Yesterday we asked, what does “Irish hurricane” mean and where did the term originate?

Congratulations Wayne! You’re right, an “Irish hurricane” does refer to calm seas. We hadn’t thought about spilling a Guinness, but in our book, that certainly would qualify as a sailing mishap on a par with a hurricane.

Sometimes referred to as Paddy’s Gale, the term Irish hurricane began appearing around 1803, when the epithet “Irish” was used ironically in many ethnic slurs based on Irish persons’ alleged backwardness.

Some examples include Irish apples for potatoes (1890s); Irish pennant for a dangling rope (1840); Irish dividend, a fictitious profit (1867); Irish clubhouse, jail or police station (1904); Irish confetti for bricks and stones (1913), and Irish ambulance for a wheelbarrow (1931). A great number of these expressions are of American origin, including the use of Irish to denote “fighting spirit, especially in an Irish person.”