Читать книгу The Irish Are Coming - Ryan Tubridy - Страница 6

THE IRISH HAVE A REPUTATION for drinking a lot – and make no mistake, we do drink a lot. There’s no point being politically correct about it. A 2009 survey found that 54 per cent of Irish adults engage in harmful drinking each year, compared to a European average of just 28 per cent. The oldest pub in Ireland is said to date back to 1198 and the Irish have been drinking ever since, perhaps to help them cope with all those centuries of hurt they blamed the English for. The first written mention of whiskey comes from 1405 and they famously invented the shebeen (Irish: síbín), a place where illegal home-brewed booze could be drunk without paying excise duties to the British.

Drinking has always been a sociable thing with the Irish. We don’t sit at home nursing a can of Guinness; we’re out there with our friends, supping a well-pulled pint and enjoying the craic. The pub is a place where deals are done, tips on the horses are passed along, and generally the world is set to rights. Until fifty or sixty years ago no decent lady would be seen in a pub (many banned them), but I’m delighted to say that the Irish now welcome just as many women in their drinking establishments as men.

When there was a wave of Irish folk emigrating to the UK in the 50s and 60s, it was soon noted that they had a taste for the hard stuff. The Americans had long known the Irish were that way inclined. If they wanted an Irishman in a Hollywood movie in the 1950s, they stuck Bing Crosby in a priest’s outfit with a whiskey in his hand. If they wanted an Irishwoman, they chose someone tired-looking, with twenty-five children and a boozy husband. The stereotype stuck for decades as the waves of economic migrants caught the ferry across to British shores.

It wasn’t just booze and builders the Irish were exporting to the UK in the 50s and 60s. Some of our home-grown actors fancied playing in front of the bigger, more cosmopolitan audiences of London’s West End and making names for themselves in the movies so they sauntered over, complete with their home-grown drinking habits. If they made fools of themselves appearing drunk on chat shows, it was only part and parcel of the world they lived in. Besides, the English had Oliver Reed and the Welsh had Richard Burton, so it’s not as though they were drinking alone.

The ones I put into the ‘hellraiser’ category weren’t just boozers, though; they upgraded their drinking until they were completely out there. It was a Gatsby party done three-six-five days a year, and it included plenty of womanizing and sometimes a snort of white powder as well. Yet these were extraordinarily talented men who managed to work hard and play hard. How they were able to hit the tiles and hit the boards at the same time I’ll never know, but they lived to a good old age – well, most of them.

Back home the Irish watched with a mixture of pride at the awards ceremonies and horror at the tabloid headlines, but always there was a sense of ‘He’s one of ours.’ And the first two hellraisers I’m going to talk about are legends who completely transcend their boozy reputations because they were simply so amazing at what they did.