Suzanne Harrington: Being Irish, the Oscars thinks it’s fine to lob jaded stereotypes at us. Why?

Jimmy Kimmel walks onstage with Jenny, the miniature emotional support donkey, at the Oscars on Sunday. Picture: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Wow. If the kind of lazy, tired, outmoded Irish jokes made at last night’s Oscars were made during, say, a corporate after-dinner speech, there’d be murder. Well, not literally murder, because we Fightin’ Irish don’t actually do that stuff — unlike Americans, we tend not to mass murder each other with quite the same enthusiasm. But never let facts get in the way of trotting out a jaded old trope, right? 

Five Irish actors up for awards, said presenter Jimmy Kimmel, meant the chance of a red carpet fight increased fivefold. Or something like that. Whatever. It wasn’t funny. He may as well have begun his schtick with ‘There was these five thick Paddies….’