CAMBRIDGE, MA—Ringing in the momentous occasion with firework displays, community service projects, and chants of “bog-trotters go home,” the United States of America turned 250 on Saturday despite the presence of the Irish.
The semiquincentennial, marking two and a half centuries since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was observed by approximately 308 million Americans, as well as 32 million potato-eating others whose reasons for remaining in a country that never welcomed them in the first place were unclear. Sources confirmed they were impressed by the dignity and poise with which the nation carried itself in the face of the interlopers, noting that to rise above the pasty, redheaded horde and their diseased children was no easy task.
“Two hundred and fifty years may not seem that long when compared to a country like China or Egypt with thousands of years of written history, but to be fair, neither of those places ever had to deal with the Irish,” said historian Robert Garson, director of the Harvard University Center for Human-Hibernian Relations. “A quarter of a millennium ago, the Founding Fathers came together to establish a new nation in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and no mick can take that away from us.”
“I believe Ronald Reagan hit the nail on the head when he described this country as a shining city on a hill with a shantytown stinking of boiled cabbage at its base,” Garson added.
At Independence Day celebrations across the country, the mood was reportedly jubilant, with residents in small towns and big cities alike exhibiting a rare optimism that for once the Irish might stay in their own neighborhoods. In downtown Boston, visitors strolled down the Freedom Trail, posed for pictures in front of the Paul Revere House, and cheered as law enforcement burst into pubs and dragged out the drunk, violent foreigners who had stolen Americans’ canal-building jobs and dyed their rivers green.
“I was a bit worried about visiting Boston, considering its demographics, but they’re doing a great job keeping all their Murphys and Maloneys in line,” said tourist Victoria Diaz, who noted that she felt much safer after learning the city had erected barbed-wire fencing around all of “Southie,” as the Irish neighborhood is known to its largely illiterate population. “Plus, I made sure everyone in my family packed some chunks of soda bread we can throw to distract them if they try to get us.”
“Not even the sight of a sloping-skulled Irishman could bring me down on a beautiful day like today,” Diaz continued, smiling.
In the nearby suburb of Brookline, residents took part in a ceremony at Town Hall in which they unearthed a time capsule from 1976 that included a “Spirit of ’76” commemorative coin, a bicentennial flag, and a Celt-repelling King James Bible. According to municipal officials, the time capsule also featured a handwritten letter from sixth-grade students begging to know if in the future flying cars had been invented and the Irish had at long last been exterminated.
“I remember the bicentennial like it was yesterday—there were flags on every corner, people wearing red, white, and blue everywhere you looked, and St. Aidan’s Church was on fire,” said Brookline Mayor Edwin Ayers, 63, who recalled gathering with his family in a local park to watch the captivating flames light up the night sky. “It was a very special time, and in a way, nothing’s changed. We didn’t let immigrants from Ireland get us down then, and we don’t let them get us down now.”
“Give us 250 more years, and we’ll build a paddy wagon big enough for the whole godforsaken island,” he added.
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