Irish priests

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I've noticed in quite a few shows, even nowadays, Catholic priests in the United States are depicted as having Irish accents (The Simpsons did it in one episode, for example), even though these days very few American priests were born in Ireland. (This trope was truth in television during the 1800s and early 1900s but not so much today.) I've met American-born priests of Irish descent, who had American accents, but none that were actually born in Ireland. (Even in Ireland these days, due to Irish becoming less religious, many priests there now are non-Irish immigrants.) I always wonder why they continue to do this even though it's not really a thing anymore.

Have any of you ever met an Irish-accented priest? (Obviously, this question only applies to people living outside of Ireland, so if you live in Ireland, this doesn't really apply.)

I think the reason why Irish priests are often cast is because Ireland is perceived to be generally more religious than the rest of the UK, even in Northern Ireland.

The Republic of Ireland are known for their religious conflicts and division, and even today that is still relevant and alive.

It might follow then that Americans might perceive the Irish are being the most religious folk on the British island.

The Irish were driven to American by the potato famine in the early 19th century. And they became the first large non-Protestant ethnic group in America. So for decades in America to be Irish was the same thing as to be Catholic and vice versa. So thats how it started.

Later huge numbers of Poles and Italians immigrated in the US in the Ellis Island period. But the Catholic hierarchy was still largely Irish. Later still huge numbers of Hispanics migrated in. So now the Irish are just one among many Catholic ethnic groups.

And as you said even real priests who actually are of Irish descent dont speak that way anymore.

The world of jokes is the world of stereotypes. So every comedy show from Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Campanion to the Simpsons to whatever...always has the priest speaking in Irish brogue. Probably because it communicates with velocity that this character is the priest in the dialogue.

You dont see that in dramas so much I believe.

TV can be weird about stereotypes. I've noticed with a lot of ethnic groups. For example, fictional Americans with German last names tend to be Jewish, even though the vast majority of Americans with German last names are not Jewish. (On the other hand, many Americans with Russian and Ukrainian surnames are Jewish.) Over 50 million Americans have German ancestry, which is over three times the population of Jews in the entire world. My last name is a German last name and most of my German family is Catholic. (People generally don't associate Catholicism with Germans. Austrians, yes, but not Germans in Germany. I bet these people have never heard of Bavaria.)

Stereotypes are less common in dramas than in comedies, but they can pop up too. While it's not a movie or a TV show, Jodi Picoult's book Mercy has some of the most cartoonish Scottish stereotypes I've ever seen. The book is not comedic at all.

Wait a minute... Irish Priests? Are we not talking about these guys?



https://brehonacademy.org/the-old-relig ... al%20world.

The way George Carlin depicted them, they're hilarious.

Doesn't get any older than that! Am I right?

Speaking of which while I shouldnt claim to be an expert on Celtic Druidry converting to Irish Catholicism, here is some interesting stuff.

Saint Brigid of Ireland was appearently a Catholicized (for lack of a proper term) attempt to transform the original Celtic Goddess of the same name into a Catholic Saint in order to convert the Irish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid_of_Kildare

Yes. The Celtic Goddess Brigdet became the Catholic St. Bridget.

The English word for the bad afterlife place is derived from "Helle" the name of an Anglo Saxon goddess.

Pagan god and goddess managed to sneak through the local cracks here and there throughout Christendom. And not just in Europe.

In 1531 in Mexico, only a decade after Cortez conquered Mexico an Aztec speaking Mexican peasant had visions of the Virgin Mary (she even spoke to him in his native Aztec) on a hill top outside of the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). He finnally told her that the Archbishop doesnt believe I keep running into you...says you gotta do a miracle. So she saved his sick brother. And now "the Virgin of Guadalupe" has a big church on the mountain top, and she hangs as a medallion from the rear view mirror of every Mexican lowrider car.

But the mountaintop he would encounter her just happened to be a sacred mountain where the Aztecs had been worshipping their Pagan mother goddess for centuries before.