A Perspective on Drinking in Dublin

The author of this article serves as Director of Formation for Catholic Schools and Catechesis at the Archdiocese of Denver and teaches at the Augustine Institute (USA).  Photographs accompanying this article are found on the link below.

Drinking . . . and Not Drinking in Dublin

by Jared Staudt

September 16, 2019

https://buildingcatholicculture.com/drinking-and-not-drinking-in-dublin/

 

We began our Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland in Dublin, visiting its churches and its saints/saints in the making: St. Valentine-the Roman saint whose relics are at the Whitefriar Street church; St. John Henry Newman’s University Church where he delivered some of the discourses that became An Idea of a University; St. Lawrence O’Toole, medieval bishop of the city, and Bl. John Sullivan, a Jesuit with a gift for healing. 

Dublin is also known for its drink. As author of The Beer Option, I had to explore this tradition, even if it was driven by Protestants at a time Catholics suffered under the penal laws. In the book, I drew from Mansfield’s The Search for God and Guinness, and it seemed wise to stop by Ireland’s number one tourist destination, the Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness family ardently supported the Church of Ireland (helping to start Protestant Sunday school, restoring the formerly Catholic St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and producing an international preacher in Henry Grattan Guinness), but also took good care of their workers, most of whom were Catholic, providing them housing, healthcare, good wages, and education.

 

Brewing does have a longer Catholic story in Ireland as well. St. Patrick traveled with a brewer during his evangelization of the nation. St. Brigid (who composed the great prayer for a lake of beer) and St. Columban both performed numerous beer miracles, especially the dividing of beer! At the National Museum of Ireland we encountered a brewing tub over a thousand years old, as well as an attempt to honor a great Irish saint at Glendalough with a mircrobrew (as the ancient monasteries brewed for their own consumption, as well as for the sick, poor, and guests). St. Kevin’s Red was quite good after a walk around the monastic city and two lakes of the valley (more on that later).

Watching over our pilgrimage, however, were two holy figures from Dublin to make sure we consumed in moderation (both of whom appear in The Beer Option.  Fr. Theobald Matthew (1790-1856) formed the Total Abstinence Society to combat the sin of drunkenness and administered the pledge to over 3 million people in Ireland, and also traveled in Britain and the United States. Alcohol clearly falls within Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount: “If your eyes causes you to sin, pluck it out.” The other is Ven. Matt Talbot (1856-1925), who became an alcoholic at a young age, while working in a liquor store. He fell to such a level that his friends mocked him and refused to help him, causing him to wake up, go to confession, and take the pledge. He became a Third Order Franciscan, consecrated his life to Our Lady following St. Louis de Montfort, adopted strict penances, and spent his life serving his fellow, poor workers in Dublin.

The Catholic tradition embraces the festivity of eating and drinking, but within the context of fasting and friendship so that, as Paul says, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Our pilgrimage experience in Dublin testified to the right balance of drinking and abstaining, both witnessed by the saints.

2016 PTAA and Matt Talbot Pilgrimage to Knock Homily

Bishop Denis Nulty gave the homily at the Annual PTAA and Matt Talbot Pilgrimage to Knock 17th July 2016, which can be read in its entirety at http://www.kandle.ie/bishop-nultys-homily-the-annual-and-matt-talbot-pilgrimmage-to-knock-17th-july-2016/. Only a portion of this homily is posted here. 


“…Today on pilgrimage I’m going to offer you a pairing that I think gives substance and life to our two pilgrimages, traveling as one today. I speak of Fr. James Cullen and Venerable Matt Talbot. Both men I have a deep affection for – the former in more recent years, since my appointment to Kildare & Leighlin Diocese, living now in Carlow and the latter, for close to twenty-eight years when I organized the very first Matt Talbot Mission in Mullingar.

James Cullen was born in New Ross in 1841. A comfortable background, allowing the family to send young James off to boarding school at Clongowes Wood College. That was in 1856, the year when Fr. Theobald Matthew of the great Temperance Crusade died. The Father Matthew Medal is still a very much revered possession amongst Pioneers. Returning to James Cullen, he was determined not to become a Jesuit, so he signed on for his native Ferns Diocese and studied for the priesthood in Carlow College.

