there is, not the prettiest side to our society, but it is, grow up and deal with it!

So you don't think that the alcoholism that affects society, which is best shown on Paddy's Day, is a problem? And yet you tell him to grow up and deal with it...

mallachyrivers

schween wrote: »

So you don't think that the alcoholism that affects society, which is best shown on Paddy's Day, is a problem? And yet you tell him to grow up and deal with it...

Paddy's day is not a day that shows alcoholism, most of the people out on Paddys day probably haven't been out since christmas, the people who have a problem with alcohol will be drinking everyday! If people want to gat drunk what can you do? Its not the people who go out once in a blue moon who cost us in the health system or are clogging up our courts!

Doc Ruby

jkforde wrote: »

we proudly show off this stupidity to the rest of the world. /rant

Except a high tens of millions of the rest of the world are doing the exact same thing only harder and louder.

Fuinseog wrote: »

is this not about kill joys and people who hate don't get invited to parties?

Fixed.

I love the way a couple take the opportunity to have a pop at the Irish. People love the Irish and they love Ireland. A majority of US presidents have made it their business to visit our little rock jutting up out of the Atlantic. If you don't like the Irish and Ireland, take a hike and go bother boards.uk or something.

mallachyrivers

ben.schlomo wrote: »

So he should engage on his own with a bunch of young drunks who clearly as stated above are looking for trouble!!! Why shouldn't they just shag off and not bother regular joes?

Maybe he could. Why isn't everything perfect?

Doctor_Socks

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Maybe he should stand up for himself!

Stand up for myself against a bunch of drunken underage people? Now there's a great response, either end up getting a bottle to the back of the head or i've just kicked the crap out of some young lad! Either way I don't come out of the situation in a good light! I'd love to see you put your great plan into action.

As for choosing a different way to walk home, why should I have to walk around? This should be something that the guards handle since the same bunch of youths are drinkin around the same area each week and they're never told to move.

ben.schlomo

mallachyrivers wrote: »

Maybe he could. Why isn't everything perfect?

Great argument alright :rolleyes:

mallachyrivers

Doctor_Socks wrote: »

Stand up for myself against a bunch of drunken underage people? Now there's a great response, either end up getting a bottle to the back of the head or i've just kicked the crap out of some young lad! Either way I don't come out of the situation in a good light! I'd love to see you put your great plan into action.

As for choosing a different way to walk home, why should I have to walk around? This should be something that the guards handle since the same bunch of youths are drinkin around the same area each week and they're never told to move.

Well have you notified them? Walking around seems like the thing to do so, you'll feel an awful lot better if you just avoid it, don't just whinge

BhoscaCapall

zenno wrote: »

The reason for this is because it always ends up with too many people stabbed or assaulted and it's true

People are frequently stabbed on Paddy's day in Galway? News to me.

I do see more violence on the 17th, my friend was headbutted for asking for a smoke once, and I've seen full on bar-room brawls in nightclubs. Funnily enough, both incidents involved members of the particular 'culture/community' I alluded to earlier. Not young people.

zenno wrote: »

paddy's day is just an excuse for people to let go and go mental on the drink

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People's reputation here for going a bit mental on the drink is what attracts millions of euros of tourism, I dare say more than the culinary offerings or even theatres and performing arts. Deal with it.

Sponge Bob

biko wrote: »

If the weather is nice there'll be a lot of bushing down the Arch.
If it's p***ing down pretty much nothing will happen..

Yep. That is exactly what I think every year.

If it is dry and warm expect bodies falling pished into in the Corrib down in Bucky Plaza. Thankfully it looks a bit cool and wet right now so ....no fatalities this year. :cool:

BhoscaCapall

If it's a nice day, I wonder will the council supply extra bins or temporary urinals :rolleyes: or will they just tut to themselves and then moan about litter and urinating.


