SNL’s sketch about Ireland on Paddy’s Day was just downright awful

If you thought the Saoirse Ronan Aer Lingus sketch was bad, wait until you see this…

A few months back when Saoirse Ronan was on the show, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch about Aer Lingus that attracted quite a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons. Portrayals of Ireland that are full of dated stereotypes and Paddywhackery aren’t exactly rare, but viewers might have expected better from a show with the reputation of SNL and with an actress of Ronan’s calibre featuring in the sketch. Judging by last night’s show, however, SNL hasn’t learned their lesson with regards to Ireland as this latest effort was arguably worse, with Bill Hader featuring in a dating show called ‘Kiss me, I’m Irish’ on “the only channel on the telly not controlled by the bleedin’ British”. You can understand the bad accents to an extent, but depicting Ireland as a place where most of the population are related and have an attraction to their cousins was just bizarre. That’s even before the reference to “deformities from inbreeding”, something that Hader’s character suggested to the only normal person in the sketch that she was “500 years too late” to attempt to stop. Perhaps there were elements of the sketch that were humorous but we certainly didn’t spot them; you can judge for yourself after watching the sketch below. Surely SNL can do better than this…