The story goes that two years before his ordination, while home on holidays he had a chance encounter with a priest who certainly wasn’t a teetotaler, an encounter which set his mind firmly in the direction of temperance and in the founding of the PTAA. He was ordained in the Cathedral in Carlow. His early years of parish work brought him up front with the harsh reality of poverty and homelessness and identifying alcohol as the root cause then of both. His yearning towards the Jesuits never left him and he succumbed in 1881. The rest is history.

The second part of the pairing on this double pilgrimage day is Venerable Matt Talbot. I’m not sure what sparked my initial interest in this man to begin organizing missions around promoting his cause in Mullingar. It might stem from the account of his death, found bundled in a heap on Granby Lane – June 7^th 1925. On that same date, thirty-eight years later I was born. The newspaper account of Matt’s death talked of the body being taken to Jervis Street hospital. Staff at the hospital would later discover three chains on his body – a heavier one around his waist; a lighter one around his arm and another below his knee. Matt, apparently was on his way to his third Mass that day and it was still early morning. An eight year-old attended that Mass accompanying a hard of hearing aunt, who liked to get up front, in case she missed what the priest was saying, remembered well the announcement at the end of Mass: ‘A poor old man has been found dead on Granby Lane, we’ll pray for him’. That eight year-old later became a priest Fr. Dominic Crilly. I spoke with him shortly before he died – he always believed too much was made of Matt’s excessive drinking; for forty years of his life he was a fervent Pioneer.

Some people, who know my interest in Venerable Matt Talbot wonder why he hasn’t been raised to the realm of the beatified or better still canonized. The miracle of a saint must be unexplainable; the miracle of overcoming addiction, like Matt Talbot once did, is even harder to prove or classify. You can be cured of a tumor; you can be cured of cancer but an addiction can linger.

And that’s why for me the Saints are those who attend AA meetings up and down the country and overcome addiction through the step programme of prayer and mutual support. They will never be canonized on this earth; but like Venerable Matt Talbot, their behavior will be richly rewarded in eternity..."

Matt Talbot: the Chains of Gargle

 

by Rob Buchanan

5th Dec 2014

http://theloosecannonbuchanan.tumblr.com/post/104425453716/matt-talbot-the-chains-of-gargle

 

 

It is the summer of 1925. A crowd surrounds the body man lying motionless on the cobbles of Granby Lane in the grim backstreets of Dublin. He had apparently been running to mass in a nearby church when he dropped dead. A guard arrives on the scene and pushes through the curious onlookers. He rolls the body over to see a gaunt old man’s face. No one present could identify him. As they moved his body to Jervis Street hospital they noted he felt far heavier he looked. When morticians unbuttons his large well-worn coat to look for some form of identification they were shocked at what they found. The frail torso was wrapped in heavy chains and metal cords. He was bound like Marley’s ghost from A Christmas Carol. The largest wound around his waist, others on his arms and legs. The body was later identified as that of Matt Talbot, an unknown Dubliner whose name would soon be on the lips of popes and politicians,and eventually street signs,statues and buildings all over the world.

Dublin in 1856 was a dark time. The day Matt was born a parade celebrating the end of the Crimean War was on in Dublin and it was the first small bit of celebration the city had seen. The Famine had ended and Dublin was bearing the scars both of mass emigration and also the influx of uprooted and desperately poor families from the country. Alcohol was one of the few affordable escapes from the bitter reality of day to day life. The general feeling was that life in Ireland for the working class was the bleakest it had ever been.  The city may have still been in the afterglow of Catholic emancipation but for most average people the new religious freedom meant very little. The industrial revolution never really took hold in Dublin and as a result it was mainly unskilled,casual labourers who swarmed the streets. Guinness and Jameson’s where king when it came to stable employment as well as having a cultural hold on the people via cheap drink and public intoxication. Booze was at the heart of the city and it was being shipped out from the docks and the canals almost as fast as the brewery’s and distilleries could produce it, or Dubliners could drink it. Trams and open top coaches ambled noisily across the city loaded to overflowing with Dubliners. The massive red light zone known as Monto, off O Connell Street (then Sackville Street) was booming with British soldiers and any local with a few shillings in his pocket. This was the hay day for the notorious district which would eventually be brought down by the Legion of Mary and the end of British occupation within a few decades. It was an unlikely breeding ground for religious aesthetic but it was in to this dreary lamp lit port city that Talbot was born to a large poor family of 13 children in Dublin’s North Strand.

