WANT TO HEAR A REAL IRISH JOKE? THEN RAISE A GLASS, OR THREE, TO THIS

[barryqwalsh]

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

19 Mar 2015


What a shameful beat-up by journalists of the Prime Minister’s St Patrick’s Day “gaffe”. How deranged have Tony Abbott haters become?

What a shameful beat-up by journalists of the Prime Minister’s St Patrick’s Day “gaffe”. How deranged have Tony Abbott haters become?

Sydney’s Lansdowne Club of Irish Australian businessmen had invited people to come “enjoy a Guinness or three” at its annual St Patrick’s Day lunch.

Sydney’s Lansdowne Club of Irish Australian businessmen had invited people to come “enjoy a Guinness or three” at its annual St Patrick’s Day lunch.

Abbott couldn’t make it, but sent a short video in which he said this was “a great day for ... everyone who cares to come to a party”.

Abbott couldn’t make it, but sent a short video in which he said this was “a great day for ... everyone who cares to come to a party”.

He was just sorry “I can’t be there to share a Guinness or two or maybe even three”.

See anything offensive there?

Yet a ninemsn report immediately claimed Abbott’s speech had “backfired” by focussing on “stereotypes around drinking”, with “Irish business leaders” calling it “patronising”.

Yet a ninemsn report immediately claimed Abbott’s speech had “backfired” by focussing on “stereotypes around drinking”, with “Irish business leaders” calling it “patronising”.

In fact, “Irish business leaders” turned out to be just one person, unnamed. Why the exaggeration?

In fact, “Irish business leaders” turned out to be just one person, unnamed. Why the exaggeration?

But that was all the media Left needed for yet another pile-on.

“Abbott’s cringe-tacular St Patrick’s Day video,” crowed one Sydney Morning Herald headline.

“Abbott’s cringe-tacular St Patrick’s Day video,” crowed one Sydney Morning Herald headline.

“The rise and rise of Tony Abbott as an international laughing stock,” gloated another, over a startlingly juvenile article by barrister Charles Waterstreet, abusing Abbott for his “flurry of patronising punishing jabs from his onion-breathed mouth”.

“The rise and rise of Tony Abbott as an international laughing stock,” gloated another, over a startlingly juvenile article by barrister Charles Waterstreet, abusing Abbott for his “flurry of patronising punishing jabs from his onion-breathed mouth”.

The ABC news grimly reported the offence Abbott had allegedly caused before finishing its TV news with its own St Patrick’s Day tribute — with shots of, yes, Irishmen drinking Guinness.

The ABC news grimly reported the offence Abbott had allegedly caused before finishing its TV news with its own St Patrick’s Day tribute — with shots of, yes, Irishmen drinking Guinness.

But here’s the full measure of these hypocrites.

Abbott is hanged for merely saying he’d like “a Guinness or two or maybe even three”.

Abbott is hanged for merely saying he’d like “a Guinness or two or maybe even three”.

Yet not one journalist attacked the Labor prime ministers who actually accused the Irish of being drunks.

Julia Gillard in her own St Patrick’s Day tribute to the Lansdowne Club in 2012 joked it was “a very good thing that you all have the weekend to recover from this lunch”.

Julia Gillard in her own St Patrick’s Day tribute to the Lansdowne Club in 2012 joked it was “a very good thing that you all have the weekend to recover from this lunch”.

Kevin Rudd in 2009 told St Patrick’s Day guests that “courtesy of a Guinness or two” they’d muddle their premier’s name.

Kevin Rudd in 2009 told St Patrick’s Day guests that “courtesy of a Guinness or two” they’d muddle their premier’s name.

In 2010, Rudd added they weren’t just drunks but rebels, and “a glass or seven of Guinness is the first step towards fomenting political insurrection”.

In 2010, Rudd added they weren’t just drunks but rebels, and “a glass or seven of Guinness is the first step towards fomenting political insurrection”.

And he offered to open “the Lodge to all Irish Australians for St Patrick’s Day, with an open bar and Guinness on tap”.

How could Abbott have possibly topped Gillard and Rudd’s Irish jokes for “offence”? So why the media’s double standard?

How could Abbott have possibly topped Gillard and Rudd’s Irish jokes for “offence”? So why the media’s double standard?


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[barryqwalsh]

MEDIA
How Twitter stirred up a classic Irish stew
Sharri Markson
THE AUSTRALIAN
MARCH 19, 2015 12:00AM
53 COMMENTS
Tony Abbott’s ‘patronising’ St Patrick’s Day message



THE political controversy over Tony Abbott’s St Patrick’s Day message was sparked by a Twitter storm that rebounded globally before being picked up by traditional Australian media.
The Prime Minister’s comments on March 5 — which eight days later, after a lap around the world, Fairfax Media described as “cringe-tacular” — were routine and formulaic for a prime ministerial St Patrick’s Day message, similar to previous remarks made by Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
Mr Abbott was criticised for suggesting Australians could celebrate the day by sharing “a Guinness or two or maybe even three”. But as prime minister in 2009, Mr Rudd spoke of downing “a glass or seven of Guinness”, while Ms Gillard in 2012 suggested guests at a St Patrick’s Day lunch would need the weekend to recover from the drinking. Neither of their remarks prompted outrage.
Yet Mr Abbott’s video message, uploaded to the Liberal Party website on March 5, sparked a Twitter storm, and by the end of last week Irish media outlets were fuelling the controversy.
This, in turn, led to prominent media coverage in Australia, with Fairfax’s The Sydney Morning Herald publishing a story on March 13, describing the Prime Minister’s comments as “cringe-tacular”.

