Do you have to be ethnically Irish to be considered Irish?

SharpshooterTom

David Lammy yesterday went on LBC radio and was told he can never be English by caller because he's not ethnically English.
https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1376522685073735683
The caller said she was English as she was racially Anglo-Saxon, but if you look at the comments below you can see a lot of people agree with her on this. They say he can be British, as that's seen as civic identity but a lot of English people get touchy about Englishness and see it as an historic ethnicity (as do some Welsh, Scots and Irish). I'm born and raised in England myself but because my parents are both Irish I was also told I can't be English.

The debate started because David Lammy didn't like on the census there was no "Black English" or "Asian English" option and that Black or Asian British was only listed.

Can someone born and raised here who has no Irish heritage be considered Irish?

99nsr125

No

No Irish heritage not Irish

Would you consider someone Chinese just because they lived a while in China.

Holding a passport is not the same as being

DelaneyIn

He is ethnically African living in the U.K. with British citizenship. Senator David Norris was born in the Congo. Does anyone with a brain seriously consider him to be Congolese? Of course not. Such an idea is preposterous. Well, the opposite is also true.

rossie1977

DelaneyIn wrote: »

He is ethnically African living in the U.K. with British citizenship. Senator David Norris was born in the Congo. Does anyone with a brain seriously consider him to be Congolese? Of course not. Such an idea is preposterous. Well, the opposite is also true.

Nice one. So nobody outside native Americans can call themselves American so..

DelaneyIn

rossie1977 wrote: »

Nice one. So nobody outside native Americans can call themselves American so..

They can call themselves American. Just not Native Americans. Same way Lemmy can call himself British and not English.

This is basic stuff.

Larbre34

I'm not going to venture an opinion one way or t'other, suffice to say, colonial Britain brought this on itself.

buried

SharpshooterTom wrote: »

Can someone born and raised here who has no Irish heritage be considered Irish?

Of course they can. They don't even have to be born here and without heritage to become Irish. But that also depends how you want to go about it. As long as anybody that arrives on this island and embraces and respects the indigenous Irish culture, anybody can easily assimilate into the community. But that is what it ultimately takes. You just have to look at history to find the examples. The French Norman warlords that came over here in the 12th Century ended up by the 13th Century just as Irish than the people that were here in the 12th. They embraced the Irish culture. It's the culture what matters. Embrace the sitting culture and the community.

circadian

99nsr125 wrote: »

No

No Irish heritage not Irish

Would you consider someone Chinese just because they lived a while in China.

Holding a passport is not the same as being

I'm Irish, as are my parents and half my grandparents. My father was fluent in Irish. He was more Irish than many of the "patriots" that were around him in the 70's and 80's.

I'm Irish and it's not defined by the colour of my skin.

odyssey06

Plus if you have the accent or sat the real citizenship test ie the leaving cert.

spring lane jack

David Norris is Congolese well that's the shock of the day for me anyway.

Bobblehats

I suppose you have to be at least of a region to be...sometimes mistaken for Irish; as is all the more common nowadays.......

spring lane jack wrote: »

David Norris is Congolese well that's the shock of the day for me anyway.

Would never have taken him for a congoloid.

3DataModem

Those who celebrate accidents of birth are not to be trusted.

joe40

DelaneyIn wrote: »

They can call themselves American. Just not Native Americans. Same way Lemmy can call himself British and not English.

This is basic stuff.

English is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality. Of course he can be English.

Smee_Again

No, loads of different ways of being Irish but others think differently.

They’re usually arseholes though so I don’t pay them much attention.

kowloon

Ethnicity is a load of bull**** anyway, there are no neat little boxes we can put people in. Culture is the same and nationality shifts over time too. Embrace the chaos. (Which is also why "cultural appropriation" is largely BS too)

McGinniesta

What does being Irish mean?

Born here, raised here, citizen, passport holder.

Depends on how you see it.

