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Paddy Hoey<\/a>, Edge Hill University<\/a><\/em> and David Shaw<\/a>, University of Liverpool<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n There are two world famous symbols of Irish culture: St Patrick\u2019s day, and the Irish pub \u2013 both synonymous with drinking and \u201cgood craic\u201d. But history tells us that these icons of Irish identity were first conceived far away from Ireland. Since then, these phenomena have become a tangle of mythology, religion and politics; inseparable from \u2013 but hardly authentic to \u2013 the modern nation.<\/p>\n In fact, the first celebration of St Patrick \u2013 patron saint of Ireland \u2013 was organised in Boston by members of the Charitable Irish Society, in 1737. The original society rules made the organisation exclusively Protestant, and other early celebrations were also organised by Protestant officers in the British Army<\/a>.<\/p>\n St Patrick\u2019s day really increased in profile during the era of mass emigrations which began in the 19th century. It gradually became a celebration of what it means to be Irish in North America.<\/p>\n Chicago goes all out for St Paddy\u2019s day \u2026 by dyeing its river green.<\/span> As the number of Catholics moving to North America increased after the Great Hunger<\/a>, St Patrick\u2019s day celebrations also became a demonstration of the increasing social and political power<\/a> of Catholic Irish Americans. The celebrations were as varied as the emigrants themselves: middle-class dinner societies existed cheek-by-jowl with drunken, riotous street celebrations.<\/p>\n At the start of the 20th century, the \u201cwearing of the green\u201d had spread as far as New Zealand, and the celebration was considered necessary to maintain good spirits among the colonists<\/a>. By contrast, St Patrick\u2019s day in Ireland was a relatively sober affair until quite recently. It was not until 1903 that it became an official holiday, and for decades it was a day of holy observance and reflection. Dublin didn\u2019t have its first parade until 1931, and pubs were closed on St Patrick\u2019s day until the 1970s.<\/p>\n But St Patrick\u2019s day hasn\u2019t always brought people together. In fact, it has long concealed many of the divisions within the Irish diaspora. People who did not conform to religiously conservative Irish American society were ignored or excluded. For instance, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organisation was barred<\/a> from marching in official St Patrick\u2019s day parades in New York until this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, in Britain, sporadic outbreaks of violence during \u201cthe Troubles<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a bloody, 30-year ethno-nationalist conflict \u2013 made St Patrick\u2019s day a topic of contention from the late 1960s onward. It wasn\u2019t until the 1980s that St Patrick\u2019s day became visible in the UK once more, and in 2002 London launched its annual festival in Trafalgar Square.<\/p>\n This process has marked the re-acceptance of Irish culture both in Britain and abroad<\/a> \u2013 partly due to the success of Riverdance<\/a>, boy bands such as Boyzone and Jedward<\/a> and the twin absurdities of Father Ted<\/a> and Mrs Brown\u2019s Boys<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scholars have noted that<\/a>, instead of holding up a mirror to the Irish, St Patrick\u2019s day depicts them as they wished to be seen \u2013 congenial, convivial, public spirited and united. Multi-national corporations picked up on this, and saw an opportunity to capitalise on \u201cBrand Ireland<\/a>\u201d. Their weapon of choice? The Irish-themed pub.<\/p>\n Rather than recreating the traditional Dublin alehouses so vividly captured by James Joyce in Ulysses<\/a>, Irish-themed pubs were conceived to \u201ccommodify the craic<\/a>\u201d, and packed with affectations borrowed from Irish America\u2019s fevered perception of the \u201cold country\u201d. The upside down bikes, signposts to obscure towns and pictures of gap-toothed alcoholics and red-haired colleens you\u2019ll see in \u201cO’Malley\u2019s\u201d and \u201cFlanagan\u2019s\u201d are about as Irish as Tom Cruise in Far and Away<\/a>.<\/p>\n In particular, Guinness saw the development of the Irish-themed pub on the global stage as a means of greatly increasing consumption of its products<\/a> which \u2013 after the 1997 merger that created the parent company, Diageo \u2013 also included Smirnoff vodka and Johnnie Walker scotch whisky. Not exactly \u201cauthentic\u201d Irish fare.<\/p>\n Bells and whistles.<\/span> In the 1990s, the Irish-themed pub became a presence on British high streets and city centres. Pub chains were suffering<\/a> from falling numbers of drinkers, who were alienated by the cavernous cathedrals to the video juke box, live sport and insipid lager. Guinness and others introduced reproductions of Irish pubs, hoping to bring a distinctive ethnic experience<\/a> to stagnant high streets.<\/p>\n Today, most Irish pubs have little to do with Irish culture, and compete with traditional bars in more than 53 countries<\/a> around the world. By seeking to sell the same \u201cauthentic\u201d cultural experience all around the world, Irish pubs achieve just the opposite.<\/p>\n Despite this humbuggery, denizens of Irish pubs will still seek out \u201cthe craic\u201d on March 17, in celebration of a Welsh man known for chasing snakes<\/a> out of a country which never had any in the first place. The Irish are famous for their myth-making, and the legends behind St Patrick\u2019s day and the Irish pub are some of the best yet. Sl\u00e1inte!<\/p>\n Paddy Hoey<\/a>, Lecturer in Media, Edge Hill University<\/a><\/em> and David Shaw<\/a>, PhD Candidate, University of Liverpool<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paddy Hoey, Edge Hill University and David Shaw, University of Liverpool There are two world famous symbols of Irish culture: St Patrick\u2019s day, and the Irish pub \u2013 both synonymous with drinking and \u201cgood craic\u201d. But history tells us that these icons of Irish identity were first conceived far away from Ireland. Since then, these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1276,"featured_media":267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1111,1],"tags":[32387,32385,32384,1831],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-uncategorized","tag-ireland","tag-irish","tag-st-patricks-day","tag-usa"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/202\/115428\/width754\/image-20160317-30234-kg41p.jpg\")
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\nAsten\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nWearing the green<\/h2>\n
Commercial craic<\/h2>\n
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\nUn ragazzo chiamato Bi\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n