I have had the recent pleasure of being invited to represent the College of Human Sciences in the UCD project “We need to talk about ethics because…” which is part of The President of Ireland’s Ethical Initiative.  Not only was it a pleasure and an honour to represent the UCD College of Human Sciences in this project but it was also an exciting opportunity to meet President Michael D. Higgins, a fellow sociologist.  My conversation with President Higgins was brief but memorable. 

In conversations over recent days I have been discussing my involvement with the UCD project and for many people ethics are an abstract, existing within the space of theory and jargon.  Yet whether we are aware or not, ethics shape and influence our lives, directly and indirectly. 

I believe we need to talk about ethics because … Irish women and men need truth in their lives.

Ethics can provide direction when in difficult times, can uncover inequality and injustice, and can ensure the safety and progression of future generations.  Irish society has experienced many difficulties in recent times, most notably economic recession and the resulting austerity, which has impacted on individuals, families and communities.  Truth and morality have at times waned in Irish society.  Those with responsibility for social governance have in the past been ethically anemic.   Truth at the very highest levels of society has often been sparse.

Not only do we need truth at the highest level of governance but we also need truth at individual personal level.  Ethics provide the means of attaining and maintaining truth.  My own research interest lies in the performance of gender, specifically masculinity.  Historically Irish society was rich in falsities that ensured the 'legitimate' dominance of men and contributed to gender inequality.  Ireland was for a sustained period ‘a man’s world’.  Patriarchal dominance has been challenged and greater gender equality exists today in Ireland.  The advancement of gender equality has been progressed by ethical reasoning and activism.  Irish women and men need and deserve truth in their lives; and this can only be achieved by sustained ethical debate to direct and inform social morality.

© Clay Darcy, February 2014 

A wise man recently told me “everyday is a school day”, he also said some less wise stuff but that’s neither here nor there.  These days I’m finding a lot of truth in his statement and every day I am learning something new.  My most recent learning has to do with our binge drinking past.

Ireland has a distinct relationship with alcohol and it holds unique position in Irish society.  The Irish are known far and wide for their love of alcohol and for having ‘mighty craic altogether’.  Its widely acknowledged alcohol features prominently in the cultural practices of everyday life in Ireland.  However, Ireland’s relationship with alcohol is also full of contradictions.  In contemporary Ireland you can find high levels of teetotalism coexisting along side high levels of binge drinking[1].  Us Irish are a nation of binge drinkers, we drink less frequently than many of our European neighbours but we surpass many in our excess.  We excuse our excessive thirst with meaningful and witty rationalisations ‘sure a bird cannot fly with one wing’ (even if the bird has four wings at this stage) or ‘one more for the road’ or ‘sure twould be rude not to!’  We also have more descriptions for being drunk than we do for describing the weather (which says something).  Being drunk in Ireland might be described in over a hundred different ways[2], such as; a few too many, locked, annihilated, banjaxed, elephants, blotto, ossified, paralysed, plastered, stocious, tipsey, twisted, three sheets to the wind, and so on.  So you might not be surprised if I were to tell you that Ireland has an ancient history of binge drinking.  However, what might surprise you is that alcohol wasn’t always our binge drink of choice.

According to A.T. Lucas[3] from the earliest times in Ireland ale and mead were common intoxicants, however, Lucas also tells us that alcohol wasn’t really that important to the ancient Irish.  Despite alcohol’s lack of significance to our early ancestors, it nonetheless grew in popularity and Ireland’s oldest pub on Dublin’s Lower Bridge Street ‘The Brazen Head’ can be dated back to 1198AD.  The first evidence of whiskey in Ireland originates to the medieval period and its distillation was widely practiced from the 15th century onwards[4].  Although Irish law now prohibits private distillation of whiskey, groups of men have been known to brew poitin in the hills of rural Ireland.  Our ancient history of alcohol production and use provides some insight into how alcohol may have developed such cultural significance in Ireland over time.  However, ancient Irish binge drinking did not involve alcohol but rather milk!

It turns out our early ancestors were besotted by milk, they worshipped it and their daily life revolved around it.  You might even go as far to say, the ancient Irish were mad about cows altogether.  Cows provided hide, meat, currency and best of all milk!  But it wasn’t just that the ancient Irish loved the taste of the white stuff, they placed huge significance in the act of drinking it.  In ancient Ireland hospitality was a duty, and milk held huge significance in our ancient hospitality rites[5].    In fact to refuse a drink in ancient Ireland was to cause great offence, and was considered to be a hostile and aggressive gesture[6].  The famous Irish comic caricature Mrs Doyle and her pushy tea offerings is an example of the modern day remnant of our historical duty to hospitality.  To the ancient Irish milk wasn’t just important because it featured in our customs of hospitality, milk was to become affiliated with the miracles of early Irish saints[7].  St. Fechin of Fore, St. Bridgid, St. Ciaran of Saigher, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise and St. Samthanne all performed miracles with milk[8].  The magical white stuff retained its importance in Ireland right up until the end of the 17th century.  In 1690, Stevens[9] an observer of natives in Co. Limerick noted that the Irish were the greatest lovers of milk he’d ever known.  Stevens witnessed the Irish eating and drinking milk ‘twenty several sorts of ways’, but most weirdly of all these Limerick inhabitants enjoyed milk best when it was sour[10]!

