The Sinister Side of St. Patty’s Stereotypes

Garish green posters dot nearly every lamppost and utility pole come March, from North Sheridan Road down North Broadway all the way to North State Street. Adorned with neon shamrocks, scrawled in a vaguely Celtic font, they all advertise the same thing — St. Patrick’s Day bar crawls.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl. There’s not even anything wrong with the eye-popping Kelly green or clover clip art these posters use.

But there’s a subtle something that comes with reducing any country, ethnic group or holiday down to a mere excuse to drink the weekend away. These seemingly inconspicuous posters ignore historic — and modern — stereotypes about Irish Americans, stereotypes that extend to other minority groups, too.

Irish Americans constitute nearly 10% of the country’s population, and Cook County has the highest density of Irish Americans in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While Irish Americans have faced poverty, discrimination and stereotypes since the colonial period, the population has largely assimilated and prospered both financially and politically.

Despite this assimilation, stereotypes about Ireland and Irish people persist to this day.

There’s the obsession with “splitting the G” — drinking just enough of a pint of Guinness to settle the beer in the middle of the logo — and jokes about Irish alcoholism. These jests become insensitive when taking into account the troubling statistics about Irish binge drinking, particularly its connections with the Great Famine and The Troubles.

But even seemingly positive stereotypes can have sinister underpinnings. The romantic, quaint vision of 1920s Ireland in the 1952 film “The Quiet Man” is a vision removed from reality. While Ireland is indeed beautiful, it’s not been immune to oppression, hatred or the passage of time. Similarly, the recent idolization of Irish men, from 2023’s “Hot Irish Guy Summer” to Sabrina Carpenter’s relationship with Barry Keoghan, rings hollow.

I’m guilty of playing into these preconceived notions of what it means to be Irish. In my defense, it’s not my fault my whole family has red hair and pale-as-a-ghost skin — and my parents did raise me on a steady diet of Celtic folk revival music — but they also taught me about the Great Famine, The Troubles and similar injustices around the world.

My paternal great-grandparents immigrated from the north of Ireland in the late 1800s, while my maternal grandmother moved from Dublin in the 1950s. My sense of identity is forged by being raised in a Bronx neighborhood with one of the highest concentrations of Irish-born people in the country. Despite this, and my Irish citizenship, I’m still American, and as an American I feel obliged to point out the similarities between what we’ve faced and what other groups still face.

So it’s troubling to see Irish identity, or a simulacrum of it, be appropriated by white supremacists for their own gain. The Trump administration paused federal activities related to Black History Month, Juneteenth, Holocaust Remembrance Day and other “special observances,” but the president still recognized March as Irish American Heritage Month.

That isn’t a win. It’s a calculated move that puts white people on a pedestal.

Many of the racial stereotypes promoted by right-wing politicians echo historical stereotypes of Irish people. We were once seen as feverishly angry, recklessly drunk and speaking an indecipherable variety of English — while at the same time the Irish language was systematically suppressed by the British, eventually becoming endangered.

Like the Irish, Black people, Native Americans and Mexicans were and still are typecast as angry, drunk and unintelligible, respectively. But unlike the Irish, these groups continue to be impacted by these sweeping generalizations — an impact far more detrimental than anything Irish Americans experience today.

Perpetuating stereotypes, even seemingly innocuous ones, have far-reaching implications for more than just Irish Americans. It’s a slippery slope from one group to another.

So, while it’s fun to play into the cliches, I’m wary of dipping into a downward spiral. I’ll still be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, but I’ll be keeping the history and context of my heritage in mind, too.