Don't Kiss Me
Here’s something I really don’t understand:
I do not have a drop of Irish blood in my body. (In fact, a few of my ancestors were Northern Irish Protestants, though that’s about all I know of them.) In spite of this, I am expected to spend Ireland’s national holiday dressed as if I were a member of the Irish nation. If I fail to do this, I get pinched by fellow non-Irishmen. What’s a nice Jewish girl to do?
Most people, of course, would say I’ve made a logical error in the third sentence. In America, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t just for the Irish; it’s for the Irish and those who love them, at least enough to remember what day it is when they get dressed in the morning. It’s some type of pluralist solidarity, apparently, to let our rivers and taps flow green, generous in appreciation for someone else’s motherland.
It’s hardly controversial to say that this “appreciation” lacks substance, that the Irishness being celebrated on St. Patrick’s Day — alcohol! leprechauns! the Dropkick Murphys! — is more kitsch than culture, that no one has ever learned what it is to be Irish or Irish-American while on a Guinness-sponsored pub crawl. This doesn’t embrace Irish culture, it hollows it. Maybe it was inevitable after two hundred or so years of significant Irish presence in the States; assimilation is the product of demographic macroprocesses as well as individual decisions, making it hard to understand properly and harder to reverse. But it’s also a response to a particular strand of “multicultural” pluralism, which seeks to eliminate intercultural border skirmishes by reducing barriers to entry as much as possible, stretching a culture until everyone can fit inside. (Helen wrote about this almost exactly a year ago, though the St. Patrick’s Day connection didn’t seem to occur to her — perhaps because of her affection for the Boston Irish.) When so much has been whittled away in the interests of inclusion, the question is no longer “what is lost?” then “what could possibly remain?”
The answer, it seems, is binge drinking. On St. Patrick’s Day, “Kiss Me I’m Irish” slurs into “Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced” by the end of the night; Mardi Gras’ rich carnival has become a massive frat party; and while Americans may not know that Cinco de Mayo isn’t actually the “Mexican Fourth of July,” they can count to “one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.”
For a round or two, this is a sign of legitimate triumph. In Ireland, the conflict between Unionists and Nationalists may (or may not) be heating up again, but here in America we’ve come so far that no one even knows what a Black and Tan really is, and Catholics and Protestants are urged to forget old rivalries and lay Bushmills and Jameson side-by-side on their shelves. At the end of history there is nothing to do but sit at the bar and reminisce about how crazy the good old days were. But the self-consciously excessive drinking that characterizes these holidays turns them into something much darker and more harmful than that. It’s one thing to risk a hangover tomorrow for a little fun tonight, but it’s quite another to turn the act of drinking itself violent, quaffing Black and Tans, Irish Car Bombs, Hurricanes, Hand Grenades. We’ve eliminated violence to outsiders from our holidays. We’ve replaced it with violence to ourselves.
We’re having corned beef and cabbage tonight. Drop by if you like. There may be drinking.
— Tony Comstock · Mar 17, 08:48 PM · #
ummm, don’t worry, we won’t. erin go bragh
— paddy · Mar 17, 09:18 PM · #
I suggest celebrating Irishness on June 16th instead.
— Noah Millman · Mar 17, 09:25 PM · #
A great post. I also find it odd that St. Pat’s isn’t just for the Irish. In fact, this seems to be part of the point since the binging St. Patrick’s we know originated not in Ireland but here in the United States.
I also think this has something to do with Margaret Mitchell & Gone With the Wind, which I wrote about here: http://plumblines.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/st-pattys-the-myth-of-white-suffering/
— Matt · Mar 17, 10:14 PM · #
“Assimilation is the product of demographic macroprocesses?”
Kiss me, you’re over-thinking this.
Tonight, I am having Jameson’s. There may be eating.
— you la tengo · Mar 17, 10:19 PM · #
True, but boooo.
— Bill · Mar 17, 11:38 PM · #
Today pales in comparison to the better American white ethnic holiday: Kasmir Pulaski Day.
— Rortybomb · Mar 18, 12:05 AM · #
For those of us who really wish to celebrate Irish and other Celtic cultures (like this wannabe Scot), the excessive drinking and plurality is shameful. I remember riding the train back to college after spring break one year. This was in Chicago, and it was the night after the St. Patrick’s Day parade. What a bunch of miserable drunks. Half were looking for a place to vomit, the other half were looking for a place to fight.
I wonder what Saint Patrick would think?
That being said, I certainly plan to have a glass of Bushmill’s tonight (appropriate, me being a Protestant, though I prefer the compromise whiskey, Tullamore Dew). I’m no teetotaller, I just hate public debauchery.
— Ethan C. · Mar 18, 12:21 AM · #
I get piss drunk on Bloomsday too.
— Shane MacGowan's Teeth · Mar 18, 02:19 AM · #
It doesn’t have to be about debauchery. Get creative! Unravel Dad’s Arran sweater and re-knit it, appreciating the fine craftmanship. Get a lead test kit and test Mom’s Waterford pitcher and glasses to see how much lead was in them. No wonder your SAT’s were less than stellar. Study jokes about the Irish and compare them to other cultures’ jokes. Figure out who was Irish in the other cultures. There’s a pot o’ possibilities for celebratin’ St. Paddy’s!
— Joules · Mar 18, 02:22 AM · #
I’m a big fan of self-consciously excessive drinking, and thus embrace any cause, however kitsch, that fills out the bars with people getting lit and cutting loose.
My family fled the auld sod many moons ago, but I feel comfortable in saying: don’t cry for us, Dara Lind. Culture works for us only so long as we can drink to it.
As we like to say down here, hollowing-out allows the bartender to pour more in. Mazel tov!
— JA · Mar 18, 02:44 PM · #
Oops, I forgot Arran sweaters are from Scotland.
— Joules · Mar 22, 09:21 PM · #