Wasted (16 page)

‘My dad went on to say he was a terrible drinker. And over the last twenty years, I met all these old guys who said, “Ah sure I had a drink with Jack Doyle.” I thought,
“They can’t all be telling the truth.” But at this stage of my life I actually think they really did all drink with him. In the later stages he would pour his life out for a
drink. There is nothing romantic [or] glorious about it and there were many Jack Doyles in bars all over London.’

Prof. Brian Girvin, Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Glasgow and a noted historian, describes arriving in London in the 1970s and seeing police vans lined up in the street
to deal with public order offences at closing time. ‘That was my direct experience of the Irish emigrants and alcohol, with fights left and right of me! Historically, I think the evidence we
have from the 1940s and 1950s shows the amount of money the Irish emigrants were spending on alcohol.’

Probed on whether he felt the colonial legacy was to blame for Ireland’s reliance on alcohol, Prof. Girvin reserved judgment. ‘I’m always slightly reserved when the colonial
thing is put forward to explain all the negatives and none of the positives of the Irish experience. I think a lot of peasant societies drink heavily. One of the things about emigrants arriving in
Britain was that it was a much freer society compared to Ireland. I think that people from rural backgrounds arriving there must have found it quite challenging. An awful lot of single males fell
between the cracks, with no sister or mother to look after them. The Church was really the only focus for many of them. And the Church was never overly anti-drink. Many of these males were
displaced with more money than they were used to and more freedom and many lost control as a result. I’m inclined to think when the Irish left Ireland, as other communities have done, they
took a public aspect of their culture with them. Italians took the restaurant, the Irish took the pub.’

More recently, a study carried out by Dr Mary Tilki, Principal Lecturer in
MA
Health and Social Care at Middlesex University, examined the social contexts of drinking
among Irish men in London. Mainly focused on men who left Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, the study explored the ‘possibility that tolerant attitudes to alcohol in Ireland persist on
migration to Britain and are then confounded by a culture of binge drinking among young people in general’. One of the sources for the study was the 1999 Health Survey for England, which
included first- and second-generation Irish for the first time and found they were more likely to consume alcohol to excess than other ethnic groups and the general population. For the last three
decades, in fact, repeated studies have pointed to higher alcohol-related mortality rates in England and Wales among Irish-born people than among other ethnic groups. Others point to higher rates
of suicide, admission to psychiatric hospitals and general medical complaints among the Irish in Britain.

The men who left Ireland from the 1950s for the
UK
were mainly employed by building contractors on a casual basis and the Irish pub was central to their economy.
It’s where many were picked up, dropped off and often paid their wages for a day’s work. It was, in many ways, a ‘home from home’. Society in Ireland at the time was a
strange mix of teetotalism and alcohol abuse. Alcohol was at once embraced and condemned, as it still is. The focus on abstention, though, in previous decades, with children being required to
‘take the pledge’ at Confirmation time, meant that many young Irish adults never had the opportunity to learn how to drink sensibly or in an ordered manner. Alcoholism operating within
that culture, then, was often regarded as a ‘good man’s fault’ as opposed to a disease or illness which needed treatment or any concerted therapeutic action.

As Dr Tilki points out, ‘Although the pub had an important economic function for Irish men in Britain, its wider social functions cannot be underestimated. It afforded an escape from
overcrowded and inhospitable digs, shared with strangers and where visitors were not allowed.’ Discrimination against the Irish, particularly during the period of the Troubles in Northern
Ireland, meant the pub offered a safe haven from societal hostility. The pub also served as a rite of passage for many young men, just off the boat and drinking and working with adults for the
first time. Men who were admired and respected in the Irish enclaves had names like Mule Kennedy, Bull Gallagher, Big Mick or Elephant John, with stories of their drinking exploits continuing to
the present.

