Ireland the Isle of Alcohol.

Ireland the land of green fields, music, and of course beer. But do the Irish really drink a lot as some people say or is it just overstated? Also does the influence of alcohol make it easy for teens to get and drink alcohol?

To answer the first question YES the Irish have some of the highest drinking rates of pure alcohol in the entire world according to the OCED, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In fact as of 2011 the first fourteen countries on the list of drinking the most pure alcohol were all in Europe, and Ireland ranked number 4, 11.7 liters per capita,  just under Estonia, 12.3 liters per capita, Austria,12.2 liters per capita, and France, 12 liters per capita, respectfully.

Now, how bad is all that consumption of alcohol, after all there are a lot of European countries that have high drinking amounts of alcohol consumption. What should the average consumption be for a “healthy” amount. According to Alcohol Action a group in Ireland that is trying to make alcohol laws stricter produced a graph showing what should be the average and what is the actual drinking average

Hmmmm, a little over the average isn’t it. Well how old are these people, 30-40, 50-80, nope this graph is based on 18-29 year olds. The numbers have gone down but are thought to increase again over the next few years.

Now 11.7 liters is approximately 3 gallons, so on average the Irish have 3 gallons of pure alcohol every year. But what about beer and wine, do the Irish still have a high rating when it comes to other types of alcohol? A statistic was done by WHO, World Health Organization, and Ireland ranked 10th out of 192 countries tested! So yeah the Irish drink a lot.

Well if alcohol is so abundant in Ireland it must be easy to get alcohol for minors which as of 2011 it is. Approximately 84% of Irish youth said it was easy to obtain alcohol, not necessarily drank, according to Alcohol Action out of the same group 50% had drank alcohol, 40% said they have had more then five servings of alcohol at a single time, and 23% said they were pissed drunk.

So do the Irish really drink that much? Yep and do they care…..nope.