"Ireland Sober, Ireland Free": Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland byElizabeth MalcolmReview by: Joel MokyrThe American Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Jun., 1987), p. 673Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869963 .

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Modern Europe 673

ELIZABETH MALCOLM. "Ireland Sober, Ireland Free": Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. (Irish Studies.) Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. 1986. Pp. xii, 363. $27.50.

The idea of consumer sovereignty, that is, the right of individuals to purchase whichever goods they like as long as it does not interfere with others, has always been taken more seriously by economists than by other people. A good case in point is the ubiquitous demand for mood-altering drugs. Even a casual look at historical evidence shows that the desire for commodities such as wine and coca leaves is almost as old as civilization. Equally obvious is that some people have always looked askance on this habit. Why the intoxication of others has given rise to such moral indignation is not clear, but the antipathy to drugs and alcohol is also quite old. The current "drug crisis" campaign, fanned by the pub- licity generated by our First Lady and Newsweek magazine is one more example, as is Mikhail Gorbachev's conviction that vodka is the main rea- son why the socialist experiment has failed. Most temperance crusaders share a disdain for systematic evidence and have no interest in rational ordering of social priorities. Temperance advocates usually are permeated by a pious knowledge that the cam- paign against a drug is just and good regardless of the facts. The abuses of a few are invariably mus- tered as irrefutable proof of the pernicious effects of a habit on society at large. Mood-altering substances, from alcohol to cocaine to amphetamines, are one of the most useful scapegoats ever invented.

Nineteenth-century Ireland needed a scapegoat. It was desperately poor, politically repressed, reli- giously divided, abandoned by millions of emi- grants, and ravaged by the Famine. After 1850 changes in marriage patterns, when tens of thou- sands of young men and women were forced into celibacy, led to much personal frustration. The temperance movement that emerged in Ireland in the late 1 820s regarded alcohol as the root of all evil. Moderation and, preferably, total abstinence be- came, in the temperance propaganda, the keys to the Promised Land of prosperity and freedom.

In this detailed and well-researched book Elizabeth Malcolm has written the definitive history of this movement. At first, the temperance cam- paign was run by Presbyterian clergymen whose tactics were based on moral persuasion. In the early 1840s the legendary Father Mathew, a mesmerizing Roman Catholic friar, persuaded hundreds of thou- sands of frenzied followers to take a pledge of abstinence. Yet the movement failed, and Father Mathew, in spite of his charisma, turned out to be of little lasting importance.

The failure of example and reason to alter Irish drinking habits made the righteous men and

women of the temperance movement turn to Westminster. In a well-orchestrated political lobby- ing campaign, the temperance movement engaged in an attempt to have drinking severely restricted in Ireland by law: Sunday closing and "permissive" laws (which would allow local authorities to close pubs) were repeatedly put on the agenda of the House of Commons. This tactic, in spite of some temporary successes, proved equally fruitless in the long run. Publicans' lobbying and the justified fear that widespread prohibition would spark anger and unrest prevailed. A few voices of reason, such as that of the Home Ruler William O'Brien, who pointed out that "the lives of the Irish people were suffi- ciently joyless already" and that Parliament would be better advised to try to improve the condition of the Irish people than to "debar them from one of the few enjoyments thay had," must also have had their effect. Toward the end of the century the temperance movement allied itself with Catholic nationalism and Gaelic revivalism through the work of the Jesuit Paul Cullen. Advocates of temperance allied with religious fundamentalists as easily as with cultural nationalists.

Malcolm's book is both impressive and exasperat- ing. She describes in detail the political actions of the temperance societies and the personalities who led them. Yet she rarely digs beneath the surface: What were many of these temperance advocates really after? Was there any truth in their allegations? Was drinkingjust a convenient scapegoat or a genuinely harmful phenomenon? And what about social insti- tutions correlated with but not identical to alcohol consumption, such as fairs, wakes, and taverns? Malcolm shows that Irish levels of alcoholism ap- proximated those of other countries and that con- sumption habits changed significantly during the nineteenth century-especially the shift from spirits to beer after 1850. Most of these shifts can, however, be explained by changing economic conditions and were not directly linked to temperance. Whether the antidrink movement had a significant long-term effect on alcohol consumption is, of course, hard to determine. Malcolm suggest that it had some effect; some people who might otherwise have indulged in inebriating drinks became teetotalers. Yet alcohol consumption remained high in Ireland; the major- ity of Irish consumers exercised their sovereignty and, fortunately for them, no Irish equivalent of the Eighteenth Amendment was ever passed.

Temperance movements are indeed a fascinating subject of study, but their study should be supple- mented by a deeper understanding of why people want to drink and why others are so keen on preventing them from doing so.

JOEL MOKYR

Northwestern University

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