The Bishop of Killala, Most Rev John Fleming, has asked whether there is something in the Irish temperament that makes us more prone to excessive drinking that other nations.
Bishop Fleming told a Mass for the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association that he lived in Italy for 20 years where just 12 per cent of people drink alcohol on a regular basis, compared to 52 per cent of the Irish.
The bishop said he "rarely, if ever", saw an Italian drunk, and often saw young Italians of the 18-25 age group socialise with a pizza and a coke.
"None touched alcohol throughout the evening," he said.
Speaking at the Mass in Ballina's St Muredach's Cathedral, he referred to recent high profile alcohol-related stories.
In an indirect reference to the recent Brian Murphy trial, the bishop said: "One family will never see their son again. Other families will have to live with visits to their sons in jail for the foreseeable future and the realisation that they have served time, for the rest of their lives."
He added: "Football wives and families will also have to live with the unanswered questions of what happened when they were not there."
The bishop said the scenes in Dublin in the aftermath of the St Patrick's Day parade had also heightened our awareness not only of the issue of drink in our society but also of the way we live as a country and a people.
An assumption that taking a drink was "the only acceptable form of socialising" must be seen as "an insecure foundation on which to exercise the need for recreation which we all share".
"The challenge to drink to excess as the yardstick for a successful night-out must now be placed in the arena of the questionable," he said.
We have "a duty to explore the issues which have caused these tragedies so that future generations of our people can live lives free from this kind of tragedy and enjoy life to the full," he said.
But he felt no amount of preaching by the church, or state publicity on health and safety issues would solve the problem. The answer lay "with ourselves, with each and every one of us as individuals and as a society".
He said we faced "an insurmountable mountain" in creating a culture where drinking enriched the experience of living rather than undermining or destroying it.
