People complain about St. Patrick’s Day vehemently. Over the next week or so, you’ll see people correct the spelling of abbreviations and talk about amateur drinkers being on a night out or the fact that it’s unlikely there ever were any snakes at all, at all. People cringe (and rightly so) at the notion of dyed rivers and rivers of dyed lager and puffy Guinness branded top hats and a world of shamrock studded dollar store craic.

You need only look at the sheer number of places that St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated to understand a key facet of the Romanticism that surrounds it: The Irish ended up everywhere. Historically, Ireland has not been a great place to live and mass migration away from it was necessary.

By the time my family left Cork in the second decade of the 19th century there was a nightly curfew in place and those who did not observe it were likely to be transported to another continent. Still, that was preferable in a number of ways to overcrowding and typhoid. This was the basic state of affairs due in part to the fact that families were larger in those days and Ireland is small and resources are scarce. You add in religious turmoil, famine, rioting and negligent English governance and you begin to get the whole picture.

All the Tura-Lura, Danny-Boy, Come-Back-To-Erin stuff that people of Irish descent glom on to once a year is patently absurd. The reason they are Canadian or Australian or whatever is that life was going to be a lot better for their ancestors when they got the hell out of Ireland. You could have a house in Cork or you could own an entire county in Ontario. For nearly a decade in the middle of the 19th century, it was the kind of place where the only thing preventing you from getting stabbed for a potato was a severe lashing of Catholic guilt.

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In a lot of the media surrounding Ireland that influences my impression there’s this notion that there’s a better world somewhere. Whether it’s Victor McLagen turning snitch on his compatriot to get to America or Malachy McCourt trying to raise enough money to get to California, the motivating factor is that it must be better elsewhere. I quite like the passage in Angela’s Ashes:

“The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.”

I suppose that it’s in that third option where the association of the Irish holiday with drink comes from. Flann O’Brien wrote his poem The Workman’s Friend, which sums it up handily:

When things go wrong and will not come right,

Though you do the best you can,

When life looks black as the hour of night –

A pint of plain is your only man.

When money’s tight and hard to get

And your horse has also ran,

When all you have is a heap of debt –

A pint of plain is your only man.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,

And your face is pale and wan,

When doctors say you need a change,

A pint of plain is your only man.

When food is scarce and your larder bare

And no rashers grease your pan,

When hunger grows as your meals are rare –

A pint of plain is your only man.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,

You have still got a darlint plan

You still can turn to a brighter life –

A pint of plain is your only man.

No matter how bad things get, there’s still beer. In a country where things were very bad for a very long time, that truth can take on a sinister aspect. Drink doesn’t solve problems, although it might take your mind off them temporarily. In situations with insoluble problems (like flushing out non-existent snakes), it may be all you’ve got.

If you’re going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, you should drink to the following: Solvable problems, a fine turn of phrase, and your good fortune that your ancestors got out when they did. There’s no reason to guzzle The Bheag or Black Bush. Maybe just a pint of O’Hara’s or Murphy’s Stout. Maybe two. After all, a bird can’t fly on one wing.