Irish and Norwegians

IRISH AND NORWEGIANS

March 17th commemorates St. Patrick's great and noble deed in driving the Norwegians out of Ireland.

It seems that centuries ago many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winter. Ireland was having a famine at the time and food was scarce.
          
The Norwegians were eating almost all of the fish caught in the ocean, leaving the Irish with nothing but potatoes.
          
St. Patrick, taking matters into onto his own hands, like most Irishman, decided all the Norwegians had to go. Secretly he organized the IRATION (Irish Republican Army to Rid Ireland of Norwegians). Irish members of the IRATION sabotaged all the power plants in hopes the fish in Norwegian refrigerators would spoil, forcing the Norwegians to a cooler climate where their fish would keep. The fish spoiled all right, but the Norwegians, as everyone knows to this day, thrive on spoiled fish.


Faced with failure, the Irishmen sneaked into the Norwegian fish storage caves in the dead of the night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian intruders, but as everybody knows, this is how lutefisk was introduced to the Norwegians, and how they thrived on the lye soaked smelly fish.
          
Matters became even worse for the Irish when the Norwegians started taking over the Irish potato crop to make lefse. Poor St. Patrick was at his wits end.


Finally, on March 17, he blew his top and told the Norwegians to "go to hell" -- and it worked, because all the Norwegians left Ireland and went to Minnesota.