San Francisco Irish

By Tony Bucher The genesis of this talk was a story published in Salon online magazine on St. Patrick’s Day 2014 by Executive Editor Andrew O’Hehir entitled “How did my fellow Irish-Americans get so disgusting?”  O’Hehir presents the image of braying, asinine reactionary media figures like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and their ilk, joined with plastic Paddy bars, schlocky New Age Celtic mysticism, and an intrinsically racist past as the main features of a faded and degenerate Irish American identity.   Here’s O’Hehir’s money quote: “ Irishness is a nonspecific global brand of pseudo-old pubs, watered-down Guinness, “Celtic” tattoos and vague New Age spirituality, designed to make white people feel faintly cool without doing any of the hard work of actually learning anything. On the other, it’s Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Pat Buchanan and Rep. Peter King, Long Island’s longtime Republican congressman (and IRA supporter), consistently representing the most stereotyp