Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.
Especially how so many celebrate it. I hate the way the Irish are trivialized and mocked inadvertently. It’s downright demeaning, and I’m being kind. Even the ubiquitous image of the leprechaun transcends anything vaguely resembling decency. Patronized and treated like children they are. With references to their cute “brogues” and accents. In fact, I have it on good authority that the notion of the brogue was and in fact is a pejorative. It was hatefully suggested that the Irish were thought to speak as though they had a shoe or a brogue in their mouths. It was said that to “refined English ears, the Irish sound as if they have shoes in their mouths.”
But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible.
– Anne McCaffrey, 1926 – 2011
Manly, yes, but I like it too. But who cares about history or relevance or truth? By God, we’re going to party! Historical relevance be damned! How despicably cruel that is. And their accents. What accents?! Accents, like incest, are relative. You have an accent relative to someone from Muckanaghederdauhaulia. Irish-Americans should be proud. First, of being American and secondly, of their Irish stock. Faith and Begorrah! And lose that while you at it.
I can’t even tell if this is offensive. The leprechaun. Horrible. Irish Spring, Lucky Charms and Barry Fitzgerald. Bastardized and horridly offensive depictions. The history of Ireland is fascinating — the troubles and travails. Civil wars and factional unrest. It makes you redefine just who the “terrorist” is, a term that’s used to describe the other guy and other side. So, read up, my countrymen, and celebrate a proud and great people whose worth cannot be reduced to a parade route or oceans of verdure. Sláinte!