Stereotypes

We hadn't intended to dig up two two-year old posts today but perhaps we're back at some point in the blogging cycle again. Anyway, going back for an old post reflects the fact that we don't have a lot to say about the depressing aftermath of the Saint Patrick's Day "Festival" in Ireland, from RTE:

Gardaí have said extra patrols will be on standby over the weekend following a spate of street violence and drunkenness that led to hundreds of arrests throughout the country yesterday and overnight.

714 people were arrested for public order offences throughout the country over the course of the St Patrick's Day festivities.

The full story is a litany of arrests and destruction that doubtless began as "just a bit of craic."

We wondered two years ago "what it is in the Irish character that (in some cases) makes for these fairly sudden transitions from reasonable and well-behaved to alienated and aggressive" and provided no answer. But one thing is clear -- official stupidity certainly doesn't help. Consider for instance, how the boosterish promoters of Dublin's parade described it:

"Mischief, Mayhem and Madness" is the theme of this years Parade and it’s definitely a party atmosphere on the streets of Dublin.

As bloggers here in the US are fond of saying: Indeed. Last week the parade organisers were acting as if a grevious wrong was being done to them by the government's refusal to sanction removal of the light rail overhead wires for large floats, only adding to the sense that it was up to the city to accommodate a "right" to celebrate these new three Ms of Irish life. Perhaps the drunken hooligans merely took this request to relocate rail infrastructure a little too far. More generally, we might be able to drop the Fighting Irish stereotype if our betters would stop playing it up, and then being shocked, shocked, when something like this happens.