Mythic Irish blood

3/5/2025

If anything has been learned from the popularity of DNA-based ancestry services, other than that your test results are likely being sold to insurance companies, it’s that “pure” blood is extremely rare. That is particularly true for ethnic groups who identify with places that have been conquered and reconquered throughout their histories. 

Restaurateur George Formaro told the Kitchen Insider radio audience that he assumed he was all Sicilian and Calabrian. His parents came from those places. Then DNA tests found he was part Irish. 

“Did an ancestor of mine visit Ireland, or did an Irishman go to Sicily? There is no test to find that out. It happened a long time ago because, for the last several centuries, my ancestors are all Sicilian and Calabrian.”

Islands like Sicily and Ireland have long histories of intermingling. The USA has proudly called itself “the melting pot of the world.” The interbreeding that comes out of that set the stage for the international reaction after a man in Arizona was deemed to be 100% Irish.

John Portmann was born in Arizona in the summer of 1963. He was raised by the Sisters of Mercy in Phoenix until he was adopted. He told BBC NI that he did not want to test his ancestry because he was afraid of what he might find. A few years ago, an adoptive sister persuaded him to give it a try.

Just before turning 60, Portman discovered, via email, that he tested 100% Irish. He couldn’t believe it, so he hired a DNA detective from Canada. She affirmed the 100% diagnosis. That impressed the Irish government so much they awarded him Irish citizenship and an Irish passport. 

 

Why is pure Irish blood so rare?

Ireland has been invaded, pillaged and raped by Normans, Anglos, Saxons, Celts, Vikings and others for so long that the Gaelic blood-stock considered “Irish” is heavily polluted even on the Emerald Isle. Migrations to Ireland have been going on for 10,000 years, 6,000 years since agriculture began and nomads became settlers. Those migrations introduced so many new genetic combinations that pure Irish blood is so rare that Portman had to be proclaimed an Irish citizen.   

Irish blood of any percentage is taken just as seriously across the pond from Ireland. Every March, millions of Americans, some Irish but just as many not, descend upon party tents, parade routes, Irish bars and restaurants, basketball tourneys, and cultural celebrations decked in emerald green. They often wear shirts, panties, halter tops, ball caps and even flowers that proclaim the mantras of their day — “Kiss Me I’m Irish,” “Irish You Were Naked,” “American-made, Irish Parts,” “Shenanigans Coordinator,” “I’m Lucky, You Get Me,” and “Sinn Féin Amháin.” 

One day every year, nearly every bloke and sheila channels their inner Irish, or at least their inner Irish party person. 

Why is that? Non-Italians don’t pretend to be Italian Americans on Columbus Day, or whatever woke dogma calls that now. Non-Mexicans don’t wear the tres colores on Cinco de Mayo. Non-French don’t get drunk and sing “Le Marseillaise” on Bastille Day. 

What is it about the Irish persona that makes so many others want to play at being Irish in America? Lots of things factor into the masquerades and the celebrations. First of all, Irish beer is really good and is a huge part of Irish history. And Guinness has brilliantly marketed the social benefits of being Irish, or even pretend Irish. Same thing with Irish whiskey, which is never spelled “whisky.” The “e’ was added long ago to identify it as made-in-Eire, and to avoid British taxes. Irish cuisine, particularly “banbhianna,” the milk-sourced foods of the Emerald Isle, is special. Song and literature also spread the gospel of Irish identity in a dramatic manner.

Playing at being Irish fits the zeitgeist of this century. Irish history is an easy thing with which to empathize, particularly for young, college-educated believers in the cult of oppression and victimhood. The works that teach that, by Lisa Heldke, Paulo Freire, Gwenelle Styles O’Neal, Safiya Umoja Noble, and Elizabeth A. McGibbon, have been frequently taught on a myriad of campuses, increasingly so for several decades. 

All preach that the world and its history can be reduced into two human parts —  oppressors and victims. That teaching helped create the Anti-Semitism that is now rife in American universities. This new world view considers Jews to be oppressors rather than victims despite thousands of years of historical evidence. 

