Prof. Murphy also points to the fact that while on paper the Temperance movement looked impressive, appearances deceive, and the movement had few long-term results in achieving large-scale Irish sobriety. Many of those who took the pledge may not have had full control of their senses. The ‘farewell drop’, as it became known, often stretched over long periods and reports in newspapers of the time have large crowds arriving in cities such as Cork to take the pledge, already heavily inebriated. The Sub-Inspector for Enniscorthy gave the following account. He ‘saw numbers take the pledge in a beastly state of intoxication and hundreds took their farewell drop immediately before receiving it’. He went on to say that many took the pledge and forgot they had done so, only to return again later to take it again!
So even in our giving up, the Irish were giving in.
‘All these campaigns lose momentum because of the unnatural demands they place on the individual,’ notes Prof Murphy. ‘I mean, abstaining from anything is a wholly unnatural position for anybody to take! I think, really, that Fr Mathew was more in line with the Victorian notions of social reform and betterment.’ As for the significance of the Corkonian devotion to the statue, Prof. Murphy points out that you can have an attachment to the statue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an attachment to the man.
‘Essentially it is a much loved urban landmark and a convenient one as well.
‘There was a genuine concern among citizens when the idea to shift the statue was mooted. The idea was frowned upon and rightly so. I think the Father Mathew statue is much more important to Cork people than any corresponding statue in Dublin. I can’t think of a Dublin landmark with similar public appeal—perhaps the O’Connell monument—but I don’t think it has the same resonance of affection.’
One of those who has sought to capture the Cork association with Father Mathew down through the years is balladeer Jimmy Crowley. As the church’s grip on Irish morality loosened, Father Mathew proved a popular source of sardonic wit in the folk tradition, Crowley explains.
‘I suppose he was to Cork what Matt Talbot was to Dublin in a way and he remains popular in the folk tradition at least. Further back you could muster ten good songs about him, from the likes of John Fitzgerald, the bard of the Lee, who wrote an impressive elegy, and several others. They were all very much in the ballad broadside tradition—mostly religious songs—none would have been sardonic at that time. Later on, with the passage of time and a more liberal era, he became a sort of figure of derision to a certain degree.’
Crowley himself joined the ranks in the 1970s at the expense of Finance Minister Richie Ryan, who committed the unforgivable act of raising the price of a pint in excess of the price of a drop of whiskey, thus provoking the ire of Crowley’s pen:
‘If you go down to Patrick Street you’re bound to meet with Fr Mathew,
A Temperance man of high degree, sometimes for short he’s called ‘de statue’,
He tried to keep us off the booze, and on it looked with reprobation
Yet if he had Richie by his side, he’d have success throughout the nation.’
‘I know people who are complete heathens and are very taken by him,’ says Crowley. ‘There have been some wonderful clerics in Cork, such as Fr Prout and people like that, who have stepped outside the conventions of clericism. To my mind Father Mathew was part of their story.’
Recently, a play written by Sean McCarthy, who had a 20-year interest in the subject, sought to examine the complexities of Father Mathew, separating the historical figure from the well-known populist folk hero. McCarthy first came in contact with the story of Father Mathew through his grandparents’ generation and a few years back he wrote a play based on the life of Mathew. ‘There are two extremes in relation to his drinking; one says he hardly drank at all, and certainly not to excess, while others claim he was a drunkard,’ says McCarthy. ‘Archbishop McHale of Galway, who was a lifelong enemy of his for a lot of diverse political reasons, said that all through the Temperance campaign Father Mathew went up and down the country with a blonde on his hand, and that the profit made on the sale of medals was spent on buying brandy! We know he never made a profit on selling medals because he ended up in prison for debt half way through the campaign, so we can take it that is untrue. In the play we go with fact that he was a heavy drinker, and perhaps an alcoholic embryo, which is precisely what gave him insight into the alcoholic mind.’
