Why is it called an “Irish Goodbye”?

Interrogating folk assumptions and English denigrative language.

Alternatively an “Irish exit,” an “Irish goodbye” is a colloquialism for instances in a which someone leaves a gathering without notifying any hosts or other guests. I’m likely to do this at a networking event, or a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’s birthday party, or any time I’m feeling a little too shy or a little overstimulated to make a grand exit.

In fact, last month I left a work holiday party without making the rounds (I did tell my boss I was leaving, like a good little cog), and as I told a friend about it that night, I started to wonder: Why do we call that an “Irish goodbye”?

My own theory: Big families, small exits

I’d like to start this wondering with my own theory. I come from an Irish-ish family, and I have more cousins than seems reasonable. Sometimes I like the idea of leaving without goodbyes simply for the sake of efficiency. As it stands, I tend to factor in an hour (at least) to extract myself from family functions.

This makes me wonder: Is the tendency to slip quietly out of events ascribed to the Irish because Irish families tend to be larger than elsewhere in Europe? I mean, it seems reasonable to me that where there are bigger families (and thereby bigger parties), it’d be more common for people to leave stealthily.

As it turns out, sort of! Ireland’s per-capita birth rate has historically been higher than that of England, Wales, or Scotland. The chief reasons for this are Catholicism, the relative rurality of Ireland, and imperial control over the country resulting in poorer economic conditions than elsewhere in the UK. All roads really do lead to Catholicism.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that one is more likely to make a quiet exit at a larger event, so it tracks that larger families could result in more quiet exits. I think I’m onto something, here!

Lacking for formal data around this theory, though, let’s take a look at the documented origins of an “Irish exit.”

A linguistic garden path

For starters, the phrase is regionally-driven. The goodbye is “Irish” only in the US and England; It can be a French, English, or Polish goodbye, too, depending on where in the world you are.

The first (and more popular) variation appears to be the French exit, or “French leave,” as coined by the British in the 18th century. To leave a party without making a formal exit was seen as particularly rude around this time, and was perhaps attributed to the French in keeping with the common English practice of stereotyping the French as rude. It’s also sometimes said that the phrase points to the French military’s proclivity for desertion around this time.

The French, unsurprisingly, did not like this! They adopted their own version of the term, “filer à l’Anglaise,” which literally translates to “to leave as the English.” Some other countries adopted the phrase, but the French exit still maintains prevalence in Europe.

As for the Irish version, the English seem to have introduced this as a way of further denigrating Ireland under severe British rule. The takeaway here is that, one can always wonder whether England is just punching down. In most cases, yes. And in this case, also yes!

Despite this history, the common assumption in America seems to be that the term derives from an Irish tendency to over-imbibe, then leave quietly to avoid revealing one’s drunkenness. Not only is this etymologically incorrect, this is an assumptions and a stereotype rolled into one neat, diminutive package.

But it’s not always bad!

There are instances of “Irish exit” that are intended in a positive light, or at least in a less negative one.

In Irish writer Sean O’Casey’s Rose and Crown (1952), he uses the phrase to bid New York adieu and impart wishes of prosperity:

An Irish blessing and an Irish goodbye to America’s people who shall never have an ending, never have an ending, never have an ending.

Around this time, in America, the term “Irish goodbye” was more commonly understood as a festive, emotional way to leave a gathering—quite the opposite of the original British intent.

So, what?

It’s always worth questioning the phrases that we take for granted in regular parlance. More often than not, I find that older, vaguer phrases have some root in distasteful politics or thinking. I tend to err on the side of caution (read: exclusion) for these phrases when I don’t really know what I’m saying. “Disappearing into the night” is more scintillating, anyway.