The public drinking place has, as Dr Tilki notes, a ‘key function in facilitating sociability and alcohol promotes relaxation and conviviality. In most cultures, rules around drinking
stipulate that alcohol is consumed in a sharing social context with goodwill and bonhomie.’ What the pub did was allow Irish men from different parts of Ireland and many working under
different employers to socialise with friends and build up their list of contacts. This was particularly evident with men from Gaeltacht areas who had limited English. ‘In addition to the
alcohol, music, cards and games whiled away the hours for Irish men, with no “home” to go to, kept them in touch with their culture, and protected them from homesickness, loneliness and
isolation.’

Dr Tilki’s report offered a bleak assessment of the plight of the Irish in Britain, unless urgent action is not taken. ‘Given the unequivocal poor physical and mental health, high
levels of suicide and concerns about dangerous patterns of consumption among Irish men (and women) in Britain, urgent action is needed at national and local policy level,’ she noted.

I travelled to Cricklewood, hoping to meet what is left of the Irish emigrant drinking culture. Leaving the Willesden Green Tube station and walking towards Cricklewood Broadway, the Irishness
of this part of London has become somewhat muted. Polish, Latvian, Greek, Pakistani and Indian faces now populate the Broadway, and even some of the Irish bars have Polish signs outside advertising
drinks promotions. Many of the Irish in this area left to chase the Tiger in the noughties and haven’t returned. Those who made their mark left the area, finding in areas such as Surrey and
Richmond a more salubrious neighbourhood. Houses in the area still have a rented feel, though, with glass bottles outside doorways and unkempt lawns a feature. First port of call was the recently
opened Cricklewood Homeless Centre, run by Danny Maher, which is dealing with the many aging Irish with alcohol and other problems.

The new building opened in 2008, with financial assistance, somewhat ironically, from Irish building contractors. The charity itself has been in operation since 1983, when locals noticed a rise
in the number of Irish on the streets following the building crash of the 1980s. ‘You might know the story, most of our lads lived in one room, worked on the buildings and the rest of the
lads were in the pub. When the working lads got off the sites, they went straight to the pub and drank most nights. They went home then to their little room, and when they lost their job, they lost
everything. So that’s the reason they set up a soup kitchen in a local church from 1983 up to the present.’

Over time the centre changed from a soup kitchen for the homeless to what is now a community centre assisting vulnerable persons in a wide variety of circumstances from mental health issues to
addiction, housing and job assistance. ‘Most of the work is still around homelessness,’ says Danny Maher. ‘Irish are the second biggest group—the first largest ethnic
grouping we deal with being African refugees. A major trend these days is for us to be working with many from Eastern Europe, mainly Polish. We call them the new Irish, they are very similar
backgrounds in ways, Catholic countries with major drink problems.’

The centre is built to reflect Maslow’s triangle of needs, with the clients taking a journey from the ground floor to the top, where they will leave with a capacity to look after
themselves. ‘There are Irish people here who have problems going back thirty years,’ says Danny Maher. ‘So their journey will take a long time and it’s doubtful they will
ever fully reach their destination. Our plan for them is to improve their lifestyles. Young fellas will come in, though, and we would have more hope. There is a young Irish fella now from Limerick,
came in a few weeks ago and he is homeless and young. So we will be looking to get him back into work and accommodation as soon as possible so he doesn’t fall into the lifestyle.’

From the Diarmuid-Gavin-designed gardens to the it suites and medical facilities, the building caters for those marginalised either by society or their own habits in a state-of-the-art
environment. When I ask Danny why it is that alcohol plays such a role in the lives of Irish emigrants, he points to loneliness and loss as major factors. ‘I came over here myself thirty
years ago as a young fella and didn’t have any family here so I have some understanding of what it is like. Fellas came over here at fourteen and fifteen and went straight onto the building
site and they only had the pub. I think they got into bad habits at a very early stage. I suppose this country and their employers exploited them as well. When they think about Ireland now,
everything is loss. For example the Galtymore is gone, a major dance hall and icon of Irish community. The National Dance Hall in Kilburn, major meeting point for the Irish, is gone. These streets,
up to two years ago, [you] wouldn’t have been able to walk along the footpaths with the amount of Irish men waiting for the pickup for buildings. That has been going on for twenty to thirty
years. Now not one of them, the demographic has changed. The Irish emigrants are losing everything.’

