Who was Uncle O’Grimacey and was he really in the IRA?

In recent weeks, I found myself in a fuzzy green Internet rabbit hole. In March 2024, when the St. Patrick's Day season came around, I began seeing posts about Uncle O'Grimacey, a googly-eyed green character dreamed up by McDonald's back in the 1970s to help sell - you guessed it - Shamrock Shakes .

The legend of Uncle O'Grimacey - as well as his cringey green shamrock vest and diddly-aye accent - lives on YouTube, thanks in part to the US-based nonprofit TC Media Now: But Uncle O'Grimacey also lives on in Internet lore. While the "Irish" McDonald's mascot is intriguing enough, I soon stumbled upon a perhaps more intriguing facet to the legend - various claims that the McDonald's character was discontinued due to his links to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) . One screenshot that's been widely shared in various forms (usually without attribution) on social media says in part: "Uncle O'Grimacey was quietly phased out of McDonald's marketing after a few years due in part to an alleged incident in Philadelphia in 1978 where the person portraying him made statements in support of the IRA and that British soldiers were better dead than alive.

" Yikes. oh my god pic.twitter.

com/0UtJUcjCDC I turned to Google and searched "Uncle O'Grimacey IRA." I was hoping to find some old article about the alleged 1978 Uncle O'Grimacey - IRA incident, but instead found a 1997 piece from The Onion, a US-based satirical publication. In its article " Sinn Fein Leaders Demand Year-Round Shamrock Shake A.