Young people and their parents are “like chalk and cheese” when it comes to drinking, according to Shane Coleman.

He was speaking after The Irish Times columnist Finn McRedmond wrote that young people “drinking wine like grown-ups, while their parents are drinking like teens”.

She notes that some 28% of people aged between 16 and 24 in Ireland are now teetotal – far higher than the national average of 20%.

Meanwhile, she says, figures also show that while young people are drinking less, they are opting for higher quality options when they do drink.

Shane said there is definitely a generational change when it comes to drinking.

“It really hit me last year,” he said. “We were collecting my young fella who was working at gigs on two successive nights in St Anne’s Park.

“One of the gigs was kind of an 80s band so there were lots of people my age there - kind of 40s and 50s - and people were literally being carried out of the place, they were that jarred.

“Then the next night there was an artist playing who appealed more to people in their late teens and 20s and we were really struck by the kids coming out.

“They were sober, walking straight, chatting away – it was chalk and cheese and, in our day, it would have been the opposite I suspect.”

Ciara Kelly in the Newstalk studio. image: Newstalk

Ciara said she notices the change in her own family.

“I myself was out for dinner with my 21-year-old daughter recently and it was a school night so we didn’t order a bottle of wine, but we had a glass of wine and then I said, ‘Will we have a second?’ and she goes, ‘No, no I’m fine.’

“I had a second glass and she didn’t and I suppose what interests me mostly is I think this is happening but why is it happening?”

One theory is that the change is linked to the cultural dominance of smartphones and a new obsession with ‘wellness.’

Habit

Ciara said she feels there is more to it than that.

“It is not all wellness – a lot of wellness is an appearance obsession dressed up as wellness if you ask me,” she said.

“The gym body is not all about health, it is about what you look like.

“There are a few other things – is it the permissive parenting thing, that they have nothing to rebel against because we have always allowed them to do whatever they want because that is how parenting has gone?

“Is it the fact that this generation … is more conservative than previous generations, that they are a little bit different?

“Is it the fact that your drinking habits get locked in in your early youth?

“I mean college is when I would have started drinking and we drank quite heavily and that kind of continued.

“Is it the fact that this generation were in the pandemic and didn’t go anywhere?”

'Better for the soul'

In her column, Ms McRedmond notes that whatever the reason, it is healthier to drink small amounts of good wine than large amounts of bad.

“An expensive glass or two – rather than a cheap four or five – is like reading one novel instead of a hundred Mr Men books,” she writes.

“Endlessly interesting, far more stimulating; probably better for the soul.”