St. Patrick's Day

I hate St. Patrick's Day.

I'm half-Irish, and I hate this time of the year, when spring begins to bud and the weather gets warmer. Every March, I know it's coming. I know this is supposedly the day of "my people" (as a teacher in Middle School once described it to me) and that today everyone is Irish. Beer is consumed, people wear green, parades are had, people drunkenly wail through "Oh Danny Boy" and then barf in the streets. Grew up in Chicago, seen it happen. Credit to my heritage, to see frat boys emptying their guts onto the sidewalk, let me tell you.

I don't mind cultural pride, and I don't mind the inclusiveness of St. Patrick's Day. I'm mildly bothered by people saying their Irish for one day, co-opting a culture under the guise of a good time. And yet if we couldn't have that, I couldn't have celebrated Cinco de Mayo or sat in a Buddhist temple in Houston. Plus, it's a celebration, and there's nothing wrong with that.

What does bother me is the following.

1) Co-opting a culture so you can get shitfaced. Look, just be a drunken asshole and stop with the rationalization that you can get hammered because of an Irish bishop who lived 1,500 years ago. St. Patrick and that Guinness you drink have nothing to do with each other. Just admit you're a lush and go on with your live. If you want to toast and boast, stand up on the table an hoist a pint to the good saint. Bellow that the man wasn't from Ireland, but likely from Wales or northern France. He escaped from the British slave trade and become a man of God, spreading the Good Word to everyone, no matter their class. A mean feat for the 5th century. He also didn't drive out the snakes from Ireland. That's a myth. More likely, his spreading the faith pushed out the Druidic sects from Ireland, and the snake has been linked to Druidism, so St. Patrick's most lasting legacy is a metaphor at best. Finally, Patrick (who wasn't born Patrick, by the way) lived a life dedicated to the abolition of slavery in all forms, something which made him a marked man. After his death, he was named the patron saint of Ireland. Not bad for a runaway slave.

2) We are not history's drunks. Sorry. The Irish are a profoundly stoic and artistic people. The Irish are one of the most resilient people on earth. Religious oppression, famine, discrimination. You name it, the Irish have survived it and come out more hardcore. And yet, there's a profound soul to the Irish. Until the conversion to the Euro, Irish money carried the visage of poets. On the euro coins, it's the harp. It's not a coincidence, either. The Irish have a tremendous history in the arts and letters. In fact, you probably have heard the Irish saved Western Civilization, with learned scholars preserving books and other written works from destruction, copying tomes and securing them so the world didn't fall into a permanent dark age after the fall of Rome. Again, when you hoist a Guinness, thank the monks.

3) St. Patrick's Day parades. Now, as I said, I love a good ethnic celebration as much as the next guy, but any celebration that promotes one idealized version of a group of people makes me shiver in a sort of existential dread. Case in point is the annual St. Patrick's Day celebration and parade in New York, reportedly the largest Irish pride parade in the world. Year after year, the organizers force to keep gay and lesbian Irish-Americans from taking part. And while it's a gross sight to see every year, this year it's coated with an extra topping of vile, trying to deny the New York City Council Speaker, herself Irish and a lesbian, from identifying herself as the latter in the parade. Great. The Irish migrate over from Ireland more than 150 years ago as bottom-rung immigrants, and now, once they have some power, they exclude their own for being gay. Makes me want to pull the organizers aside and scream "The Irish were the shitbucket of the British Empire, we came over to America to excuse discrimination, famine and oppression, and suddenly you want to act like a British asshole king with regard to gays? Short attention span much?" Embrace every Irish person, because at one point in Irish history, the British were content with wiping all of us out through the famines.

In the end, I know it's just a party, and I nod and smile, knowing it'll be over Saturday morning, save for the puke on the sidewalk. People will put away their green shirts and go back to the non-Irish heritage. Still, it'd be nice for once that on just one St. Paddy's Day, we stop the crap with the leprechauns and shamrocks and old-school U2 and the "Kiss Me, I'm Irish." If you're going to celebrate a people, then do it right. Understand where they came from, and once you know that, you'll be amazed at all the strife and heartache the Irish had to endure. And yet, they come out this odd but buoyant blend of stoic and singing. I've seen it in the Irish side of my family, and I know that through all the family trauma and chaos, they'll be there for each other. Get a big Irish family in a room, and you'll see what I mean. It's hard to keep the Irish down, tempered by faith and family and history and a slow-burning optimism.

And, yes, they brew some good beer, too.