When Talbot was still a young boy in 1867 the failed Irish Republican Brotherhood “Fenian” insurrection came to nothing ultimately, despite galvanizing thousands in the city to protest and perhaps consider future possibilities for freedom. But there is no indication that any of this nationalism took root in the Talbot household. They were desperately poor and like most of their class were living in hellishly overcrowded conditions.They were too concerned with their daily bread and their daily pint to look further afield. Alcoholism plagued the men of the family, and when Talbot left school at twelve (which was not uncommon then) his choice of work in a wine merchants proved disastrous. Within a year he was a full blown alcoholic, completely lost in drink. The child was delivering Guinness and getting drunk on the dregs of the returned bottles.The boy then went to work on the Docks near his home and again was drawn to booze by working in the whiskey stores.

 

The drinking culture in Dublin at the time was an endless cycle of poverty and hunger, long miserable working days resulting in wage packets being handed behind the bar. In late 19th century and early 20th century Dublin an appalling procedure of pay for manual labour existed which say workers be required to collect their packet in pubs on Saturday. If it was in cheque form it could only be cashed by the publican himself. Its easy to see how disastrous this was for the families of men waiting at home for food when the father had been all but coerced in to blowing the whole wages in the pub. Like many working class men it was not unusual to pawn the very shirt on his back to fulfill his addiction. He drank regularly in O'Meara’s on the North Strand with his father and brothers. Without a wife or children to provide any framework or motivation to break the cycle, he was still living at home and sinking deeper in to depression. He would literally beg borrow and steal and very quickly became the lowest of the low in a city which was no strangers to mass alcoholism, occasional unemployment and hopelessness. One anecdote, perhaps apocryphal, is that he stole the fiddle of a blind street entertainer to pawn for drink money. At the age of 28 something finally snapped.He had what many addicts call “a moment of clarity” on Newcomen Bridge and decided to take “the pledge.” 

Father Mathew was a famous campaigner in the anti-alcohol abstinence movement in Ireland. A familiar  statue of him stands on O'Connell Street. He popularised the idea of “The Pledge” which was a holy vow taken by lay people to completely stay away from alcohol. Despite of (or perhaps because of)the massive cultural pervasiveness of drunkenness in Irish society at the time, The Pledge became a social phenomenon in the 1840s and 50s. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country began to officially take the pledge. And the results on levels of crime and accidents where dramatic. Everything from robberies to murder rates fell and accidental deaths on roads and workplaces likewise. It was 1884 after the first peak of The Pledge that Matt Talbot decided to commit himself to a teetotal life. He went to Holy Cross College and made the solemn oath and surprisingly to everyone, perhaps himself the most, he stuck to it for the remaining 40 years of his life. To bolster his resolve he began what would today be seen as a fanatic level of commitment to prayer and church attendance. In a project which is still encouraged in the Alcoholics Anonymous movement today, he made a list of all his debtors, people he stole from or hurt and spent his life tracking them down and making amends for what he had done. He fasted and charity work among the homeless and hungry of the city as well as alcoholics like himself. He began to siphon all his earnings beyond his meager diet and rent to pay for food and clothing for an ever increasing circle of dependent families. One description of him from a fellow member of the Third Order of Saint Francis, a secular wing of the Franciscans which he joined “happy little man…who smiled at everything except a dirty joke”. It’s quite telling that this is one of the very few records that we get of the man’s demeanor beyond his austere diet and religious habits. Likewise we only have one confirmed blurred photograph of the man. Many of the interactions he had with others around this tumultuous time in Irish history are unclear. For example his level of involvement in the 1913 lockouts is unconfirmed. Whilst some sources claim he had only a passing though positive role others, mainly church orientated, have him resisting financial pressure and not breaking the strike. He was certainly a member of ITGWU. He became studious reading religious texts about the lives of the saints and Irish monastic traditions which may have informed his severe habits. In addition to his new addiction to Catholicism he continued doing hard labour to make a living. But even his choice of jobs and his new alarming enthusiasm for seeking out difficult and backbreaking  work seemed part of his religious epiphany.

