Wonkette
Way back in the Fifth Century, Eliot Spitzer took a "white slave" to Ireland. After many years of imprisonment, Little Saint Patrick escaped back to England, which was part of Rome at the time, and he remembered his Irish slavery so fondly that he vowed to return and destroy Paganism. It only took another 1,500 years for Ted Kennedy to drunkenly crash his car off a tiny bridge and drown his girlfriend. Learn more about St. Patrick's Day, after the jump.
In the late 1800s, the Irish became the "Mexicans of That Era" when they migrated in vast numbers to the United States because they a) were starving and b) hated the English. Nobody liked them because they looked weird and were terrible alcoholics and also they were extremely poor, and poor people just plain suck. Most newspapers of the time called the Irish "Paddy" and always printed this allegedly accurate photograph of an Irishman:
According to a U.S. government report, "The argument that the dominant popular stereotypes of the Irish were especially nasty does not hold up under careful examination. There is no evidence that more than one in a thousand Americans considered the Irish as racially inferior, non-white or ape-like."
Then racism ended and the Irish took over a) Law Enforcement and b) the Kennedy Family. Now you can find Irish Pubs pretty much anywhere!
Other famous Irishmen include Morrissey.
Ireland's rich hold on the American imagination is best illustrated by this television news report about ghetto people "seeing a leprechaun" in a tree, in their ghetto:
Ireland's leaders call for alcohol restraint during St. Patrick's Day [IHT]
Comments
That first picture is actually Frank McCourt. He's so inspirational!
I'm English, and I hate the English too.
and don't forget, the Irish are never gay--at least not the ones in New York, at least not the ones in New York who are allowed to march in the damn parade
umm Morrisey?
That photo is enough to make me "scared sober."
Ken, you may have just turned me into a non-drinker. Thanks a lot, buddy.
Ahh, the Mobile Leprechaun. They used to sell t-shirts with the "amateur sketch" down there. Check out the rap video:
So the Blazing Saddles depiction was not, in fact, historically accurate?
Dear St. Patrick -- we'll take the snakes back if you'll just rid the island of Christianity.
Thanks,
Siw/W
Shane MacGowan was born in England and spent most of his life in London. But, he definitely redefines drunk Irishman.
@SayItWithWookies: Slainte!
@weazel: That's nothing....I'm almost completely of irish ancestry, and I need only look a down the branches and trunk of my family tree to start wondering if the English didn't have a point.
I want one of those Irish Anarchy hats!
@morepunkthanyou: You have to admire Irish genetics. That man has crammed in enough partying into his 50 years to kill ten ordinary men. Somewhere in his and Keith Richards' DNA is the key to Mankind surviving any apocalypse the universe might throw at us.
@fishskicanoe: Irish anarchy.......when regular old anarchy isn't chaotic or alcohol-fueled enough.
That's an old photo of Shane MacGowan. He still (sort of) has teeth in it. The locals in the rural Welsh village I used to live in got very huffy whenever anyone suggested that St. Patrick was anything other than Welsh.
@Botswana Meat Commission FC: I thought that was a young Christopher Hitchens.
I've decided to blame most of the problems in my life on the fact that my grandpa (Irish Catholic) married my grandma (Irish Protestant) and made the bad mistake of reproducing. ... but then there's also my mom's side, which is just a genetic black hole.
@Gopherit: also amazing, that they've both lived more public, financially productive lives than many sober folk. After the apocalypse, it will be cockroaches, twinkies, and those two. And then they will all breed to create a new super race of drunken, dope-addled, cream-filled insects.
And then they will spread their civilization to the stars, and there will be a galaxy-wide golden age...
Ireland is a lovely place, but if all the teeth in Ireland were lined up end to end, they would look sort of like they do now. There isn't a straight set of choppers on the Emerald Isle.
There's a story about Saint Patrick converting a particularly recalcitrant Irish warlord by stabbing him in the foot with a staff. It took a certain kind of Saint to convert the Irish.
Really,you guys can take St.Patrick and shove him in the same place Columbus and the friggin' Pilgrims belong-up your white asses.
@Gopherit: Agreed. I saw the Pogues last week and MacGowan could barely stand, but somehow he sang all his songs with his signature snarl. I couldn't understand a word he said between songs, but somehow the actual songs made sense. It's both admirable and absolutely disturbing.
Ah, well. Pogue mahone.
@morepunkthanyou: When I saw him, he had a bottle of whisky in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and somehow managed to hold onto the mike stand between them. And he wandered offstage every few songs. And he chugged the remaining half of the bottle at the end of the show. It sounded like he was singing through a mouthful of his own broken teeth, and was really one of the more awesome shows I've ever seen.
This is the most idiotic post ever on Wonkette ... less idiotic if the Ghetto Leprechaun is actually discovered ...
The US and the Irish have always gotten along fantastically. I really don't see where this myth of racial enmity comes from.
@Eac_o_System: And turns out to be Obama.
@bambu: Now I'm imagining a Saint Patrick's Day Gay Pride Parade.
It is the most terrifying image ever.
@WadISay: What is is with this Yank obsession with good teeth? What use are perfect teeth? All dentistry leads to the Osmond family. In any case, those aren't teeth in Shane's mouth. They're menhirs, and he hosts druidic ceremonies among them every summer solstice.
Just to be a spoilsport, can I point out that today is NOT St Patrick's Day. You cannot have a celebration during Holy Week, so officially (the Pope said or something) St Patrick's Day was moved to Saturday. So you've missed it.
That said, I'm off to drink Guinness and dance to Ceilidh tonight... Slainte!
Have some more Hateraide you Haters.
@iwontsavethispatient: no, sorry: I saw the Pope today. He was riding on the back of a pickup or a flatbed and waving and throwing out candy or something. It was an implicit endorsement of the holiday.
That amateur sketch is straight out of a Whitley Streiber nightmare.
Though, it could just be the Tullamore Dew talking...
@hageesheart: That was the Protestant Pope. Doesn't count!
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