I’m beginning to worry. My local will be closed one full year next month, and my alcohol consumption has gone through the floor. Indeed, between ourselves, it is only through an act of will that I bother with drink at all now.
I fear I may be letting the family down.
In so many areas of life it is tragic that what once came easily, eventually happens only with creaking effort and supreme self-awareness – such as dancing at weddings, cheering for Mayo and watching Operation Transformation.
I have always been mainly a social drinker. Imbibing alone never enthralled me. Then I came to the art later in life and, for the best of reasons, I was skint. Abstemiousness through necessity, however, brings no sense of virtue, just a heightened awareness of what I was missing as all my friends got lost in revelry and forgot where they were.
How I yearned then for “a glass of vintage”, though a pint of Harp would do. “Hark?” I hear you cry. Ah, “Harp!” An ancient lager favoured by the young once upon a time in the West.
Also by Sally O’Brien “and the way she might look at ya”.
No, my worry is that I may be about to join the ranks of non-drinkers such as Donald Trump, Osama bin Laden and Isis. Wouldn't the world be a much better place had any or all of those gone out and just got smashed?
My late father used to advise: “Don’t ever trust a man who doesn’t take a drink.” There were no women in those days. My father was a man of his word. He could be very trustworthy at times – very, very trustworthy on occasions. Then, I’m from a background where uncles on both sides could be exceptionally trustworthy too.
Some of my oldest and best friends have proven their trustworthiness over and over again, I’m glad to say. Men and women. Ours has always been an equal opportunities trustworthiness.
Long ago we subscribed to that old, if updated, truth: “Get drunk with an Irish man or woman and you’re stuck with them for life.” And so it has transpired with us. We’ve had such great-togethers, most of which I remember.
Is Covid-19 about to take that from us too?
Trustworthy from Old Norse traust (integrity) + worthy, from Old English weorþ (of value).
inaword@irishtimes.com
