Aspects of Irishness: Patty's Day

This is a rather tongue-in-cheek article not intended to personally offend you if you are of Irish heritage and do know that it is not Patty's Day. I don't hate America as many people suggest. This holiday just brings out the scrooge in me.

Dear America,

These balloons have been up
outside Honey Dew since Feb 16th

First of all, I would like to profoundly thank you. Your attempt to embrace our culture of donning ugly green clothes with blatant disregard for the highly fashion conscious, and drinking to excess in the name of a wise and holy man who was not even born in our country is nothing short of admirable. It is a huge endorsement to the Irish people that "having the craic" is an acceptable thing to do.

Secondly, I would like to thank you for welcoming us Irish over in our droves through the years, from the great famine to the not-so-great recession that now grips our once questionably-great nation. Thank you for receiving us so readily and then making it so difficult to remain legally. When we wade through the spirit-crushing red-tape and excessive paper-work, it is a real confidence-booster and show of solidarity and brotherhood to then be labeled "non-resident aliens" instead of "illegal aliens". It is promotions such as these that make your country one that everyone aspires to be in.

Sadly, this is all the praise I can muster for your self-proclaimed great country when it comes to Irishness and everything that is associated with it. St. Patrick's Day, it appears, brings this to bear even more-so. This is why I am issuing a forewarning of sorts. The first decree I would issue were I to be "The High Lord Decider of Who is Allowed to Celebrate March 17th" (that's not a real thing, but it should be) would be this:

If you refer to it as Patty's day, you should be taken aside, given a rectal examination by a leprechaun (pronounced: lep-re-cawn. Not pronounced: Le-preshen or Lep-re-shaun), drowned in his pot of gold, and your burial should take place under a fairy tree, eulogized by a Celtic monk, as Saoirse, a red-headed girl with freckles, plucks at a harp. Michael Flatley could then dance on your grave, and young lads walking home from Supermacs can take turns pissing on it.

American chain-restaurants and eateries - you are not fooling anyone with your feeble attempts at an Irish menu for St. Patrick's weekend. Yes, Guinness is distinctly Irish and is widely drank in the country. However, adding Guinness to your sauces does not make a dish Irish. Calling Buffalo Chicken Wings, Pot o' Gold Wings does not add any Celtic charm, and putting pistachio (which are fucking Iranian funnily enough) in your donuts does not an Irish breakfast make.  My favorite restaurant, The 99, is one of the most embarrassing culprits, with Honey Dew Donuts not far behind.

The entrance to Honey Dew. Their
"tip jar" is now a green pot of gold

American people - you are not Irish, no matter how many "four leaf clovers" (it's called a shamrock and has three leaves) you paint on your cheeks or how much green beer you drink. We don't mind you participating in the drinking culture which stifles any production that our fine country can have. In fact, we very much welcome it. If every other country drank as much as us, we would become very productive very quickly. Just don't maintain you are Irish because your aunt's, grand mother on your half sister's, father's side was born in "Cowny Coark. Is that a place? I think that's where she came from."

Instead, why not just celebrate a day of Irishness as an American who wants to be Irish for a day, rather than one who thinks they're Irish all their life. If you are going to make it so hard for us to stay within your borders, we're sure as hell not going to give up our culture and identity like some slut in Copper Face Jacks after Maniac 2000 has been played.

We enjoy the whole leprechaun thing from time-to-time and we embrace our drinking culture with blatant disregard for our bodies, relationships, and self-image. Sometimes we even enjoy the bejaysus, begorrah and begosh, shillelagh-in-me-ear-and-shamrock-up-me-arse type stuff, but we're not complete idiots. We've come a long way and we know we have, so just keep that in mind. We're people too, difficult and all as that is to process when you just sit there waiting for us to shit pots of gold and speak in Gaelic.

Also, these pub crawls weeks in advance of the actual day are cheating. Half the fun of Paddy's Day is trying to make it through the next day of work without shitting your pants, or finding a creative excuse when you're the seventeenth person who has called in sick to your place of work.

Even the clothing stores are in on it

After stringing you by the balls and pummeling you with fists wrapped in barb wire, leaving you bleeding from a number of different wounds and barely-functioning internal organs (a bit like you should feel on March 18th actually) for the last number of paragraphs, I would like to end this on a positive note. America, it is with hope in my heart that I send you this letter, hope that you will embrace our culture in just the right way, hope that we can overcome our differences on what it means to be Irish and celebrate this day the way St. Patrick would have wanted - drinking a bottle of Buckfast on Spanish Arch (if it isn't raining). Judging by the amount of complete bollocks I've seen around the place already though, I highly doubt it.

Yours in inordinate consumption of alcohol for no discernible reason,

Joe Donnellan

P.S. If you are unfamiliar with a combination of Copper Face Jacks, Buckfast, Supermacs, or Spanish Arch, you are not Irish. That, or you are from Dublin.

P.P.S. We realize our president doesn't do us any favors in the we-aren't-all-leprechauns department, but he's a nice man.

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