By Tom deignan

THE August edition of Esquire magazine, on newsstands now, poses this question: “How come so many Irish are drunks?”

The question is part of the magazine’s “Answer Fella” section, in which a broad range of question are posed, then answered, each month.

Obviously, this is an offensive question. That’s the point. The theme to this month’s “Answer Fella” is “offensive questions.”

There is even an illustration featuring a drunk with a leprechaun hat, singing while clinging to a parking meter and booze bottle.

So, aside from this offensive Irish question, there are also questions about Jewish media ownership and African Americans’ supposed love for ladies with big rear ends.

If this were just another lame attempt at tongue-in-cheek irony it would be easily forgotten. But it comes at a time when people have been seriously debating what, exactly, is offensive to Irish people these days.

For example, last April, those hippy, peace-loving ice cream makers Ben and Jerry made headlines when they had the bright idea to name a new flavor Black and Tan.

As Michael Laffan, the head of history at University College Dublin, told the Telegraph newspaper in Britain, “The very name Black and Tan still has a resonance. This is something that would provoke a response and make hackles rise in some quarters, because they were a nasty group. They did carry out a lot of killings.”

The Black and Tan name, of course, springs from the British militia squads that rampaged throughout Ireland in the 1920s.

There is a small problem here, however. How many Irish American lads love to go to their local pub (perhaps named Kennedy’s or McCormick’s or O’Reilly’s...you get the point) and order up a pint of half-ale/half stout. Otherwise known as a Black and Tan.

Or why not try an Irish car bomb? (That’s Guinness, Bailey’s and Jameson.)

Maybe we have to agree to disagree on the Irish drinking thing. After all, even Esquire attempts to make an honest case that this is, in fact, just a nasty stereotype.

“There’s no evidence that the Irish, as a folk or nation, are prone to alcohol dependency,” writes the Answer Fella.

But, apparently, sometimes there is.

Dr. Kenneth Kendler, director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, told Esquire, “The Irish have for 150 years been exporting young men in large numbers to work in building trades and other lower-class jobs, and like many ethnic groups, if you take young men and strip away their womenfolk, they drink a lot.”

It sounds like the good doctor is trying to explain a stereotype which, supposedly, does not exist.

The amazing thing is that the Irish are always up for an argument like this. If you Google Ben and Jerry’s Black and Tan mostly what you find are articles, blogs and posts about the controversy by Irish people.

That’s the Fighting Irish for you, right?

But that’s a problem, too. Earlier this year a verbal donnybrook erupted when some Irish Americans argued that it was time for Notre Dame to drop the Fighting Irish as the name of its sports teams. After all, hadn’t another college just dropped “Fighting Sioux” as its name, which some native Americans found offensive?

“Some of the Irish (I am one) are indeed offended by a mascot dressed as an undignified leprechaun, flitting and prancing all around the football field or basketball court,” Paul L. Richards wrote to a South Bend newspaper.

“We take particular offense with the moniker ‘Fighting Irish.’ As an Irish American Catholic and citizen of both the U.S. and the Republic of Ireland, I am truly insulted by these portrayals of my race, heritage, creed and culture.”

Notre Dame senior Kendall Hannon disagreed. “I find Notre Dame’s mascot to be a celebration of the resiliency and strength of the Irish people. The Irish have suffered through numerous hardships in their history - occupation by a foreign power, religious discrimination, famine and overt racism here in the United States have all been faced by the Irish people, and yet they persevered to become one of the most influential peoples in history.”

Seems to me all these people might want to talk this over at a pub. Try the Irish car bomb.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)