Stop pretending you’re Irish when you’re not

St Patrick’s Day, aka the one day per year when suddenly the whole population is Irish.

On March 17th every year everyone conveniently rediscovers their great great great grandmother who came over from Ireland in the 18th century.

Did I mention I’m 1/4 Irish?!

This does not make you Irish.

You probably don’t even like Guinness, and you’ll almost certainly be cheering for England in the rugby on Saturday.

Yes, St Patrick’s Day is one of the few days of they year when it’s socially acceptable to start drinking at 10am, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be Irish.

And wearing green clothes, a poundland ginger wig, and shouting “top of the morning” to every passer by does not make you Irish.

I should know.

Yes, I like most of you, am a plastic paddy. But at least one of my grandfathers was Irish, and my grandmother was from Liverpool, a catholic, and had an O’ in her surname.

St Patrick’s Day 2k14 – 2 Americans and a northerner

Still, I’ve finally learnt this doesn’t make me Irish.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t celebrate last night -believe me, I did. I just drank Strongbow instead of Guinness, and dropped the dodgy Irish accent.

I’m sure actually being Irish and celebrating Paddy’s Day is great, but being English and celebrating it was pretty damn fun.

You should try it sometime.