Typically Irish?

Vangelis

What would you say characterises an Irish person in appearance?

I'd say:
-dark hair
-oblong, thin face
-brown eyes
-lots of irregularities in position of nose, distance between the eyes and cheekbones

None of this is meant to be offensive. It's my impression only.
I just wrote a post in "Irish Accents" saying that Irish people are ugly. That was what an Irish fellow told me once when he described the Irish, and I've never completely understood why. I've seen many beautiful Irish women and handsome Irish men.

celticwarriorjb

You forgot the pail skin there.

I've friends who come over from London, who are constatntly on about how fit Irish girls are, especially comments about their eyes and cheek bones, and how lucky I am to live in the same country as them. TBH there are far uglier nations than the Irish but lets not get into that because that might be racialist. Actually Id say our women are better looking than most nations.

Crucifix

Ginger hair, green clothes, an obsession with pots of gold....
To be honest, I can't really think of anything typically irish, aside from fair skin and freckles maybe.

Sparky

our green suits with a big buckle on it and our huge green hats, oh and not forgetting the pint of guinness and saying "top of the morning to ya"

robbie1876

Irish girls - an inability to take compliments
Irish guys - an inability to give compliments

SexeeAussie

Well considering my darling Tadhg Kennelly is Irish..and I just think he is super gorgeous...I would have to say that they are good looking.

As for Irish women, I have to say that they are also very very gorgeous. Well all the ones I have met here in Aus have been. Dark hair/dark eyes......

Laguna

celticwarriorjb wrote:

You forgot the pail skin there.

I've friends who come over from London, who are constatntly on about how fit Irish girls are, especially comments about their eyes and cheek bones, and how lucky I am to live in the same country as them. TBH there are far uglier nations than the Irish but lets not get into that because that might be racialist. Actually Id say our women are better looking than most nations.

Hmm, in my opinion, I find girls of mixed nationality to be the most attractive, e.g. Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Alba etc.

I think a lot of Irish people tend to look the same, dark haired, pale, blue eyed, medium build, high forehead, it's the fact of Ireland being a small nation that explains the similar looking people. As for attractiveness, it's only personal opinion but I don't find girls from the U.K/Ireland to be my cup of teas, not that i'm theirs either!:rolleyes:

dundalk cailin

well im over in france and the people in my class say they think irish people have red hair, blue eyes, freckles, pale skin, the usual stereotype! but im dark tho i do have blue eyes n pale(ish) skin, the french say i look irish /english, they're a lot darker than me

thats the french opinion anyway

Binomate

Red hair,red beard,3ft tall, dressed fully in green with little cobbler shoes a hat and a pipe.

Laguna

dundalk cailin wrote:

well im over in france and the people in my class say they think irish people have red hair, blue eyes, freckles, pale skin, the usual stereotype! but im dark tho i do have blue eyes n pale(ish) skin, the french say i look irish /english, they're a lot darker than me

thats the french opinion anyway

You should've turned around and said "Funny that, I thought all French people had moustaches, wore striped shirts and wore braids of garlic around their neck whilst riding a bicycle with a stick of French bread under their arm while whistling Joe Le Taxi"...

Civilian_Target

Irish people are quite distinctive - especially when you go abroad.

Pale Skin, freckles, the Irish nose, generally tall, often with longish light-brown or ginger hair.
Plus the GAA top or Irish rugby shirt, and the fact that we talk loudly and usually in an Irish accent.

Laguna

What's your definition of the Irish nose Civilian_target?, Not a Bertie Ahern whiskey nose I hope!

Vangelis

Civilian_Target wrote:

Irish people are quite distinctive - especially when you go abroad.

Pale Skin, freckles, the Irish nose, generally tall, often with longish light-brown or ginger hair.
Plus the GAA top or Irish rugby shirt, and the fact that we talk loudly and usually in an Irish accent.

What's with the nose? Full of snot?

Sparky

Vangelis wrote:

What's with the nose? Full of snot?

do you hate us or something?

Dyr

What does a typical troll look like?

celticwarriorjb

I once heard on some American program about sexy people that bono has a typical Irish nose????

lostexpectation

well we're all beautiful on the inside...


I still laugh to think of when my friend remarked that I have a big head and all my features are in the centre of my face, think Colm Meany

[Jackass]

When are the rest of you going to wake up and realise, we're actually pretty damn hot!!

Irish peoples confidence is ruined by the sex wars that go on in Ireland, the "corting" ritual in Ireland is bizzare, and as with everything Irish, there's a lot of politics involved...and also typically Irish, our solution to it is drink.

But being abroad, or chating to visitors, pretty much all of them tell me they think the Irish are hot...

We won the lottery of life being born on this island

SexeeAussie

That is fairly true.....I think most of the time though it's an attraction to the accent!! Don't get me wrong tho, there are plenty of hot Irish guys.....PLENTY, and if they all looked like Colin Farrell or Bono then yeeeha!

:-)

Laguna

DubGuy wrote:

We won the lottery of life being born on this island

So people who weren't born on this Island are the losers of your lottery?, lol.

