People like the Irish: such is the truism that one often hears and obviously, I can’t complain as I am indeed Irish and I live abroad! But this attachment to Ireland can occasionally go too far. During Barack Obama’s trip to Ireland in 2011, the President paid a visit to the village of Moneygall, County Offaly, which in its own words, is the supposed “Ancestral home of US President Barack Obama”. Apparently, the great-great-great grandfather of Obama came from Moneygall .Although no one can fault Moneygall for making the most of their connection with the President, is it not at least slightly over-the-top that people are so keen on finding any tenuous links with Ireland?
For many years, the history of migration between Ireland and the U.S is one of a long succession of young, as well as old, Irish people being forced to leave Ireland due to poverty, discrimination and hunger in hope for a better life in America. In Irish schools, young students are told about the horrific conditions found on “Famine ships” where families would often go through great hardships. When these families left Ireland, they would never see it again and that this was goodbye.
Such traumatic experiences obviously conjure strong feelings amongst the descendants of the people who left Ireland and came to America. It is perfectly normal to feel pride and attachment to the sacrifice’s that one’s family made in order to have a better life.
Even though the famine happened many years ago and still, many of the descendants of those on the famine boats call themselves Irish. The choice of one’s own identity is, obviously, a very personal decision. How you feel about yourself and your own personal history should be something organic and free, not a political tool or commercial tool. However, this is not always the case. For years, both politicians and businesses have used people’s own sense of identity as a means of either getting votes or making money. However, this manipulation comes at a cost. When national identity becomes a mere commercial plaything, both political discourse and society in general suffer.
The St. Patrick’s Day celebrations show an interesting, and probably not altogether flattering picture of Irish culture. There is a lot of laughter, fun as well as copious amounts of alcohol. Until relatively recently, St. Patrick’s Day was a relatively austere religious day in Ireland and the sale of alcohol was actually banned for many years! It was Irish immigrants to America, who wished to keep the connection with Ireland alive, that made St. Patrick’s Day what it is today: a global festival of Irishness. It was only after the Irish government saw the success of the celebrations abroad that St. Patrick’s Day became a real festival and the celebrations in Dublin became much larger and overtly commercialistic from then on.
But Irishness should not be merely something that is old on a t-shirt or proved every year by drinking a green beer. In recent years, a rather cruel term, “Plastic Paddy”, has come about to describe anyone who goes to excessive lengths to paint themselves as Irish. Arguably, President Obama’s excursion to Moneygall would fit this description. However, although I do find certain immigrant’s attachment to Ireland a touch excessive, I do not wish to mock those who feel a profound attachment to Ireland. If it they want to, they should proud of their origins, have an interest in where there family came from and call themselves Irish or Irish-American. However, nationality is not a collector’s item and Irishness should not be intrinsically linked with the more commercialistic aspects of holidays like St. Patrick’s Day.