——

On the third floor, where hourly therapy sessions and meetings take place, I met with Gerry, a 47-year-old former labourer from Mayo, who first came to the
UK
in 1978. He was 16½ years old at the time, and got work on the building sites.

Most of his family were in London, and him being the youngest, it was inevitable he would follow suit. Before he came to London he experimented with alcohol only a handful of times. But things
quickly changed. He’s now sober six months, the longest period in his adult life without drinking.

‘The carryon was lunchtime, around one o’clock, everyone go to the pub and have a couple of pints, especially in hot weather. The safety regulation that time was more common sense,
not the type of regulations you have today. So everyone, even the foreman, would go for a couple of pints at lunchtime, depending on whatever you get in over half an hour. Some people might have
four or five pints, especially if it’s a day of ninety degrees. Some might only have two.

‘If you were travelling out of town, you’d go straight to the pub after work. And again, some people might only have three or four pints or some would stay until closing time.

‘For me, it progressed as the years went on until the point where drink takes hold. For the last few years, drink was virtually my god. I got so dependent on it.

‘You’d never be out of work, really. You had the contacts if you were here for years and would get to know nearly every Irish person. Sometimes you’d get sick of work and go on
a binge, maybe for two weeks. The binge would last until the money would last. You end up starting from scratch again, a vicious circle.

‘I was living around the area. The pubs them days, in the nineteen-eighties up until the late nineteen-nineties, when the work was good and the money was there, were great. On a Monday
night in a pub, the place would be packed after the weekend. In for the cure and for some people the cure would lead to the session again. If you had too much Monday, you had to go another night
and then the weekend would be nearly on top of you and it would be the full blast again.

‘Some jobs would be only five days. So you would get up Saturday morning and have a shower or bath and you’d be bored. So the first thing you’d do is go to the pub and your
mates would be in there. Even if me working mates weren’t there, there would be someone there you would know, because you’re around the area for so long, it’s like a big, big
family. Even in Kilburn you’d know people, no matter which pub you’d go to.

‘I never really sat down and thought about the drink. You start to realise you have a problem when you start missing time over work. That’s the first sign, I think. Missing Monday
started first. In them days in Biddy Mulligan’s in Kilburn you’d get more in it Monday that you would get in it Saturday or Sunday night. The pubs used to close at half two or three
o’clock in the afternoon but Biddy Mulligan’s would stay open. If you were in, you were locked in. So if you did the full monty on Monday, you’d end up missing Tuesday, and if you
missed Tuesday you’d have a full week in it. It would creep up on you gradually. Eventually over the years.

‘In my heyday I could drink fifteen, sixteen or seventeen pints. I remember a cousin of mine said to me one night years ago, do you know how many pints you drank? He didn’t drink and
kept count. He said I drank eighteen. I was twenty-one at the time.

‘I tried to stop. God only knows how many times I tried. Locked myself away in the room for three or four days in torture. The minute I hit outside again the temptation was too easy and
straight at it again. I drank everything and anything. In the morning it would be a few pints of cider to cure myself. It’s easily drank. Maybe a few brandy and ports. You’d go by what
you’d hear what the best thing for the cure was. Which is nonsense; the best cure in the long run is no cure. You’d try anything. If you drink a few of them anything would cure you. I
decided to return to Dublin at the end of the nineteen-nineties to help me slow down the drinking. I knew it was getting the better of me so I thought a change of scenery, a change of faces would
help. But it didn’t. It was the same carryon in Dublin.

‘No matter where you are, if you’re out in the Sahara Desert you’ll get it if you are that desperate for it. It had a grip got on me very badly. The last few years in Dublin I
used to get up an hour earlier in the morning. I had to leave the house at six-thirty a.m. for work so I’d get up at five-thirty a.m. to have a few cans to settle my stomach to go to work. I
knew then I really had a problem. But I needed that hour of drinking to stop the shakes in the morning, to stop the dry retching, the vomiting. I’d have maybe two, three, four cans. Then
I’d be sound and head off to work.