Plastic Paddy

Plastic Paddy is a sometimes pejorative term for members of the Irish diaspora who misappropriate stereotypical aspects of Irish customs and identity. Sometimes the adopted imagery is not only inaccurate, but seen as offensive by members of Irish cultures. The term has also been applied to those with no ancestral connection to Ireland who falsely claim Irish identity or nationality. A plastic Paddy may know little of actual Irish culture, but nevertheless assert an Irish identity. The term is pejoratively used to refer to people on the basis of their perceived lack of authenticity as Irish.

The name Paddy is a diminutive form of Pádraic ("Patrick") and, depending on context, can be used either as an affectionate or a pejorative reference to an Irishman.

The term "plastic Paddy" came into use in the 1980s when it was frequently employed as a term of abuse by recently arrived middle-class Irish migrants to London. Hickman (2002) states: it 'became a means of distancing themselves from established Irish communities.' And the use was a part of the process by which the second-generation Irish are positioned as inauthentic within the two identities, of Englishness and Irishness.

Ironically, both English hostility when faced with the spectre of Irish identities, and Irish denials of authenticity of those same identities, utilises the pejorative term 'plastic paddy' to stereotype and undermine processes 'of becoming' of Irish identities of second-generation Irish people. The message from each is that second-generation Irish are 'really English' and many of the second-generation resist this.

People who were not born in Ireland, and who did not grow up in Ireland, but nonetheless possess Irish citizenship and an Irish passport are sometimes labelled as plastic Paddies.

The term can have a different connotation depending on where it is used.

Within Ireland, "plastic paddy" may refer to someone who misrepresents the Irish culture by enacting ethnic stereotypes that portray an inaccurate, outdated and offensive image of Ireland and Irish culture. This is often seen in non-Irish citizens who have a romantic or noble savage image of "the Irish Race," and those who enact stereotypes to appeal to tourists. This naming is a critical reaction to, and defiance of, the demeaning, inaccurate depictions of the Irish at celebrations that originated in the Irish diaspora, as well as the commercialisation and distortion of St. Patrick's Day.

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