With the amount of races that have settled here in the last two thousand years and interbreeded with the indigenous folk of Ireland, I strongly believe there is no "Irish look", I think all white people have a similar look, does the average Dane, Norwegian, Brit or Irishman really look *that* different?, it's only people who have mixed ancestry that look different (in my opinion the most attractive), for example a european girl, who has a grandmother from Japan, might have Japanese facial features but with white skin, she would be regarded as a good looking *european* girl, but this would be down to the Japanese facial features from her grandmother, would this then make her a good looking European girl even though her looks aren't derived from her European ancestry?.

From living in rural Ireland I've found out that country folk tend to marry local people, in some cases extended relatives (i.e 2nd/3rd Cousin) who then go on to have children, who in turn marry someone local etc. (in my case, I'm living in a rural town in county carlow with a population of 120, where EVERYONE is related to EVERYONE else in the village in some way, the only person not related to any of them being me... the "outsider" lol), this being the reason why there's a lot of similar looking people in rural Ireland, which maybe explains why people from abroad tend to hold the stereotype of an "Irish look"..

Jimi-Spandex

brrrrrr......

I'd say pale skin, freckles, light brown hair.

Xiney

I'll approach this from the view-point of my mother upon hearing that I was (am) dating an Irishman.



I backpacked around Ireland for 6 weeks and I sent regular postcards home, mostly to reassure my parents that I was still alive and kicking. Apparently they thought I was going to get blown up somewhere around Belfast. Which according to my mother is close enough to the rest of the island that I would never truly be safe there and when were those awful marches taking place again this year anyway?

My mother, in particular, was VERY surprised to hear you had mountains (of all things!) on your little "patch of grass". And beaches. And world class Universities. In fact, when I returned home she told me she thought of Ireland as a sort of "White Ethiopia" I suppose because she'd heard something about a little bother with a lack of food a few years back.

At this point, please understand that I am not my mother and I do not endorse her point of view. Also, we have no Irish heritage (unlike the rest of North Americans it seems) so she wouldn't have heard about it from her family.

Alright, so back to the idea of the "typical" Irishman. The first thing my mother asked me when I told her I was dating one, was whether or not he liked to drink, and how much, and how often. That was her primary concern. I suppose because it would have been the most problematic materialisation of the stereotypes.

Next thing, did he have red hair? Was he Catholic? ("Oh good he's not one of those horrid Orange people" was her response) How many brothers and sisters did he have? (Only one? hmmm... that's not normal for the Irish is it?) Did he eat a lot of potatoes? Was his dad part of the IRA? And... this one is my personal favourite (in the realm of ohgodkillmenow): The Irish aren't exactly KNOWN for their sexual prowess now are they?


In her defense, my mother has really taken to the tidbits of Irish culture that I've given her. She likes the meaning of the flag. She loves Father Ted. And she likes my boyfriend.


I guess it's because he's what I personally found most of the Irish people I met on my travels to be (with the regular exception of bus drivers): Super friendly.
Of course, that's only because he wants in your pants.

[Jackass]

Yup. And he got there in the end Begarra and top of the morning to ya'!

Your mother dosen't know much about the Irish 'eh? Well tell her next time she's riding her moose back to the igloo after a ice-hockey game, and in between being arested by a mountie for chopping down a maple leaf tree, to come and pay us a visit She might be suprised to not see millions of little men in green running around with red beards, chomping out of a potato, with a pot of gold in one hand, and a limp wibbley wobbley wonder in the t'other.

'eh?

Xiney

I think given my mother's penchant for talking too loudly about things she knows nothing about, it would be wise for me to bar her from ever entering your borders lest she meet the boyfriend's family and cause WWIII.

Laguna

A white-ethiopa?, jesus, the famine was over 100 years ago, where does your mum get her current events news from?

Xiney

Here in Canada, the majority of the news we'd hear about Ireland would be to do with the North and certainly the most recent would be the IRA's disarmament. I don't think the majority of Canadians (with no or only nominal give-me-an-excuse-to-drink-on-March-17th Irish heritage) would even know that there is such a thing as the Irish language.

We like to make fun of our southern neighbours for their inattention to international matters on their news, but I don't honestly see a lot of attention being given to Europe (or indeed parts of the world not actively killing each other) here either, other than the really major things like election snafus (Germany, Ukraine, France), terrorist attacks or the odd UK "getting closer to human cloning" story. Oh, and we hear about the Royal Family ad nauseum, of course...

I just don't think most people actually pay attention to current events here in Canada anyway.

celticwarriorjb

DubGuy wrote:

Yup. And he got there in the end Begarra and top of the morning to ya'!

Your mother dosen't know much about the Irish 'eh? Well tell her next time she's riding her moose back to the igloo after a ice-hockey game, and in between being arested by a mountie for chopping down a maple leaf tree, to come and pay us a visit She might be suprised to not see millions of little men in green running around with red beards, chomping out of a potato, with a pot of gold in one hand, and a limp wibbley wobbley wonder in the t'other.

'eh?

