In a Simpsons episode from 2001, the show’s hero, Homer Simpson and his neighbour Ned Flanders take a trip to Vegas, and end up accidentally marrying showgirls. In a later episode, the showgirls turn up in Springfield. Ned Flanders reluctantly brings his new wife a cup of coffee. She drawls: ‘could you Irish that up for me honey?’ to which Flanders replies: ‘We don’t like to use the “I” word in our house’ This joke is one in a long line of Irish jokes in The Simpsons, such as the “Drunken Irish Novelists of Springfield” float at the St Patrick’s Day parade; the leprechauns stowing away in the undercarriages of Aer Lingus jets; and Homer Simpson disguising himself as “the potato man” in order to sneak into a U2 concert (the bouncers on the door say to him: ‘where were you? You’re late…’).
It is in the showgirl’s grammatical construction of Irishness that this 'Wearing the Green' blog situates itself. “To Irish up” seems a productive place to start thinking about what it means to perform Irishness. The verb “to Irish” lets us think about the green wigs, shamrocks, pints of Guinness, kissing the Blarney Stone, fighting, drinking, talking, singing, dancing and marching that all add up to 'wearing the green'. This blog is an Irishing-up of popular performance in the 19th century and the late 20th century, a consideration of what it might mean to wear the green.
