Will Ireland’s new warning labels keep people away from alcohol?

Jack loved a drink and a standard night out might involve a few pints at the local.

“If you drink three pints, it’s easy,” the 29-year-old said. “Perhaps more than six pints of wine on a dreary night will suffice.”

Jack grew up in County Galway, where he said young people often started drinking at the age of 14 or 15, “usually in a field with a jar of horrible cider”.

“Then, when you were 17, your dad took you to a pub and bought you a pint of Guinness, and that’s how it started.”

Ireland has a complicated relationship with drinking, with many believing that alcohol and social interaction are inextricably linked and part of the social fabric of everyday life.

Pubs are often the focal point of a community, there is often live music there and many traditional songs celebrate or talk about the dangers of too many pubs. Big brands such as Guinness and Jamesons are major exports.

Since 2020, supermarkets and corner shops across the country have had to erect physical barriers between areas selling alcohol and regular products, while some bottles and cans of alcohol now carry the world’s strongest warning labels.

The Irish law was first signed into law in 2023 and products with the new label, which states that drinking alcohol can cause liver disease and is linked to fatal cancers, are already being sold in pubs and supermarkets across the country.

But the move by the Irish government was condemned by public health advocates, who delayed the mandate until 2028 and blamed it on uncertainty about world trade – which some saw as the result of lobbying by the drinks industry.

The Irish drinks industry group said it does want the Irish government to give some “breathing space” on health warning labels and believes these labels should be agreed across the EU.

Jack’s real introduction to the capital’s nightlife came in 2015 when he moved to Dublin to study journalism.

“Dublin is a great place because it’s always spontaneous drinking and that’s what it’s famous for,” he said. “It’s very bar-centric and alcohol-heavy.”

For Jack, a big weekend night usually started with a glass of wine at someone’s house – maybe a bottle of gin mixed with tonic that he shared with three friends – before heading out to a club for drinks.

However, Jack, who works in advertising, said that despite drinking a lot at times, he knew his limits and felt healthy.

“I’m a very fit guy and I ran a marathon a year ago,” he said. “I know my limits. As long as you know what your limits are, I think health-wise it’s fine.”

Three-quarters of the population here drink alcohol, and celebrations from birthdays to weddings often involve alcohol.

Consumption has fallen by about a third over the past 25 years, according to the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI).

The average age at which young people start drinking is now 17, which is two years older than the average age 20 years ago. But once they started, their consumption and binge drinking rates were among the highest in Europe.

A report by public health advocacy group Alcohol Action Ireland found that the proportion of 15-24-year-olds drinking alcohol has risen from 66% in 2018 to 75% in 2024, and that two-thirds of 15-24-year-olds binge drink regularly.

Campaigners believe alcohol warning labels in Ireland are having a progressive impact. But Amanda, 23, had seen the labels and she wasn’t so sure.

“You look at it and you think, ‘Oh, I just drank that. Should I have another drink?'”

Amanda doesn’t think people pay too much attention to health warnings and thinks they might even make some people more inclined to drink.

“I just think they don’t care,” she said.

Amanda said she usually limits herself to a maximum of three drinks during a night out in Dublin.

“I like to be in control of what I do when I’m out,” she says. “I don’t really drink that much just to relax.”

She pays attention to what young people think on social media, which affects her own drinking choices.

“I don’t like taking pictures with myself with a glass of wine or Guinness,” she said. “You don’t want to be in a compromising position, you don’t want to give people a negative image.”

Twenty-one-year-old Sean lives in the capital and enjoys socializing with friends – some who drink, some who don’t.

Unlike elsewhere in Europe, Sean says, if you want to socialize in the evening, there aren’t many options here other than going to a bar.

“After a while, there’s not much to do in Dublin,” Sean said. “Around six to seven o’clock the city shuts down. Sometimes you say, ‘I’m not really in the mood for a pint, but I want to sit somewhere and see my friends’ – so you have to have a pint.”

He also saw alcohol warning labels but wasn’t sure they would help him stop drinking.

“Everybody knows it’s not good for you, but we do it anyway,” he said.

Sean’s friend Mark added that cigarette warning labels are “more graphic”.

Ireland is a frontrunner in restricting smoking, and since 2004 you can’t smoke in workplaces, restaurants and bars.

Even before the new warning labels were introduced, some Irish people in their 20s were already discovering that life was better off without alcohol.

Mark rarely drinks. “One was for my birthday and one was for Christmas,” he said, in part because wine was expensive and it was cheaper to choose something else.

“I don’t really like the taste of it,” the 21-year-old said. “Guinness is probably what I want, but it’s also expensive – I’m saving a lot of money just by buying Orange Club.”

Helen is 27 years old and drank frequently when she was young. Although she hasn’t completely given up drinking, like Mark, she says she can mostly do without.

“The last time I drank was February,” Helen said. “It just tapered off to the point where I was more or less sober, but I just didn’t think so because I might drink again – or maybe I wouldn’t.”

Helen’s friend Sam, who started drinking when he was “16 or 17,” took it a step further.

“It was funny how drinking started to become popular once (I) went to college,” said Sam, now 27. “One day it dawned on me that it was too much. My dad said to me, ‘What are you doing with your life? You really need to pack it in.'”

In 2021, Sam signed up for a year-long sobriety course and then stopped drinking altogether. He hadn’t had a drink in three years and had even given up playing the concertina in bars because the habit of drinking at meetings was so ingrained. When he goes to a bar, he opts for zero-alcohol drinks.

But he said it sometimes seemed hard for people to accept the fact that he was teetotal.

“You meet a strange person and you tell them you’re not drinking and they look askance at you.”

Unlike Sam, Jack is not keen on zero alcohol drinks and considers them “a waste of time as it’s the same price as a pint”.

He had thought about giving up drinking, but his inner resolve did not last long.

“Honestly, trying to embark on a sobriety journey in Ireland is quite difficult – because it’s so intrinsically intertwined with our culture,” Jack said.

“I always wanted to be completely sober – but then I immediately dissuaded (myself) and drank a pint.”

The BBC asked the Irish government why it has delayed enforcing new alcohol warning labels until 2028. It said the decision to postpone followed concerns about the impact of the implementation of new alcohol warning labels on the current global trading environment.