People saying they are Irish - when they clearly aren't!

who the fug

old hippy wrote: »

DColeman wrote: »

Agreed.

Patriotism and nationality is all a bit boring to me.

Yup. If people focused on the bigger picture; we really might be one world.

God no the one world alliance Shiite

old hippy

who the fug wrote: »

God no the one world alliance Shiite

Yep, someone else for you to hate

who the fug

old hippy wrote: »

who the fug wrote: »

God no the one world alliance Shiite

Yep, someone else for you to hate

Misanthropes of the world unite, is what I say

Laura_lolly87

Gazmantoo wrote: »

You've proved my point! St. Patrick actually was a Welshman!!!!!!!!!!!!!
check your history better!

There's no proof that he was Welsh. He mentions the town that he was from in his Confessio but no one has been able to pinpoint exactly where that town was, some argue for Scotland others for closer to London and some for Wales. But if your main point was that he actually wasn't Irish then you are correct.

DColeman

who the fug wrote: »

God no the one world alliance Shiite

I reckon it's got potential one day. Maybe when humanity matures.

Paulor94

I know excatly what your talking about OP.
Just cause your great great grandfather was irish doesnt mean you are.

who the fug

Paulor94 wrote: »

I know excatly what your talking about OP.
Just cause your great great grandfather was irish doesnt mean you are.

So my nephew whose great great grandfather was Irish (Cork) Whose great grandfather was Irish (Cork) whose grandfather was Irish (Slight embarrasment Manchester) whose father was Irish (Major problem Kerry :eek:) what was born in Jeddah speaks with an Irish accent is not Irish

InTheTrees

I think we've discussed this before and it all comes down to accent.

Forget passports, forget how many generations it may have been since your ancestors trudged here from somewhere else...

:cool:

SharpshooterTom

InTheTrees wrote: »

I think we've discussed this before and it all comes down to accent.

Forget passports, forget how many generations it may have been since your ancestors trudged here from somewhere else...

:cool:

So ok think of this scenario:

A) Person moves over here at 12 from an English speaking country, retains his accent for the majority his time living here.

Person moves over here in his mid-twenties from an non-English speaking country, learns his English here and picks up the accent. That person is more Irish than person A? Hmmm interesting.

Tiocfaidh Armani

Paulor94 wrote: »

I know excatly what your talking about OP.
Just cause your great great grandfather was irish doesnt mean you are.

But you're heritage is, especially if you're born in a relatively young country like the US.

old hippy

InTheTrees wrote: »

I think we've discussed this before and it all comes down to accent.

Forget passports, forget how many generations it may have been since your ancestors trudged here from somewhere else...

:cool:

And if you are mute or have to rely on one of those vocal machines?

sensibleken

Demonique wrote: »

I caused drama on a LiveJournal community by complaining about the St. Patty thing, I said 'Saint Patrick wasn't a purple-haired chainsmoker'

I did the same thing. then some person came on and started saying how, as an irish person, she found it offensive that americans just use it as an excuse to drink. finally accusing me of not being truely irish because Im from dublin. She was english.

great fun on there sometimes.

Tiocfaidh Armani

sensibleken wrote: »

I did the same thing. then some person came on and started saying how, as an irish person, she found it offensive that americans just use it as an excuse to drink. finally accusing me of not being truely irish because Im from dublin. She was english.

great fun on there sometimes.

We call it St Paddy's Day, yet moan when someone else uses a nickname for the day just as we do. And as for her complaining about yanks using it as an excuse to drink, what does she think the actual Irish do:D

sensibleken

Tiocfaidh Armani wrote: »

We call it St Paddy's Day, yet moan when someone else uses a nickname for the day just as we do. And as for her complaining about yanks using it as an excuse to drink, what does she think the actual Irish do:D

She thought it was a time for quiet family time. She absolutely couldnt accept that Ireland was drinking out of its ears on paddys day and that I was a racist for suggesting otherwise.

I always assumed americans calling it pattys day was because in some accents patty and paddy sound identical and Pat is short for patrick whereas theres no D in Patrick.

Duckworth_Luas

sensibleken wrote: »

She thought it was a time for quiet family time. She absolutely couldnt accept that Ireland was drinking out of its ears on paddys day and that I was a racist for suggesting otherwise.

I always assumed americans calling it pattys day was because in some accents patty and paddy sound identical and Pat is short for patrick whereas theres no D in Patrick.

Well where I grew up in Connacht there was no drink culture associated with St Patrick's Day. People attended mass in the morning and then.......nothing, except maybe a few charity events. I actually worked in a rural pub as a kid and the place would be dead on that particular day. Still is that way too. No parades, no alcohol consumption, just a boring holy day of obligation.

St Patricks Day was always a far bigger event abroad than in Ireland. The first ever St Patrick's Day parade was even held in the USA.

The growth of the Irish Pub phenomena abroad led to an increase in foreign visitors, especially European, to Dublin on March 17th in recent years. This led to the Dublin organisers revamping their parade from the damp squib it was in the 1980s to the colourful event it is today.

Immaculate Pasta

Why don't people realise nationality is a personal thing? It's not for someone else to judge what nationality you are. It's a personal feeling as to what one identifies themselves as. It's influenced by where you're born, grew up, where your family are from or even influenced in some aspect by place of residence, your experiences and cultural affiliation.

Nationality is not black and white.

