This article from the I rish Daily Mail tackles the issue of alcohol in Irish society. The writer,
Peter Cunningham, strongly condemns how Ireland deals with this serious problem.
It was the expression ‘drunken mob’ used in
media reports earlier this week to describe
what occurred in Dublin that was surprisingly
shocking. Last Monday, St Patrick’s Day, the
Garda riot squad moved into an area of Dublin
that had been taken over by young thugs
running amok. Cars were hijacked and torched,
their occupants beaten up. Children as young
as 10 years were reported to have been
intoxicated.
Loutish behaviour on St Patrick’s Day,
particularly in Dublin, has become pretty much
standard in recent years and therefore to hear
about it again shouldn’t come as much of a
surprise. Yet, nowadays in the wider world you
don’t hear much about ‘drunken mobs.’ Ziots
and political demonstrations that get out of
control, yes. Crowds of rampaging dissenters
where the abuse of power has provoked
despair and violence, certainly. But drunken
mobs? Crowds whose behaviour is fuelled by
drinking so much alcohol that the riot police
have to be called in? It’s a modern rarity –
except in Ireland.
When it comes to doing drunk, we still do it
better and more consistently than anyone.
Alcohol abuse is an Irish epidemic. We
binge drink on an epic scale and we pay the
consequences: at least half of all fatal and
serious road accidents are linked to drinkdriving. Drunken brawls are commonplace.
Zecently, two Polish men were murdered
when they refused to buy drinks for local
youth. Drunkenness in Ireland is not new,
but the link between drink and violence is a
worrying modern phenomenon.
It wasn’t like this. Drink has truly become
the demon in our midst. Alcohol abuse has
devastating consequences: depression,
anxiety, suicide, marriage breakdown, criminal
behaviour, unemployment and poverty all
come after the hangover. The community too
pays a high price. Alcohol misuse is estimated
to cost the economy more than Φ2.7 billion a
year in health costs and lost productivity. Many
Irish adults are familiar with what is known as
the drink culture, in reality a dingy subculture
where alcohol is the major form of recreation;
where the system of measuring alcohol in units
is seen as a scorecard rather than a medical
imperative.
Alcohol is Ireland’s biggest public conspiracy.
We are all in on it and we all sustain it. We
laugh knowingly at the booze-soaked Father
Jack, but the truth is, we all know a Father
Jack. Drink is everywhere in Ireland and in the
battle to try and weave a path through it and
not be swallowed up, we have eulogized and
celebrated ‘the jar’ for generations. We have
presented ourselves to the world as the only
people to truly know how to have fun and
are mystified when we encounter cultures
who seem to have fun without getting legless.
We feel sorry for such people. They haven’t
discovered the magic potion, as we have.
Yet, the fact that a drunken mob can take
over a residential area of Dublin in the 21st
century should ring alarm bells in the heads
of anybody who cares about Irish society. This
image, like a throwback of that of a medieval
mob, should at the very least cause us to
have a long hard look at ourselves. Isn’t it
high time we admitted that our freewheeling
alcohol consumption is both personally
ruinous and a devastating example to the
younger generations? We are the inheritors
of centuries of alcohol abuse, but we are not
alone. In Georgian London it was estimated
that a quarter of all households were used
for the production or sale of gin. “Drunk for
a penny, dead drunk for two pence” was the
catchy advertising slogan of the day.
By 1838, the caricature of the drunken
Irishman was well established when Father
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N.B. Answer ONLY ONE Question A and ONLY ONE Question B.
Question A – 50 Marks
(i) From your reading of TEyT 2, what impression do you form of Peter Cunningham? Support
your answer with reference to the text. (15)
(ii) According to Peter Cunningham, how does the Irish drinking culture impact on the
community? (15)
(iii) (a) Do you find the writer’s overall argument to be convincing? Explain your answer. (10)
(b) The theme of this examination paper is “expressing strong opinions”. Identify someone,
other than Marian