About two-thirds of the 10, 000 people who died on the nation's highways last year were either drunk or were killed by drunkards.

ECONOMIST: South African drinking rites

Although these films did very well abroad, local critics worried that internationally directed projects drew on stereotypes of Ireland being primitive yet idyllic and the Irish being short-tempered drunkards.

BBC: The evolution of Irish cinema

Yet to look at the way Americans portrayed themselves on television, in newspapers, and in magazines, you'd have thought that married women who worked were limited to a handful of elementary school teachers and the unlucky wives of sharecroppers and drunkards.

NPR: Excerpt: 'When Everything Changed'