Photo credit: Wikipedia. |
Or maybe it should be renamed: “Hey, sweetheart, can I have one of those I’m a Culturally Illiterate American Cocktails?”
No, it isn’t St. Patrick’s Day, although it’s never too late to learn something.
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of co-ordinated bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland. Three bombs exploded in Dublin during the evening rush hour and a fourth exploded in Monaghan almost ninety minutes later. They killed 33 civilians and a full-term fetus, and injured almost 300. The bombings were the deadliest attack of the conflict known as the Troubles, and the deadliest attack in the Republic’s history. Most of the victims were young women, although the ages of the dead ranged up to 80 years.
To learn something … even for an American.
DON’T ORDER AN IRISH CAR BOMB (OR A BLACK AND TAN) ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY, by Haley Hamilton (MEL Magazine)
It’s the equivalent of a Brit coming to America and asking for a tall glass of 9/11
I don’t always enjoy telling people they can’t have the drink they’ve asked me for, but when I do, it’s because someone ordered an Irish car bomb.
Look, I get it: It’s just a drink. But here’s the thing: Unless you crawled out from under a rock yesterday or have zero working knowledge of either 20th-century European history or the English language, you know it’s at the very least a disservice to the Irish culture you claim to be celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day, if not downright offensive.You wouldn’t order a suicide bomb on the Fourth of July, or a pulse shot during Pride, right?
So it is with the Irish car bomb: It’s an insensitive and traumatic reminder of a dark and painful period of Ireland’s national history.