Wasted (13 page)

I
t’s hard to know what came first, the Irish or the drink. Many travellers in Ireland from the 1600s onwards made comment about the revelry
of the drunken Irish. Reference to alcohol, or ‘aqua vitae’ and ‘usquebaugh’ as it was called, do not occur in Irish sources until the fourteenth century, although, as
Elizabeth Malcolm in her fine study
Ireland Sober Ireland Free
has pointed out, the art of distilling is thought to have been invented as far back as the twelfth century. ‘Fermented
liquors such as ale and mead had, however, long been staple drinks among Celtic peoples,’ Malcolm notes, while adding, ‘It is interesting to note that the name of the Celtic goddess,
Medhb, literally means, “she who intoxicates”—a clear indication of the significance of drink in Celtic culture.’ Or how about this eleventh-century poem to St Bridget:
‘I would like to have a great lake of beer for Christ the King/I’d like to be watching the heavenly family drinking it down through all eternity.’ It’s Irish Christianity,
Jim, but not as we know it.

In his introduction to
Inventing Ireland
, Declan Kiberd begins with the probe ‘If God invented whiskey to prevent the Irish from ruling the world, then who invented Ireland?’
It’s a rhetorical rise, sure, but there’s a kernel of national truth in there somewhere. By the mid-sixteenth century whiskey had become such a problem in Ireland that the English
government felt it necessary to introduce legislative controls. In a preamble to the required legislation, there was notice of how ‘Aqua Vitae, a drink nothing profitable to be daily drunken
and used, is now universally throughout the realm of Ireland made’. Stricter decrees were used to limit the making of whiskey in Ireland to peers, gentlemen and borough freemen. By 1571, the
manufacture of whiskey was banned in Munster. In 1584 the Lord Deputy received a note for the reform of Ireland. One of the main suggestions was that the previous ‘statute for the making of
aqua vitae be put in execution, which sets the Irish mad and breeds many mischiefs’. As with today’s legislative approach, the series of acts and decrees had little effect on drinking
levels.

When we get to the first half of the seventeenth century, excessive drinking and drunkenness were prevalent in most parts of Ireland. And it wasn’t just the poorer classes who were at
it—it seems most social classes in Ireland had a fondness for the drop. Here is Richard Head’s observation of the Irish gentry: ‘If you, on a visit to them, do not drink freely
then they think they have not made you welcome, so that a man know not how to take a leave until he is unable to stir a foot.’

Writing in the early twentieth century, historian Michael McCarthy noted that the association between alcohol and the Irish had become embedded. His acute observations tell a familiar picture of
the social ubiquity of alcohol in Irish society. ‘Amongst Irish Catholics, drink is the synonym for hospitality. It stands alone and is not associated with food. Every festive meeting, every
social call, every business transaction, must be wet, as they say, with a drink. The man that does not stand a drink is considered a mean man; the man who gives drink freely in his own home and
pays for it for others in public houses is a decent fellow. There is a kind of veneration for the man who has spent a fortune or ruined a career by drink; and people expatiate in the great things
he might have done were it not for drink.’

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century story of Irish drinking is one of attempted zero tolerance, beginning with the morally flawed figure of Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856) and the
attempt to form temperance societies in recognition of the growing social problem with alcohol. The Corkonian intoxication with the figure of Father Mathew, founder of the Temperance movement, is
well established in both popular song and sentiment Leeside, most famously in the refrain
The smell from Patrick’s Bridge is wicked/How do Father Mathew stick it?/Here’s up them all
says the boys of Fairhill.

