Blarney-Busting After St. Patrick’s Day

Feel confident in your knowledge of all things Irish? You may be. Then again, maybe, you've been misled by some American blarney.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit! I hope you had a wonderful Saint Patrick’s Day. For this week’s post, I thought it would be fun to explore ten American beliefs and misconceptions about the Irish and Irish-related topics. Sit back and enjoy a little blarney-busting.

1. Just like Valentine’s Day was invented by Hallmark to sell merchandise, the Irish created Saint Patrick’s Day just as an excuse to party and drink.

Nope. Blarney! Actually, Originally, the day was a solemn feast day for Irish Catholics. Irish immigrants to the U.S., who had fled the famine, didn't receive a warm welcome in the U.S,

They were the first large group of poor immigrants to this country. Some didn't speak English but only spoke Irish. On top of that, most of them were Catholic. American Protestants were unhappy about all of that. The fact that the Irish were new competitors in the job market--and were cheap labor since they were desperate for work and there were no minimum wage laws yet--didn't help any either.

Anti-Irish sentiment exploded in the U.S. The "native Americans," as they called themselves, responded to the influx of famine Irish with hostility, setting fire to their churches and neighborhoods. Want ads, said "Help needed. No Irish Need Apply." Political cartoons and magazine covers depicted the Irish as drunken gorillas. A political party, the Know-Nothings, ran a presidential candidate simply on the platform of ridding the U.S. of all Irish.

 It was in this context that Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, parades, the wearing of the green, and the singing of traditional Irish music were born. Irish immigrants and their children turned the solemn feast day from back home into a celebration of culture and a defiant show of pride in their Irish identity.

St. Patrick's Day used to be a solemn holy day in Ireland until the American parades and parties migrated over the Atlantic to the Emerald Isle.

The children of the immigrants, as they grew into adulthood, found a way to gain power in the U.S. in order to benefit their communities, especially through joining the police force and through entering politics.

After a while, the American celebration of Saint Paddy's Day traveled back across the Atlantic, and parades and parties sprouted in Ireland too.

2) Saint Patrick was Irish.

Again, no. The patron saint of Ireland, Patrick, was not Irish. As a teenager, he was brought to Ireland as a slave. Later, he escaped to the continent and became a priest and missionary. In a vision, he heard the voices of the Irish calling to him for help. Patrick returned to the island, preached the gospel, and converted the Irish to Christianity. So what nationality was he? There is some debate. Most scholars say he was either a Roman Briton or a Welshman.

3) Shamrocks are the National Symbol of Ireland.

Nope, although this seems plausible. Without a doubt, shamrocks are associated with Saint Patrick, both in the U.S. and in Ireland. Legend claims that the saint used the three-leafed plant to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Also, each year, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland gives a gift of shamrocks to the U.S. President as a gesture of friendship and goodwill between the two counties. This tradition started in 1952 when John Hearne, the Irish ambassador to the U.S., sent a box of shamrocks to President Harry Truman with a message saying that he hoped the relationship between the two countries would “continue to be on a good and effective level for generations.” It’s a beautiful tradition which has continued each year ever since.

That said, the national symbol of the Republic of Ireland is the harp. If you’ve a speck of good Irish blood DNA, you’ll know why.

The harp, not shamrocks, is the national symbol of the Republic of Ireland.

4) If you capture a leprechaun, you’ll get rich.

Oh, there’s none so skilled at blarney than a leprechaun! These wee faeries can talk their way in or out of anything, and you’d be a fool to believe a word they say.

So, if you capture a leprechaun (and good luck with that) and he promises to lead you to his pot of gold, you'd be a fool for believing him!

There are many tales of these Good Folk playing tricks on humans. One of the leprechaun's fictions is to give a human some gold or silver coins with a promise of more to come later. But as soon as the leprechaun gets away from his captor, the money turns to ashes or vanishes altogether.

5) Faeries are small, fun, and helpful.

Helpful? They can be—but don’t count on it. A group called trooping faeries are quite social, travel as a court, like to have fun and are, usually, benevolent towards humans. Even so, Irish faeries are capricious, easily offended, and can be vindictive.

And let's clear this one up while we're at it. Trooping faeries, as well as some solitary faeries, e.g., leprechauns, clurichauns, and grogochs, are small in stature, but not all Irish faeries are wee folk. The Sluagh Sidhe, the Dullahan, and banshees, among others, are human-sized. Then there are the shapeshifters, such as the Puca and water horses, who can be as small or tall as they like since they can appear in any form they wish.