 

Perhaps the single biggest influence on Talbot was Dr. Michael Hickey, who was Professor of Philosophy in Clonliffe College where he had first taken the pledge and turned his life around. It was Hickey who first gave Talbot a penitential chain to wear. This original chain was not like the industrial sized ones he would later adopt, it was more a thin symbolic chain like an item of jewellery which would remind him of his promise to abstain. Arguably Talbot’s biggest personal tragedy was the death of his beloved mother in 1915, who he had lived with all his life. He moved in to a tiny Spartan flat. Like monastic aesthetics he slept on a bare plank without a pillow and woke at 5am very day for hours of mass before work. As his fame grew many of the details of Talbots life have been embellished like some religious urban legend. One of the many disputed facts is the size and weight of the chains he carried daily and whether they were a form of self-mortification or simple a symbol of his “slavery to the virgin Mary.” Although its certain some of the details were exaggerated its highly unlikely that the wearing of a few normal devotional cords and medals would have created the frenzy of interest that those discovered on his body did. By the time of his funeral a few days later huge crowds gathered in Glasnevin cemetery. But this would not be his final resting place as almost 50 years later in 1972 his remains were moved to Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Sean McDermott Street. A glass panel allows visitors to see his coffin. This move was the latest step in a process of veneration which had begun in the 1930s which resulted in the lowly alcoholic dock worker being granted the title Venerable Matt Talbot in 1975.

In the hierarchy of the Catholic Church “Venerable” is basically halfway to saint hood.The steps toward canonization are 1) Servant of God 2) Venerable 3) Blessed 4) Saint.To some it might seem as if Talbot did relatively little beyond small scale charity work and self denial to warrant such a title as Venerable. Its really down to the context and to the sponsorship of sympathetic bishops first declaring you a servant of God. Then a Papal proclamation is required to upgrade that to Venerable.This requires you to be declared as having had a life “heroic in virtue"  and certainly many of these virtues such as charity, fortitude and temperance were clearly displayed in Talbot’s later life.The fact that a mini cult of devotees which quickly spread among the Irish poor and across the water to the US must certainly have made the move seem apt to Rome. But was it really as simple as a man finding God and losing drink? I suppose Talbot is the only one who knows what was going on in his mind and soul.

A life of self-denial and guilt may have not been all that uncommon during the time period, but the addition of such extremes of self-punishment points to larger neurosis or person demons or even fetishes at play. That the man remained celibate his whole life in a city and community where pressures towards marriage and family were huge may perhaps give some insight in to the battles Talbot was fighting in his heart and mind. The idea of self-mortification and sin were two pillars of Catholicism. Psychologically they created a potent cycle of guilt due to inescapable human urges and contemporary realities, resulting in the necessity to purge or atone for these affronts against god. Not only did this keep many uneducated people in a constant state of fear and misery about their immortal souls but it secured the churches position and authority as the gatekeepers to heaven. An obedient and unquestioning mass of working class provided the backbone and a very narrow and austere interpretation of the bible, with the passion and poverty of Christ paramount, offered an example of piety. As did the lurid and grotesque representations of martyrdom by the cavalcade of saints in their wound bleeding, lion dismembered or stake burning forms. Was there any sadomasochistic element to this? It seems unlikely that he derived any erotic pleasure from it, as none of the other indicators of fetishism or masochism are apparent in his relationships with others. Talbot was no hermit nor was he initially a seeker of wisdom. An important thing to remember is that unlike many of his contemporaries , and he had divorced himself entirely from any recognition of his suffering or any fame.

Whatever the intentions of the high ranking clergy who saw a great potential in him as a rallying point for the working class and for the drunk or destitute, it’s clear that Talbot himself never sought any adoration and never communicated any particular need to be recognised. But his example and his legend spread far beyond the backstreets of Dublin. He became an icon for the temperance movement and gained a cult following among the Irish diaspora in the United States. Whether you view him as a pious pawn of the catholic church or an inspirational example of how faith and hard work can turn around a hopeless man , its undeniable that Matt Talbot is a unique individual in the history of Dublin city.

