Mick Clifford: Banshees and shrieking at stereotypes

CHORUS OF BOOZE: Colin Farrell responded to an ‘offensive’ Saturday Night Live sketch during the Oscars ceremony, but a little introspection is maybe in order before we all climb on to the cross of national typecasting.

IN ANOTHER lifetime, on the far side of the world, I once applied for a job in a handbag factory. Myself and a friend from Cork named Phil were down on our luck in Sydney.

We heard there was work going in this factory so in we trotted, one by one, and made a pitch as to why we each and both had a passion for making handbags. Phil got the job, but I didn’t.

Once Phil started I asked him to inquire of the manager who had interviewed us both where exactly I had fallen down. The following day, Phil dropped in and told me. He even mimicked the manager, a middle-aged Eastern European woman who was a naturalised Australian. “But his English, it isn’t very good.”

You might well ask what command of the spoken word was required to follow instructions in the handbag-making business, but that’s a true story.

It came back to me this week when I saw the furore over the Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit on American TV which portrayed Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as a pair of Paddies blabbering in what was allegedly a version of the English language. Immediately, as is apparently de rigueur today, offence was taken. Pearls were clutched. Mouths dropped open in disgust.

Those Yanks and their stereotyping. Do they not realise we, the Irish, are not just the most loved nation on Earth but the most sophisticated, talented, articulate, and artistic? 

Where do they get off with those out-of-date stereotypes? Are they not aware that thanks to TikTok everybody over here now speaks with an accent first heard a few miles off the Long Island Sound?

The skit was part of SNL marking the weekend of the Oscars. After the two actors portraying the Irish stars did their gibberish impersonation, one of the presenters turned to the other and said: “And they haven’t even started drinking yet”. Then at the actual Oscars, Jimmy Kimmell made some remarks playing to another stereotype, that of the Irish as a tribe ready to put up their fists at the drop of a hat.

Well, holy God. We are thrust back to the 19th century when London’s penny dreadfuls had the constant staple of the drunken Irish falling around the streets as if closely examining the crevices and cracks for elusive gold.

Or the WASPs of America’s east coast holding noses and herding Micks into ghettos like Southie in Boston where they could fall around in Saturday night stupors every day of the week.

And wherefore the Gangs of New York, those Irish with their pathological pursuit of violence in all its forms, led from the front by Daniel Day-Lewis mumbling something about the old country with a Connemara accent.

Where have these dumb Yanks been for the last 30 years?

Don’t they know we get the lived experience piece when it comes to economic and social development?

We have moved on from the days of peasant sensibilities. We can talk shite with the best of them, from the glass towers of Shanghai to the brick canyons of Wall Street. 

Take a look at our GDP, flying off the charts thanks to FDI. The ECB thinks Ireland is the best pupil in the EU. Like, WTAF? Nobody in the first order of developed nations does catchy business acronyms today like the Irish.

We know how to use a knife and fork and, when there’s more than one, we know that you work your way in from the outside. We go to therapy. We do pronouns.

Where once we sent religion out to the developing world, now we dispatch techies to Silicon Valley to show the natives how it’s done.

We are so advanced in this country that Hollywood should make a science fiction movie about the place, and not just borrow the Skellig for something, like, so yesterday, such as Star Wars.

And yet, despite our hyper sophistication, we still get thrown at us the dumb but lovable inarticulate Paddy who is forever one draw of a pint away from launching into ‘Come Out Ye Black And Tans’ and upturning the table of drinks to start a row.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, yes. Yes, sometimes the stereotypes are accurate and well within their sell-by date.

 Sometimes it is difficult for others to understand the unique Irish dialect, often because it is delivered at speed.

I don’t care that I did not get a job in a handbag factory because the manager thought my English wasn’t up to scratch. Their loss. We could have communicated by sign language and I’d have ended up making handbags like there was no tomorrow. So what if some Americans don’t get it?

As for the national lubricant that is alcohol?

Yes, Ireland has a difficult and sometimes chaotic relationship with the sauce. Take a stroll down any main street on a Saturday night, or pop into one of the bigger emergency departments.

Visit your local district court on a Monday to see the fallout.

Observe the sons of Celtic Tiger developers staggering towards the bar at Cheltenham this week. Recall the recent furore about how rugby was interfering with ferrying pints during international matches.

Remember Arthur’s Day. Arthur’s Day? What in the name of temperance was that about?

Perhaps a little introspection is in order before climbing on the cross of stereotypical casting. The dark fatalism that infects the national psyche continues to find expression in booze, irrespective of how it is disguised today.

Apart from that, take a look at what prompted this ribbing of the Irish stateside.

The Banshees of Inisheerin had a clutch of Oscar nominations, but the movie represents one stereotype after another.

Martin McDonagh is a talented storyteller who has made some very good movies. The main actors, particularly Kerry Condon, gave fine performances. But you can’t have that movie being
hauled around the world as the epitome of Irish talent and then claim that others are stereotyping the Irish. All we were missing last weekend was a skit on ‘Who’s taking the donkey to Hollywood’.

Of course, the real problem with how this benighted nation was sent up is that nobody here was turning a buck on the back of it.

When it comes to selling a stereotype you’ll never beat the Irish. If you’re willing to pay tourist prices we’ll burn a hole in your pocket.

Yes indeed, we love the pint of stout and the craic and telling stories and even the odd leprechaun if you really must, but once you’re contributing to the economy the country is a blank canvas on which you can paint us in any way you like.

What’s that? Banshees?

Hang on in here now sir, and round about midnight when you’ve the full gallon of stout put away, the Banshees will be coming out of the woodwork for a jig.

Some of them might even be carrying handbags. Take it handy.