If they choose Dare, the group will give them a dare, which could be anything from singing a song to doing a funny dance or even making a prank call. If they choose Truth, the group will ask them a question, and the player must answer honestly.įor example: What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you? Depending on what the player decides, they will either have to answer a question or do a dare. The game begins with the group asking another player, “Truth or Dare?”. Of course, you can also choose another method to decide this at random. For example, you can choose the youngest player as the beginner. World Health Organisation figures show that Ireland now drinks less than the heady Celtic Tiger days of 2005, and predicts that consumption levels will drop further by 2025.Truth or Dare is one of the simplest games that you can play spontaneously at any party! All you need is two players or more.īefore the game begins, each player should sit down where they can hear and see everyone else. New laws are coming into effect too curb excessive drinking these set a minimum price for alcohol and, like cigarettes, require labelling to warn about the associated risks.īut really the societal change is a step ahead, thanks to a greater awareness of the health costs, and a new generation finding other ways to connect with each other. No wonder it is high time for Ireland to reassess its relationship with alcohol. Across the world, meanwhile, St Patrick’s Day has turned from Ireland’s national day into an international day for drinking – not the image many want to portray. Furthermore, one in five visits from the UK to Ireland since 2010 was for ‘group travel’, many of which are hen and stag parties. It is telling that the Guinness Storehouse has been Ireland’s most visited attraction for the last decade.

Often, the boozy reputation overshadows the rest of Ireland’s tourism offering. Alcoholism touches nearly every household across Ireland, and is responsible for three deaths a day. Shane McGowan’s ongoing health woes are an example of how alcohol can be a destructive force. Of course, you can have too much of a good thing. “They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does.” The man has a point. “Drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks,” Shane McGowan of The Pogues once opined. Ireland is a nation of community-focused people, many of whom are artists, thinkers, creatives and storytellers, and a drink or two helps bring out this trait. What’s often overlooked in this complicated relationship is that it is sociability that’s ingrained in the national psyche, not alcohol. Pubs are often the one source of community for otherwise isolated farmers, so much so that one of the biggest sticking points against a recent national clampdown on drink-driving – otherwise a no-brainer – was the effect it would have on those that rely on country pubs to meet others, and don’t have the option of a taxi home. In the countryside too, it’s a focal point of activity. In a place where many city jobs are in walking or bussing distance from home, a pint or two after a hard day’s work is only right. There’s no doubt that the demon drink is synonymous with traditional Irish culture, compounded by the fact there’s an Irish pub everywhere from the mountaintops of Nepal to the world’s most southerly city, Ushuaia, as well as a famous history of much-adored drinkers, from George Best to Oscar Wilde to Brendan Behan (“I only drink on two occasions – when I am thirsty and when I’m not thirsty,” he once said).įrom the ritual of ‘wetting the baby’s head’ (drinking in celebration when a baby is born) to raising a glass at a wake, it follows people from birth until death.įor the vast stretch in between, it’s how Ireland socialises.

Yet the opening of The Virgin Mary - a dry bar where boozy drinks are replaced with tasty, teetotal alternatives while offering a similarly sociable atmosphere - is proof that Ireland is changing fast, in keeping with the global shift of a healthier, more clean-living generation. Believe the stereotype, and it would be hard to imagine Dublin as one of the first cities to spearhead the new trend of alcohol-free pubs.

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