Or maybe just ban St Patrick's Day. It worked with RAG Week after all :pac:

inisboffin

BhoscaCapall wrote: »

[
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People's reputation here for going a bit mental on the drink is what attracts millions of euros of tourism, I dare say more than the culinary offerings or even theatres and performing arts. Deal with it.

Have to disagree with this. It is our reputation for *fun* (which amazingly enough some people can even do without drink!)
Having a couple of pints, laughing, listening to music, telling stories, sightseeing is why they come here in droves - *social* drinking is not 'going mental'. Manys the tourist has also been put off by public brawling, vomiting, p*ssing, harassment etc - all symptoms of overdoing it or going mental. Frankly I think think the Irish (I'm Irish myself) are comparatively cr*p at handling their drink. Sloppy happens pretty soon for many.

Craic - yes. P*sshead eejits, no thanks.
Unfortunately a good chunk people can't help wandering over that invisible line on a regular basis.

jkforde

BhoscaCapall wrote: »

People's reputation here for going a bit mental on the drink is what attracts millions of euros of tourism, I dare say more than the culinary offerings or even theatres and performing arts. Deal with it.

had a read this a few times... and sadly I'm not surprised but depressingly saddened by it. either the poster is deliberately trying to rise us (trolling?) or they've a sadly limited expectation of life and fun.

as a people we've a blind addiction to alcohol. and like an addict we've cemented in our heads a false link between having fun & getting totally hammered ('having craic', 'having a few') to the level that the above quote is made in all seriousness.. if it's not a troll, it speaks for itself.

but he's right, we do need to deal with it. but not by cowardly denying it and not by deluding ourselves that it's the glorious centre of our culture, the very thing that attracts tourists here... oh, how they love to come visit here to slip and slide in puke, listen to the distant echos of puking down a cobbled lane, wonder at the balanced poise of the fellas as they pissss into the river, perhaps a touch of random vandalism to improve the aesthetics of the town. ah yes, only us Paddys would be proud to sell that as our prime cultural attraction.

ben.schlomo

BhoscaCapall wrote: »

People are frequently stabbed on Paddy's day in Galway? News to me.

I do see more violence on the 17th, my friend was headbutted for asking for a smoke once, and I've seen full on bar-room brawls in nightclubs. Funnily enough, both incidents involved members of the particular 'culture/community' I alluded to earlier. Not young people.


And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People's reputation here for going a bit mental on the drink is what attracts millions of euros of tourism, I dare say more than the culinary offerings or even theatres and performing arts. Deal with it.

The more you post the more i realise its simply for attention. Quite possibly the most mis-informed downright clueless post i think i've ever seen.
And also stop blaming members of what you call that 'particular community' for any violence or trouble that takes place on Paddys Day, personally anything i've ever seen is done by members of 'the Irish community'!!

Doc Ruby

jkforde wrote: »

as a people we've a blind addiction to alcohol

Ahoy laddies, there she blows, the fail whale.

Statistically speaking the Irish used to be below the European average for alcohol consumption (pre 2000), never reached the top spot during the bubble, and are on the way back down again now.

In fact even those statistics are debatable due to differences in what constitutes "leisure activities" is recorded here and in Europe. I certainly saw plenty of lunchtime pints in the UK and France, something you never see here.

I'll thank you to keep your ignorant racist stereotyping to yourself like a good lad, and stop doing a disservice to those millions of Irish people, the vast majority, who either don't drink or drink responsibly. Where are you from yourself, by the way?

celty

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Ahoy laddies, there she blows, the fail whale.

Statistically speaking the Irish used to be below the European average for alcohol consumption (pre 2000), never reached the top spot during the bubble, and are on the way back down again now.

In fact even those statistics are debatable due to differences in what constitutes "leisure activities" is recorded here and in Europe. I certainly saw plenty of lunchtime pints in the UK and France, something you never see here.