McCarthy points to Father Mathew’s arrogance as his ultimate downfall. It was while researching the story further in the early 1990s that he came across some documents in a library in Boston which he claims highlight the moral frailty of the man. ‘In 1840, Father Mathew and Daniel O’Connell prepared an address to the Irish people in America on the issue of slavery—this became known as the “Abolitionist Charter”. It was very strongly worded, and implored all Irish people who called themselves Christians to follow the cause. Eight or nine years later, though, when the question of slavery was more alive and controversial, Father Mathew is brought to America by Governor Lumpkin of Georgia and the Archbishop of Savannah, both of whom are slavers. He lands himself in a very difficult situation, where to my mind he is at his most arrogant and most dishonest. This provides for his downfall, both in life, and also in the play I wrote.’
Despite his reservations, like most Corkonians, McCarthy has deep-rooted admiration for Father Mathew, and sees him in the broader context of Irish social reform.
‘He was a man of extraordinary ego to the point of megalomania, and ultimately this arrogance was to be his downfall. He became a figure of fun to people of my generation. But in fact, he was a great social reformer, and also a great liberal thinker. Arguably, he was a liberation theologist long years before the term was even invented. We could do with someone like him now when you look at Irish society and our association with alcohol.’
Writing in 1845, Father Mathew felt in optimistic mood when he predicted the future generations’ relationship with alcohol. He wrote that ‘all the rising generations are being educated in the strictest habits of temperance; and in a few years, drunkenness will be a thing passed away, never to return’.
Yet by September 1845 twice as many drunkards had been admitted to Cork Bridewell as in the same month in 1844. Faced with mounting evidence that his Temperance movement had not signalled the death knell for Irish drunkenness, Fr Mathew conceded later that year that some drunkenness did exist, but was mostly limited to ‘poor sinful females’. Whether or not Fr Mathew would have succeeded in having a long-term impact on the mindset among the Irish in relation to alcohol is debatable. From 1845 onwards, the Famine rendered his work largely secondary. In his fine study, Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement, Colm Kerrigan questions whether Mathew achieved his objective of the rejection of drunkenness by mass society. Recent social history would suggest he had little impact. Shortly before his death, in 1856, Mathew said the following:
‘We have turned the tide of public opinion; it was once a glory for men to boast what they drank, we have turned that false glory into shame; we have also given to the timid temperance man, to the teetotaller, the protection of his virtue, and a large share of public sympathy for his sacrifice in the cause of the first of virtues, sobriety.’
Today, that passages sounds as it reads, a hopelessly idealistic desire for a better society with a more mature relationship to alcohol, which has yet to materialise. Still, flawed as he may have been as a person, at least he tried.
——
Cut to today and Father Michael Mac Gréil is a man on a mission. As chairperson of the Irish Pioneer Association, he grew sick and tired of hearing talk that the movement was in terminal decline. A few years back, he decided to visit every Pioneer centre in the country and assess the strength of the movement for himself. When I spoke to him, he had been to over 900 parishes and visited somewhere in the region of 1,100 Pioneer centres. He is currently in the process of compiling a report to present his findings to the Irish Pioneer Movemen
t. He says, contrary to public opinion, the movement is still very much alive: ‘It is still there and I think we have to work on it and tend it more. I’m still getting a reaction to my visit and I have a lot of information about the commitment. What people sometimes don’t understand is that the Pioneer movement is primarily a spiritual movement and educates by example. Of course we also encourage sobriety.’
He admits there are ‘big challenges’ within the movement, yet feels that the Irish Pioneer Association still has a role to play in modern Ireland. At one time the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association boasted half a million Irish members, proud to wear the Pioneer pin as a badge of self-sacrificial Catholic devotion. It drew members from every section of society, and could summon over 80,000 people to outdoor rallies as recently as the 1950s. Yet estimates now put membership at less than 150,000, with uncertainty over how many of those are active Pioneers. Within the movement itself, debate is beginning to happen. Many argue that its abolitionist stance has no future in modern Ireland, with some calling for moderate drinkers to be allowed join. Indeed, on its website as part of its 2009 Lent campaign, the slogan was ‘Why not abstain or reduce your alcohol intake this Lent?’ It’s a very big ‘or’, showing that the movement perhaps realises the strict abstinence game is up. There seems to be a new consensus emerging within the movement that abstaining from alcohol completely should be encouraged among under-18s, while moderation should be the ideal for those aged over 18.
Fr Mac Gréil says that it is impossible to accurately comment on the strength of the Pioneers in Ireland, given that they are a largely unseen organisation. ‘We have always been a discreet group and have never gone for publicity. We are a spiritual movement who offer up abstinence for the sins of intemperance.’ The image of a teetotalling membership, sternly anti-drink, is somewhat misleading, he says, pointing out that being in favour of abstention doesn’t necessarily mean being anti-alcohol.
‘Our mission is sobriety in society, sure, but we’re not anti-drink. We may have had that image in the past, but we encourage people to drink in moderation. I mean, I am strongly in support of well-run pubs and would hate to see anything happen to the rural pub in Ireland. It is a very important social institution, and in many senses a well-run pub is also an institution for moderate drinking.’
Yet with alcohol such a pervasive facet of Irish life, the Pioneers are finding it increasingly difficult to get their message across. There are mitigating factors, argues Fr Mac Gréil. ‘I am totally opposed to the identification of sport and alcohol. I say to workers in Guinness, sure, support our national games, but do it anonymously if you believe in it so much. But what they’re doing is using sport to promote their products, and that’s not promotion, that’s advertising a mood-changing substance in an area identified with youth. It’s a disaster in this country.’
Fr Mac Gréil believes that the availability of alcohol in recent years in more outlets has fuelled our increasing dependence. ‘I think you have to study the false propaganda of the alcohol industry, the manner in which they promote the subtle and psychological way to sexual satisfaction and athletic prowess through the use of their products. I think a lot of it is a big lie. The big scandal at [the] moment is off-licence[s] and the supermarkets using alcohol as loss-makers to encourage people in [to] buy more. When you go into a supermarket now, alcohol is there like a stack of turf.’
Historian Diarmaid Ferriter sees the decline of the Pioneer Association in Ireland within the broader context of social and religious change and points out the inherent contradictions in a movement which promotes silent self-sacrifice on the one hand while simultaneously calling mass rallies and large-scale publicity events.
‘It’s interesting how it operates. It was meant to be a personal thing yet it thrives on mass participation through its structure and rallies and all that. I mean, personally I can remember being taken out of school to take part in these mass gatherings. I’m sure people, too, will recall borrowing Pioneer pins when going for job interviews in order to make an impression. It sounds pretty surreal now!’ Ferriter agrees that the movement has witnessed a gradual decline since the 1960s, and offers little hope of resurgence.
‘There’s little doubt that it’s been in decline for decades, much the same way as young people going to church has declined. I think there is a pressure on a whole generation nowadays that would make it very difficult for them to be part of a movement like the Pioneers.’
While the Irish Pioneer Association admits hardship in attracting members in the 30 to 50 age group, it does claim something of a resurgence among those under 25. A rebranding of the youth wing in the 1980s had a positive effect, with the emphasis now more on social outings than sacrificial penitence. Twenty-six-year-old Su-zann Scott, chairperson of the Young Pioneers, says that over 25,000 young people have joined the movement in recent years, and claims the association is having little difficulty attracting younger devotees. (The Irish Pioneer Movement is currently updating their database but feels membership may be closer to 18,000 currently).
‘For me being a Pioneer is not just about not drinking, it is a huge social outlet, with so many competitions and events organised every week. There is a real sense of belonging and it works like having an extended family. That’s why I choose to be a Pioneer—I now have friends in every corner of Ireland.’ Scott says that modern Ireland is in need of the Pioneers now more than ever and feels proud to be part of a movement focused on changing society for the better. ‘There is sacrifice and prayer involved, but we just want to try and promote peace and harmony in the home and in general society. Ireland has the highest rate of binge-drinking in Europe, so the Pioneers have a huge role to play. I’m always proud of my Pioneer badge. The way I look at it, I know if I never shame it, then it’ll never shame me.’
Visitors to Ireland such as Dunton Fynes Morrison, Sir William Petty and Arthur Young all give us descriptions of the drinking and drunkenness in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which read like 250-year-old equivalents of Prime Time specials. From those accounts, the image and idea of the ‘Drunken Paddy’ emerged and went overseas. That image has been hard to shake off, and in any event we haven’t tried too hard, culminating in everything from cartoons in the British press in the nineteenth century to modern-day us shows such as ‘The Simpsons’, which rarely has reference to Ireland without the booze. Those stereotypes exist because those social connections to alcohol in Ireland exist over many centuries.
Long before glitzy advertising campaigns, drinking patterns in Ireland were abnormal. Our ancestors drank to take themselves out of the daily misery of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century life. Yet before that, they drank because of a lack of self-control and a romantic and sometimes religious attachment to mood altering. And yet we’re not always a weak-willed race—the abstinence movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are evidence of a sobering of thought and maturing of attitude in Ireland towards excessive drinking and drunkenness. Today, those movements struggle to hold onto their messages, and are looking for ways to adapt to the society they operate in, rather than vice versa. Moderation and reduction are the new buzzwords of the Pioneer Movement, where activities and sober social outings are promoted above pious abstinence. But what chance had they? Every abstinence movement in Ireland has been destined to failure, doomed by virtue of society’s longstanding relationship to alcohol. The makers of modern Ireland were as much barmen and brewers as they were poets and politicians. But our relationship to alcohol through the last few hundred years is a complex one. Undoubtedly there have been long periods when consumption levels have been excessive, such as the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and early twenty-first century. But per capita consumption fails to take fully into account the numbers who abstained during those periods. Even today, 150,000 members of the Pioneer Movement is still an impressive figure, given the decline of the Church and religious movements in the past decades. As Elizabeth Malcolm points out, ‘Much attention, bot
h serious and frivolous, has been devoted to the drunken “Paddy”, beloved of the popular press and music hall. But the drunken “Paddy” is only one side of the coin; the other side is the teetotal “Paddy”.’
Moderate Paddy, though, has yet to reveal him- or herself.
Mary Coughlan, Singer
In hindsight, the first time I ever got drunk I was about fourteen and drinking Babychams and I don’t remember a thing after the night. I do remember getting a few Babychams into me but I don’t remember an awful lot after that. The next time I started drinking I was about nineteen, when I had my first daughter, Aoife. I had the next child when I was twenty-one. I had three children by the time I was twenty-four, and didn’t drink during those years because I was really into my whole foods and natural childbirth and breastfeeding. I think I had a bottle of Guinness once and a few glasses of wine, but it was okay to do that in those days.
My social drinking started when I was about twenty-six or twenty-seven. I started going out for pints when the kids were a little bit older and I started singing at the same time. There was a lot of socialising around that. My worst drinking was the two years before I gave it up. Claire, my daughter who is seventeen now, was born. I hadn’t drunk for the pregnancy because I had been in St John Of God Hospital before I got pregnant. I actually got pregnant on a weekend out from St John Of God Hospital. I thought I was completely cured because I had been off it eight or nine months by the time I had my daughter. When she was six weeks old, I went up to Quinnsworth, as it was called at the time, and bought a bottle of vodka. Every single day, then, for two years I drank an average of three bottles of vodka. I was hospitalised thirty-two times in those two years and ended up with a condition called metabolic acidosis. It landed me in intensive care in the Mater during St Patrick’s weekend. I was critically ill with absolutely hours left to live and all I was thinking about was drinking again and how long would I be there for. At that stage I had already had a miscarriage.
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