The Irish Do It

Hi Everyone,

Today is St. Patrick's Day and we can thank the Irish for this day and all that it brings. What is included in today's celebration is drinking alcohol, lots of alcohol, mainly beer; which is sometimes even colored green. Why is drinking, especially beer, synonymous with Ireland? I am not really sure of the answer, but what I do know is what my family and I experienced when we traveled to Ireland, some years back.

We arrived at Shannon airport, which is on the western side of the country, early in the morning. We were to meet our friend's (who came with us) friend, who happened to own a tour bus company, at a local pub not far from Shannon. We arrived at the pub at 9:00 AM and boy were we surprised by what we saw in the pub. There must have been about 20 people sitting at the bar drinking beer. I actually checked the clock on the wall to make sure of the time. It was only 9 AM. Even in college, my friends and I never started drinking anything at that time.

The best food in Ireland is pub food. It is the most authentic and the best tasting when it comes from a pub. Also at pubs are very large glass mugs that are used when you order tap or draft beer. If memory serves me correctly, the mugs came in 20oz and 24oz sizes. It is so very easy to down 3 or 4 of the large mugs, in a short period of time. Why? Almost every pub we visited, they had live, foot stomping Irish music that seemed to make you drink faster and more. Drinking 3 or 4 of those mugs, is like drinking 5 to 8 cans or bottles of beer.

Driving around Ireland is a very dangerous proposition. Besides the fact that they drive on the left side, a lot of the old roads (which is most of them), are barely 1 1/2 lanes wide. Sometime the roads are even more narrow. The roads have no center or shoulder painted lines. Most of the time when you encountered a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, you had to pull over and slowly try to pass each other. Additionally, there were no shoulders on the roads since the roads went between very old stone walls delineating farm land. What struck us most though, besides the beautiful countryside and scenery, were the odd road signs we would see every so often. The signs were large and yellow with a big black dot and a number next to it. The signs stated how many people were killed at that location, in a car crash. We found out that a large percentage of car accidents in Ireland were alcohol related. That didn't surprise us since they start drinking so early in the morning. Even if they didn't start drinking until the evening, they do love their beer and they do drink a lot of it.

That is why I believe excessive drinking is so closely associated with St. Patrick's day here in the USA. Which leads me to today's common sense advice. If  you do celebrate today or any day, please, please don't drink and drive, it is just common sense.

Til next week.

Peter