But it also makes identifying with the Irish very cool. No other western Europeans suffered more, or were treated worse in their native homeland, than the Irish, particularly the Irish Catholics.  

 

Songs of Ireland 

Liverpool is often called “the de facto capital of Ireland” because it has the largest Irish population, even more than Dublin, if you count back a few generations. To escape to America, all Irish had to first get to Liverpool where the ships debarked. Many never made it any further. Look at the Beatles. John Lennon and Paul McCartney both had parents born in Ireland. Two of George Harrison’s grandparents were Irish-born. 

Paul and John both wrote and recorded songs about the plight of the Irish at British hands. The Beatles played Dublin and Belfast twice during their brief time together, at John’s insistence. After they broke up, John released his lament “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in response to the Bogside Massacre of 1972 when British soldiers killed 13 unarmed civilians during a protest in Northern Ireland. That song hit hard against the British: 

“You Anglo pigs and Scottish sent to colonize the north/You want your bloody Union Jacks and you know what it’s worth/Well it was Sunday, bloody Sunday when they shot the people dead/The cries of 13 mothers filled the free Derry air/ Is there any amongst you dare to blame it on the kids?/Not a single soldier was bleeding when they nailed the coffin lids.” 

Paul also recorded a response to the massacre, “Give Ireland Back to the Irish.” It suffered in comparison to Lennon’s song for its restraint. Paul’s even praises Great Britain. Both songs were banned in the United Kingdom, though few in Northern Ireland obeyed. Some Beatles biographers think that these two songs changed the perception of the two former songwriting partners, with John being taken seriously and Paul written off as trivial. 

Irish music has been influencing people around the world, and particularly in America, to sympathize with the Irish. The island of bards, druids and poets exported excruciatingly sentimental songs. American singers of direct Irish descent include Rosemary Clooney (and her nephew George), Mariah Carey, Judy Garland, Pink, Alisha Keys, Christina Aquilera, Jeff and Tim Buckley, Kelly Clarkson, George M. Cohen, Kurt Cobain, Bing Crosby, Billie Eilish, John Fogerty, Tim McGraw, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Katy Perry, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Cory Taylor and a guy named Elvis. 

The most dramatic moment at Elvis’ funeral was the playing of the old Irish war lament “Danny Boy.” Elvis said that the song was “written by the angels,” and he requested that his version be played at his funeral. That is probably the most famous version, though many of opera’s greatest sopranos and tenors have covered it. It is traditionally sung at every funeral of Irish-American policemen and firefighters in New York, Chicago and Boston.

Another Irish song with unbearably sympathetic words and music is “Johnny, I Hardly Knew You.” It was written to encourage Irish resistance to being drafted by the English to fight in the Kandyan War of 1863. Similar was “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” sung to the same tune but written by an Irish-American to support the American Civil War. It became an anthem by hopeful supporters of both the Union and the Confederacy. It is an eerie, ironic song with positive lyrics accompanying music that is a tragic dirge. All those things are considered Irish. 

In the tradition of pro-Northern Ireland independence, Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O’Connor released “A Drink Before the War.” Its frustrating chorus says, “Listen to the man at the liquor store/He’s asking ‘Anybody wanna drink before the war?’ ” The implication is that the Irish have become too utterly used to war and persecution. 

The street ballad “The Wearin’ of the Green” explains why Irish Americans and their wannabes don the green on St. Patrick’s Day. That song became popular in 1798 when, inspired by the American Revolutionary War, the Society of United Irishmen revolted against the British. They were put down ruthlessly, but took to the hills in a guerilla resistance. The song suggests that this was a pivotal moment in the Irish emigration to America, where proud Irishmen could wear the green. To this day, green is sported more in America than in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day.   

 

The politics of Irish whiskey and beer

The climate of Ireland is unusual. It is warmed, particularly its western half, by the Gulf Stream breezes. It also remains protected from most of the Arctic breezes that hit Scotland and the north of England hard. It has never been suitable for grape vines and has never produced much wine.   

