Brian O’Dowd was born in Dublin. He lives in Toronto. O’Dowd is a Professor at the University of Toronto. His novel ‘A Wicklow Girl’, was published in 2017. Available on Amazon etc. Publisher: Tellwell, Canada. In 2019 he won the prestigious Prix Galien 2019 Canadian Science Award, as reported in the Irish Times. – https://shorturl.at/O94ac
Irish Nightmare ©
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By Brian O’Dowd
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Strange world. Shocked! Allegedly man arrested in Asia crossing a border with few erectile dysfunction tablets, sans doctor’s note. Being optimistic or pessimistic. Sure every visiting man-jack could be jailed over there. Then news report allegedly lady arrested Middle Eastern airport ‘possessing’ alcohol, glass of wine quaffed while flying on the way. Or from far away cocktail served laced with methanol. See that’s what they don’t teach. Best not stray far from home in trouble times. Now reading we’ve to cope having ‘alcohol free zones’ watching rugby. For me best seats mandatory and beers required. Bring my blanket, cover ‘winter chills’.
Now your attention required.
Caution!
Horror story, more scary than Dracula!
No work of fiction.
Midnight Jan 17, 1920 to Dec 5, 1933.
Wet or Dry?
Events to be described happened!
In a land far away.
Tyranny of drink,
versus
Tyranny of banning drink.
Choose sides!
Imagine if you possibly can from dark regions of mind horrors of prohibition when entire country taps went dry. Wake up tomorrow pubs closed! Tough pill to swallow! Right when having grand tugging feeling to sink pint or two. I value tranquil cloud nine feelings in the local, better than doldrums. No barrel not smashed, all dispatched for atmosphere recycle burnt to cinders! Shops empty of booze. If you please strongest imbibing ‘allowed’ at 0.5% never to suffice, sure that’s plain coloured water. Where did Rulers get the neck doing that? That’s a right stretch. How that can even be a consideration, more abomination. Out of bounds human right violation. So even if I cannot swim advance me immediately to ‘40 foot’. Or better yet shoot me now! How far away is that Isle of Man I must be away? How much is a canoe? Be at me very wits end. Shock to system! Being deprived of daily dose. Terrible ramifications. No naggin for me noggin? Facing reality unaided who needs that? That’s healthy? That’s diabolical. Feeling as the cow’s home to barn full of nettles.
America (1920): Sometimes countries go hay-wire most prominent USA, 1920 to 1933. Misguided? Mock funeral for John Barley Corn, died Jan 16, 1920. In compliance with their 18th Amendment, no intoxicating liquor allowed on premises. Original intent to outlaw hard liquor not beer, but delivered whole hog and grand shebang. Rulers dealt all nine yards. No brandy eggnog ‘cheers’, middle of winter no less.
Dark void of ‘no alcohol’ descended over the land. Some people got what they voted!
DRY!
Law did not ban consumption, but ban for producing, selling and transportation. See Rich folk had abundant well stocked up cellars all top shelf. As you do in the Mansions. While regulars three left from six pack, yesterday’s almost empty enjoyed bottle of plonk. Before prohibition there were 200,000 saloons in USA. Saloon for ages grand refuge of working men, corrupted now with no drinking otherwise breaking the law.
‘Working class private clubs.
‘Gambling and free salty lunch’.
Personal ‘production’ of wine and cider permitted. Exemptions also for Religions and medicinal from Doctor.
Catholic Irish immigrants as a rule loved to drink.
“Water not fit to drink on the ships, had to add whiskey, learned to like it!”
All we’ve left fruit juice and homemade plonk.
Song (1919) with Billy Murray.
“How to wet your whistle when the whole damn world goes dry.”
Prohibition song.
“Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar”.
See!
‘Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.’
Mysterious mass hysteria ailment swept over the land!
Reminds of Europe’s Saint Vitus dancing mania plague.
When villages went mad daft prancing to sheer exhaustion.
Poorly understood perhaps under spells.
Likely doing that twist again and again?
Again!
During WW1 (1914 to 1918) strong demand for alcohol, after WW1 promise of fun times! Then 1920 ban hoisted on the country! What? No great Craic to beat the winning band? When most sorely needed and painfully earned. Those 13 years would change America.
Alcohol the Good.
Not Gloom and Doom.
“You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” Psalm 104:14-15.
Jesus miracle at wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11), He turned water into wine. Guests declared wine Superior and kept till last!
