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.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-19 06:53 pm (UTC)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.