Back when "Social Darwinism" was the pecking order of the day, specifically in this case the 1890s, people such as the Irish were routinely regarded as "inferior" by the other Europeans. The Irish would use humor to cope,
as was their tradition, and monologs like this were very popular as a kind of answer to the oppressive injustice of "Social Darwinism." James Bernard, a now-obscure recording pioneer, recited this monolog for an Edison 2-minute
cylinder in August of 1899. According to the announcement, it was made famous by a G.W. Kelly (knowledgeable info about this gentleman is welcome). The Germans and the Irish are compared in how they get drunk, and in how they
die: in both cases, it is the Irish who are shown to be the superior stock. For those who can appreciate the changing values of human society over time, this monolog is an interesting piece of history. The brown wax cylinder
from which this is sampled has some mold spots, and not all of them were treatable, but enough noise have been removed to make this monolog more understandable.
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