‘Why Christ himself gave wine to the wedding guests.’ St Augustine a drinking man, in Confessions urged followers to avoid excesses of drinking. Well fair dues.
Winston Churchill: “I’ve taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
“Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain
Quaintest thoughts queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.”
Edgar Allan Poe (born 1809)
‘Moderation’ whatever it means? One size does not fit all, why we have and
Immigrants to USA drank most, I’m on their side. While being teetotal tough slog avoiding Earth’s temptations. More power to youse, having cash after all the bills, garden gnomes entertaining neighbours. Few pink flamingoes. Well spent! Drinkers only empties, but spent quality times feeling head of life’s game. Not be a wet blanket.
In pubs, whatever nonsense.
After a few! All makes sense.
I’m tolerant. Top drawer.
Not need to be barred!
Labels imbibing bevvies: Boozer, Lush, Drunkard, Souse, Tippler, Wino, Rummy, Soak, Hoocher, Barfly, Elbow bender, Sloshed, Stumbler. Habitual alcohol consumer! Like that’s a bad thing, such judgemental attitude. Alcohol sinful? In reality such a grand gift. Grá geal mo chroí. Sharing this sod with Pioneers, so due respect. All plain sailing for them.
‘Vine-Glo’! Product during prohibition, as local laws varied. Warning Label! ‘Legal dehydrated grape juice. After dissolving brick in gallon of water do NOT place the liquid in a jug in the cupboard for 20 days. Because it would turn into wine.’
‘Dry’ Jan 16, 1919 vote.
Daily get encircled by Jackals.
When you think cannot get worse.
‘No booze sold here.’
‘Booze hounds stay out.’
‘Dry win against Wets.’
Day to live long in infamy.
Nothing to fear only pubs total devoid of pints.
Patrons sat on bar stools asking what now?
Perhaps wondering ‘bad dream’?
What to talk with high stool fellows?
Do I deserve this? Is this the end?
Clock moves slower now.
Sitting in the park?
Many hours before Tea.
Feeling no way prepared for such existence.
Alcohol considered then not the temptation for women as for fellas. Temperance league at heart of matters, like a dagger!
‘Lips that touch liquor
Shall not touch ours.’
‘Reign of tears is over’.
‘Men will walk up right.’
‘Children will laugh.’
Kisses sober all day long? Take’s the heart out? No booze kisses, opposite of romantic’s world. What’s next? Doubtful this ever could ever last.
‘Ice cream and candy for us.’
Horray!
Excuse me? Ice cream compared to pint of plain give me a break! Goodness! First Presidential election (1920) women voted, elected President Warren Harding. He’d voted supporting for Temperance, Harding himself a drinker. Rumours Presidents served White House whisky for that duration!
Roaring Twenties: ‘Dry’ Nation? Temperance voters fully expected alcohol ban would work. However despite ban on booze millions of Americans still wanted a drink. So bootlegging from Canada and locations near and far all about, Speakeasys appeared all over the land.
See.
Hollywood movies had glamorized nightlife drinking in these Speakeasys.
Making alcohol at night by light of the moon, ‘Moonshine’. Bathtub Gin ‘Fiery booze’, such illegal booze risky, people expired from tainted liquor.
Moral Crusaders.
‘Railroads need sober employees.’
‘Liquor destroys home, hinders church, robs school.’
‘Alcohol, intoxicating liquor sand in bearings of modern economic machine.’
‘A drinking working force means a decrease in mill or factory production.’
‘Audacity of ban to change habits of Americans, after World be reformed.
‘Their ‘noble experiment’.
“Will you back me or back booze. Vote yes for Dry!”
‘Drink cause of society’s problems’
‘Can’t do nothing if you drink too much.’
Drinking way back when: When Puritans arrived in New World sailed ship packed to gills with beer. In USA various immigrants influenced culture, Irish with whiskey, Italians with wine, Germans with beer. Heavy drinking was normal, people drank as water not safe, best not stop drinking. Beer better than muddy waters. Often there was ‘Grog Time’ at work, with horn whistle and men could drink. In 1880 factories had men drinking from beer buckets, those 12 hour days! Part of wages paid with alcohol. Alcohol seen as medicinal, ‘Always keep it handy.’ No age limit for drinking, young kids permitted. At home men drank every meal, average consumption ~88 bottles of whisky yearly (reported higher than today’s average USA consumption).
Temperance: Cold water army.