 

Note: Photographs are included in the link above.

Day of Prayer for Temperance

The complete News Feed is available at

http://www.catholicbishops.ie/2016/02/04/temperance-brings-balance-and-prevents-excess-getting-a-grip-bishop-eamonn-walsh/

Sunday 7 February 2016 is a Day of Prayer for Temperance, a day which offers us an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with alcohol and a day on which we can take time to pray for those who suffer from addiction.

Writing about temperance in the current issue of Intercom magazine Bishop Éamonn Walsh, Vice-chair of the Irish Bishops’ Drugs Initiative said:

We live in a world where many people wish to march to the beat of their own drum. Where freedom and tolerance means, ‘let me do what I want and you can do what you want, as long as it does not interfere with my freedom’. When a society takes down the protective banks so that everyone can be totally free, we could easily become a lazy lake with people floating around doing their own thing but really going nowhere. Once there is a focus in life, floating aimlessly disappears. A purpose develops with its own safeguards, priorities and balance. It is this balance that we associate with temperance. It may demand sacrifices to attain a goal for self or others. Once the habit of temperance is formed in one area of life, it can be drawn on whenever required.

Temperance has an unpopular image, it is perceived as a restrictive, a sort of kill-joy and spoil sport. Nothing could be further from the reality. Temperance brings balance and prevents excess getting a grip. Bad tempered behaviour or intemperate language is neither accepted in sport nor in social behaviour. Society is all too aware of how drugs, including alcohol, have done such damage to sport, recreation, working and family life. It has become so difficult for people to resist the culture of artificial and chemical enhancement for all kinds of performances and entertainment.

See Intercom February 2106 article on Temperance by Bishop Eamonn Walsh at http://www.catholicbishops.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Intercom-February-2016-article-on-Temperance-by-Bishop-%C3%89amonn-Walsh..pdf

Parish Resource for Temperance Sunday

• Father Mathew’s Prayer

Apostle of Temperance Father Mathew (1790-1856) was a Capuchin friar from Tipperary whose 19^thcentury crusade against the abuse of alcohol gained him the title of  “Apostle of Temperance”. Father Mathew’s call to sobriety has relevance to modern Ireland. The cost to the nation by way of, human suffering, abstention from work, criminality and social upheaval is inestimable.

Compassionate Lord and Saviour,
you inspired the Capuchin Friar Theobold Mathew
to show your compassionate face to those addicted
and burdened by the abuse of alcohol or addicted behavior,
and to promote temperance.
May we today, continue to serve our brothers and sisters with love and joy,
And to foster balance, and moderation in our life styles with the help of God.
So, we pray, “here goes in the name of God.”
Amen

The Temperance Message of Fr. Theobald Mathew

While their lives only overlapped by seven months,  the temperance movement message of Fr. Mathew, especially in Ireland and the USA, influenced Matt Talbot and hundreds of thousands to take the pledge to abstain from alcohol.

“THEOBALD MATHEW: Temperance ‘Precursor’ to Fr Cullen”

By Paula Murray

Pioneer Magazine
November 2013

http://www.pioneerassociation.ie/index.php/pioneer-magazine/453-novemberarticle2014

 

A ‘Who’s Who’ of Ireland’s great benefactors will rarely nowadays include a biography of Fr Theobald Mathew. His enormous achievements and legacy will be skipped over, as if to minimise the enduring impact of his endeavours to help the Irish extricate themselves from the heartbreak and sorrow of addiction to alcohol.

Today the message of Fr Mathew is sorely needed, as Irish young people as a group, like their peers in so many other countries, seem deaf to all the warnings from their elders. They seem to have little idea of how easily alcohol addiction is acquired. Fr Theobald, now dead for over 150 years, would have his hands full in the Ireland of today. Were he a time-traveller, all his charismatic skills would be required to persuade the youth of Ireland that drinking alcohol is not a harmless activity.

The debate over alcohol addiction is never far from the Irish conversation. It is omni-present, and ubiquitous. Yet, it was Fr Mathew who put this issue in the forefront of the national debate, and made it impossible to ignore. The abuse of alcohol and the casualness of the Irish people towards it was always on his mind and, aiding the Irish as a nation, in effect, educating and advising them, became his life’s work.

