Emer McLysaght on the most Irish things ever: There is a fine line between the cringeworthy and the credible

Watching the entire Mescal family become celebrities as the nation’s collective son Paul brought them along on his Oscars journey felt like the most Irish thing ever. His mam, dad and siblings flew to LA for the whole thing, their social media accounts blew up, and the internet fell in love with how down to earth they are. Around the country, people pledged to stay up half the night given the level of national interest across several films, and at the primary school Mescal’s father teaches at there was a special Academy Awards day with a red carpet, costumes and a disco. Again, all felt like the “most Irish things ever”.

It’s a phrase with a short but complicated history. Obviously, people have been doing things “Irishly” for as long as they’ve inhabited this island, but the concept of identifying very specific actions and traits as being inherently Irish came along with a worldwide internet obsession with relatable and shareable content and memes in the 2010s.

Pop culture and news website Buzzfeed led the charge internationally, drawing huge readership with “everyone in their 20s will relate to this” or “only people from Wisconsin will understand these pictures”. Irish-relatable content started with immersion jokes and Irish Mammy/wooden spoon references. It was stuff we all identified with, but now it was being collated on the internet and giving us a collective reason to laugh. A picture of a “Careful, road is in shite” sign went viral and events like the Late Late Toy Show and the Rose of Tralee spawned niche memes.

Pigeonholing things as being uniquely Irish almost immediately came with a problem: the ideas could be alienating to those who didn’t come from a homogenised Irish background. “Only in Ireland” content often didn’t, and still doesn’t, fit in with our multicultural demographic. And soon, the immersion chat became tiresome and eye-roll inducing, and the rabid need to pair any visiting celebrity with either an Irish granny or a hurl and sliotar became excruciating. Where’s the sweet spot, then? Where can we – and I include everyone on the island in that we – find pride, humour and togetherness in pop culture and everyday life?

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The Mescals are a good place to start. Everything about Paul Mescal’s journey and his family and community’s subsequent pride has been a delight to watch and feel part of. He also represents another source of Irish chest puffery in an international context – the success of Sally Rooney and her novel Normal People. Online there are comics and commentators such as Killian Sunderman, Boni Odoemene, Peter McGann and Úna-Minh Kavanagh who make astute and up-to-date content about life in Ireland, from the niche to the national.

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One of the oft-trotted-out “relatable” Irish tropes is that we find it impossible to take compliments. Instagram creator Aoife Dunne released a video last week which managed a fresh take on the joke with an admonishment “This isn’t Finland, Sharon” in response to an innocent suggestion that one might just receive a compliment with “Thank you”. Scandinavia being the childcare and housing utopia we all strive for, of course. Chinese TikTok creator @tarotea rates Irish Chinese takeaways and restaurants, beginning his videos with an “Alrigh’ lads” and showing the differences between what Irish and Chinese people order. He even tries a 4-in-1 for the first time. The perfect 2023 approach to the “most Irish thing ever”.

There is a fine line between the cringeworthy and the credible. Doggedly insisting that all Irish people respond in the same way to all cultural stimuli is a mark of the former

On a recent road trip, my companion and I played Bogger Bingo, aiming to spot sights we deemed to be quintessentially Irish: A horse and a donkey together in a field; a derelict cottage painted to look like something from Inisherin; a very old man driving a very old tractor, with bonus points if he was accompanied by a nippy-looking Jack Russell; Minion tyre art; well-wishing signs for a local under-11 GAA team. I felt a strange swell of pride as we knocked everything off our list while driving across the country from Dublin to Mayo, taking in the scenery and the many, many approaches to tyre art this country has to offer.

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There is a fine line between the cringeworthy and the credible. Doggedly insisting that all Irish people respond in the same way to all cultural stimuli is a mark of the former, while genuine Irish pride, restrained self-congratulation and appreciating the many walks of life found across Ireland is more credible in 2023. Oh, and finally spotting the horse and donkey not only together but in an old graveyard together just minutes from our destination almost brought me to patriotic tears.