On the other hand, Ireland provides fabulous agricultural opportunities for growing grains like barley, rye and wheat. Those have been the source of Irish ales, beers and whiskeys. Most American whiskey makers were Irishmen who, in true Irish fashion, moved west to escape federal tax collectors, many of whom were tarred and feathered. The exception is the Scottish-founded Makers Mark, which some Irish Americans refuse to drink. 

The imported Irish whiskey Jameson is among the most popular spirits in Iowa. However, most of the singers mentioned above prefer Bushmill’s. Jameson was founded by a Scotsman who was Protestant. Jameson’s advertising tries hard to obscure that fact. Bushmill’s is the Roman Catholic choice. In divided and ravaged Northern Ireland cities, towns are divided and identified by the whiskey their taverns advertise. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), supported by most expatriated Irish singers, endorses Bushmill’s.  

 

The Irish Milk War

The food history of Ireland is much like that of the U.S. It was built piece by piece by a melting pot of immigrants and conquerors. The first settlers, some 6,000 years ago, brought new things to a land where survival depended upon fishing, hunting and foraging. Sheep, goats, small cows, and grains were added to the diet by the earliest immigrants. 

About 2,500 years ago, the first Celts entered Ireland. They brought cauldrons, grains, swords, superior plows and, especially, cattle. After the eighth century, the Celts would dominate Ireland for a thousand years and so would cow culture. A rising population, along with exhausted top soil, ushered in a Dark Age of agriculture. The Celts didn’t care. Their cattle, which they proudly looted from others, supplied nearly their entire diet. Their warriors preferred rustling to farming. 

The resulting “white food” cuisine, called “banbhianna,” remains the proudest segment of Irish cuisine. The Celts lived on things made of sweet or sour milk — curds, butter, buttermilk (the secret ingredient in the famous Irish soda bread), hard cheese, soft cheese, and cottage cheese. These were made from cow, goat and sheep milks. One hard cheese, Tanach, reached legendary standards when Queen Maeve was killed by a nephew who shot her in the head with Tanach from his slingshot. 

When the Brits virtually conquered Ireland, they did it by stealing the cattle and sending them to Britain, starving the Irish. They justified this by claiming they were making the lazy, cattle-herding Celts into more productive workers, aka “slaves” in Victimspeak.

Vikings were traders who imported plums, and other fruits, olive oil, wine and herbs to Ireland while exporting slaves, wool, metalwork and animal hides. Catholic German immigrants, escaping Protestant persecution after the Reformation, brought pigs. Because Ireland’s damp climate is not fit for drying and dry aging, Irish pork has always been mostly cured or smoked with bacon being majesty of pig parts. 

 

The potato emigration

Sir Walter Raleigh is credited in dramatic lore for bringing potatoes to Ireland, but there is little historic evidence that he was the guy. Regardless, the potato became the main food of Ireland. Its blight, caused by the fact that Raleigh, or whoever, only brought one potato species while the Incas who introduced him to it knew that multiple species and their interbreeding were essential to protect the plant from disease.  

The potato famine of 1845 bumped up emigration to America even more than the brutal reaction to the uprisings of the previous century. The song that celebrates Ireland’s greatest culinary application of the potato, “Colcannon,” is traditional but became popular during “The Troubles” of the 20th century. It begins by asking:

“Did you ever eat Colcannon, made from lovely pickled cream? With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream. Did you ever make a hole on top, to hold the melting flake of flavored butter that your mother used to make?” and concludes with “Oh, wasn’t it the happy days when troubles we had not, and our mothers made Colcannon in the little skillet pot?”

Irish novelist Anthony Burgess (“A Clockwork Orange”) writes in his foreword to “The Joyce of Cooking” that “You can tell a bad novelist by the way he or she deals with eating: ‘They resumed their journey after breakfast.’ But what for God’s sake did they have for breakfast?” Burgess goes on to claim that Irish writers rarely make this mistake.

So, channel your inner Irish this St. Paddy’s Day with the food and song, the beer and whiskey, the love of freedom and joy for life that are forever Ireland, wherever you might be. ♦

Jim Duncan tests about 25% Irish, but he is a great-great grandchild of the Daniel O’Connell.