Top o’ the mornin’ to ye… Here’s a little mood music…

Actually, as I write this, morning has about eleven minutes left. Then it will be noon. Bill has to leave for Bayern/Bavaria again this afternoon. I will spend the next three nights alone. Then he’ll come home, and life will continue until Friday, which is St. Patrick’s Day.

We probably won’t be doing anything special on the big day for “wearin’ green”. Even though Bill and I have some Irish roots and an Irish last name, I’m really more of a Scot. I think Bill is, too. For the longest time, we both thought he had a lot more Irish ancestry than he does. I was sure he was more Irish than I am. But, according to 23&Me and Ancestry.com, I am more Irish… and one can probably tell that by my temperament.

Bwahahahaha… I’m kidding, of course.

This morning, The Irish Times ran a story that got a bunch of Facebook comments from Irish people. The lovely Brianna Parkins, who is evidently not an Irish native (she’s from Australia), wrote yet another compelling column with a controversial title. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might remember that last month I posted about Parkins’ column. She wrote a piece titled “Now it’s okay for men to pee sitting down, here are a few other changes they could make“. Irish people went “fookin'” nuts.

I ended up having an argument with one guy, who was apparently irritated by my comment that some German women train their men to sit when they pee. That’s the truth, by the way. One guy wanted to argue with me about it. It turned into a blog entry.

But, as it was on that occasion, and as it is on this occasion, Parkins’ column wasn’t actually about what the headline implied. The earlier post I wrote wasn’t really about men sitting down to take a piss. The column was actually about violence against women. But Irish men were “taking the piss” and arguing about whether or not they should be compelled to pee sitting down. It was quite the mess.

Today’s column that has Irish people’s Irish up is titled “Be patient with us clueless foreigners this ‘St. Patty’s Day’”. Of course, because the article is behind a paywall, most of the people commenting haven’t read it. They don’t understand that, of course, Ms. Parkins knows that there’s no such thing as “St. Patty’s Day”. And, amazingly enough, they don’t get that the quotation marks in the headline are a dead giveaway that The Irish Times is well aware that the correct term is St. Patrick’s Day or, if one must abbreviate, “St. Paddy’s Day.” The Irish equivalent of Patrick is, of course, Padraig.

I can understand why it makes Irish people grit their teeth and cringe when they hear some clueless Yank refer to “St. Patty’s Day” while they pinch people who aren’t wearing green. However, the misspelled name was part of the point Ms. Parkins made in her very funny and astute column. If they had respected her enough to read what she actually wrote before complaining on Facebook, maybe they would have had a good laugh.

Parkins’ column was a polite request for Irish folks to be patient with us excitable non-Irish folks. We Yanks get excited about St. Patrick’s Day and our connections to Ireland, no matter how tenuous. And a lot of us are clueless about the realities of living in Ireland in 2023. We just have romantic notions of what it should be like.

Parkins writes of the tourists who show up for St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, wearing their “Kiss me, I’m Irish” t-shirts:

These are the people who swear blind to you that it’s “St Pattys Day”. The type that say they are allowed to pinch you on March 17th without repercussions because you didn’t wear green. In primary school I once walloped a particularly strong fingered and vicious child which I viewed as a proportionate use of force for the shocking act of violence foisted on me. The teacher did not and explained I should have known that I had to wear green or the ‘leprechauns’ would get me because I had an Irish family. An Irish family who never did this pinching carry-on because it’s not actually done in Ireland. My mum might have laughed at this story but not as much as the time she received a note from the school canteen advertising a special Irish lunch option to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

Was it bacon and cabbage? Coddle? Stew? Crisp sandwiches? No, they proudly announced they would be serving traditional Irish tacos, just like Peig Sayers and Fungi the Dolphin used to enjoy. The fillings you see make the tricolour – orange is carrot, white is over processed shredded cheese and green is lettuce. Which means the tacos were an insult to Mexican and Irish culture. Quite the achievement.

Bwahahahaha… too funny.

But go on the Facebook post for Parkins’ column, and you’ll read many, many indignant comments from people who couldn’t be arsed to read the article before chiming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… it’s behind a paywall. So buy a fucking subscription, then! Or, at least pay attention to the comments from the people who did read, so we don’t have to wade through your uninformed complaints.

That shit drives me NUTS. Seriously… if you don’t have the time or money to read before commenting, I don’t have the time to wade through your bullshit drivel. Check out these comments…

Bravo to Joan Butler, to whom I gave a red heart. Read the fucking article, PLEASE. Show us you actually CAN read!

I have noticed there are a lot of conservatives in Ireland. I’ve also noticed that a lot of conservatives aren’t readers. Coincidence? I don’t know… But The Irish Times is a great paper. They have some truly good journalists who don’t want to work for free. So, for the love of St. Paddy, please subscribe to The Irish Times and then, by all means, make your informed comments on the articles… not just the headlines! The writers will thank you, and those of us who do read, will also be grateful that we don’t have to read your comments and complaints about literal non-issues.

Danke sehr… 😉