Temperance women’s movements very active, women kneeled praying outside saloons. Believed ban would end crime in cities, many having emigrants. Well in truth after Prohibition there was a decrease in drinking, while crime rose during ‘no booze time’. Anti-alcohol groups insisted in WW1 war years ban on grain sales to brewers. President Woodrow Wilson declared grain for alcohol had to be used for food. Many brewers went out of business. People could brew at home, like neighbour’s delightful invitation for pot luck dinner.
‘Had youngsters mushroom foraging in the woods.
Cardboard box full. Should be grand!
Threw out poison ones now right as rain.
No harm no foul.’
Bootleggers: Of course tout suite booze came over borders, driven by desperation every which way, Canada, Mexico, Bahamas and Cuba supplying as needs must. Canadian government tried to halt bootlegging trade, French citizens of St. Pierre and Miquelon sailed to rescue. Those remote French islands 16 miles off Newfoundland, between Canada and Greenland delivered booze. Whiskey flowed from island warehouses, cases of wine, Champagne, brandy and rum. Ships outside USA jurisdiction, delivered fast bound by racketeers. Al Capone said ‘don’t blame me only supplying what the demand is’ beer and whiskey. Capone himself stated banning alcohol made ‘nothing but trouble’. In fact formed nation of Gangsters, creating unease and worries. No one anticipated organized crime would flourish. New York Irish from Hell’s Kitchen busy bootleggers, named ‘Gophers’ opened Cotton Club in 1923, bringing liquor from Canada. All over the country with the Speakeasy.
Women fought tooth and nail against alcohol. Frances Willard (1839-1898) led her Temperance Union to forge Global war on alcohol. Carrie Nation, woman from anti-saloon league attacked saloon with hatchet. Carrie said ‘Ladies you do not know how much joy you’ll have until you smash and smash’. Anti-alcohol class in school, text book indoctrination, millions with Temperance classes. Willard supporter of women suffrage, protect families from harms of alcohol.
From School books.
‘Just one drink could destroy liver.’
‘With drinking people could burst into flames.’
‘This is the end of our sinning.’
Repeal: Bootleggers making fortunes, then Wall Street’s crash. Call for repeal grew louder. With economy in the tank, 1930 with Depression started end of it. Government needed tax, one third of Federal budget from alcohol post Civil war. Thousands lost their jobs, also proved difficult to enforce. People who voted for ban had continued drinking.
“Only so much misery was to be tolerated.”
President Roosevelt pledges change of ‘Dry law’.
That Grand failure!
‘Happy days are here again!’
Prohibition ends at last.
FDR ended toasted with Martini.
Trend. Even today, surprised after day’s work at meetings. On plane back to Toronto from Stateside, almost no one would order a drink. Exhausting day, relax a bit okay? Different ‘culture’. Toronto these days common to hear limit one glass of wine with weekend dinner. Iron will! How they do that?
Fact. Substantial world populations cannot tolerate alcohol for genetic reasons. Sure that’s brutal affliction altogether. Lacking active enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase, reduces alcohol ‘toxicity’ in the body. Hoping Celts have double strong dose. Gra geal mo choir. Fortunate lot we are so many ways, hit that purple patch now and then. When travelling prefer towns with decent pubs, relax alone or good company. Not have me mind festering night and day trivial or serious, best calm down enjoy life! For brief while we are allowed being here abouts.
Epilogue
Cannot imagine Dublin’s nightmare going to Saturday night dances stone cold sober! Had to ask girls “Would you like to dance?”
Then yap between three songs! Having pretty posh girls all about. Slow one then minutes of Trogs with ‘Wild Thing’. Abundant there’d be none of that! Convent girls guards up having Nuns warned about us. We’d been at boy’s school teenage times from 12 to 18. Lads bag of nerves on guard for rejections, mostly not wrong with prediction. Still gave it our best again and again all night long. Back then fortified by ~four pints, total expense ten bob in the pub. Feeling like cat’s meow having glorious Dutch courage. Then midnights hike back to Rathgar from all over the city. Nobody driving. Were it not for pints we’d be traumatized. No drinks at dance hall, when we needed them most. Sometimes meeting a girl from Blackrock, taxi took every penny had for the week. Few times in town with a Sandymount had different tale to tell! Night times over bridge in Clontarf. Out of season mother seeing sandy socks in laundry, wise not being Sherlock Homes, thinking all okay, maybe she was happy.
Across the ocean them 13 years having no booze? Look life’s difficult, tough and way too short. Bring back those Biblical ages.
The Galway Review 