For some reason, at 5 am this morning I had to wake up my boyfriend and ask if he knew why prison vans were called “paddywagons”. He was understandably confused and distressed.
I still want to know, even after the rude suggestions he had for me if I ever woke him up with such and “stupid and inconsequential question.”
Well, it goes back to the 19th century, when most of the policemen AND most of the criminals in cities like New York and Boston were Irishmen (“Paddy” = Patrick = shorthand for Irish).
So, when a team of Irish cops brought a wagon filled with Irish miscreants to jail, “paddy wagon” seemed a logical nickname.
astorian. While I’m sure that your are right about it being derived from a plethora of policemen who were of Irish background, it(surprisingly) only goes back in print to 1930. In Chicago(surprise! NOT.).
So the 19th century thing is probably right out.
Actually a real prison bus (ie a vehicle to transport inmates between prisons) is commonly called a boat. At least in NY anyway.
Actually I heard a different explaination that apparently is the same as this link
http://allaboutirish.com/library/language/w-paddywagon.htm
The jist is they’re called paddy wagons because the cops would often have to break up brawls involving a bunch of drunken louts and the stereotype is that the guys they were hauling off were of course irish.
The explanation I heard matches Dave_D’s reasoning more closely than astorian’s.
Perhaps as some verification, “paddy wagon” is a common colloquialism in Australia, where to my knowledge, we DON’T hold the stereotype of the Irish policeman as it stands in the United States
The Irish drunk, on the other hand…
H’uh. I thought it was because they were “padded”-I mean, so mental patients couldn’t hurt themselves?
It may have gone without saying (until now) but the fact of “paddy” being a neat corruption of “patrol” shouldn’t be overlooked.
I had always heard that they were called “paddy wagons” due to the real or imagined high percentage of Irish being arrested, as ]b]Dave D** mentioned.
PS- paddy is considered by many to be a slur.