Does Homer have his origins in anti-Irish bigotry?

The Irish bishops have returned home after last month’s meeting with Pope Benedict in the Vatican, where they discussed what Cardinal Hummes has described as “the painful Irish happenings.”
 
We were warned that it would shock us, and it did. I remember the day it was released: I sat watching the news reports with my newborn son asleep in my arms. I became so upset that I had to turn the TV off, though I could hardly see the screen by then.
 
The question asked constantly in the Irish media has been: what should the Bishops now do? But an equally important question is: what should ordinary lay Catholic people now do? A few weeks after the report, I happened to see a re-run of The Simpsons that, oddly enough, answered that very question. It captured perfectly a common reaction amongst some Catholic laity: there is an unfortunate tendency to sweep the abuse scandal under the carpet, or to only mention it in veiled terms.

The Irish bishops have returned home after last month’s meeting with Pope Benedict in the Vatican, where they discussed what Cardinal Hummes has described as “the painful Irish happenings.”
 
We were warned that it would shock us, and it did. I remember the day it was released: I sat watching the news reports with my newborn son asleep in my arms. I became so upset that I had to turn the TV off, though I could hardly see the screen by then.
 
The question asked constantly in the Irish media has been: what should the Bishops now do? But an equally important question is: what should ordinary lay Catholic people now do? A few weeks after the report, I happened to see a re-run of The Simpsons that, oddly enough, answered that very question. It captured perfectly a common reaction amongst some Catholic laity: there is an unfortunate tendency to sweep the abuse scandal under the carpet, or to only mention it in veiled terms.

Homer Simpson, the cuddly but stupid cartoon character familiar from our TV screens, may have been inspired by an Irish comic strips from the late 1800s. The cartoons portrayed the Irish as both lazy and fond of alcohol.