Few would have predicted that the shy teenager, self-effacing and uncertain in the family home in County Tipperary would one day become the most charismatic preacher of his era. Fr Mathew didn’t have a magic formula, or even a guarantee of success. From pastoral experience, he knew that our pre-Famine population of eight million was far too inclined to indulge. The imperialism of Britain was often cited as an excuse. However, even after the dreadful trauma of the Famine, the love of the Irish for drink did not go away. If anything, it increased, although our population had been reduced by over three million. For Fr Mathew, it would be an uphill road.

The self-imposed task he underwent to reform Irish drinking habits would exhaust him but he kept battling on until his death on 8 December 1856. The boy who would one day become the Venerable Matt Talbot and one of the glories of the ‘pledge’, a concept promoted vigorously and successfully by Fr Mathew, was born in the May of that same year.

Fr Theobald was one of twelve children, nine boys and three girls. He was born on 10 October, 1790. ‘Toby’ was the nick-name by which his family knew him, and ‘Darlin’ Master Toby’ by the poor of the locality who considered him ‘a born saint’. He was educated in Thurles and Kilkenny, excelling at Greek, Latin and English history. After applying and being accepted for Maynooth, ‘Toby’s stay there was cut short because the authorities in the college took umbrage at his organising a social event. Toby went home, dejected and embarrassed and, for some time, had little to do by way of ecclesiastical engagements, until it struck him to join the Capuchin Order, where he was quickly accepted as a novice.

He was one of the generation of young Irish people to make their way to seminaries and novitiates once again, as the rigors of the Penal Laws began to ease early in the nineteenth century. In both Kilkenny and Dublin, Fr Theobald was singled out by the congregation as being a rare and kind confessor. It would be in Cork, though, that ‘Toby’s’ great life’s work had its origins: ending the scourge of alcohol abuse. Thus, the yearning congregations of Cork would readily adopt the ardent young man from Co Tipperary. In addition, ‘Toby’ became renowned for his generosity to the poor. He would never allow a poor person to go away empty-handed. ‘Give, give’, he used to say, ‘what you have, you got from God.’

Theobald was elected Provincial of the Capuchin Order in 1822, on the death of the then Provincial, and held that office for almost thirty years, eventually retiring due only to ill health.  Contrary to public opinion, Fr Mathew did not invent the concept of total abstinence. It began in America the previous century, and had much success with Protestant communities, who embraced the whole notion of abstaining from alcohol, in cases where moderation failed. The Quaker community also recommended abstinence, and it was one of their own, a Quaker called Martin who set the ball rolling in Cork, very close to where Fr Mathew lived with his community. At this juncture, Fr Mathew began to consider the possibility of promoting total abstinence from alcohol among his beleaguered people. The whole jigsaw of finding and ending the curse of alcohol addiction came together in his mind, and he suddenly saw a way forward.

On 10 April 1838, Fr Mathew uttered his famous phrase ‘Here goes in the name of God’, and launched, in Cork, with Quaker Martin, what became a great temperance campaign, introducing large numbers of his fellow-Irish to the notion of total abstinence from alcohol. Large crowds came to hear Fr Mathew preach. He was invited all over Ireland as well as to Britain and the United States to spread his message. Hundreds of thousands of people of all religious persuasions took the pledge on hearing him speak. The statue of him in Dublin’s O’Connell Street shows him as he was - enthusiastic, exhorting, encouraging others, as he reached to the skies.

Fr Mathew’s success as a temperance leader is indisputable. His legacy waned when, after his death, many of those ‘pledge-takers’ reverted back to alcohol-abuse. Nevertheless, many families and communities reaped a plethora of rewards for as long as they remained abstainers.  Fr James Cullen, Pioneer founder, was inspired by the work of Fr Mathew and had the ambition to take up where his great predecessor had left off. In a sense, Fr Mathew was the forerunner of the Pioneer movement. Perhaps in the Ireland of today, those of us blessed enough to be Pioneers, can offer up our gift of abstinence for the people we know or hear of, who can’t abstain at all. Perhaps we, who don’t drink alcohol, can ‘launch into the deep’ with a prayer that life may be made bearable for those whose drinking is a source of suffering for both themselves and others.

