You can watch the recent contributions on youtube - the last three contributions took a look at the Irish in the Napoleonic time, and I admit - highly enjoyable and I learned a lot.
And I would fully agree that being drunk wasn't specific for Irish troops but for lots of Napoleonic soldiers - there are numerous incidents were whole units were unfit to fight due to being dead drunk.
here the last link about Beresford.
Thanks Zach for those most enjoyable and informative series.
To follow up on @Hans - Karl Weiß ‘s assertion that drunkenness and it’s associated reduction in military efficiency was not exclusively an Irish or British sport. Here is an example from the so-called elite and therefore highly disciplined Chasseurs of the Guard from November 1805: “Despite the snow, which was falling in avalanches, the foragers of the companies (and there were many of them) found some excellent cellars of Hungarian wines. We drank of these to warm ourselves, to refresh ourselves, to dispel the tedium of being crammed and half-stifled in rooms when we could not move hand or foot; lastly we drank so much that if we had had to fire it muskets that night we should not have been able to handle our cartridges. . . . A benevolent spectator of this gigantic orgy, drinking next to nothing, I marvelled, without being dazzled, att the surprising capacity of some of the men, which was truly Gargantuan. On the following day, the 9th, during a long and fatiguing march, most of the men, being forced to lie down by the roadside, having no legs to follow their comrades, had sufficient proof that this wine was harmful rather than beneficial to the health” Memories of a Napoleonic Officer: Jean-Baptiste Barrès Page 70 Pen and Sword, Barnsley 2017
Elting - using Coignet and then what? Coignet is well known for his bombastic camp fire stories.
Any Russian sources Elting used?
As I wrote - getting blind drunk was not uncommon for the Irish alone, nor the English, nor the Russians, the French served as prime examples as well, after the French took Dego at the 15.th of April 1796 -the Austrians could retake it due to the case, that the French soldiers were drunk and disordered.
Blaze, another story teller, spicing his memoires with camp fire gossip
They slept as little as possible; spending their times making, hashes, pancakes and fitters. Since some stomachs aren't strong enough to handle such sustained eating and drinking, the result was numerous cases of indigestion with filled the hospital. (...) If there were 100 tuns in the cellar, they would pierce them all at the same time because after all, that would make it easier for them to drink at once. All the wine runs out, all is wasted, and frequently the drunkards, swallowing too much, fall and drown themselves in the flood of wine wich fill the cellar.Those quotes are from Elting's translation - which I find more enjoyable - despite some howling foot notes than the much earlier translation of 1850 edited by Charles Napier.
However those translations are most likely abridged versions of "Blaze" whose work in French is published in two volumes - over 700 pages strong.
As a young officer I was told that the British soldier spent most of his money on cheap booze and ladies of ill repute, and the rest he wastes!
Life was short, ugly and brutish and the prevelence of cheap liquor, princibly gin in society was inspiration for artists such as Hogarth.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/William_Hogarth_-_Gin_Lane.jpg
By William Hogarth - Unknown sourceTransferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:NotFromUtrecht using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8942842
'The readiness with which Englishmen would get blind drunk during a retreat, falling beside the road to wake up as prisoners, was astounding.'-John Elting, Swords Around a Throne, 508.
'In 1799 one disgusted Englishman noted that the best way to deal with [the Russians] was to leave liquor in their path, since they would immediately drink themselves silly.'-Elting, 522.
'The Russian Guards were splendid-appearing troops, much spoiled and seldom exposed to the trial of combat. When the Grenadiers of the Old Guard gave a banquet for their Russian counterparts after the Treaty of Tilsit, Coignet...looked like a small boy alongside his guest. He was mightily impressed by the Russians' deep chests, but when the Russians, warmed by a few drinks, unbuttoned their tunics, wads of dirty rags dropped out. The Russians ate and drank to satiation, shoved fingers into their throats, vomited, and ate some more. Many passed out under the table in their spew...'-Elting, 526.