I’m Irish American. I can assure you that celebrating Irish heritage and oir beloved St Patrick by taking advantage of students who want a day off to get drunk, and who likely don’t care about Ireland Irish heritage or know the first thing about st Patrick, brings scandal and shame on the Irish
And it is unlikely that any cop working there in the middle of 30,000 drunk kids is supportive of the situation Irish or not
I do not modify my heritage by putting another nationality in front of my American nationality,
that being said, I have 1 grandparent of Irish extraction. I lived in a Bronx, NY neighborhood that was about half people of Irish extraction.
did they drink on St Paddys day???? You bet your sweet bippy they did.....
and it was not just college age kids, it was all the typical alcoholics of Irish extraction including my family members.
like many European nationalities there is a lot of drinking. English, Scotts, Germans and the rest are well represented in the blue collar bars......and on St Patrick day there is lots of corned beef(not an Irish invention...in fact Jewish) and cabbage and green beer in the barf staining many a toilet
True, the cop is there to maintain order, not condone public drunkenness, regardless of his heritage. I did not mean to imply otherwise. But, it is what it is and always will be. Some choose wisely, some not so. The acts of few can reflect negatively on the others who behave in a responsible way.
As a college student, I witnessed and survived the green beer and rowdy crowd. I like to think the experience taught me something useful about life and your points are well taken.
BTW, my ancestors came from county Wexford. My Irish ancestors and their descendants, like me, are not without faults. Heaven forbid that I if not by the grace of god might be bringing shame upon the Irish. :)