Note: For one additional reference see http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Theobald_Mathew_%28temperance_reformer%29.html

The Irish and Drink

In his article titled, “Breaking the Code of Silence: The Irish and Drink,” published in Irish America magazine (February/March 2012), Dr. Garrett O’Connor, M.D., Dublin-born internationally renowned psychiatrist, former CEO of the Betty Ford Institute, and now medical director at Beit T'Shuvah in Los Angeles, provides his perspective of why the Irish drink, the role of shame, and his own (and family’s) journey of alcoholism and recovery.

The article and comments can be read at http://irishamerica.com/2012/01/breaking-the-code-of-silence-the-irish-and-drink/

Matt Talbot, Fr. Theobold Mathew, and Temperance

Matt Talbot National Pilgrimage

Knock

Homily By

Cardinal Sean Brady

Sunday, 16 July 2006

The name Matthew means Gift of God. The year 1856 linked two men bearing the name of Matthew. In 1856 Fr Theobold Mathew, the Capuchin priest known as the Apostle of Temperance died in Cork. That same year Venerable Matthew Talbot was born in Dublin. Both of these men were outstanding gifts sent by God to the people of Ireland - gifts sent by God to help us in the struggle for freedom and independence. I am not speaking of the struggle for political freedom and national independence from foreign oppression but rather of the struggle for personal freedom from slavery to drink and of the journey to independence in place of dependence on alcohol. Now, 150 years later, it is calculated that almost nine out of ten public order offences committed in Ireland are linked to alcohol. Obviously Ireland is now facing a new struggle for freedom

• Freedom from its reputation for the abuse of alcohol,
• Freedom to enjoy, rather than be destroyed, by this gift of God's creation.
• 
  

In an Ireland where one quarter of the cases treated in Accident and Emergency units of our hospitals are as a result of alcohol abuse, is it not time to plead with the people of Ireland to give priority to addressing the serious problem that stems from the abuse of alcohol in our society?

Fr. Theobold Mathew was an inspiration in the struggle for temperance. Venerable Matt Talbot succeeded in giving up his excessive drinking - thanks to the pledge movement, begun by Fr Mathew. Subsequently Matt Talbot became in himself a bright beacon of hope to people caught in the toils of addiction to alcohol. At the age of 28, Matt Talbot had become a seemingly hopeless alcoholic. At the tender age of 12 he got a job as a message boy for a firm of wine merchants. He quickly fell into the habit of drinking too much, a habit, which lasted some 16 years.

At the age of 28 Matt Talbot came to his senses. His own money had run out. His friends refused to buy him a drink. That day Matt took the pledge, went to Confession, the next day he received Holy Communion for the first time in years. At first he took the pledge for 3 months, then for 1 year and finally for life. The struggle to break the habit was not easy but with the help of a life of prayer and penance, Matt Talbot succeeded gloriously. He slept for only three and a half hours per night on two wooden planks and a wooden pillow, got up at 2 am to pray and went to 6 o'clock Mass. He ate no meat for 9 months of the year and at midday he ate a slice of dry bread and a cup of cold tea. Matt Talbot decided to replace the bad habit of drinking too much with the good habit of temperance.

Those who are moderate in life are admired for two important qualities, their freedom and their strength of character,

• freedom from slavery to excess and freedom for the things which lead to real joy and fulfilment,
• freedom from the demons which block and destroy wholeness, freedom for the journey to genuine happiness and maturity.
• 
  

"There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength" says St. Paul (ph.4.13).

The greatest strength of all is strength of character - the strength of self-control. The recent World Cup has often shown how costly loss of self-restraint can be.

People need help to resist the temptation to drink too much. They must be convinced with information on the potential damage to their health, physical, mental and moral. People must be helped to become confident and so secure in themselves that they don't need to turn to alcohol to get Dutch courage. They need time and attention to know that they are loved, first of all by their parents and families. The first call must go to young people themselves to take responsibility for their lives and for the consequences of their actions. They must be called and helped and motivated. They can be given self-confidence through the abundant love of their parents, which will give them the strength of character to live lives of sobriety and self-control.