I'll thank you to keep your ignorant racist stereotyping to yourself like a good lad, and stop doing a disservice to those millions of Irish people, the vast majority, who either don't drink or drink responsibly. Where are you from yourself, by the way?

That's ridiculous. It is a FACT that Irish people drink way too much, that our AE departments are clogged up every weekend with people who've done stupid things under the influence, and the statistics are staggeringly high when you think that something like 20% don't drink at all.

There is a time bomb here in terms of liver problems, etc.

Go to Spain or somewhere and they know how to party, but they don't feel the need to get blotto out of their minds and their city centres are not scarily full of zombies at 3am or 4am.

Paddy's Day (or night) is an embarrassment because it is so messy, because as JFK above rightly says we don't seem to know how to enjoy ourselves without getting out of our minds.

Doc Ruby

celty wrote: »

That's ridiculous. It is a FACT that Irish people drink way too much, that our AE departments are clogged up every weekend with people who've done stupid things under the influence, and the statistics are staggeringly high when you think that something like 20% don't drink at all.

Bullshit. If you think that putting FACT all in capitals makes it so, you might want to check some actal facts before hanging out your ignorance for the world at large to admire.

Heavy drinking is part of the culture of Northern Europeans in particular.

In the 25-member EU (excluding new additions Romania and Bulgaria), 90 percent of 15- and 16-year-old students have consumed alcohol at some point in their lives, a rate far higher than in the United States, according to the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. On average, they begin to drink at 12½ and get drunk for the first time at 14. Among 15-year-old Danes, 50 percent of the boys and 37 percent of the girls drink every week, according to a study by the University of Copenhagen.
In countries such as Ireland, the UK and Denmark, what is termed "binge" drinking is common. This refers to reserving drinking alcohol for a few days a week - usually from Thursday and then consuming 4 or more liters of beer or 7 pints of beer in an evening. The intention of some younger drinkers is actually to get drunk/merry when heading out on an evening to drink.


Ireland's per capita litre consumption increased from 7.0 in 1970 to 14.5 in 2001 according to the World Health Organization and 13.5 in 2004. This compares with 20.4 in France in 1970 down to 13.0 in 2004.

McCoy wrote in The Irish Times that that spending on alcohol is recorded differently across the EU in contrast to Ireland. When comparisons of alcohol consumption are made, distinction is normally made between spending on alcohol in pubs on the one hand and in off-licences on the other. In most European countries only spending in off-licences is attributed to the category "alcohol" in national statistics, whereas money spent in pubs and restaurants is included in categories such as "recreation" or "entertainment".

The Irish numbers, in contrast, include spending in off-licences and pub sales combined. A recent Drinks Industry Group of Ireland report estimated that 70 per cent of alcohol in Ireland is bought in pubs and restaurants. This is a substantially higher proportion than our European counterparts, largely due to the greater propensity for Irish people to drink in pubs and restaurants rather than at home. The inclusion of both categories therefore greatly inflates alcohol expenditure levels in Ireland in comparison with other EU countries. While there is a continuing trend towards more off-licence sales in Ireland, it is the classification distinction that significantly explains the exaggerated comparisons of Irish alcohol expenditure with other countries.
In the context of a comprehensive measurement of alcohol spending, it could be argued that the Irish proportion of expenditure on alcohol is not overestimated; rather other countries' expenditure ratios are underestimated. The recent national accounts from the Central Statistics Office show that expenditure on alcohol in Ireland is 8.6 per cent of total personal expenditure, which has declined from 10.8 per cent in the mid-1990s. The recent EU-funded report claims that Ireland spends three times more than any other country on alcohol. However, using directly comparable data, a far different story is told.

Between 1995 and 2004, households in Ireland spent an average of 2.6 per cent of their personal expenditure on alcoholic beverages - when measured as off-licence consumption. In Greece the proportion is smaller, at 0.9 per cent, but certainly not 10 times smaller as widely reported. Ireland was surpassed by Finland, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, which had averages of 3.8 per cent, 3 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively. When on-licence trade is factored back in, Ireland would emerge towards the top of the expenditure league, but by no means anywhere near the exaggerated multiples normally reported.

