CSotD: Happy Stepin McFetchit Day
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It’s not often I find myself agreeing with the McCoy brothers, but this 2013 strip echoes my feelings. Back when I was in an Irish pub band, we had mixed feelings about March 17, because it was an excellent payday but one we hated for just the reason the McCoys illustrate above.
In fact, a year or two after the band broke up, I played my favorite St. Patrick’s Day gig of all times, at a small cafe and bookstore on an agreement that I’d play for free if they didn’t serve green beer, and the proprietor even made it a fundraiser for the food bank, which was a nice touch.
Mostly, I didn’t have to play When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, which is an American vaudeville tune, not an Irish folk song. And nobody threw up or pretended they knew how to dance a jig.
The relationship between Ireland and America is long and somewhat complex, but we’re in their national anthem:
Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland
Some have come from the land beyond the wave
And, as it happens, corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American tradition, part of a tradition of St. Patrick’s Day gatherings to raise support for independence, though, as Finley Peter Dunne observed, “Be hivins, if Ireland cud be freed be a picnic, it ‘d not on’y be free to-day, but an impire.”
Current events have put that firmly in my mind, since we trod a delicate line between nationalism and extremism. We called ourselves The Bogsiders which let Irish know we were nationalists without attracting Americans who wanted to play revolution with other people’s lives.
Our followers were a mix, mostly immigrants but a few refugees, and I suppose we’d all be vulnerable to being deported today, but disagreeing over policies was still legal back then.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The mix of opinions was a large part of what was happening over there during the Troubles, and Nicola Jennings took a sweeping, negative view, while Martyn Turner seemed more aware that the Hard Men, as they were known, were specific people and came from both sides.
Meanwhile, when I spoke with Cardinal O’Fiaich, he mourned not only the violence but the apathy of people who, on an island the size of Indiana, were yet able to distance themselves and say, “God, keep it up there, as long as it stays away from us, we’re OK.”
He supported non-denominational job training centers and small business incubators in the ghettos, to fight the 50% unemployment that provided cannon fodder for the extremists.
But nothing’s perfect, and one young woman from Belfast told me it had taken her a year to find a job after she graduated, because both her name and her address revealed her religion.
However, as Turner pointed out nearly a decade later, the divisions weren’t one-sided. The struggle for reproductive rights flared in the Republic, and the old slogan “Home Rule is Rome Rule” continued to make unification of the island doubtful.
But things have been looking up, and some of the Wild Geese who flew overseas to find work returned home as Ireland’s economy began to flourish, and if the Celtic Tiger of the 90s has settled a bit, it’s still healthy enough that its position as a center of pharmaceutical companies has drawn Dear Leader’s anger.
Competition being a good thing as long as it only flows his direction.
The notion of sudden Irish wealth returns us to more pleasant thoughts, because one of Irish-America’s fondest characters was Jiggs, who, in George McManus’s comic strip, went from his shanty-Irish roots to wealth, which didn’t change him but gave his ambitious wife, Maggie, the chance to become lace-curtain Irish and socialize with Count Uptoten’s crowd.
The constant battle of Jiggs to remain himself and of Maggie to climb the social ladder could have become mockery of the Irish stereotypes, but, instead, inspired a sort of pugnacious pride.
And the Little Annie Rooney comic strip came along, too, and being Irish became a positive thing instead of the set up for an insult.
Or worse, if they dared object to religious instruction in public schools.
Like other minorities, the Irish get a laugh out of jokes which fall into the category of “funny when I tell it, but you’d better tread lightly.”
Or as one joke went:
“Hey, Paddy!” he says, “Can you tell me the way to Birmingham?”
“How did you know my name was Paddy?” asks the workman.
“I just guessed.”
“Well, then, you can just guess the way to Birmingham.”
And as it happens, for all the green beer of Stepin McFetchit Day, drinking songs made up a relatively small percentage of our band’s repertoire. It’s a larger part of the stereotype than it is of the culture, though it certain figures in both.
Some years ago, Irish-American groups put pressure on greeting card companies to end the drunken-Irishman jokes in St. Paddy’s Day cards and today those jokes are viewed as offensive, at least when told by outsiders.
Not that the message has gotten through to everyone, mind you.
As for everybody being Irish today, I was surprised Marty Two Bulls didn’t reprise this classic, which always gives me a laugh, this being the one day in the year when people shut up about their great-great-grandfather who was one-eighth Cherokee and talk instead of his wife, who was a quarter Irish.
Anyway, my plans are to wait until corned beef goes on clearance tomorrow because I do like the stuff but hate to eat it when I’m supposed to. Wanda gets it.
But it is the feast day, and if you’d like to hear some real Irish music, here’s a selection of tunes we used to play.
Plus This:
Since GoComics hasn’t updated yet today, here’s where you can find most of the strips, and you can pick up the political cartoons here.
I’d suggest right-clicking on each title and then selecting “Open Link In New Tab” so you end up with a selection of open tabs without having to go back to the page each time.
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