Well, I survived another Saint Patrick's Day

[Juana]

We have highland games here, too, in the spring. Complete with camber tossing.

The Armenians are in LA as well, though I doubt they're the powerhouse there that they are here. Dunno about the Greeks (do you guys have open-to-the-public Orthodox festivals, too? You should go, if you do).

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Rong- i dont know what to say other than corned beef is not authentic irish food. It was used as a piss poor replacement for irish bacon because it was impossible to get in the usa prior to making every last politician irish because they have to be. Plus it tastes and smells like shit.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

And yet irish americans still eat it out of a sense of heritage.

Twid
uses willingness to eat corned beef for his litmus test. Seriously. That shit is naturally grey without food coloring.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that can be true, for people who have the knee jerk reaction of THE IRA FUCK YEAH! and such, but I think it can be part of an identity without overwhelming the rest of you. An identity should be greater than the sum of its parts, yes?

Well, sure.  I'm not saying that it's BAD to have that as part of your identity...It's just that St Patrick's Day turns many (insert e prime crap here) otherwise intelligent people into the Irish version of NASCAR fans, which grates on the nerves as badly as listening to Texans talk about Texas.

It's pretty fucking tiresome. In general, who their great-grandparents fucked is the least interesting aspect of a person's identity. If it comes up and it's directly relevant or a good joke can be had, sure. But the people who just constantly have to remind you of how Irish they are seem to be using it as a replacement for having an actual personality. It's like an indigenous American ending every statement with "A ho" or a black person changing their name to Kunte Kinte and then constantly being all "It's because I'm black, isn't it?"

Although at least if you're black there's a pretty good chance that people are treating you like you're black without you mentioning it. Irish in America can't get any oppression anymore because nobody can tell them apart from any other honkeys without them mentioning it. Constantly.

Fucking St. Patrick's Day. Some ass in the bar yesterday asked me why I wasn't wearing green. It's BECAUSE I'M NOT IRISH AND I COULD NOT GIVE A SINGLE FUCK ABOUT THE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT HOLIDAY IN WHICH SUBURBANITES COME TO THE CITY TO DRINK GREEN PISS-BEER. What March 17th means to me is my best friend's birthday, and that's all it will ever be.

Oh, and then I have to drive home in fear for my life because of all the drunk drivers. And miss a perfectly good show in St. John's, because driving to St. John's on the day when every white person in the city is using some tenuous and/or manufactured link to "Irishness" to justify getting wasted by 4 in the afternoon makes St. John's an even drunker and more dangerous place than it normally is, which is considerably drunk and dangerous.

Or I'm Legally Black Kill Me.

I thought you got that with Italians any every other group your migrants came from not just Irish.

Nah, on the West Coast the only white people who inform you of their heritage are the Irish. E.O.T.'s German and Italian, but you'd never know because it never comes up.

The Polish get all excited about once a year and make pierogies. That's about it, though.

You forgot those daft wannabe highlanders.

Oh yeah, those guys

they were big in the 90's. Are they still around?

Yes. They still have highland games. And yes there are still men who like running around in plaid skirts because it's a kilt and it's part of his heritage.

Coyote, wears a kilt because it's fucking comfortable, but he's Welsh and therefore a deviant and not to be trusted.

My ex wore a kilt at our wedding, and he still busts it out at parties.

There's a reason I hate Scotch and Highland games.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And yet irish americans still eat it out of a sense of heritage.

Twid
uses willingness to eat corned beef for his litmus test. Seriously. That shit is naturally grey without food coloring.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with the corned beef you guys are eating there, because here it's DELICIOUS. I usually buy a bunch of briskets on sale around this time of year and freeze them.

[Juana]

^^^That. Seriously.

[Eater of Clowns]

Distaste for corned beef is a serious character flaw.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

One cannot dispute tastes. I think its nasty. Its certainly not irish.

[Doktor Howl]

Corned beef is eaten only by savages who don't know any better.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thank you dok. I like to think of myself as civilized also.

Twid
also doesnt eat marine life which is highly uncharacteristic for both an irishman and a bostonian.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

I wrote this song after witnessing a sea of drunken green t-shirted fools pub crawling through Brisbane last year. It's called, "St Patricks Day", and has a fairly ordinary Irish folk tune -

'Twas me first month out of Ireland,
After I sailed from Galway Bay,
I remember the tears in me mother's eyes,
I remember the words she'd say.

She said we all know why you're leavin',
But we don't care what they say,
Just do one thing to clear the family name,
and get plenty pissed come St Patrick's day...