Our love of milk was eventually surpassed by our love of alcohol.  In the mid 19th century academics and observers of Irish life noticed the harmful consequences of our Celtic thirst for alcohol.  The inclination for Irish people to enjoy a tipple or three was attributed to Ireland’s climate, a tendency for Irish people to replace food with alcohol, and a lack of alternatives to alcohol[11].  However, not all Irish people succumbed to the Celtic thirst within them, and the legacy of what was known as the Irish Temperance League remains evident today in the number of Irish people who abstain from drinking alcohol.  The Irish Temperance League was a group of individuals who sought to alleviate social problems caused by alcohol through promoting teetotalism.  The obsessive Irish pastime of tea drinking originates from the Irish Temperance League movement, were advocates of alcohol abstention encouraged tea drinking as an alternative.  The Celtic thirst knows no bounds and the Irish took to drinking tea with the same enthusiasm as they had for milk and alcohol.

Our Celtic thirst has ancient roots and our love for liquids (be it tea, milk or booze) is engrained in our cultural fibre and national identity.   We may have always been a nation of drinkers, however, our contemporary binge drinking is doing us a lot more harm than our calcium rich cocktails of the past!

[1] Share et al, 2007
[2] Loughran, 2010
[3] A.T. Lucas, 1960
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Cited in A.T. Lucas, 1960
[10] Ibid
[11] Blaney, 1974

© Clay Darcy, February 2014

References:
Blaney, R. (1974) ‘Alcoholism in Ireland: Medical and Social Aspects’, Journal of The Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, Vol. XXIII, Part I, pp. 108-124.
Loughran, H. (2010) ‘Drunk Talk: A Language for Intoxication’, Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, Vol. 54, (1), pp. 7-13.
Lucas, A.T. (1960) ‘Irish Food before the Potato’, Gwerin – A Half-Yearly Journal of Folk Life, Vol. III, No. 2, pp. 8-43.
Share, P., Tovey, H., and Corcoran, M.P. (2007) A Sociology of Ireland (Third Edition), Dublin: Gill & MacMillan.

I have been making a lot of discoveries recently with all my studies, not monumental epic stuff but enough to make me expel a ‘go-way!’ or ‘huh!’ every now and then.  One discovery that stood out is in relation to a specific occurrence of ‘gender blindness’, which is essentially how society, institutions, groups or individuals ignore, overlook or are ambivalent towards gender.  When I told my PhD supervisor about my gender discovery, she said ‘I’m surprised you’re surprised!’ 

My surprise got me thinking, firstly about my reaction to the gender blindness I discovered but mostly about the past and how (for me) time appears to wash away memory.  Maybe I am just forgetful or very forward-looking, maybe I’m blinkered or maybe I’ve been taking where I’m at today for granted.  As a result of my discovery, I have been trying to be a little more reflective, which is a difficult and uncomfortable undertaking at times.  The past is a strange place, one that is filled with equal joy and sadness.  But what I have been really trying to grapple with is how Irish society has changed (or hasn’t) in recent decades.  Its only when you reflect back you become aware of how different (in some respects) Ireland has become.

My reflection has been helped along, by a book I have been reading entitled ‘Truth, Power and Lies: Irish Society and the Case of the Kerry Babies’ by Tom Inglis (2003).  The book focuses on the sad story of two newborn babies, found dead less than a fortnight apart in April of 1984 in Co. Kerry.  One infant was discovered on beach rocks at Cahirciveen and the other hid on a farm in Tralee a couple of days later.  Using sociological methods, Inglis investigates this case and uses it as a backdrop for a discussion on Irish society.  It’s an excellent read that astutely paints a picture of Irish society, specifically in the early 1980’s.  What’s significant for me about this this book is that focuses on an event that took place when I was just a little over 3 years of age. 

How different Ireland was back in the early 1980’s.  It seems such a hard and unfair place: restrictive, oppressive and dark.  This was the time in which I grew up, and yet now it seems alien and unfamiliar.  Time is the strangest of creatures.  It silently engulfs you and carries you.  It pushes you forward, all the while fogging some memories and gilding others.  Despite progression in many aspects of Irish society, some things sadly have not changed.  Inequality, racism, deprivation, bigotry and ignorance still abound.  Ireland’s progression has been a-la-carte.  The recent case of Ireland’s national broadcaster settling a legal action, as a result of an individual expressing an opinion on a talk show, highlights how progression has been minimal especially in relation to attitudes towards homosexuality.  The moral abjection of those opposed to same sex relationships / marriage in contemporary Ireland is reminiscent of the normative attitudes prevalent in Ireland at the time of the ‘Kerry Babies’ case.

I feel a kind of disconnection to my past, or maybe more accurately parts of my past.  There is much I am happy to leave in its fog.  None-the-less what my discovery and surprise has imparted upon me is the importance of remembering.  Without remembering the past arrogance and complacency can take hold.  Many of the changes in Irish society that we appreciate today have come at a heavy price for other individuals, families and communities.  The tragic suffering of others have helped change how we live today.  But time can make us forgetful of the cost of such change.  I guess that’s why we erect memorials.  However sometimes we are blind to these reminders of the past.

I suppose my surprise has served as a memorial for me.

© Clay Darcy, February 2014.

References: