Just thinking about this.

Hope you all had a good 17th by the way

The point surely is that booze does occupy a rather unique place in Irish culture. Think of Finnegan's Wake - a drop of the stuff falls on Tim and it revives him, and as such it is interpreted as the life force - and becomes the basis for Joyce's great work.

Also the great Viking story tellers - the tradition of which is at the heart of Ulysses - pissheads to a man! Check out the chapter in Stuart Gilbert's critique of Ulyssess if you don't believe me.

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater - the myths, the legends, the legendary drinkers, the stuff they got up to, the stuff they achieved - an enormous seminal strand in your culture.

Mines a green beer....