Notre Dame’s “Fighting Irish” hockey team is headed to Belfast, Ireland, to participate in the annual Friendship Four hockey event. Still, the school felt the need to warn students what not to wear when visiting the Emerald Isles.
Essentially telling students and hockey fans not to be too obviously “Irish,” the school put out a list of things Americans should not wear while visiting Belfast for the games.
This will be the seventh year the “Fighting Irish” will participate in the hockey games, which are meant to bring the game to a country that has not traditionally had anything like it. But school officials don’t want students and fans to be bad guests.
School officials told those headed to Belfast what they should avoid wearing. The list of “what not to wear” includes the color green, anything with “Fighting Irish” or the word “Irish” on it, any shamrocks, the Irish flag, or anything resembling a leprechaun.
The school also has a “what to wear list. ” Students can wear the school’s navy and gold colors, the Notre Dame hockey logo, or a monogram.
The school has explained that Irish people may be offended by things commonly attributed to Ireland in the U.S.A. So, those items are verboten. The school says the items on the banned list may also trigger the Irish people due to the long-standing enmity between Northern and Ireland and the decades of internecine warfare that occurred between them.
Oddly, as Brobible noted, the jersey the school designed for the team to wear at the Friendship Four games actually has both a shamrock and the word “Irish” on it.
At least it isn’t green.
After the inevitable social media dust-up, though, Notre Dame deleted its postings on what not to wear. It isn’t clear if that will open the floodgates for dozens of Americans dressed like leprechauns to flood into Belfast.
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