Have you noticed how Irish Americans are now the embodiment of the intolerant, bigoted white in popular culture, a part formerly played by the WASP? Maybe I’m imagining it. It seems to pop up in story lines every now and then: the evil oppressor is a third-generation Irish Catholic.
I know and I hate that the Irish are treated this way. One of the little publicized stories of the Civil War is about how Irish immigrants were met at the docks and forced into the Union army at gunpoint. They were forced to fight for their own freedom and many died on Civil War Battlefields. That’s not a story you’ll hear, and no one outside their own communities really wants to talk about the number of Irish-Americans who gave their lives on 9/11 - no one wants to talk about their heroism. It is a shame.