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Irish Drinking Culture on the Screen

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National Identities and Imperfections in Contemporary Irish Literature

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Abstract

This essay will address the topic of ‘National Identities and Imperfections’ by examining the relevance of drinking culture in the production and expression of Irishness, particularly on the screen. The analysis is prompted by an attempt to fathom reasons for the prevalence of the trope of the Irish boozer to the detriment of other, seemingly more seminal, signs of collective Irish identity such as those related to sexual politics. Thus, whereas transgressions of the rigid code of sexual morality of the prevailing Catholic, nationalist ethos (particularly through sex outside marriage and through queer sexuality) have been long covered up in public discourse, and practically written out of Irish cinema—only surfacing in a glamorized way in a small number of Celtic Tiger comedies such as About Adam (Stembridge 2000), When Brendan Met Trudy (Walsh 2000) or Goldfish Memory (Gill 2003), or in scathing critiques of shameful episodes in A Love Divided (McCartney 1999), The Magdalene Sisters (Mullan 2002) and Song for a Raggy Boy (Walsh 2002)—the trope of the Irish drunkard (potentially a far more demeaning national image than that of the sexually active subject) shows little sign of abating.

The research carried out in the preparation of this text has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, National Research Project FFI2011-23941.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Rosa González-Casademont

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  1. Rosa González-Casademont
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Luz Mar González-Arias

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González-Casademont, R. (2017). Irish Drinking Culture on the Screen. In: González-Arias, L. (eds) National Identities and Imperfections in Contemporary Irish Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47630-2_12

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