At the marriage feast of Cana, Mary, the Mother of Jesus said, "They have no wine". Her son, Jesus, responded by working his first miracle. But in the midst of the mindset in which John wrote those words they refer not to the wine of the grape, but to the wine of the heart of Christ - that is compassion for all. Today in Ireland the growing drinks crisis calls for a major and concerted response from the people and from their leaders. Compassion for the plight of our young people - 'drowning in an ocean of drink', as one politician described it, should move the minds and hearts of all to action.

What can parents and guardians do? In the first place they can offer to each other and to their children an example of sobriety and/or abstinence. In this way they would be doing their best to convince their children of the damage that results from becoming addicted to alcohol. They could decide to spend more time talking to their children, praying with their children and relaxing with them.

They could meet with other committed parents from the extended family or neighbourhood to explore together the chief influences on their children, their own best hopes for their children and the support and assistance, which they need as, parents. They might even consider exploring together why drink, drugs, gambling and even vandalism sometimes seem more attractive than the challenge of becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.

Irish young people have the right to grow up in a society free from pressure to consume alcohol. Leaders in that society have a responsibility to help parents in keeping childhood and early adolescence alcohol-free in our present culture of indulgence. Could those with influence in society, clergy, teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, journalists, police and media, pool resources in order to create a more effective counter dynamic against intemperate consumption and behaviours? The problem is so serious that its remedy must become an issue of public priority. It deserves the same focus and determination from all the leaders of our society as we give to the peace process, to road safety or to the economy. The peace of so many homes, the health of so many of our young people and the happiness of our society are at stake.

Surely there is an excellent case to be made for the provision of more ample facilities and activities for young people which are drink-free. The efforts of the Pioneer Association, the No Name Club and responsible youth clubs in this regard are to be highly commended.

The questions must be asked,

• How do the various vested interests subvert the efforts to address the drink problem?
• Why do the images of "the good life" so often give the false message: - "You have to drink alcohol if you want to really enjoy yourself"?
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The fact is that it is irresponsible and illegal to serve alcoholic drink to minors. It is immoral to serve drink to people who are already drunk. It is a grave dereliction of duty to fail to try to dissuade a person, with too much drink, from driving a motor vehicle on the public highway. The widespread promotion, in various guises, of cheap drink to students, is especially reprehensible. The result is behaviour that can adversely effect their future in a wide variety of ways.

It is always better to light the candle than to curse the darkness. Those many generous people who help the addicted and their dependents deserve greater support. The example of Venerable Matt Talbot gives inspiration to all of us to give more support to those helping the rehabilitation of those addicted to alcohol and drugs.

At his death, Jesus shouted out, "I thirst." This is not thirst for a drink of beer or spirits. It is the thirst for what Jesus bestowed on each one of us, the Holy Spirit of love. Our greatest fear should be of ever losing that precious gift of God's love. Unfortunately if we abuse the gifts of the Creator we run the risk of losing the love of the Creator.

The stakes are high, very high indeed. A significant part of Irish contemporary society is deeply wounded in its relation to alcohol - alcohol, which is something good in itself but which if used to excess is anything but good. Alcohol - wine is something good, created by a good God to give joy to the human heart. The temperate person masters the excess to which nature invites. Only when wine is not used properly but abused in a misplaced exercise of human freedom does it become a problem. The primary cost of this misplaced exercise of human freedom is borne in the home by the family.

At the marriage feast of Cana, Mary said to her son, Jesus, "They have no wine". Today it is not a question of having no wine; rather it is a question of not having the ability to deal with the temptation to excess. It is a question of not having enough moderation, enough temperance and enough self-control, ultimately it is a question of knowing how to use the goods of the earth properly.

A temperate person gladly avoids any useless and intemperate use of the goods of this earth. Venerable Matt Talbot, with his outstanding life of prayer and penance, gives hope. May his life inspire all who are troubled by their use of alcohol.

Amen.

SOURCE: http://www.armagharchdiocese.org/html/arch/Matt%20Talbot%20National%20Pilgrimage%20Knock%2016%2007%2006.htm

We have changed the title of this homily for posting.