Paddy McIrish

So, I am Irish. In fact, at any given point in time I am usually the most Irish person in the room/bar/at the party in America. I was born in Ireland to a father with duel citizenship to America and Ireland and an Irish mother. I was given up for adoption and my father insisted I be adopted in the United States, so I went to my adoptive parents from Ireland at the age of three months. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family in Michigan, and I'm going to be living in Dublin with my Irish boyfriend in six days.

That being said, I have never been the "Irish" person who runs around the bar/party screaming "Look at me I'm Irish!!!" However, in America people who do that exist in great numbers and they are, in my personal experience, 100% of the time... less Irish than myself. My friend Cody and I like to call these people "Paddy McIrish," they normally have a shamrock tattoo and are wearing a Notre Dame shirt or hat, or something from Ireland and screaming about how Irish they are per mentioned above.

Cody and I have both met "that guy" at a party here and there, but the peak of the "Paddy McIrish" happened at Cody's 25th birthday party last Saturday. Cody and I were standing in the parking lot of the house where the party was and this guy on the porch started talking about his new tattoo. Cody, being really into tattoos and having a ridiculous amount of them and myself, having worked in a tattoo shop for quite a few years and having what the general public would consider to be "a lot of tattoos" walked up on the porch to check out the ink, and were confronted with the best "Paddy McIrish" I can safely say either of us have ever seen.

This first thing this guy says, before we even get a look at the tattoo is "Yeah, I'm Irish." we were then presented with a half sleeve of Irish crap. Celtic knots, Irish Gaelic, normal shamrocks, negative space shamrocks, and the crowning glory.... in his words "Irish Harp, the National Emblem of Ireland."

Please keep in mind that I am moving to Dublin in six days. I have had paperwork coming out of my ass. All of this paperwork happens to have the celtic harp or "clairsearch" on it. ( I'll admit I looked up the "clairsearch" part but I've seen the god damn emblem enough to tattoo it on my own forehead, and it's on all the god damn money) Anyway, homeboy shows me this "national emblem" and it has a woman in the harp. The god damn harp doesn't have a woman with flowing hair in it, its just a fucking harp. Look at a Guinness bottle, you'll get the idea.

After a short discussion with the kid he told me about 42 more times that he is Irish, a load of my friends happened to be around just waiting for the ball to drop on him that he is an American who was descended from Irish people. Even though I was wasted and I'm an obnoxious asshole when I'm drunk, I held my tongue until he started talking about how The Boondock Saints is the best movie ever. I then threw in that I love that movie, but I find it hard to watch now as I have proper Irish friends and my boyfriend is Irish and I talk to him everyday. The actors in the movie don't exactly nail the Irish accent, but it's hard to notice until you've really interacted with people who are properly Irish. (Side note; I don't consider myself to be properly irish).

The story ends with him telling the "N-word" joke from The Boondock Saints that I don't want to repeat because it's horribly racist. Then he slinked away from me and my friends to another group of people who wanted to hear all about how incredibly Irish he is.

Lame story, but I was really stoked I got to meet the crowning glory of the "Paddy McIrish" stereotype before I left for Ireland.

Moral: One Irish tattoo = OK, two = pushing it, three = douche bag. Does anyone really think that properly Irish people run around wearing bright green and tattooing themselves with half sleeves of shamrocks?

Hello Hello!

I guess I'm not all that interesting, but since I'm moving from the good old US of A to Ireland in less than a week I thought I could document my adventures here for my friends to read. Also, it occurred to me while I was cruising down I94 east screaming at the top of my lungs at other motorists that I am not going to be driving while I am living in Dublin. Rather, I am going to be driving very infrequently. What does this mean to Meg, AKA the angry ginger? I have no outlet for my rage.

A little example of my driving rage, you say? Well, about six or seven weeks ago I was driving on the "main drag" in my home town of Port Huron, Michigan. It is currently infested with Canadians.. not just any Canadians.. SARNIA CANADIANS. I have driven through Canada several times in my life, and it seems that everyone in the entire country knows how to drive perfectly fine, excluding the citizens of the little shithole town of SARNIA. Anyway, so I was in a parking lot that has a traffic light. I was in the left hand turning lane with my left turn blinker on, as was the van across from me. I waited for the traffic going straight to clear and started to turn left, only... the van in the left turn lane WENT STRAIGHT. THEY WENT STRAIGHT, and then proceeded to nearly hit me. So I, naturally, laid on my horn. What did the man driving do? He gave me the finger. He could have killed me, and he gave me the finger.

So what was my response? Naturally I completed my left turn out of the parking lot, and then turned back into it using the other entrance. The van had pulled into the Home Depo part of the huge lot, so I drove about 40 toward the van, pulled up my E-brake, got out of the van with my 32 ounce coke I had just purchased in my hand, and started screaming at the man. When he tried to yell back, I launched my soda at his windshield. Then he started to walk toward me and I pushed a shopping cart at him aggressively, got in my car and drove away while giving him the finger.

Yeah, I know, I'm fucking crazy. However, This story does have a moral and that is; I am fucking crazy and if I'm not driving I'm not going to have a real outlet for my rage, thus this blog. I am really hoping that I'm going to run into less fucking ignorant assholes while I'm living in Ireland and that I'm less angry since I don't have to drive, but I don't see that happening.

Everyone who knows me consequently knows that I am filled with rage. Thus The Angry Ginger. I'm angry and I'm a ginger. Hi, Meg, nice to meet you.