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In January, he was found guilty of attempted murder, and Judge Alice Robinson said at sentencing on Friday: "It was an angry, drunken and petulant, albeit extreme, reaction."

Indeed, modern-day affirmative stereotypes about the Irish as a drunken and sentimental tribe of poets, dreamers and pugilists closely mirror older, more negative stereotypes, rendered charming instead of threatening.

For decades, this fixture kept the police stretched with drunken sporadic violence.

"The way it was twisted to make her out be a drunken, bigoted wee lout was one of the worst times of my life," recalls her father.

But the magistrate said he was of "the view that unprovoked drunken behaviour is too serious to be dealt with unpaid work".