So I've left me room at me youth hostel,
gone lookin' for some fiddlers gree,.
But every pub in this fookin' town
I can't undertsand what they mean,

When they say welcome to me Irish Pub
called Paddy McGuinness O'McFinnegans Wake,
When back in Ireland, we just got pubs,
Not Irish pubs for fook's sake


And it's bloody well St Patrick's Day
and I'm lookin' for a pint
and If'n you bastards don't get me one,
well too early we'll start the fight

Chorus
I'm Irish where's me pint?
Be it 6am or night,
It's St Patrick's day and I'm Irish, so gimme me fookin' pint.

I remeber me dear old mother,
left her standin' in Galway bay,
I promised I'd try to clear the family name,
and get plenty pissed come St Patrick's day

Well on this day back in Ireland,
we all get completely pissed,
then we fight, make each other bleed,
Beneath the descending mist

For St Patrick, was a holy man,
He rid the land of snakes (and snake fossils),
and we celebrate this holy man,
By gettin' completely pissed


Repeat chorus a coule of times

[Faust]

I think that can be true, for people who have the knee jerk reaction of THE IRA FUCK YEAH! and such, but I think it can be part of an identity without overwhelming the rest of you. An identity should be greater than the sum of its parts, yes?

Well, sure.  I'm not saying that it's BAD to have that as part of your identity...It's just that St Patrick's Day turns many (insert e prime crap here) otherwise intelligent people into the Irish version of NASCAR fans, which grates on the nerves as badly as listening to Texans talk about Texas.

It's pretty fucking tiresome. In general, who their great-grandparents fucked is the least interesting aspect of a person's identity. If it comes up and it's directly relevant or a good joke can be had, sure. But the people who just constantly have to remind you of how Irish they are seem to be using it as a replacement for having an actual personality. It's like an indigenous American ending every statement with "A ho" or a black person changing their name to Kunte Kinte and then constantly being all "It's because I'm black, isn't it?"

Although at least if you're black there's a pretty good chance that people are treating you like you're black without you mentioning it. Irish in America can't get any oppression anymore because nobody can tell them apart from any other honkeys without them mentioning it. Constantly.

Fucking St. Patrick's Day. Some ass in the bar yesterday asked me why I wasn't wearing green. It's BECAUSE I'M NOT IRISH AND I COULD NOT GIVE A SINGLE FUCK ABOUT THE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT HOLIDAY IN WHICH SUBURBANITES COME TO THE CITY TO DRINK GREEN PISS-BEER. What March 17th means to me is my best friend's birthday, and that's all it will ever be.

Oh, and then I have to drive home in fear for my life because of all the drunk drivers. And miss a perfectly good show in St. John's, because driving to St. John's on the day when every white person in the city is using some tenuous and/or manufactured link to "Irishness" to justify getting wasted by 4 in the afternoon makes St. John's an even drunker and more dangerous place than it normally is, which is considerably drunk and dangerous.

Or I'm Legally Black Kill Me.

I thought you got that with Italians any every other group your migrants came from not just Irish.

Nah, on the West Coast the only white people who inform you of their heritage are the Irish. E.O.T.'s German and Italian, but you'd never know because it never comes up.

The Polish get all excited about once a year and make pierogies. That's about it, though.

Have you no African, Spanish or Chinese decent? I would have thought they would have been all about the heritage. Especially the Spanish.

the only white people who inform you of their heritage are the Irish.

People of African and Chinese descent don't usually announce it, although it might come up in conversation. We don't have a very big Chinese population in Portland; more Korean and Vietnamese. Who also may or may not specifically mention it, but in general I think non-white people here don't feel a strong need to inform you of their heritage because it's visible on their faces.

We don't really have much by way of Spanish people here. One of my Mexican friends is of primarily Spanish descent, but I am not aware of a single Spanish-heritage festival, and I can't think of anyone other than Fluffy telling me that they're of Spanish descent.

We do have a shit-ton of Russians.

We have a lot of people of Chinese descent, to look at they wouldn't be instantly identifiable as Irish (unless the girls were wearing hoopy earrings and shiny tracksuits). One of my friends from years ago took offense when I assumed he knew about her Chinese heritage, she is something like fifth or sixth generation Irish.

[Cain]

Theres no such thing as european spanish in the new world. You wont find them anywhere from what i understand.

They mostly make up the aristocracy of various South and Central American nations.

[Cain]

the irish are the oppressed white people.

No more so than the other 90% of the British population at the time.

In fact, this would explain the similarity in English and Irish whining about how oppressed they (read: their great-great-great grandparents) are.

[Faust]

the irish are the oppressed white people.

No more so than the other 90% of the British population at the time.

In fact, this would explain the similarity in English and Irish whining about how oppressed they (read: their great-great-great grandparents) are.

That's the thing, Ireland got some great contacts from countries that were oppressed in the commonwealth. Qaddafi (catholic god rest his soul) loved us because we gave the UK a headache.