As St. Patrick’s Day rolls around again I find myself wondering: why do we Hibernians even celebrate this holiday anymore?
 
I mean, are we supposed to be celebrating St. Patrick, who drove the snakes from Eire, but brought us a new plague of Catholicism instead? No more snakebites, but guilt, damnation and 1,000 years of bad sex! Who wouldn’t have the snakes back again, and our vibrant pagan culture of physical enjoyment, painting our faces blue and talking to trees instead of that awful newfangled cult of Christianity? Let me find a couple of wild, red-haired colleens and we’ll get all sky-blue together and reverse that mistake…
-OK, you can go out and drink yourself peloothered on St. Patty’s. Well fine, and how does that differ from any other day for us? And since when did I require your permission, boyo?
-Bono. If we ignore him, will he shut his gob and go away? (I know he has nothing to do with the holiday, but it is Irish and I can’t stand him.)
-Must I root for Notre Dame, for the Red Sox, Boston College, the Celtics, the Patriots!?!? Begorra! That would be harder to swallow than an Irish car bomb and harder to sit through than Riverdance.
-Must we accept the fake Irish who try to “pass†for a day? You know who you are. Do you honestly think that wearing green, drinking a Guinness and singing “O Danny Boy†qualifies you? On the other hand, do any of you South Side Celts even know who James Joyce is? Or Master W.B. Yeats? Or Samuel Beckett? Or Flann O’Brien? Or Brian Boru? Shame on you for forgetting our bards and ancient kings! May Queen Maive curse you all on the Hill of Tara!
Finally, there’s nothing to celebrate for being the biggest bunch of belligerent, know-nothings of all the races on the planet. Except for all the others, that is. When it comes to the accursed generations of man, we are all tied for last place. Now that’s a club I can drink to, and you’re all members of that one t’be sure, so show us the bottoms of your glasses and let’s sing: “When Irish eyes are smiling…†or “The Body of an American†a Pogues tune featured on HBO’s THE WIRE (it recently completed its final episode and many consider it the best show on television) which features a certain hard drinking Irish detective McNulty.
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