THE TROUBLES WITH CRAIC

**Craic (/kræk/ KRAK) noun: “a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland” [5]

For the period between 1965 and 1998, the island of Ireland was immersed in conflict stemming from an identity crisis that divided the people on political and religious lines referred to as The Troubles. At the core of the conflict was a dispute between the Protestant Loyalists that wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom and the Roman Catholic republicans who wanted to see a united Ireland. Daily life was riddled with the threat of violence as the guerrilla warfare style of bombings gripped society in a war the consumed countless innocent civilian casualties. Though the factions and political parties were complex and numerous, John Hume’s voice, as the representative of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, brought strength to the vision of a peaceful Ireland, and for his work to help build the Good Friday Agreement, he received the Nobel Prize in 1998.

John Hume repeatedly insisted that he would talk to anyone if it would lead to peace and unity for the island of Ireland, a mentality that embodies the openness, charisma and hospitality that is rooted at the core of Irish culture. But it is from these same values that the modern Northern Irishman finds a new hidden terror claiming the lives of his family and community members: the drink.

During the Troubles, civilians lived in constant fear of the possibilities of violence injected into their every day life. During the 1970’s, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) shifted its paramilitary tactics to a form that was declared “terrorism”. This terrorism was infamized by days like ‘Bloody Friday’ in which on July 21, 1972 when the IRA detonated 20 bombs around Londonderry in less the span of 80 minutes killing 9 and injuring 130 others [8][9]. These type of actions, followed by the violent acts of retribution, led to a tumultuous period of terror in Northern Ireland that had little reprieve or escape for civilians. As shown in Figure 1, during the 1970s especially, the death toll of civilians far exceeded that of British Security, Irish Security, Republican Paramilitary or Loyalist Paramilitary [10].

FIgure 1 - Death toll of various groups by year as a result of violence during The Troubles [10]

From this context, the need for leadership in the search for a peaceful Ireland was more than apparent and John Hume began to start the conversations about resolving the conflict. His early work focused on alleviating poverty and providing money for people in Derry via credit union loans. He fought to combat the injustices facing the gerrymandered districts that disadvantaged the Catholic minority populations in the North [4]. He was a champion of civil rights for the underrepresented minority and was a crucial player in the brief power sharing assembly that gave a proportional representation to the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland [12].

Much of John Hume’s strength as a leader, particularly in navigating conflict, comes from his ability to forge relationships with people and discuss difficult conversations that were needed to bring a divided Ireland together. One of the most influential relationships he built was with American leadership, and more specifically, Speaker Tip O'Neill, Senators Edward Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Governor Hugh Carey who all became great allies of John Hume and brought the attention of the United States to the efforts his fight for peace [4]. It was these relationships that led to the United States’ pressure on Margret Thatcher to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement and pursue a closer relationship between Ireland and Great Britain, giving a consultative role to the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland [12].

He later drew deep criticism from the public when it was uncovered that he had been secretly meeting with the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a gesture that appeared to be a negotiation with terrorists, but underscore his innate ability to reconcile differences. He is even credited with convincing Seagate Technology to move their operations, and eventually 1500 jobs, to Derry through his artful conversation “over a pint at a bar in Los Angeles” [4]. This was not just a much needed infusion of business of the economically depressed area but a prime example of John Hume’s ability to corral Irish Pub Culture and gift of chat as tools for uniting people.

The Irish Pub is such an integral and universal part of Irish Culture and an instrument of the community. In traditional rural Ireland, the three main social outlets were the church, the local football club and the pub [13]. It was a friendly meeting place for discussion or to catch up on the local happenings and the ability to strike up friendly conversation is an engrained ability inherelnt in the Irish culture. The Irish people are infused with generosity, hospitality and good spirits and these attributes are undoubtedly the mechanisms of which John Hume built the critical relationships that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

Ironically, it is this love of craic, or a good time, that now ravishes the country of Northern Ireland poses a threat to their people. The pub is in many ways the kryptonite of modern Northern Irish culture. The darkside of a fun-loving, good spirited culture is the crippling alcoholism that accompanies it. As we can see in Figure 2, well over 3/4 of the population of Northern Ireland, in most demographics, are drinking alcohol and this amount of consumption is causing problems in the country. The Department of Health has confirmed that the country pays nearly £900 million every year as a result of alcohol related misuse. This includes £30 million in emergency room attendance [3].

Figure 2 - Percentage of Individuals that drink alcohol 2017/2018 [6]

The financial cost is far from the only thing troubling N. Ireland as a result of the culture of drinking though. In 2017, for the fourth consecutive year, the number of deaths associated with alcohol related causes rose once again to 303 of the 16,036 deaths that year [1]. This may not seems like a significant cause of death in the country but when you consider that this is the most extreme outcome of alcohol abuse, you can start to interpret the disruption that this level of chronic alcoholism can have on society. In the words of Gary Doherty, the Impact of Alcohol Manager at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, “You can quote all of the statistics but you can’t measure the impact that alcohol has on an individual, on a family and on a community” [1].

The most troubling comparison to be made while looking at the impact of alcohol on life in Northern Ireland is when compared to the death toll of the Troubles. Alcohol has contributed 18% more deaths in the last 17 years than the entirety of the 35 years of terrorism during the Troubles. This is roughly a 2.5x higher annual death rate from alcohol than the IRA [10][14]. How is it that the darkest period of national terrorism in the island’s history has not even come close to death toll of alcohol related deaths and we haven’t declared a war on this new threat to the well-being of the Irish people?

Figure 3 — Comparison of the death toll from alcohol related deaths over the last 17 years with the total fatalities as a result of the Troubles [10] [14]

The juxtaposition of these two data sources highlights the interesting reality about the consequence of the jovial and social spirit that permeates Irish culture: it is both a beautiful mechanism for bridging conflict and bringing people together, and displayed by John Hume, but also the origins of a poison that is quietly taking the lives of the Irish people. Why are we not all up in arms about this terror that is claiming parts our families and communities? Who is the face that will fix this issue?

To quote Mr. Doherty again, “If you can walk into a supermarket and buy a can of beer for 50p and bottle of water for 70p, what does that say about us?” [1].

References

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/northern-ireland-records-highest-number-of-alcohol-related-deaths-1.3760513

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2385085/?page=7

[3] https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/dying-for-a-drink-alcohol-kills-three-times-as-many-people-as-road-deaths-in-ni

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paBd7vSJtbU

[5] https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/irish-craic-explained-the-top-six-levels-of-craic-you-can-reach

[6] Julie-Ann Jordan, Mark McCann, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi & Kathryn Higgins (2019) Harmonising alcohol consumption, sales and related outcomes data across the UK and Ireland: an insurmountable barrier to policy evaluation?, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 26:5, 385-393, DOI: 10.1080/09687637.2018.1488948

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland%27s_Greatest

[8] https://www.britannica.com/event/The-Troubles-Northern-Ireland-history

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Friday_(1972)

[10] https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/

[11] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1998/hume/lecture/

[12] https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hume

[13] https://www.gaelicmatters.com/irish-pub-culture.html