'Ireland sober is Ireland free,' is nearer the truth, than much that is thought and most of what is said about liberty in this country.
Now, the drink habit in Ireland differs from that of the other parts of the United Kingdom.

The Irishman is, in my belief, physiologically less subject to the craving for alcohol than the Englishman, a fact which is partially attributable, I should say, to the less animal dietary to which he is accustomed.

By far the greater proportion of the drinking which retards our progress is of a festive character.

It takes place at fairs and markets, sometimes, even yet, at 'wakes,' those ghastly parodies on the blessed consolation of religion in bereavement.

It is intensified by the almost universal sale of liquor in the country shops 'for consumption on the premises,' an evil the demoralising effects of which are an hundredfold greater than those of the 'grocer's licences' which temperance reformers so strenuously denounce.