Luck of the Irish

[Smartboy]

One thing that was made clear from the beginning of the series was that Joey's family was very Italian in ethnicity and very Catholic in religion. In the episode in which Monica and Chandler were sending out their wedding invitations, Joey mentioned that he felt that his parents should be invited. Monica said that she would be willing to invite them over the phone and try to make them think that that their original invitation got lost in the mail. Joey said that they would probably believe that because they have a very strong dislike for the postal service. He then went on to say "that and the Irish". I think that it was interesting that his family's prejudice against the Irish was mentioned then but had never been dealt with before or since during the whole ten years of the series. I do not remember there ever being any supporting characters with Irish names. However, I do remember an early episode that dealt with the drinking of Irish coffee. Another thig that was made clear was that Joey was a smooth operator who had slept around with babes of a lot of different races, religions and ethnicities. I wonder if an attractive women who happened to be of Irish decent flirted with Joey whether he would have let his family's prejudices stop him from getting her in the sack. In any event, I figured that, since yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day, now would be an appropriate time to raise this topic. In closing, I would just like to say that, I hope that anyone reading this who observes this holiday had a happy and healthy day yesterday!