US President Barack Obama hosted a St patrick’s Day reception for Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny in the East Room of the White House.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny — tagged in many of the tweets — was eventually drawn out, saying on Tuesday in Washington that he did not agree with Mr Abbott’s remarks. Armed with evidence of the Irish offence, the Herald was ready for St Patrick’s Day on Tuesday, publishing another article in prime position on its website.
When Mr Abbott uploaded his video message, it was played at many St Patrick’s Day community events around the country. The Australian understands the embassy of Ireland in Canberra was appreciative of the message, while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she had received no complaints from the Irish ambassador about the comments.
But the early social-media commentary, which began on about March 11, was mostly negative, according to media intelligence firm Isentia.
“We’ve identified over 2800 social-media comments in Australia about Tony Abbott’s St Patrick’s Day video since it was first uploaded,” said Isentia group communications manager Patrick Baume.
The national affairs correspondent for left-leaning news website New Matilda, Ben Eltham, tweeted the video to his 13,000 followers on March 11, prompting scorn from his followers.
“Tony Abbott labels St Patrick’s Day ‘the one day of the year it’s good to be green’,” he tweeted.
Youth website Junkee followed him the next day with this tweet: “Tony Abbott’s St Patrick’s Day message is exactly as weird and vaguely offensive as you’d expect.”
It did not take long for Irish expatriates to tag Mr Kenny in their tweets on March 12.
The first news report from Ireland was published in The Irish Times on March 12.
When Ms Gillard was leader in 2012, she made reference to an Irish farmer in Sydney in 1803 when she said: “I’m sure it’s a good thing, a very good thing, that you all have the weekend to recover from this lunch. My usual time to commence to sow crops was the first Monday after St Patrick’s Day. It requiring a few days to get the men sober.”
On St Patrick’s Day in 2009, Mr Rudd said in a lengthy remark: “ … by night’s end, courtesy of a Guinness or two, you’ll all be believed that in fact you are led by a lady called Anna O’Bligh and that her opponent is Liam Patrick O’Springborg. Such is the power of Guinness.”
The following year, Mr Rudd said that, “in my experience, packing 500 people of Irish extraction into a dining hall like this and offering to quench their thirst with a glass or seven of Guinness is the first step towards fomenting political insurrection”.


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[barryqwalsh]

If only Enda Kenny was having a lend

Greg Sheridan

THE AUSTRALIAN
MARCH 19, 2015 12:00AM
22 COMMENTS

IS there anything more terrible than an Irishman who has had his sense of humour surgically removed?
It is surely a new and mutant species: the humourless Irishman.
It seems that long membership of the EU has done to the Irish governing class what 800 years of British persecution could not: removed from it all sense of humour, charm and ease.
Now the Irish government is striving to match Brussels in the dour stupidity of its political correctness.
How else to interpret the astonishing response of the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, to Tony Abbott’s St Patrick’s Day message.
Abbott’s innocent, jovial, friendly remark drew a response of such stupefying, po-faced solemnity from Kenny as to make you think someone had spiked the Irish PM’s Guinness.
Kenny accused our Prime Minister of perpetuating a “stage Irish” interpretation of the Irish.
Gimme a break.
In a nation which lost 1.5 million people in the Great Famine of the 19th century, if the worst thing that ever happens to it is that a friendly prime minister remarks, among other things, that he’d like to enjoy a Guinness on St Patrick’s Day, the correct response is gratitude, not grumpiness.
Abbott also recalled the old saw that in Australia the English made the laws, the Scots made the money and the Irish made the songs. Actually, the version of that I most often hear is that the Irish made the jokes.
But to say that the Irish are responsible for the song in Australian hearts could only be construed as insulting by someone who has spent way too long in the identity politics factory of Brussels’s victim-enhancement and grievance-invention schools.
Ireland is one of the most successful countries in Europe. It paid off its debts, cut unemployment, got economic growth going again. It embraced higher taxes and lower spending on social services.
There is a deep toughness in the Irish character, underneath the soft charm. But the soft charm is not the enemy of the underlying toughness.
A sour, ungenerous, schoolmistressly response to any traditional expression of affection for traditional Irish traits is weirdly un-Irish.
Perhaps this peculiar devotion to EU-style political correctness gone mad is just another way of being not British.
It’s an affliction only of the Irish government, not the Irish people.
If I could speak to the Irish Prime Minister directly, as one man of proud Irish extraction to another, I would say just this: “Enda Kenny, you are an eejit.’’


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[Moonglow]

My Irish Grandfather didn't drink alcohol, it wasn't even permitted in the house, now my German Papa, whiskey was always present under the kitchen sink..