canyonwalker | Y'know What? Fuck St. Patrick's Day.

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Y'know What? Fuck St. Patrick's Day.

I 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.

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I understand. I get your grandmother as well, my dad was the same.

We were visiting Mom's sister & her family. Dad was sitting in a room with us kids. I asked him why he wasn't out with everyone else. He said he didn't want to be just another drunk Indian. Given I later found out his brother was an alcoholic, it made sense.

If it helps any, we don't think drinking when we hear of the Irish. However the general population... yes, that's all they think at this point thanks to St Patrick's Day's marketing.

I don't agree with my grandmother's binary logic, BTW. By her reduction I'd be a drunk, since I'm not an abstainer. She wasn't militant about her belief, though. For her it was a personal value, not a political statement. She never drank, there was never liquor in the house, and close family would not consume liquor at small restaurant gatherings with her. But her husband and kids could enjoy a drink with friends at a bar or a party. She never said an unkind word to anyone else about their drinking— including not a few people who deserved an unkind word for making a mess of themselves and hurting their own families.

I wonder if the promotion of St. Patrick's Day in the US isn't a product of several things:

a) It's been a very long time, but the Irish were unwanted, hated, and vilified for some time. Was St. Patrick's Day in part a way to have both one's own pride in heritage, as well as a promotion to others of a more positive attitude towards people of Irish descent?

b) In the modern era, it's a huge monetary uptick for certain parts of the hospitality industry. I suspect it's right up there with New Year's for some of them. It's big business so it gets promoted for no heritage reason.

c) Overlapping with the previous, there was no holiday between Christmas and Easter. Plus, for those that observed it, there's Lent. Was St. Patrick's Day a convenient opportunity for people to take a break?

d) In the 70's (?) it was a propaganda tool for the IRA to promote support in the US.

Probably some other social reasons, too. And it's probably perceived very differently if you have Irish Catholic heritage or Irish Protestant heritage or no Irish heritage. It would be interesting to know if the whole perspective was different in Ireland, now and historically.

I do find it surprising that one of the stereotypes about "the Irish" was that they were drunks, and that sure seems echoed in what you mentioned.

St. Patrick's Day is not just a US thing. It's widely celebrated in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and across the UK, too.

Your remark about how Irish immigrants in the US were "unwanted, hated, and vilified" years ago touches on another beef I have with the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated. If we're going to have a day of recognizing Irish heritage in the US, that day really should not make light of the ravages of alcohol (drug abuse is a major problem in many communities treated as third-class people) but instead should focus on how Irish in the US struggled through ethnic discrimination. Not to mention, how the Irish immigration surge was caused by utterly inhumane, ethnic cleansing-level policies of the UK government. Any serious reflection on these Irish realities ought to extend empathy to other groups who are oppressed. But instead, St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the US are largely owned and driven by people who are completely happy to exclude anyone they consider "other".

So, fuck St. Patrick's Day, and fuck the Irish who learned no moral lessons from Irish history.

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