Despite fears that the thugs who rioted in Dublin's O'Connell Street last month would stage a reprise, things passed off peacefully in the main. But it is unfortunate that St Patrick's celebrations have become such a byword for drunken behaviour and lawlessness.

What is it with the Irish and drink? Doctors, experts, politicians and parents are all wrestling with the same dilemma. While our continental neighbours seem perfectly at ease sipping a bottle of wine or allowing their pre-teen children to sample some too, we Irish continue to have an uneasy relationship with alcohol.

Each St Patrick's Day we magnificently live up to the international stereotype of the drunken Irish. Too many of us lack the ability to drink to be convivial, preferring instead to drink to oblivion. Callers to talk radio programmes last week attested to the primary objective of our national day . . . to get drunk.

And judging by the experience of gardai on the streets of our cities, that's what a great many of them did. By noon on St Patrick's Day, one children's hospital was already treating a highly inebriated 13year-old who had begun drinking whiskey at 7.30am that morning.

By late afternoon gangs of drunken young people were being cleared from around St Stephen's Green by gardai; later that day gardai were confiscating alcohol in Donnybrook as celebrations continued after the Senior Schools Rugby cup.

On the nitelink bus service, drunken youths smoked cigarettes and cannabis and urinated in bottles. In Temple Bar street cleaners faced the unenviable task of washing down streets of vomit. And similar scenes were replicated around the country.

Hundreds were arrested nationwide for public disorder offences. Drink driving was rampant and madness reigned. As a nation of profligate binge drinkers, we Irish excelled ourselves again in a marathon weekend of excess.

Modern theories about alcoholism take the view that there is a heavy genetic loading for it. But there is also much evidence that persistent drinking, particularly from a young age, encourages a physical and psychological dependence on it.

Hundreds of years after the demise of St Patrick, as a nation we seem to lack the skills to manage our alcohol consumption.

While the Pioneer movement, the Catholic Church and poverty kept our alcohol consumption in check for centuries, the boom has brought about a propensity for excess that is unparalleled in Europe.

For most people, having a drink is a pleasant experience that increases happiness as opposed to leading to aggression.

We must discover how to teach the Celtic Tiger youth to enjoy the positive aspects of drinking while abhorring drunken or antisocial behaviour. If we don't we risk trading our image of sophisticated, educated Europeans for the drunken peasant Irish stuck in a stereotype.