Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
As I sit before my computer, eating my corn beef and boiled cabbage, I would like to take a solemn moment to reflect on the origin and meaning of Saint Patrick’s Day.
Like Saint Valentine’s Day, Saint Patrick’s is, of course, a conspiracy launched by the Pope in Rome to inveigle the slavishly popish ideals, values and rites of the Magisterium, by means of our fanatical Jesuit conspirators and Spanish Inquisitors, onto the American calendar. And, as all Americans know, Ireland (beloved homeland of Bing Crosby) shares in common with us that we don’t like the Redcoats.
Those of you who scoff that Saint Patrick’s Day is an American invention, and that all the old sentimental Irish Ballads were actually written in Tin Pan Alley, I say that Paddy’s Day is as Irish as Chop Suey is Chinese!
To prove it, here is a clip from a famous Irish movie, that was authentically Irish because it was made in America by Walt O’Disney.
There are, of course, no Irish stereotypes in this movie, aside from the whiskey-drinking blarney-talking lazy but lovable old poacher Darby, the poor but dishonest Pony Sugrue, who drinks whiskey and fight like Donnybrook, and the poor but honest Sean Connery, who drinks whiskey and fights like Donnybrook. There are also rosy-cheeked colleens and meddling auld wives, and solemn but lovable Catholic Priest named Father Paddy McStereotype. Aside from them, I mean.
I would like to point out to my younger readers that the ‘Little People’ are entirely made-up, make-believe, fictional and non-real.
However, the miniature horses are entirely real. The secret wing of the Smithsonian Museum that gathers supernatural artifacts and cryptid species from around the world has few of the elf steeds, which they loaned to Disney for this movie.
You may be wondering how the fairy steeds are real if their riders are not? That is to say, the Little People are extinct. They were all defeated by the Sons of Don and driven underground after the battle of Moytura, when their great leader Balor of the Evil Eye was felled by a slingstone, turning his eye inward and slaying himself with his own black magic. Saint Patrick drove the surviving Little People out of Ireland by the power of his prayer, still recalled as the Breastplate of Saint Patrick.
The Fair Folk, driven out of their otherworldly homes by the cruelty of Saint Patrick and the Irish Inquisition, fled, as so many refugees did, across the Western Seas to the Summer Lands, to Valinore, where Mount Everwhite rises in beauty above the blessed realm. Others came to America, where they increased in stature, and turned into Tommy Steele.
This film shows Og the Leprechaun, mysteriously embiggened, traipsing after the Irish actor Fred O’Astaire. There are also no Irish stereotypes in this movie. Fred plays Finian, a hard-drinking poor but almost honest whiskey-drinking blarney-talking son of the Auld Sod. You see, upon arriving in the New World, the Little People lost their magic, interbred with Hobbits, especially Stoors from Delve Farthing in New Jersey, and increased in stature so as to be able to pass for human beings.
But please note that the Leprechauns are clearly Catholic, since they greet mortals in the name of God and Mary, St. Patrick, and St. Ozymandias. Either that, or they are fans of WATCHMAN comics, or poems by Shelley.
Here in America, the Irish, both little people and big, settled down to lives as police chiefs.
Other Irishmen made their fortunes in America in bare-knuckles brawling and in cutting open bars of soap.
Finally, after a diet of good American grown beef, and a few boxing lessons, the Little People got big, and one by one the long exiled sons of the Firbolg returned to Ireland disguised as John Wayne and beat the blarney out of random Irishmen in order to win the heart of Maureen O’Hara, and boy was she worth it!
Let me explain what is going on in this scene. Some guy is mad at John Wayne for some reason having something to do with some Irish thing, and so he throws Maureen O’Hara on the ground in an Irish fashion, and then throws money into the fire, which is an Irish custom.
Maureen, who is playing a proud but spunky fiery flame-haired gorgeous colleen, really likes being tossed on the ground and seeing money burned, especially if John Wayne does it, so she goes home to make him dinner.
Then both guys get their Irish up, there is a big Irish fight while Irish music plays in the background.
There are no Irish stereotypes in this movie either, no proud but spunky fiery flame-haired gorgeous colleens, no hard-drinking hard-fisted farmers, no lovable priests taking bets on the Donnybrook. Aside from them, I mean.
So when the Irish Fairy Folk all came to America, leaving Ireland in the hands of bloodthirsty revolutionaries and terrorists, Bing Crosby sang Galway Bay, and Saint Patrick’s Day was officially inaugurated as an American holiday.
And there you have it! Saint Patrick’s is as authentically and truly Irish as John Wayne, Tommy Steele, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Irish McCalla.
When Irish Eyes are Smiling!
Actually Maureen O’Hare is legitimately Irish, born in Ranelagh.
A real Irish colleen
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
