ST. PATRICK'S DAY ADVICE: 20 Ways To Avoid The Guy Who Makes Irish Ancestry His Entire Personality

Dear Alliston Gerald,

There’s this guy I work with who is constantly bringing up his Irish heritage. I believe one of his mother’s parents was a descendant of some Irish people somewhere along the line. On a regular day, he manages to make the lunchroom conversations somehow about Ireland. I can only imagine him on St. Patrick’s Day. Please, Alliston Gerald, how can I avoid hearing about it on St. Paddy’s?

Sincerely,

St. Patrick’s Day Scrooge

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Dear St. Patrick's Day Scrooge,

Thank you for your question. We all know somebody who’s made it everyone's business that he or she is a quarter and seven-sixteenths Irish. Maybe you work with the guy or he’s a mutual acquaintance or maybe he’s your spouse of fourteen years. Therefore, we’ve put together this list of twenty tips and tricks not just for our advice seeker, but for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation:

1. Preemptively outdo him by mentioning your uncle, The Edge of U2.

2. Pretend you're choking. The conversation will naturally flow towards other things, such as whether you're still choking.

3. Preemptively outdo him by mentioning your uncle, Leonardo Di Caprio's role in the movie Titanic.

4. Pretend you're getting a call from the Ontario Lottery And Gaming Corporation.

5. Preemptively outdo him by mentioning your uncle, Spicy McHaggis, formerly of the Dropkick Murphys.

6. Did you know Elvis Presley employed someone whose sole job was to interrupt Elvis to get him out of unwanted conversation? Hire this man. He's been out of work a long time.

7. Preemptively outdo him by mentioning your uncle, St. Patrick.

8. Remind him that St. Patrick was born in Scotland.  

9. Stay home all day. There. Easy.

10. Before he begins, pat him on the back and say, “Ay, laddy, to be sure.”

11. Before he can speak, invite him to Mass. Say a Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Begin a Novena. St. Patrick probably loves all that stuff.

12. Just hear him out. 

13. Make the case that present-day Irish people don’t need to refer to their Irish ancestors. Heck, their ancestors could be Sri Lankan, First Nations Canadian, or Guadeloupean. They’re just going about their lives, participating in modern Irish culture.

14. Pull the fire alarm.

15. Circulate a petition about it. 

16. Ironically pretend to have absolutely no idea about anything he’s talking about, as in: “What’s a saint? Who’s Patrick? What’s an Irish?” Eventually, you’ll tire him out with all that. 

17. Hear him out, hand him a fiddle, and say, “prove it.”

18. Say, “Thank you, but I'm genuinely not interested.”

19. Work through why this bothers you so much. What does it mean for you if someone is interested in their ethnic background?

20. Have one of those ancestry kits in hand, say, “We'll see about that,” and attempt to swab under his tongue.