Some Dunne family greats: Tommy Nine Pints, Harry the Hop, Mickey the Malt, Legless Liam, Paddy the Pint, Eddy the Inebriate and Two Gallon George. There's a theme there, isn't there? The names speak volumes, rambling incoherent volumes. It's why Arthur's Day is no happy day in the Dunne family household. The Guinness family star rose as ours sank. Coincidence? I think not.

I was contemplating our sad history when the peace was shattered. I heard a voice on the radio. A coldness passed over me, a ghostly cold. I stared at the set. It was unmistakable: the thick brogue, the utter lack of tone, the stultifying boringness, the flatness, the hesitancy, the slight slurring, the rambling off the point. Only one man could have that little control over his mother tongue and still go on the radio. It was Eddy! My granduncle: Eddy the Inebriate.

It took a while to realise it couldn't be Eddy. Even if he had indeed staged his own death in that bizarre hop store drowning he'd be 120 by now. In fact, it wasn't even a Dunne. The similarity to Eddy in full flight after a 10-day bender at the Speed Drinking Championships in Sneem was astonishing, but this was, I was assured, just "some political fellah", who was, sources said, just a tad tuckered.

I felt like I'd seen a ghost. Eddy's Ireland came screaming back into my mind. An Ireland where drink-driving was considered more of an advanced driving ability than an offence and where telling a man that he was "too drunk to drive" was simply setting him a challenge. A man who didn't drink was up to something, plotting, possibly a spy.

I was therefore thrice doomed: a Dunne, a product of my times and a singer. It became inevitable I would fall foul of drink to some extent and I did. The occasion was Arsenal beating Liverpool to capture the league title in England. I watched it in a bar. Then we retired to another bar where a covers band were playing Something Happens songs. We joined them on stage; I sang and drank and sang a bit more.

Then we retired to the venue where the real Something Happens were due on stage at midnight. I had a drink there too and continued in that mode because various Doors movies that I'd seen suggested that that was what you did. In the movies those gigs are always amazing.

And ours was amazing too. At one point, the band considered tying me to a mic stand, for support. Word has it Robert Plant had once done a gig in such a condition. That would explain why I kept trying to sing Led Zep songs. The band was not amused.

All I can say in my defence is that it was apparently a much, much, better gig in my head than it was for the audience. Mercifully they too had been drinking. Many thought they'd seen the Zep. They don't make drinking audiences like that anymore, especially not in the morning, more's the pity. They were so forgiving.