Leftist

Immaculate Pasta wrote: »

Why don't people realise nationality is a personal thing? It's not for someone else to judge what nationality you are. It's a personal feeling as to what one identifies themselves as. It's influenced by where you're born, grew up, where your family are from or even influenced in some aspect by place of residence, your experiences and cultural affiliation.

Nationality is not black and white.

Actually it is. I can tell someone I'm French all I want but I can't be. I don't have citizenship. And for all those yanks who call themselves Irish, if they've never lived here they're not.

Immaculate Pasta

Leftist wrote: »

Actually it is. I can tell someone I'm French all I want but I can't be. I don't have citizenship. And for all those yanks who call themselves Irish, if they've never lived here they're not.

I don't agree.

You bring up a devil's advocate argument that means I could say I'm French but people don't do that. I have never met someone who has done that because it is frankly ridiculous. In terms of this misconstrued argument of Irish Americans. Some may have, in your eyes, a tenuous link to Ireland but I've never met an American who told me they're Irish and denied that they weren't American. People aren't tied to a single nationality.

Your citizenship is subject to international laws on whether people are eligible for passports but the laws differ from state to state. People who were born in Italy to foreign parents could consider themselves Italians but aren't Italian citizens under law and have to apply for citizenship when they're adults compared to Ireland where someone who has a grandparent from here could get citizenship. Citizenship is different from nationality however.

Cavehill Red

This isn't a difficult one.

Got an Irish passport = Irish.
Entitled to get an Irish passport = Irish.
Everyone else = not Irish.

Simples.

old hippy

sensibleken wrote: »

I did the same thing. then some person came on and started saying how, as an irish person, she found it offensive that americans just use it as an excuse to drink. finally accusing me of not being truely irish because Im from dublin. She was english.

great fun on there sometimes.

Met some woman in a pub once who was railing against "foreigners". She called herself Irish (2nd generation) and said I wasn't truly Irish because I wasn't against "foreigners" :rolleyes:

Ah, London.

Tiocfaidh Armani

Cavehill Red wrote: »

This isn't a difficult one.

Got an Irish passport = Irish.
Entitled to get an Irish passport = Irish.
Everyone else = not Irish.

Simples.

Again, for those slow of learning, the Americans who say they're Irish aren't meaning they're actually Irish. They're saying they're of Irish heritage, which they are!

Nodin

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

..............

The growth of the Irish Pub phenomena abroad led to an increase in foreign visitors, especially European, to Dublin on March 17th in recent years. This led to the Dublin organisers revamping their parade from the damp squib it was in the 1980s to the colourful event it is today.

Ahh yes, the heady days of the Yale locks float.....

Robdude

To be perfectly honest, I find the reverse more annoying.

I'll be talking to someone who is clearly Irish, inside of Ireland, and they'll tell me about how, 'The President of the United States is Irish' because one of his great, great, great, great grandmothers was born in Ireland.

At least when people proclaim themselves Irish, they are speaking for themselves. When Irish folk proclaim other people Irish because of some small percentage of their ancestors....it seems a lot more wrong to me.

Robdude

Leftist wrote: »

Actually it is. I can tell someone I'm French all I want but I can't be. I don't have citizenship. And for all those yanks who call themselves Irish, if they've never lived here they're not.

Wouldn't that make a lot of American tourists 'more Irish' than people who can legally claim Irish citizenship but who have never been in Ireland?

Robdude

Morlar wrote: »

My take on this is if you have Irish heritage you can call yourself Irish, that'd include parent, grandparent etc even if born in and lived in another country.

If you just stepped off a ryanair flight then your not.

If you have lived here for a number of years and have an interest in, and knowledge of Irish culture, history and traditions then you can call yourself Irish if you like. To be honest though - deep down I think it is either in the blood or it's not.

I'm not sure I agree with the blood line argument. The problem is, while Ireland is much older than the United States, nobody was native to Ireland. In a true sense, nobody has Irish blood.

"The first known settlement in Ireland began around 8000 BC, when hunter-gatherers arrived from continental Europe"

"From around AD 800, more than a century of Viking invasions brought havoc upon the monastic culture and on the island's various regional dynasties, yet both of these institutions proved strong enough to survive and assimilate the invaders"

So before 8000 BC there were no Irish anywhere in the world. Then some Europeans came over (via land bridge, most likely) and chilled for a bit. There was no Irish blood. Then, you had a lot of Vikings tossed into the mix.

All of this stuff is arbitrary depending on what time scale you want to look at.

embobolina

I am English through and through..:p

It even grips my sh1t when I hear people telling Irish people that they're Irish when they're clearly not.

PS: I thought the first settlers in America were from Liverpool (well thats what I saw on a documentary any way)!

InTheTrees

old hippy wrote: »

And if you are mute or have to rely on one of those vocal machines?

They are citizens of the world.

oraighne

While to be American is of course a national identity, America is a nation entirely made up of immigrants (with the exception of Native Americans), so everyone comes from somewhere other than the USA.

But when an American says they're Irish, they aren't saying they've got an Irish passport or were born there. They're just saying that that's where their ancestors are from and they're proud.

My family is all from Ireland on both sides, and it was made sure that us kids knew that since we were little. That was just part of our family. We had a lot of traditions and it was just the "norm" to live in such an Irish household.

Sure, we didn't live in Ireland. Not all of us had Irish accents. Us kids haven't been to Ireland yet - we couldn't afford something so expensive - but that doesn't stop us from being proud to have Irish ancestry.

That's just my opinion, although similiar thoughts have already been stated.

By the way, Happy St. Paddy's Day! xx