Google Game Gobshite

By Niall McArdle

The above is a screenshot from a new cellphone app called Drunk Leprechaun. The game asks players to celebrate their “inner Irishness” by helping the leprechaun stay upright.

The world’s drunkest leprechaun needs your help to stay upright. He drank too much booze! Tilt your phone to keep this beer loving leprechaun from falling!

Needless to say, the game has caused a lot of controversy, including a scathing response from Irish Central. I have mixed feelings about the app. It’s stupid and offensive, but then again, it’s only a stupid phone app … and besides, leprechauns aren’t real. But the bit about “inner Irishness” is a bit jarring.

With levels of emigration out of Ireland higher than ever – by one estimate, someone leaves Ireland every six minutes – there’s a good chance that this St. Patrick’s Day, wherever you are in the world, you’ll find yourself drinking a pint next to a genuine Irish person (as opposed to a Plastic Paddy). Irish people all over the world will have to put up with negative stereotypes about how much we drink, how we talk, and general misunderstanding or ignorance of some surprising facts. When we protest, we then have to listen to people saying “Oh, it’s only in fun, what’s wrong with you?”

You know the sort of thing I’m talking about. Stuff like this

Or this

Or even this, perhaps the most offensive name for a drink ever.

How would Americans feel if non-Americans wanted to celebrate the 4th of July by drinking a cocktail called a Mass Shooting Spree?

Irish people really don’t need this sort of shite. I thought we were years from the bad old days when anti-Irish cartoons were common

‘The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things”. Cartoon by Thomas Nast, 1871

Last year I wrote a piece about the usual nonsense that goes on around the world on St. Patrick’s Day – often, sadly at the hands of Irish expats – for the Generation Emigration blog at The Irish Times

Then again, maybe I’m a hypocrite: I think this is hilarious:

But I probably find that funny because Family Guy is – like all good satire – an equal-opportunity offender. There are far worse things we need to be upset about.

In spite of it all, I will be wearing an Irish tee shirt on St. Patrick’s Day: this one from Hairy Baby.

I really do want you to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day. Just lay off the silly, outdated jokes, please. And before you say how proud you are because of your Irish heritage, George Carlin already called Bullshit on that nonsense.

If you’re in need of current jokes about Ireland and being Irish, try this.

One last thing: it’s Saint Paddy’s Day, NOT Saint Patty’s Day. 

Oh, and the man himself wasn’t even Irish. He was Welsh.

Dydd Gwyl Padrig Hapus!