The Father Mathew statue, known locally as ‘de statue’, has taken on symbolic significance, and is to Cork what Clery’s clock is to Dublin—a place where relationships
begin and end and friendships are born and broken. The strong connection with the ‘Apostle of Temperance’ is interesting when viewed alongside nineteenth-century drinking patterns, said
to rival our current twenty-first-century ones. Our love of drinking didn’t begin today or yesterday, in other words. The Temperance and Pioneer movements were side effects of the guilt and
shame associated with Irish drinking. As we’ll see in later chapters, that guilt still exists among the Irish problem drinkers in London. It exists, too, in daytime drinkers in rural bars in
Tipperary and in those who serve them and facilitate their lifestyles. It exists among adolescents and schoolchildren when they talk about alcohol and their relationship to it. More than likely, I
carry some of it around myself. But it’s not just guilt that drives the Irish relationship with alcohol, which is one part puritanical to two parts party. As the great addiction writer George
Valliant has observed, ‘It is consistent with Irish culture to see the use of alcohol in terms of black or white, good or evil, drunkenness or complete abstinence.’ In other words, when
it comes to Irish drinking, for many it’s a case of all or nothing.

——

The story of Fr Mathew encapsulates well this extreme Irish attitude to alcohol. Born in Thomastown Castle, Co. Tipperary, on 10 October 1790, Theobald Mathew felt a lifelong
affinity with the poor and distressed and this was evident from an early age. Influenced by local priest Fr Denis O’Donnell, Mathew entered the seminary in Maynooth in 1807, at the age of 17.
Not long after, he reportedly threw a party in his room in honour of some kindred spirit, and to save himself the embarrassment of expulsion, the following morning he left the seminary. The
Capuchins took a chance on him, and he entered the order in 1810, quickly establishing a name for himself as an engaging and magnetic public speaker.

From a friary at Blackamoor Lane in Cork he captured the affections of the poor and the confidence of the rich, with his treatment of the penitents in the confessional drawing particular
attention to his sympathetic nature. As in contemporary society, alcohol abuse was rampant in early-nineteenth-century Ireland. While accounts differ, Mathew himself was known to take a drop, and
many argue it was this personal experience that gave him an insight into the alcoholic mindset. I visited the present-day Capuchin order in Cork, where Fr Dermot Lynch lent me his own insights.
‘I think the affinity with him by the people came from his own life for the ten years while he was involved in the Temperance movement, he became a Pioneer. Before that he was a moderate
drinker. I think his greatness came from the fact that he helped turn the tide of public opinion. It was a very popular thing to drink at the time, yet eventually over three million people took the
pledge. The Temperance movement was only the beginning of a large-scale social movement in Ireland, yet it was an important first step.’

There is little doubt that Fr Mathew did a lot of good, particularly for the poor of Cork. Yet he remains a controversial figure, and examining the purported facts surrounding his life means
discarding much of the historical hyperbole.

Like all great leaders, he had his demons and was known to be ego-driven, arrogant and prone to serious lapses of judgment. Throughout his life he had financial difficulties and was at odds with
the hierarchy of the church. Perhaps there is something in that—in the ambiguous attitude between alcohol and organised religion in Ireland—which Fr Mathew challenged. Says Professor
John A. Murphy: ‘I think it’s fair to say he was at an oblique angle to conventional Catholic thinking in that he was a teetotalling freelance cleric. I don’t imagine he was
subject to any great discipline by his own order, but then again one of the great themes in the nineteenth century is the tension between diocesan and regular clergy, and he fit into
that.’

Prof. Murphy also points to the fact that while on paper the Temperance movement looked impressive, appearances deceive, and the movement had few long-term results in achieving large-scale Irish
sobriety. Many of those who took the pledge may not have had full control of their senses. The ‘farewell drop’, as it became known, often stretched over long periods and reports in
newspapers of the time have large crowds arriving in cities such as Cork to take the pledge, already heavily inebriated. The Sub-Inspector for Enniscorthy gave the following account. He ‘saw
numbers take the pledge in a beastly state of intoxication and hundreds took their farewell drop immediately before receiving it’. He went on to say that many took the pledge and forgot they
had done so, only to return again later to take it again!

So even in our giving up, the Irish were giving in.

