Whether from Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland, people from other countries are often keen to associate Irish people with a few things. One tends to be an obsession with the ‘luck of the Irish’. Where though, did the phrase come from? We decided to investigate.
Nowadays, the phrase has been used the world over. Much of the rhetoric around the phrase has been re-shaped to reference winning money, often used in conjunction with the idea of a ‘pot of gold’ at the end of a rainbow. For example, if you look at the bingo and slots at Betfair, there are countless games that explicitly reference the luck of the Irish. Whether it be the ‘Kiss Me Clover’ game or the ‘Book of the Irish’ game, the popularity of the phrase is so vast that it has been referenced across a range of media types.
Take the 2004 comedy film Dodgeball: The True Underdog Story, starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller. Following a big win on the Dodgeball court, the Average Joes team go to celebrate their victories in the casino, where the coach Patches O’Houlihan wins the jackpot on a ‘luck of the Irish’ slot machine. Immediately after, O’Houlihan a sign drops on him, an ironic twist on the supposed luck that O’Houlihan was benefitting from. The scene from Dodgeball uses a ‘luck of the Irish’ casino game for a reason. It is absolutely accurate, as previously demonstrated by the use of the phrase on betting sites and in physical casinos around the world.
The current usage of ‘luck of the Irish’ is a million miles from its origins, though. It may shock some people to hear that the original use of the phrase does not actually originate from the region but from abroad.
The phrase supposedly comes from America over a hundred years ago and is actually more disparaging towards Irish people than you would expect. Many Irish immigrants from both the north and the south that arrived in the States ended up working in the mining industry in the hunt for gold as part of the famous ‘gold rush’, a vocation that saw them work alongside the Americans.
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The Irish workers were said to be particularly hard workers, and consequently, they often found gold successfully. The Americans did not want to believe that the Irish were finding success through skill or their determination and put the phenomenon down to luck. Hence the ‘luck of the Irish’ was more an expression that the workers were more lucky than skilful, and a way for the other workers to feel better about themselves after struggling to match the work rate of the Irish. Today, the phrase is used as an indication of luck and is used frequently in the gambling industry.
It is a strange leap from a historical perspective to hear the phrase now be used in a way that is generally positive towards Irish people from the north and the south, but few are likely to complain. The ‘luck of the Irish’ is sure to be seen in casinos around the world for years to come.
