In preparation for Saint Patrick's Day, Urban Outfitters
clothing company has released their new line for the holiday. Of the 33
products, including apparel and other trinkets, 23 referenced drinking
alcoholic beverages. One shirt reads “Irish I Were Drunk” and many include
pictures of beer or drunken figures. Seamus Boyle, president of the Ancient
Order of Hibernians in America, which is a large Irish-American organization,
wrote to Urban Outfitters, demanding that they "immediately remove the
disgusting products for sale in your stores depicting the Irish as drunks and
defaming the Irish Nation and the Patron Saint of Ireland, St Patrick." He
says that they would not be able to get away with similar degrading images of African
Americans, Muslims, or Jewish people, and thusly it is not appropriate to have
it of Irish. Ten members of Congress' Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs agree
with this opinion, and wrote a letter to Urban Outfitters CEO Tedford Marlow,
calling on the store to pull the items. However, not all are considering the products
to be terribly offensive, as they say that the Irish “often revel in
self-deprecating and blunt humor.” Are these products being taken too
seriously, or did Urban Outfitters cross the line into distastefulness?
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