Roger Swift describes the Carribee Island area as containing a profusion of beer shops and public houses. A parliamentary paper reported in 1852 that there were 35 public houses in the heavily Irish-populated Stafford Street district. Illegal ‘wabble-shops’ selling alcohol without a license were rife and difficult to police. The Rawlinson Report highlights the attraction of the pub culture and alcohol for the Irish. It includes a description of how, when turned out of public houses, many Irish confessed
"that the place in which they lived was in such a miserable state that they would rather remain out in the open air".
Unfortunately, drunkenness was often a precursor to .
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