Letter about Union's Irish Week bigotry 'fatuous, sniveling twaddle'

As a fourth-generation Irish-American, I would like to apologize for the March 14 letter from Michael O'Hara and James Lynch of the University of Arizona Irish Cultural Society. O'Hara and Lynch voice their disappointment about an advertisement in the Wildcat, and take great offense at the Student Union's serving of corned beef and cabbage as part of "Irish Week." My brethren equate this innocuous nonsense with blasphemy and racism.

The author could have told Wildcat readers that the man who wrote the founding document of the presidio in Tucson was an Irishman named Hugh O'Connor, who left his native country and later became an officer in the Spanish army. In fact, they could have told you any number of true stories - historic, funny, and tragic - about Ireland and the "Irish Diaspora," but opted instead to cast themselves and other people of Irish descent as victims, victims of Wildcat ad copy and the Student Union's food services.

The only positive aspect of their letter is the designation of James Lynch as the society's "press liaison." An unwitting testament to our Irish gift for magic hyperbole, it's a pot of something, but a leprechaun told me that it's for sure not full o' gold.

My advice is to attend to your studies, boys. Raise a pint or two to your happy folly on Friday; on Saturday ask the Good Father's forgiveness for that fatuous, sniveling twaddle you wrote about corned beef and clover.

By Tom Gelsinon (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 25, 1997