Gregor Samsa

Words can have different meanings in different contexts.

“Irish” could mean the nationality, the ethnicity, relating to the island as a whole or just something with whiskey added. Furthermore, taxonomy - the classification of things - is an entirely artificial construct.

Short answer, don’t get hung up on it.

AdrianBalboa

If someone was raised here, meaning they spent a significant chunk of their formative years in Ireland, then they’re Irish to me regardless of where their parents are from or where they were born or what kind of passports they’re holding or whatever else.

The likes of Paddy Holohan will spread racist filth about Leo Varadkar not being really Irish because his “blood” is different but most of us wouldn’t need to spend too much time thinking about it.

kowloon

kowloon wrote: »

Ethnicity is a load of bull**** anyway, there are no neat little boxes we can put people in. Culture is the same and nationality shifts over time too. Embrace the chaos. (Which is also why "cultural appropriation" is largely BS too)

I agree, but it's a bit of a catch-22 situation. You can't address discrimination unless you talk about race and ethnicity, because the discrimination is real; but race and ethnicity are completely made-up things and acknowledging them seems to aggravate racial and ethnic tension.

Muahahaha

I heard that segment on LBC radio yesterday and the caller had a right bang of Little Englander and Brexiteer about her. This cohort dont like anyone who doesnt have white skin so they refuse to accept that someone born in England, and educated and raised there is English because they are not the same skin colour as the 'natives'. Its a form of otherism and one of the reasons why Brexit happened in the first place.

Hyperbollix

If the philosophy of "Ah shure til be grand" is not deep rooted in your being, then you are not Irish. I don't care how long you've been here.

cj maxx

As immigration happens , the very essence of Irish-ness changes.

buried

AdrianBalboa wrote: »

The likes of Paddy Holohan will spread racist filth about Leo Varadkar not being really Irish because his “blood” is different but most of us wouldn’t need to spend too much time thinking about it.

Oh Leo is Irish alright, he's from the quintessential Irish secondary boarding school mindset.

EmmetSpiceland

Muahahaha wrote: »

I heard that segment on LBC radio yesterday and the caller had a right bang of Little Englander and Brexiteer about her. This cohort dont like anyone who doesnt have white skin so they refuse to accept that someone born in England, and educated and raised there is English because they are not the same skin colour as the 'natives'. Its a form of otherism and one of the reasons why Brexit happened in the first place.

Doubt they were too impressed when ‘Cheddar Man’, a Mesolithic Englishman, turned out to have very dark skin.

buried

buried wrote: »

Oh Leo is Irish alright, he's from the quintessential Irish secondary boarding school mindset.

he's closest waterford will ever get to being taoish....dick mulcahy having to step aside back in the 1940s

Dr Turk Turkelton

spring lane jack wrote: »

David Norris is Congolese well that's the shock of the day for me anyway.

Apparently he is partial to a glass of Um Bongo. Word has it, it is considered a nectar of the gods in his native land.

odyssey06

Who you cheer for in sports is also a good indication... ultimate test is if they are playing your ancestral homeland.

Arghus

Absolutely not. Know plenty of people whose parents aren't Irish, but who've been born and raised here and they are definitely Irish. It's got nothing to do with the colour of your skin or where your parents are from.

I'd be fairly wary of anyone who uses the term "ethnically Irish" when talking about this.

.anon.

99nsr125 wrote: »

No

No Irish heritage not Irish

Would you consider someone Chinese just because they lived a while in China.

Holding a passport is not the same as being

That's ridiculous. David Lammy isn't someone who lived a while in the UK. He was born there, and has lived there his whole life. What about Steve Coogan, Noel and Liam Gallagher, Boy George, Caroline Aherne? Would you consider them all to be Irish, and not English, because of where their parents came from?

Pronto63

If you’re constantly worried about leaving the immersion on......... then you’re Irish!

.anon.

These days, if you say you're English, you'll be arrested and thrown in jail. These days.