The So-Called Luck of the Irish

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hey, Martha. This is Steve.

Where are you calling from, Steve?

Wilmington, North Carolina.

I was born and raised and lived for four and a half decades in New York City. Not the island of Manhattan nor the island of Staten, but I lived in neighborhoods in the other three boroughs.

Living in the neighborhoods that I did, I very early on heard about the luck of the Irish. People always talked about it when I was a kid and kept hearing luck of the Irish, luck of the Irish. And I eventually, fairly young, I read up on the history of Ireland and it sounded like the luck of the Irish wasn’t very good for centuries.

So I was wondering how the luck of the Irish originated, where that phrase came from. And I’d rather ask two people who sound like they know what they’re doing instead of opinionating.

Oh, great. Our scam is working.

Steve, let me ask you, when you hear people say luck of the Irish or in the past when they’ve said it, are they expressing it as a positive statement?

Always. Always. I never hear I never picked up any irony. It just seemed like when I was a lot younger that the grown-ups repeated it, but then it just stayed. And, you know, all the symbolism and the imagery and the pot of gold.

Yeah, like the shamrocks and the whole thing.

That whole thing, yes, exactly. Yeah, the American version of Irishness is a strange, weird thing. But if we go back to the Irish version of Irishness and talk about Irish luck or the luck of the Irish, it originally felt very bad luck, just as you found. And about the Irish seeming to get the sharp end of the stick so often throughout history, not just the potato famine, but the treatment from the British and just history just did not treat the Irish well.

But the Irish have a dark sense of humor, an ironic sense of humor. And you’ll find it expressed in jokes and asides and stories. For example, there’s a bit of irony in the line that’s talking about a fellow who died one day and then his numbers came up in the lottery the next. And isn’t that the luck of the Irish?

It’s that kind of ironic luck that often talked about where you got lucky, but it was too late. Or you got lucky, but it was too soon. Or you got lucky, but it turned out to be luck at all. Or you thought you were lucky, but it wasn’t luck. Like your father gave you a house, but it burned down, right? And then the irony got lost.

Over the many, many years, the irony got lost, and all that was left was the positive notion of the Irish luck. And so it went from bad to ironic to positive.

Did that happen in Ireland or did that happen in the U.S.?

Both.

Yeah, the Irish in Ireland, the Irish in the U.S., what an overlap there is there. It’s this interwoven history, a back and forth that is hard to untangle even at this distance.

Well, you’re reminding me of some of the Irish Americans that I met during my years in New York City. Now that I hear the way you laid that out, that was terrific.

Well, Steve, I think we lucked out with your question. I really appreciate it because I’ve always thought of the luck of the Irish as something very positive.

Yeah, just the way people use it.

I’m with you on that.

Well, I appreciate your call, Steve. Thank you very much.

Thank you both.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Steve.

That ironic sense of good luck actually being bad and bad luck being good, of course, isn’t solely the province of the Irish. There’s a sense in Yiddish of trefen or mazel, which is luck so good it’s unkosher. But, of course, the Russians have a little different take on it. The version of Irish luck is to be born wearing a shirt, which is you’re born so lucky that you’re wearing clothes. Not so lucky for the person giving birth.

No, well, it comes from the idea of babies born with a call, C-A-U-L.

Right.

But this is a play on that.

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