Sport not culpable for drink culture

SINCE you asked, just back from Cape Verde, off the coast of west Africa, and soon to rival anywhere else in the world as a golf-sunshine-watersport-chill-out destination.

The primary purpose of the trip was to interview Ernie Els, but there were also several other aspects, including a meeting with world-class windsurfer Josh Angulo, long a Cape Verde resident, and interviews with local politicians and businessmen, get their views on the explosive transition of what used to be a sedate, farming-fishing economy into a dynamic tourist destination.

It was a hugely enjoyable break but it’s left me wondering about a seriously disappointing side-effect of our own recent accelerated development – binge-drinking.

I often hear sport being blamed for this rise in the drinking culture, sport’s association with drink advertising especially, the GAA’s All-Ireland hurling championship sponsorship by Guinness particularly. I don’t accept that argument, not for a moment. This is society’s problem, an attitude problem. The various drinks companies are in competition with each other in a hard market; advertising is a must for them, a basic, and as long as its done in a responsible manner (and I believe it is), then I have no problem with it. The Heineken Cup, the Guinness hurling championship, and Beamish consistency in a world gone mad – no problem.

Before we left for Cape Verde, because it was a very early-morning flight from Dublin some of us stayed in a hotel at the airport. It was a business hotel, the bar abuzz with accents and languages from all over the globe as flight crews and passengers enjoyed a couple of sociable drinks. Suddenly, however, one group became louder than anyone else, much louder – an Irish group, men and women alike in an extreme state of intoxication. They were in a large adjacent room of their own, looked like a funeral party from the selection of dark suits on the men who now spilled into the main bar area, shouting, abusing, arguing, several of them being physically restrained by some of their own. There was no bouncer and the manager was helpless, doing his best to try and defuse a situation that was becoming more dangerous by the minute. Very quickly the bar was closed, the buzz of conversation stopped in mid-flow, and we were all invited to head for the far more formal atmosphere of the residents’ lounge. Their fuel source dried up, the feuding party was guided outside but we could hear the trouble continuing and it lasted for some time afterwards. Depressingly, all of this is now a familiar scene in Irish towns and cities.

Over the following couple of nights in various bars and discos in Cape Verde, we witnessed how the locals conducted themselves in a social situation. And here’s the thing, not once did we see trouble, or even a hint of trouble, not once did we see rowdyism, not once did we see the kind of falling-down, senseless, drunkenness that you regularly see now among the younger generation in Ireland. We often walked from one spot to another – never did we meet threat, never did we meet groups of young people falling, vomiting, abusing, holding each other up.

This is not the kind of rant I ever want to have, and certainly not in this column, but there can be on disputing this simple fact – in the last decade, there has been a quantum change in the way Irish youngsters enjoy themselves. When I was a lad, being drunk, being seen to be drunk, was a mark of disgrace, especially if you were to get sick. Now, it’s almost become a badge of honour; you overhear the conversations – I was so drunk, I was so sick, etc. etc., all said in boastful tones, boastful language. And I’m absolutely baffled – where is the pleasure in that?

Believe me, Cape Verdans know how to enjoy themselves. I have never seen a people as relaxed, as friendly, as laid-back, as happy. Why can’t we behave in similar fashion? Why can’t we mix as they mix, all colours and creeds accepted as one?

There is a responsibility here right enough, there is blame, but it starts with the individual, it carries on through the friends and peers, it continues through family – brothers, sisters, parents, uncles, aunts – and spreads ever outwards. We should never have tolerated the kind of drink abuse that was always there to some extent in Ireland; the occasional bash is forgivable but the kind of regular, consistent abuse that we now see every weekend in almost every town and city – no.

None of us should tolerate that and we all have a duty to have our say. This is mine – I’m sick of this sickness.