Also, the majority of Irish faeries (and Celtic faeries in general) don’t have wings. But some, such as the Sluagh Sidhe, have bat-like wings. And, of course, a shapeshifter could always take the form of a bird. But generally speaking, no wings.

Winged or not, It’s best not to mess with the Good Folk. Traditionally, the faeries are referred to both respectfully and obliquely by using terms like the Fair Folk or the Gentry. And whatever you do, don’t call them “Little People” unless you’re planning to have misfortune for the rest of your very short life.

6) Banshees are ugly old hags who kill people by screaming.

This heinous slander arose from U.S. movies, television, and video games which depict banshees as predatory monsters who kill people with their screams for the sheer joy if it. This is wrong in its entirety.

Banshees are messengers of death, which makes them scary. But they only warn the family of the impending death; they don't cause it.

And, while they may sometimes appear as a hag, they are faeries. The word banshee comes from the Irish language: bean (woman) and sidhe: (faerie or faerie mound). These faeries attach themselves to a particular family then warn that family of the impending death of one of its members, most commonly by wailing. Banshees have also been known to knock (in my family, it’s said that three unexplained knocks in the house is the banshee warning of a death).

Often, the banshee is heard rather than seen, but there are stories of banshees appearing, pointing towards a house, and weeping uncontrollably. Banshees sometimes also show up at funerals. Irish belief used to be that a banshee’s presence at a funeral indicated that the deceased was someone either of high importance or of great holiness. Having a family banshee is an honor and a matter of pride. Not all Irish families have one.

Think Irish people usually have red hair and blue eyes? Actually, sisters Andrea, Sharon, and Caroline Corr of the Irish band, The Corrs, have the brown hair and fair skin that's more typical of the Irish.

7) Irish people have fair skin, red hair and blue eyes.

The fair skin? Usually. The red hair, however, was brought to Ireland by the Vikings. A typical Irish person has brown hair and green or hazel eyes.

Nowadays, the question of what an Irish person looks like really depends on how one defines the term “an Irish person.” Does it refer to a certain ethnicity. or does it mean those people who were born and raised in Ireland? People have immigrated to Ireland from other countries and their descendants, born in the country and citizens of Ireland, consider themselves—with good cause—to have more of a right to refer to themselves as “Irish” than any U.S. born person with Irish ancestors does.

8) The Irish speak Gaelic.

Yes and no. It’s complicated. Most people on the island of Ireland speak English. In the Republic of Ireland, there is a region known as the Gaeltacht. People in this area have Irish as their first and main language. Some people (inside and outside the Gaeltacht) are bilingual, speaking both Irish and English. Irish is the name of a language, just as English is the name of the language spoken by the English, Spanish is spoken by the Spanish, and French is the language of the French. That said, Irish is a branch of the Gaelic family of languages, which also includes Scots Gaelic and Welsh. Just to confuse things further, in Irish the name of the language is Gaelige (pronounced gwail-guh), which simply means “the language.”

9) Corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage is a typical Irish meal.

Potatoes, absolutely. To my parents, it wasn’t dinner unless there were potatoes (and bread). And the Irish people I know can’t get enough of potatoes. An Irish comfort food is a sandwich filled with potato crisps (preferably Taytos, not Lays). Cabbage? Again, yes. Also, if you mix green cabbage into mashed potatoes you’ll have an authentic Irish dish called colcannon. The vegetable even shows up in Irish folklore!

Corned beef? It’s an American thing.

So why is it part of the Saint Patrick’s Day meal? No one really knows. There is a theory that the Irish used corned beef as an inexpensive alternative to pork or bacon.

In the mood for a taste of Ireland? Skip the corned beef and green beer! Try a Tayto crisps on white bread sandwich with a glass of Guinness instead.

10) Saint Paddy’s is fine; Saint Patty’s is not.

This one is true. In the U.S., around March 17th, there are many signs and t-shirts which read, “Happy St. Patty’s Day!” As an American myself, I understand this. Often, Patty is used as a nickname for Patricia which, of course, is the feminine version of Patrick.

However, I have encountered a large number of Irish people (meaning people actually from Ireland) who react to St. Patty’s anywhere from scoffing at the ignorance of Americans to foaming at the mouth in umbrage. They say that the word patty is for hamburgers, and that the correct nickname for the saint is Paddy. Why? Because the Irish version of the saint’s name is Padraig. So there, Americans; you’ve been told. For my part, Padraig, Patrick, Patty, Paddy, or Pat, I’m fine. Say what you like. Just stop it already with the green beer!

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Slan go foil!

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