The Irish

What’s interesting about today is how crazy it will drive someone actually from Ireland. I’ve heard so many times from comedians and just regular people how they HATE the fact that Americans will regularly inform them that they’re Irish. Because to an actual Irishman from Ireland, we’re all Americans. Never mind what country our ancestors came from, we are Americans and can’t be Irish because we never lived in Ireland.

It seems to me that there is a disconnect though, one of thought processes that we have that they don’t. Americans cling on to their heritage, like most people do I think, and a lot of that heritage comes from other nations. We’re not really old enough for true and genuine heritage.

It’s easy to be at least part Irish in America, being partly Irish in America is no great feat. If you’re family has been here more than three or four generations, then the chances of some of the emerald blood being mixed in your veins is really quite high. Of course you also have an equally huge chance of having Dutch blood too. Strangely though, no one mentions that part. I guess being descended from liberally minded capitalists is less interesting than coming from the oppressed mass.

Ireland does have a strange romance to it that many other parts of Europe can’t claim. About the only place I can think of that has the popular lure as Ireland is Italy, which carries a different but equally powerful pull. If anything, the Italian pull might be stronger because the last massive wave of Italians came more recently than the last wave of Irish. I’m not sure if Italians complain about Americans like the Irish complain about Americans, I can’t just go online and listen to an Italian comedian because of the language barrier.

I sort of understand where the Irish guys who I’ve heard complain are coming from, but I really don’t care today. I would normally care, but I can’t work up the energy today. Besides, Americans only really have two, maybe four hundred years of history if you’ve been here a long time. We’ve got to take our heritage were we can find it, and as I said, you probably are at least partly Irish if you’ve been here a generation or three.

I do sort of wish the day wasn’t marked by the worst stereotypes of Irish behavior, drinking, fighting and being belligerent, but that’s an issue for another day. Maybe I’ll mention that next year.