Paul Mecurio

The Irish. Freud said the Irish are impervious to psychotherapy. But he didn't say they're impervious to makeovers. In this piece, I am going to make over not just the Irish people, or Irish culture, but also Ireland itself.

Ireland, you've given us so many wonderful Irish phrases, like "Kiss Me, I'm Irish," "Top o' the mornin' to ya" and "Aagh! It's a car bomb."

You're the land of alcohol and hard-to-read novels. You're like an entire nation built on my sophomore year in college.

But you need to get away from the IRA and into AA.

As they say in AA, the first step toward recovery is to admit you have a problem.

Let's start with your most famous celebrity - St. Patrick himself.

Pat, what happened? You've gone from a pious saint to a drunken buffoon swilling 25 cent liquor in a plastic hat. Jesus turned water into wine .... you turn beer into green vomit.

Reclaim your saintliness! To do that, you must perform three Irish miracles. First, you have to get a gay guy into the St. Patrick's Day parade. Second, get a straight guy into Riverdance. Third, don't let either of those guys be interviewed by Rosie O'Donnell.

Pat, if you don't clean up your act you'll be replaced by a saint with a better image - someone who's Irish, NOW, HIP, POPULAR, WITH IT- I speak, of course, of ... Barack O'Bama.

WHAT? He's got an o and "bomb" in his name - you don't get more Irish than that ... he's more Irish than consumption.

Or you could be replaced by -- St. Bono - and on St. Bono's Day, we'll all be stuffed in to tight leather pants and wear a button that says, "Kiss Me, I'm Pretentious."

Now, it's not right to single you the Irish for drinking. That overlooks your contributions to the fields of bad food and domestic violence. Speaking of which, Irish men are the only guys on the planet who can impregnate their wives just by hitting them ... Which makes the Italian in me envious!

We can spin this "drinking perception" by creating a non-alcoholic version of Ireland, called O'Doul's-land. It'll be just like regular Ireland, but not as drunk or angry, and a helluva lot more boring. Oh, wait, we already have that - it's called . . . Scotland.

Ireland, you were plagued by the potato famine. But we can even spin that positive. We'll just say the Irish were 100 years ahead of the Atkins Diet.

On a positive note, your country has a history of great poets, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh ... Jim Morrison of "The Doors." Yes, he's Irish ... But not a great poet. He was a great rock star, but ... "Come on baby, light my fire, try to set the night on fire"-

Wow! You rhymed fire with fire ... you're a regular W.B. Yeats. Here's a rhyme for you ... suck and suck!

And your books are too difficult. In English classes, we'll replace Ulysses with a far better Irish book - The Guinness Book of World Records. Students can't remember James Joyce's characters, but they'll never forget the world's fattest man who was buried in a piano case.

Ireland, if you want to be a world player, we need to emphasize the similarities between you and the U.S. We have anger management, you have Jamesons. You have leprechauns, we have Prince. You have the Irish Republican Army, we have our own Republican Army - Fox News. It's chock full of Irish - Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson. I think he's Irish. Well, at least he's pale and pasty.

I know this will be difficult, but you gotta stop believing in Leprechauns it makes you look crazy - mythical gnomes who have you chasing a pot of gold. In the end you'll just be disappointed. Look at us in America, for years we have been believing in mythical beings who don't exist, they're called, Democratic Presidential Candidates with a chance of winning.

And forget that "pot of gold" nonsense. If you want make money off Leprechauns do what we do, strap them to the back of a race horse and bet the college fund.

And let's talk about tourism. You might want to think about renaming your airline. Something about the name "Aer Lingus" makes the 13-year old boy in me giggle. If you want to boost tourism, name your airline something REALLY provocative - like "Aer Reacharound!"

Now, as we all know, the Irish have a BIG problem with birth control. I know, Catholicism forbids it but there's a global population crisis and the last thing this world needs is more firemen named Seamus.

Irish men, instead of letting your wife go an entire decade without ever having her period ... just think of what you want the British to do in Northern Ireland and PULL OUT.

The next time you see a splotchy red-haired bundle of joy drunkenly sliding out of Mary Margaret's birth canal, instead of mounting her as soon as the doctor cuts the cord; take a deep breath and tell yourself ... "Lamaze is not fore-play."

You're too religious. Stop living your life according to the Pope. If you have to follow the teachings of an aging bejeweled man in robes ... why not Elton John?! You'd get along great, you both already agree that Saturday night's alright for fightin'!

Look I know you're not perfect, heck, we're ALL Irish. Underneath we're all people with big fat heads and bad complexions, who are unable to hold our liquor, fight for no reason and can't stop pumping out kids.