PRESENT TENSE:SOMEWHERE BACK IN the 1970s, an advertising executive thought up of an ad for Irish tourism, and ever since it has acted as a template, only to be updated depending on the fashions, and given fresh music every now and again.
A man plays golf. A couple go for a walk. Someone splashes along a beach on a horse. Tourists enjoy diddly-aye in a pub. It’s fantasy Ireland in other words. Then again, you’d hardly expect a tourist board to run an ad based on reality: shots in which tourists stare nervously at herds of junkies on Dublin’s quays; in which they spend half a month’s wages on a simple meal; in which they watch a fight break out in a pub.
That last one is most pertinent. People who come here are unlikely to ride a horse through the waves and won't always be bothered to get a round of golf in. But they'll all go to the pub. Every one of them will get out their Rough Guideand seek out some mid-week trad session, at which they'll feel like they're enjoying the real Irish experience, even when the only Irish there might be the musicians.
Or they’ll sit over their glass of Guinness for an hour, sipping it with suppressed nausea, but happy that they’ve ticked it off the list.
Every one of them will do that. Because that’s what people do when they come to Ireland. They go to the pub. Because that’s what the Irish do. We’re drunks. And tourists love that.
Apparently, 5 per cent of tourists mention the pub as one of the positives that distinguishes Ireland from other countries. For some reason, that rises to 10 per cent among French visitors. We know this because of a Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) report released this week, which spotlights the importance of the drinks industry to tourism.
Actually, DIGI must have had a few too many itself, because it’s started to repeat itself. In 2005, it released a report on the importance of the drinks industry to tourism in Ireland, as compiled by DCU economist Anthony Foley. Then it went away and, you know how it is, things got a bit hazy, maybe it blacked out for a while, because what do you know, this week it emerged with a report on the importance of the drinks industry to tourism in Ireland, as compiled by DCU economist Anthony Foley.
Okay, so it says it has updated the information for the years since, but the point is the same: tourists come here for the booze. And, in keeping with the theme, it goes on a bit. It sort of leans into your ear and keeps telling you the same stuff, about how much it loves tourists, and hints that it’s not necessarily appreciated at home.
It’s subtle in other ways. It manages to talk about the great role booze has in bringing in tourists, without mentioning stag or hen parties. This is equivalent to the Fáilte Ireland ads; a portrayal of a certain idea of drinking in Ireland, in the hope that no one will notice that there’s an English guy in a tutu loudly looking for attention.
The DIGI report is right. The drinks industry is vital for Irish tourism. We see ourselves through the lens of a pint glass, and so do tourists. It is central to almost everything foreigners imagine about Ireland, which is why no tourism ad would dare run without people laughing it up in a pub. It would be like making an ad for Disneyland and telling Mickey Mouse to stay home for the day.
And that pub culture isn’t all bad. In a time when the sound of tutting sometimes drowns out the clink of glasses, it’s worth noting that it’s great fun to live on an island where the pub is the hub of social life.
Irish who go to, for example, Rome are often amazed at how they don’t need pubs to have a good time, but appreciation for that way of life tends to last only till local bars close at 9pm. After that, we can get very fidgety indeed.
The problem is that, because we sell ourselves as a nation of friendly drunks, it feeds back into the culture of drunkenness already so deep rooted here. Alcoholics Anonymous this week said that 14 and 15 year olds were regularly turning up at their meetings.
This follows recent statistics estimating that alcohol was responsible for 6,584 deaths a year in Ireland.
So, we're faced with a dilemma. We're nation-state equivalent of the character of Fun Bobby in Friends.Everyone thinks we're great fun. But we know, and fear, that it's because of the drink. Besides, foreigners want us to be the planet's friendly drunks. So, we swing between pride and self-loathing. And all because we face the big question, of how the hell we get out of this without becoming the dull guy at the party?
shegarty@irishtimes.com