Expenditure figures are a combination of the actual quantity of alcohol consumed and its price. The fact that taxes on alcohol are higher in Ireland than in most EU member states inflates the expenditure levels without necessarily implying greater consumption levels. Per-capita alcohol consumption levels in Ireland are high by international standards, but not disproportionately so. The trend over the last decade was for actual alcohol consumed to rise as income levels increased significantly, but at the same time the proportion of expenditure on alcohol declined. A number of factors led to the increase in alcohol consumed, particularly the huge growth in the numbers of people in the 18-25 age group and increased inward migration of adults.

celty wrote: »

Paddy's Day (or night) is an embarrassment because it is so messy, because as JFK above rightly says we don't seem to know how to enjoy ourselves without getting out of our minds.

Do you seriously believe that drunken carousing on St Patricks is confined only to Ireland? Tens of millions of people around the world will be doing the exact same thing, often to a greater degree.

Doc Ruby

And where's the breast beating and tearing out of hair over this:

Britain is the 'binge-drinking capital of Europe'

Britain is the binge-drinking capitol of Europe, with 12 per cent of the population admitting they have up to ten drinks in a single night out, according to new research.



A Europe-wide study found that although the British are not the EU's most regular drinkers – only consuming alcohol an average of four times a week – they drink the most at one sitting.

The findings expose the failure of 24-hour drinking laws, introduced five years ago in the hope of creating a more continental-style café culture.

The research, by pollsters Eurobarometer, found British drinkers consume more in one session than any other of the EU's 27 nations.

Only the Maltese and the Finnish could match the quantity of drink consumed at a single sitting, with one in ten drinking the same quantity as the British.

And only two out of ten Britons said they had consumed no alcohol at all in the past 12 months, compared to double that number in Portugal, Italy and Hungary.

But no, its drunken paddies making a show of themselves.

jkforde

diluting this with statistics about UK and EU consumption patterns and ad hominem attacks doesn't help us understand why we Irish commonly applaud & back-slap along to stories of people who were 'era, just having the craic' who in fact got blinding & dangerously drunk, puked on themselves or others, got into fights, fell into the Corrib, fell and cracked their heads open, insulted or attacked health AE staff etc etc. and we accept and expect this kind of craic on any celebratory whim. the rest of the world may drink more but we take a chunky biscuit for tastelessly swallowing down the most in the least amount of time (then can't remember it).... and we call this fun?

the Savage Eye...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLD5F1E2F1B4950EF3&feature=player_detailpage&v=-epKVS8x-Gk#t=57s

happy St. Patrick's Day

Doc Ruby

jkforde wrote: »

diluting this with statistics about UK and EU consumption patterns and ad hominem attacks doesn't help us understand why we Irish commonly applaud & back-slap along to stories of people who were 'era, just having the craic' who in fact got blinding & dangerously drunk, puked on themselves or others, got into fights, fell into the Corrib, fell and cracked their heads open, insulted or attacked health AE staff etc etc. and we accept and expect this kind of craic on any celebratory whim. the rest of the world may drink more but we take a chunky biscuit for tastelessly swallowing down the most in the least amount of time (then can't remember it).... and we call this fun?

the Savage Eye...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLD5F1E2F1B4950EF3&feature=player_detailpage&v=-epKVS8x-Gk#t=57s

happy St. Patrick's Day

Oh yeah, never mind those damn statistics, facts, research, government agencies, and all that guff, listen to the ignorant stereotyping instead! Where did you get your facts from, the Simpsons?

Its this kind of sly "the simple natives can't handle their firewater" nonsense that needs to go, even if its perpetrators are so backwards that they genuinely can't understand why its wrong.

JR6

All this talk is making me excited about Paddys day! Roll on Saturday!!:D