“How many Nobel Laureate does Dublin have? Four!” is the question posed and answered by the late author and broadcaster Frank Delaney in his poem for St. Patrick’s Day. If you’re one of the many who have often wondered why it’s OK to employ every imaginable stereotype of the Irish each March 17; this one’s for you.

The Friday Poem was composed for NPR’s Weekend Edition in 2012.

Mr. Delaney died last month in Connecticut.

“He had wanted to be a novelist since childhood, he said in a 2014 interview timed to coincide with the Dublin Writers Festival. “I’ve always relished the power of the tale,” he said, “how it grabs us and then absorbs us, and casts a spell over us, and teaches us.”

He was a radio and television reporter in Ireland; created the “Bookshelf” and “Word of Mouth” programs on BBC Radio and “The Book Show” on Sky News; and wrote “The Celts” for the BBC, the screenplay for the 2002 adaptation of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” the novel “Ireland” and nearly two dozen other fiction and nonfiction books, both in Britain and after moving to the United States in 2002.”

“Drowning the Shamrock” is Delaney’s irreverent “James Joyce-ian” take on St. Patrick’s Day, filled with Irish pride.”

Drowning the Shamrock

“Hail glorious Saint Patrick dear saint of our isle
On us thy poor children look down with a smile -”
But I’m not singing hymns and I’m not saying prayers
No, I’m gritting my teeth as I walk down the stairs
And into the street with these louts fiercely drinking
And screeching and lurching, and here’s what I’m thinking –
They’re using a stereotype, a narrow example,
A fraction, not even a marketing sample
To imitate Ireland, from which they don’t come!
So unless that’s just stupid, unless it’s plain dumb,
All these kids from New Jersey and the five boroughs
And hundreds of cities, all drowning their sorrows,
With bottles and glasses and heads getting broken
(Believe me, just ask the mayor of Hoboken)
All that mindlessness, shouting and getting plain stocious –
That isn’t Irish, that’s simply atrocious.
I’ve another word too for it, this one’s more stinging
I call it “racism.” See, just ’cause you’re singing
Some drunken old ballad on Saint Patrick’s Day
Does that make you Irish? Oh, no – no way.
Nor does a tee-shirt that asks you to kiss them –
If they never come back I surely won’t miss them
Or their beer cans and badges and wild maudlin bawling
And hammered and out of it, bodies all sprawling.

They’re not of Joyce or of Yeats, Wilde, or Shaw.
How many Nobel Laureates does Dublin have? Four!
Think of this as you wince through Saint Patrick’s guano –
Not every Italian is Tony Soprano.

Frank Delaney    NPR Weekend Edition – March 17, 2012