When we think of Ireland, we generally picture the beautiful rolling hills of green, rainbows, pots of gold and leprechauns, red hair and freckles Ö but I think thereís one stereotype Iím forgetting. Oh yes ó drinking.† The picture of the Irish is incomplete unless there is a drunken Irishmen with a Guinness in hand stumbling around a pub in a thick Irish accent talking to all of his equally drunken friends.† This is Ireland as outsiders know it.
That was the Ireland I was prepared for.† I was excited to build up my tolerance and come back to beat all my friends in our drinking games and to come in contact with my Irish drinking roots. I was wrong.† Drinking here is a social activity. Not social as we might think of it, which is drinking a tad more than we should every weekend. Their ìsocial” is in the sense that it is perfectly normal to sit and talk over a single pint with business partners, family, friends, or sit by yourself and watch a Gaelic football match on the TV at your local bar.
Of course that is not to say that the Irish donít know how to have a good time.† There have been many† weekend nights, and a few weeknights, where I have seen the stereotypical drunken Irishmen stumbling around. However, I have rarely come into contact with someone so drunk that they cannot remember their own name. No, it is the inexperienced Americans who become so drunk that they forget their name.
When we came to Ireland one of the first pieces of advice we were given at orientation was never to try and keep up with the Irish concerning drinking. They have been doing it for much longer than we have.† Those few Americans who try. Iíll just say their night never ends well.
In America our legal limit to drive is 0.08 blood alcohol level which is approximately one drink each hour for a typical person.† In Ireland, the legal limit to drive is one pint (how they measure this I am not sure). If you have more than one pint, even if you drank it 6 p.m. and now itís 10 p.m. and time to go home, you are not legal to drive. Drinking and driving has become a recent concern for the Irish of our generation.
While of course there are always those who will ignore the drinking and driving limit, for the most part they respect this law.† Even the older generation that grew up drinking without thinking twice about driving has realized the importance of keeping the two activities separate.† While the Irish do drink their fair share, they are more cautious than I would have expected about their actions while under the influence.
Overall I would say that the drinking culture that I have fallen into is not what I expected.† I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Irish drink for social activity rather than for losing control, at least for the most part. See you next spring, Wooster.