Ireland enslaved by alcohol

People in this country are nothing but slaves to alcohol and worship it like a god. Most Irish people can do nothing without having a drink. 

It’s a nation essentially living for the drink, and the consequences are dire: broken marriages, teenage pregnancies, psychiatric issues. And that’s not to mention the thousands of admissions per week in Irish hospitals because of alcohol abuse. 

It is so bad that effectively two national holidays exist in this country to celebrate alcohol: St Patrick’s Day and the manufactured Arthur’s Day, when admissions to A&E Departments soar out of control. 

People in this country drink till they’re very drunk, which is now widely accepted and tolerated. A significant proportion of road fatalities are directly related to alcohol, and many workplace absences are due to people who cannot go to work because of the blinding hangovers. 

Not alone can they not go to work, they cannot function when they do manage to clock in. They develop all sorts of mechanisms and excuses as to why they didn’t do their work, which include blaming other colleagues for tasks they have not done, or done inadequately. 

This country is absolutely obsessed with alcohol to the point of mania. And Christmas is just around the corner, when alcohol will again be the centre of attention, coupled with the usual spate of road fatalities and one or two family murders thrown in for good measure. 
You can even see people already stocking up for it, as shopping baskets get more prominent with drink purchases. Christmas has become ‘drinking season’ – although in this country it’s a season that lasts all year round.

This nation needs to come out of the pubs and off-licences and dry up. Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs there is, and this stupid nation has sworn and implacable allegiance to it.

Maurice Fitzgerald
Shanbally, Co Cork


A national publisher for Ireland?

Ireland’s population has increased, and more people are writing, as your paper has shown. However, the present model of publishing in Ireland is no longer fit for purpose.

We urgently need an independent, State-sponsored, State-funded publishing house in Ireland, which would be run by impartial hand-picked people.

It would not cost massive amounts of money to set up such an enterprise, and it could be done under the umbrella of the Department of Education, or the National Library of Ireland.

Sadly there is no interest in the Department of Arts and Heritage to bring any kind of change or reform into Irish publishing.

Patrick Confrey
Rathfarnham, Dublin 14