Raise a glass to Pint Baby and toast our Epic sense of humour
The Guinness-swigging infant from 1997 has sparked world-wide debate, writes Victoria Mary Clarke
IF YOU have been on another planet recently, you may not have heard of the person known as ‘pint baby’. So let me explain.
Last week RTE journalist Cian McCormack discovered some footage of a baby drinking a pint of Guinness, and when he shared the clip on social media people all over the place started sharing it and it got its own hashtag #pintbaby, and when you have your own hashtag that means instant fame.
Cian’s baby had been featured as part of an RTE Nationwide programme about the lack of single women in rural Ireland. In the clip, the camera trains in on the baby who is guzzling a pint of Guinness, while the interviewee is offscreen talking about something totally unrelated. Naturally, the baby was tracked down and he is now a grown man called Stephen Barron.
The thing that grabbed my attention was that the public reaction was not what you might expect in this day and age. You might think that the nation and the world-wide web would be horrified by this apparent glorification of a baby drinking alcohol in a pub, with his mother clearly not trying to stop him.
If this were England and the baby was drinking a pint there would be uproar. And one can only imagine how Americans would react, given that you have to be 21 to buy alcohol over there — even if you are already legally married and in possession of a gun. In Ireland, the reaction was one of amusement. Stephen summed it up by saying: “You can’t really get any more Irish. It’s a baby drinking a pint of Guinness.” On social media, people tended to agree. Caroline, the mother of Stephen, said that the general attitude was, “Ah sure, we were all reared like that”, and that there was no harm done, as Stephen has turned out perfectly fine.
In business and marketing, there is always a great deal of talk about ‘brand identity’ and the story of your brand and the impact that has on how people see you.
But 20 years ago, people in Ireland did not tweet or Instagram everything they ate and drank. In those days, we didn’t think about curating and protecting and generally shaping the way that we are perceived. We (and I speak for myself here) could get away with outrageous behaviour with nobody noticing beyond our immediate circle. But these days anything and everything that we do or eat or wear or say can be filmed and tweeted. And all of that stuff either adds to or detracts from our ‘personal brand’.
When Stephen the ‘pint baby’ said you couldn’t get more Irish than a baby drinking Guinness, he wasn’t talking about the way we were seen 20 years ago, he was talking about ‘brand Ireland’ now. But the thing is, your brand isn’t just one thing about you, it is everything that is known about you.
When Bill Clinton became the second US president to be impeached, he also received the highest job approval ratings of his administration, and oddly enough he left office with the highest ratings of any president since Harry Truman. But Bill’s brand was composed of many things, not just Monica Lewinsky. And brand Ireland also has many layers. But many of us who are Irish have become befuddled as to what exactly they are and what they say about us.
More than 70 million people around the world claim Irish ancestry, which in itself suggests that our brand is one that people like to be associated with.
There is a fascinating exhibition at Epic Ireland (in the CHQ building in Dublin) which tells the stories of Irish people who went abroad — from the Sixth Century monks who set off in currachs to the modern-day millionaires who hop around the globe on private jets.
As you walk through the 20 different galleries, you are introduced to a bewildering array of global Irish influencers. Each of them suggests something about us as a people.
The ‘Open Island’ is about our love of the Irish landscape and the way that has shaped us, and the next one shows the harrowing stories of our ancestors who were forced to leave because of starvation, oppression and hardship. All of this suggesting that we are romantic, sensitive and hard done by — but also resourceful, courageous and resilient.
The ‘Belief ’ section shows the influence of Irish missionaries, who spread religion all over the world, suggesting perhaps faith and piety. In the ‘Conflict’ area we hear about the Irish rebels, the warriors, the soldiers and revolutionaries, which could give us an added dimension of viciousness, bravery, ruthlessness, physical strength, determination and endurance to add to our mix.
We have had enormous political influence, with 22 American presidents claiming to be of Irish descent, which could mean that we are cunning and devious or it could mean that we mean well.
We have the great writers, painters, musicians, poets, actors, dancers and film-makers, so we are creative and imaginative and clever.
We have the inventors, the Irish invented the steamboat, the submarine, the electric tattoo machine, the stethoscope and even helped split the atom. So we are ingenious.
The only things that are absent from the exhibition are Guinness and drinking. There is an Irish pub, but it has no booze. So our global brand has many other dazzling facets, especially when you consider how tiny we are compared to the big boys in the market. And perhaps #pintbaby adds a hugely important element, that we are admired for, the world over. We have a sense of humour about ourselves.
‘More than 70 million peple around the world claim Irish ancestry’