St. Patrick’s day isn’t just an excuse for my fellow Chicagoans to drink green beer until they spray green vomit all over their Irish wool sweaters. It’s a religious holiday, a feast day to honor St. Patrick. While I’m all about a good party and drinking some beer, what was once a holy day has become a secular holiday on steroids that now scares me into staying home.
What used to be like Amateur Day has become Amateur Week. It goes beyond the dumping, of all things, orange dye into the Chicago River to make it green. It even goes beyond the dumping of green dye into perfectly delicious beer. The thing that rankles me the most and always has is how everyone thinks they’re so fucking … Irish … on St. Patrick’s Day.
I remember sitting at lunch in sixth grade. Suddenly, it was a big deal if you were Irish and just how Irish you were. That’s fine for the kids. But when you’re dealing with grown men getting into shoving matches, arguing who’s more Irish, well, welcome to the Southside. Everyone’s trotting out their worst brogues, their smelliest boiled dinners and their biggest attitudes.
Now, if you’re the type that puts your kids in Irish dance class, has a long-distance plan that affords you cheap calls to Aunt Bridie and makes it back to the mother country every now and then, please, do ignore me. Because it’s not about people bragging about their Irish ancestry that annoys me, it’s about people who identify themselves on such a shallow level: the Valentine’s Day romantic; the Easter Catholic; the July 4th patriot. I’m all for a booze-soaked celebration, but the shit-talking and complete ignorance that I’ve seen manifested in all its red-eyed, red-nosed and tam-o’-shantered glory makes me wonder:
What are people basing their identities upon?
I know it seems pissy and petty for me to be irritated by people just having a good time and celebrating a rich cultural tradition. I don’t expect people to attend seminars on the academic or historical impact of the Irish on America before they don their green clothes. I just wish people would define themselves and identify with deeper factors in a more regular fashion. Typical of our culture, though, it’s easier to just break out your cultural identity once a year without really knowing anything of substance about it or how it’s made us who we are today.
To celebrate my Irish heritage today, because despite the title, the bulk of my heritage actually is Irish, I’m going to have a Reuben. What? It’s corned beef and cabbage.
Well, I’m so Irish that I take offense to your article. That’s how Irish I am!