Since the 1800’s the word, Paddy, has been a slur on Irish males, a shorthand for a drunk, or a punchline of a Paddy Irishman joke. This doesn’t reflect the multiculturalism of today’s Ireland. For a start, it implies straight and white. To mark St. Patrick’s Day 2024, The Paddy Irishman Project has secured the worldwide rights to the phrase, Paddy Irishman, with the copyright confirmed in Ireland’s primary diaspora territories, the UK, Australia, Europe and the United States of America.
The copyright aims to end the stereotype, and is part of an ongoing creative collaboration, The Paddy Irishman Project, featuring a series of portraits taken by O’Callaghan which reflect the diversity of cultures, ethnicities, sexualities and careers of contemporary Irishmen.
The Paddy Irishman Project is a creative arts partnership between photographer, Ross O’Callaghan, and Irish creative agency, The Brill Building. It was launched in 2023 to address enduring misconceptions about Ireland and the Irish.
The project includes seven new Paddy Portraits. The class of 2024 Paddies photographed by O’Callaghan were revealed for St. Patrick’s Day and include actor, Patrick Bergin; Spotify music star, Pat Lagoon (aka ‘Paddy Lagoon); Paddy Guilbaud, the Frenchman who made Ireland a nation of foodies; and emerging fine art painter, Paddy Critchley. The 2024 Paddies join the gallery of accomplished contemporary male role models of Ireland that includes TV personality Patrick Kielty, world champion golfer.
O’Callaghan commented, “Paddy Irishman is an enduring and damaging stereotype about the Irish, started in colonial times but still alive today. Increasingly, it projects that Irish identity is exclusively white and straight and that doesn’t reflect contemporary Ireland. It needed to change, so we trademarked it. There are thousands of real Irish men from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, sexualities many with inspiring stories of resilience and achievement – called Paddy. All proud to be Irish. In a new Ireland, a young nation with an ancient history where we are as proud of our heritage and history as we are in the ordinary stories of regular people, these are the real Paddy Irishmen.”
The action is intended to be a symbolic gesture that prompts reappraisal of Ireland on the world stage in the way the portraits themselves are intended to do.
“There are no plans to use the trademark commercially, but if it helps spark the conversation about what we are no longer willing to tolerate I think that’s a good thing,” O’Callaghan added. “There is a new confidence in our generation of Irish people across music, film and the arts and we’re increasingly ready to speak up and show who we are and what we are about to the world, an incredibly talented and diverse people.”
The Brill Building CEO and ECD Roisin Keownadded, “We want The Brill Building to be the place to do the best, most creative and most rewarding work of your career, known for the talent we work with our suppliers, and also our brilliant clients. When Ross, who was instrumental in helping set up our in-house production capabilities for our young agency in 2019, shared his vision with us back then, we knew we had to everything possible to help his great idea meet the world. Now by securing the copyright, we are taking the idea a step further beyond the story of our Paddies, and towards an exploration of what stories we as Irish people want to tell about ourselves.”
