Reader Kyran sent this photo of a hat sold by Walmart and asked the following question:
“Why are the Irish the last group you can still make fun of in retail?”
Despite our extreme Irishness, we don’t really have a good answer for this question. Maybe it’s because most Irish people don’t really care if you make fun of them on ridiculous tacky baseball caps? Then again, maybe Walmart is secretly part of the Know Nothing Party?
Discuss.
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@Peeved Guy:
Neither. I don’t even remember where the nick came from, other than that it isn’t really a geographic reference.
Btw, all “lochs” as Scottish. In Ireland they’re “loughs”
As an Irish person, I resemble those remarks. I completely agree with ZEKEDMS on this point. We are not offended because ITS TRUE!!!
The irish are not holier-than-thous that cry and complain because they get a bad rap. They deal with it by drinking and fighting, and they know it. Do you think stereotypes appear with no basis in reality?
I remember growing up with polish jokes. My uncle was polish, and he thought they were funny. Then we moved to Australia, and they had Irish jokes, but not polish jokes.
I was 14 at the time. It was the first time about comedy in that the joke needed an object of derision, but that it didn’t matter what.
Mostly, I think people need to have thicker skin.
As an Irish American I’m often baffled by my peers, you’d think there there was nothing more to being Irish than being able to drink. It’s a stereotype thats just so ingrained in the culture that we don’t even pay it any mind anymore. Why isn’t the measure of “Irishness” how well you can sing old songs? Or how much Irish history you know? Half of the kids who are always extolling themselves as proud Irishmen couldn’t even tell you what county their family emmigrated from let alone who Brendan Behan or Yeats were.
At my university I was at a party not too long ago and some girl saw I was wearing a flat cap (another stereotype I suppose) and assumed I was of Irish descent then started telling me how Irish she was and blah blah blah. Then when she was done she saw the claddagh pin I keep on the back of my hat and said “Oooh that’s pretty! What is that?”
P.S. To all you actual Irishman out there who call us plastic paddies, we don’t need your approval to be Irish, the united states are still young enough that each ethnic group still keeps it’s own traditions and history seperate from others (Italians, Germans, WASPS, etc.). And even then we have enough of our own history that Irish American could be considered an Ethnicity in it’s own right.
Hey the Scottish are drunkards too!!!!!
1/2 Scotch – 1/2 Cherokee, I’m soo screwed!!!