We need to call time on our attitude towards drinking

IT’S Wednesday night and we’re around the kitchen table. Unusually for a week night, some friends are over, the craic is good, and the wine is flowing.

There is plenty of tut-tutting, as we talk of “young people” and this new neknomination online drinking craze. “Let me just fill up your glass,” I say intermittently throughout the evening, giving my best Mrs Doyle impression of “g’wan, g’wan, ya will, ya will, don’t insult me now”.

Even though we are amongst good friends there is always that fear of not appearing hospitable enough, or, horror of horrors, being thought of as tight with the alcohol. There are so many “rules” around drinking in Ireland, most that we simply instinctively take on board as we grow up in our alcohol sodden society. For instance the perceived rudeness of refusing a drink in someone’s house — it doesn’t matter if you are driving, or even perhaps pregnant (just a small one, go on) or that you’re on antibiotics, sure everyone knows that’s only an ould wives tale. Drink up!