‘All these campaigns lose momentum because of the unnatural demands they place on the individual,’ notes Prof Murphy. ‘I mean, abstaining from anything is a wholly unnatural
position for anybody to take! I think, really, that Fr Mathew was more in line with the Victorian notions of social reform and betterment.’ As for the significance of the Corkonian devotion
to the statue, Prof. Murphy points out that you can have an attachment to the statue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an attachment to the man.

‘Essentially it is a much loved urban landmark and a convenient one as well.

‘There was a genuine concern among citizens when the idea to shift the statue was mooted. The idea was frowned upon and rightly so. I think the Father Mathew statue is much more important
to Cork people than any corresponding statue in Dublin. I can’t think of a Dublin landmark with similar public appeal—perhaps the O’Connell monument—but I don’t think
it has the same resonance of affection.’

One of those who has sought to capture the Cork association with Father Mathew down through the years is balladeer Jimmy Crowley. As the church’s grip on Irish morality loosened, Father
Mathew proved a popular source of sardonic wit in the folk tradition, Crowley explains.

‘I suppose he was to Cork what Matt Talbot was to Dublin in a way and he remains popular in the folk tradition at least. Further back you could muster ten good songs about him, from the
likes of John Fitzgerald, the bard of the Lee, who wrote an impressive elegy, and several others. They were all very much in the ballad broadside tradition—mostly religious songs—none
would have been sardonic at that time. Later on, with the passage of time and a more liberal era, he became a sort of figure of derision to a certain degree.’

Crowley himself joined the ranks in the 1970s at the expense of Finance Minister Richie Ryan, who committed the unforgivable act of raising the price of a pint in excess of the price of a drop
of whiskey, thus provoking the ire of Crowley’s pen:

‘I know people who are complete heathens and are very taken by him,’ says Crowley. ‘There have been some wonderful clerics in Cork, such as Fr Prout and people like that, who
have stepped outside the conventions of clericism. To my mind Father Mathew was part of their story.’

Recently, a play written by Sean McCarthy, who had a 20-year interest in the subject, sought to examine the complexities of Father Mathew, separating the historical figure from the well-known
populist folk hero. McCarthy first came in contact with the story of Father Mathew through his grandparents’ generation and a few years back he wrote a play based on the life of Mathew.
‘There are two extremes in relation to his drinking; one says he hardly drank at all, and certainly not to excess, while others claim he was a drunkard,’ says McCarthy.
‘Archbishop McHale of Galway, who was a lifelong enemy of his for a lot of diverse political reasons, said that all through the Temperance campaign Father Mathew went up and down the country
with a blonde on his hand, and that the profit made on the sale of medals was spent on buying brandy! We know he never made a profit on selling medals because he ended up in prison for debt half
way through the campaign, so we can take it that is untrue. In the play we go with fact that he was a heavy drinker, and perhaps an alcoholic embryo, which is precisely what gave him insight into
the alcoholic mind.’

McCarthy points to Father Mathew’s arrogance as his ultimate downfall. It was while researching the story further in the early 1990s that he came across some documents in a library in
Boston which he claims highlight the moral frailty of the man. ‘In 1840, Father Mathew and Daniel O’Connell prepared an address to the Irish people in America on the issue of
slavery—this became known as the “Abolitionist Charter”. It was very strongly worded, and implored all Irish people who called themselves Christians to follow the cause. Eight or
nine years later, though, when the question of slavery was more alive and controversial, Father Mathew is brought to America by Governor Lumpkin of Georgia and the Archbishop of Savannah, both of
whom are slavers. He lands himself in a very difficult situation, where to my mind he is at his most arrogant and most dishonest. This provides for his downfall, both in life, and also in the play
I wrote.’

Despite his reservations, like most Corkonians, McCarthy has deep-rooted admiration for Father Mathew, and sees him in the broader context of Irish social reform.

‘He was a man of extraordinary ego to the point of megalomania, and ultimately this arrogance was to be his downfall. He became a figure of fun to people of my generation. But in fact, he
was a great social reformer, and also a great liberal thinker. Arguably, he was a liberation theologist long years before the term was even invented. We could do with someone like him now when you
look at Irish society and our association with alcohol.’