Y'know What? Fuck St. Patrick's Day.
Mar. 17th, 2021 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI came to a decision this year. Fuck St. Patrick's Day.
To be more precise, I came to that decision yesterday. I came to that decision because what I'm seeing, increasingly, is that St. Patrick's Day is being framed in popular culture as simply an opportunity to drink appropriately-colored or -named alcohol. I have Irish ancestry. I grew up celebrating St. Patrick's Day every year. So it really bothers me that that part of my identity is being reduced to booze.
It's ironic to equate Irish culture to booze, BTW, because my Irish grandmother was a teetotaler. It was not uncommon, at least among American Irish. "There are two kinds of Irish," she admonished me when I was younger, "The drunks and the dries. And this is a dry house." She'd seen alcohol ruin enough lives in her family and her community that she wouldn't allow a drop of it inside.
To be more precise, I came to that decision yesterday. I came to that decision because what I'm seeing, increasingly, is that St. Patrick's Day is being framed in popular culture as simply an opportunity to drink appropriately-colored or -named alcohol. I have Irish ancestry. I grew up celebrating St. Patrick's Day every year. So it really bothers me that that part of my identity is being reduced to booze.
It's ironic to equate Irish culture to booze, BTW, because my Irish grandmother was a teetotaler. It was not uncommon, at least among American Irish. "There are two kinds of Irish," she admonished me when I was younger, "The drunks and the dries. And this is a dry house." She'd seen alcohol ruin enough lives in her family and her community that she wouldn't allow a drop of it inside.
