The social drinker

Tom Molloy

Dublin’s pubs came up with a clever idea recently; a campaign to encourage customers to befriend older people. Dublin Amber Friendship Week was celebrated in more than 300 pubs across the capital with Guinness brewing a limited-edition Dublin Amber Pale Ale to support the campaign for the Alone charity. Every pint served included a 50c donation to the charity.

That will help fund Alone’s befriending service, which provides companionship to socially isolated older people through a weekly volunteer visit. The capital’s publicans decided to back the campaign after watching a segment about Alone on Brendan O’Connor’s Cutting Edge programme last year, and appear to have gained support for the campaign from almost every corner of the city. The campaign is over but won’t stop many of us from trying to befriend the elderly.

The simplest way to do this is to pick the right place to drink. One of the best things about the typical Irish pub is the mix of ages that can usually be found there. Of course there are some hostelries which are ghettoes for the young, but most pubs in this country cater for everybody, and these are the pubs that deserve your support. It is in places like these that those wonderful, random, life-enhancing conversations with strangers tend to happen.

Having said this, drinking does not get easier as we age and the effect of alcohol on the body almost doubles. Drinking two or three beers at the age 70 has about the same impact that four or five has at age 50, an expert on drinking and the elderly told

The New York Times recently. The toll on an older body can include disrupted sleep, exacerbated arthritis pain, heart damage and depression. So embrace the elderly, but be careful!