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Official Visit 3255. |
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Meet Paddy |
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At first glance, the “Paddy” Label appears to be a jovial leprechaun, the mythical and magical little creature connected to the days of Druids, magic and pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Upon viewing Paddy with a shaper eye, this popular St. Patrick’s Day character’s origins come directly from the drawings and cartoons used to depict Irish people in the days before photographs in the British press, particularly in a then-popular British periodical called "Punch".
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"Punch" Year 1845 - Author: John Leech |
"Punch" was the name of a British periodical dating from the early 1800's and stayed in publication well in to the late 20th century. Among other things, Punch was pointedly anti-Catholic and anti-Irish and famous for it's drawings and characters of the Irish, depicting them as monkey-like, with tails, club feet, large ape-like faces on small frail stick-like bodies with wide toothed grins, and dressed raggedly, with battered stovetop hats and carrying a club like "shillelagh".
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"Punch" Year 1846 - Author: John Leech |
This
ape-like character, known as "Paddy," enabled the British
Press to Label, propagandize and to perpetuate the impression that
the Irish people, many of whom starved or nearly starved during the "Great Hunger", or "An Gorta Mor,"
were not much to be concerned about, since they were after all less
than human. A million and half Irish men, women and children perished during the period
of the Great Famine.
Another two million Irish left Ireland against their wishes and emigrated
throughout the world in a desperate effort both to seek religious freedom
and to flee British oppression and imposed starvation.
Regrettably, the Irish could not shed the sub-human “Paddy” Label,
and regularly encountered “No Irish Need Apply” signs when looking
for work in their new land – the United States of America.
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There are those who still believe the British propaganda from those
times, and refer to those days as the "Famine."
Yes, there was a Potato Famine in Ireland which wiped out the entire
potato crops of numerous years in the mid- to late 1840's.
But after the Irish people had their farms taken from them by the
Cromwellians in the 17th century - by forfeit, they were then relegated to
serve as serfs on their own farms. The British began to export all of the abundant Irish beef,
mutton, wheat grains and other produce back to England. The Irish were left
with their potato patches to find sustenance for their meager serfdom.
When the Potato Famine hit Ireland and destroyed the crop for three
years, the British continued to export Irish beef, mutton, wheat grains and
other produce back to England, while a million and a half Irish people
starved to death.
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As far as where the "Paddy" Label got it’s looks,
a quote from "The Great Hunger," by Cecil Woodham Smith might
state it best........ "A curious phenomenon was the growth of hair in
starving children's faces. The
hair on the head fell out and hair grew on the faces. Children in County
Clare had hair on their heads only in patches, but over their foreheads and
temples a thick sort of downy hair grows".
Elihu Burritt wrote that
"in Skibbereen the hair on the children's
faces was as long as on their heads", and R. D. Webb, of the society of
Friends, commented that starving Irish children, referring to the large
heads on frail stick-like bodies and abnormal hair on the face, "look like monkeys."
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Today, the looks of the “Paddy” Label might best be
represented by the starving children in Ethiopia and other parts of the
world – a rather sobering thought when the de-humanized anti-Irish
“Paddy” Label shows his/its ugly head come St. Patrick’s Day.
Regardless
of rights and wrongs with British politics, a
jovial toast to "Paddy" is a jovial toast in support of starvation
and malnutrition in less fortunate parts of the world.
Related
information about the "Paddy" Label can be found at www.StPatricksDayParade.com.