LOL, Thats some funny ****, and the only time Ive wrote LoL and meant it, I did laugh out loud, you funny smuck!

tman

all of those Irish look the same to me

SexeeAussie

Xiney wrote:

I think given my mother's penchant for talking too loudly about things she knows nothing about, it would be wise for me to bar her from ever entering your borders lest she meet the boyfriend's family and cause WWIII.

Ohhhhh she sounds like a total crack up!!!

Where does she get the idea that they are not know for their sexual prowess?? LMAO,

afterall who is known for it? The French maybe.......they are meant to be overly romantic (although they have never 'done it for me'! ) I suppose Latin men are meant to be passionate.....but the idea all Irish men are dud in the sack is just funny!!!! And this is coming from an Aussie!

So, does your man live in Canada with you? How exciting!

Xiney

SexeeAussie wrote:

Ohhhhh she sounds like a total crack up!!!

Well yes. She's my mother, I'm morally obligated as her daughter to consider her crazy and my upbringing criminal. However, as she's not the subject of this thread and I don't want to get banned on my first real boards posting spree, I'll leave it at that. Perhaps when I write my tell all book I'll make a new post about her.

SexeeAussie wrote:

Where does she get the idea that they are not know for their sexual prowess?? LMAO,

afterall who is known for it? The French maybe.......they are meant to be overly romantic (although they have never 'done it for me'! ) I suppose Latin men are meant to be passionate.....but the idea all Irish men are dud in the sack is just funny!!!! And this is coming from an Aussie!

Well now, while we're on the subject of ideas of typical whatevers, I'd say that your Aussie men have quite the reputation as players, at least outside of Australia. Granted, I've never been to Australia so maybe it's the same there. They're mad for it as far as I've been noticing.

And I'd say the French would be known for their capabilities as lovers, whether it's true or not. I've never actually dated a French guy so I wouldn't know. I'm French-Canadian though.... *cough*

Irish guys are thought of as sexy here in Canada. Mainly the accent. Any Irish guy that came to Canada, all he'd really have to do to get laid is get to talking to a bunch of girls and make sure he thickens up the accent. He could be a toad and it wouldn't really matter.

SexeeAussie wrote:

So, does your man live in Canada with you? How exciting!

Yes, and thankfully we live a six and a half hour bus ride away from my family

SexeeAussie

Xiney wrote:

Well yes. She's my mother, I'm morally obligated as her daughter to consider her crazy and my upbringing criminal. However, as she's not the subject of this thread and I don't want to get banned on my first real boards posting spree, I'll leave it at that. Perhaps when I write my tell all book I'll make a new post about her.



Well now, while we're on the subject of ideas of typical whatevers, I'd say that your Aussie men have quite the reputation as players, at least outside of Australia. Granted, I've never been to Australia so maybe it's the same there. They're mad for it as far as I've been noticing.

And I'd say the French would be known for their capabilities as lovers, whether it's true or not. I've never actually dated a French guy so I wouldn't know. I'm French-Canadian though.... *cough*

Irish guys are thought of as sexy here in Canada. Mainly the accent. Any Irish guy that came to Canada, all he'd really have to do to get laid is get to talking to a bunch of girls and make sure he thickens up the accent. He could be a toad and it wouldn't really matter.



Yes, and thankfully we live a six and a half hour bus ride away from my family

Awesome.

I am hearing you regarding Irish guys getting laid cos of the accent! That is soooo what happens here too! The guys that work at our tacky Irish pubs may be dog ugly but by God do they pick up the chicks!! A few "to be sure to be sures" do the trick within minutes!

Oh Aussie guys are known as players hey?? Interesting!! That's only because they have found some girls who pretend to be interested in their utes or their hotted up V8s....lol. How funny!

Well I wish you all the luck in the world with your Irish lad. Now....for me to find one!

Rach

DublinWriter

Xiney wrote:

Well yes. She's my mother, I'm morally obligated as her daughter to consider her crazy and my upbringing criminal. However, as she's not the subject of this thread and I don't want to get banned on my first real boards posting spree, I'll leave it at that.

Sure, we all don't want to fall foul of boards 'boo to a goose' golden rule.

But seriously, your mother is Canadian? I thought you guys were actually a little more educated than your Southern neighbours and had fairly accurate world-view?

Maybe it's just your mother's generation.

Anyways, back to the original topic. When I worked in London, I could spot a fellow Paddy at 20 paces. I can't put my finger on what exactly it was and there's about two dozen attributes. Even people who 'looked' Irish to me who spoke with a thick London accent turned out to have Irish parentage.

However, there's one attribute that springs to mind in terms of Irish women. Sorry, no offence, but you have bigger arses than English women! The 'typical' Irish backside is wider and flatter than the British counterpart.

Now, where did I leave that asbestos suit?...

Bard

Possible sarcasm alert...

Irish people are a healthy mix of fat, thin, ugly, gorgeous, blond, blue-eyed, dark-haired, brown/green-eyed men and women with fantastic senses of humour, great orators and writers with a fantastic ability to imbibe alcohol. Oh and we know what tongues are really for, ... allegedly.

ferdi

the only way to decide this is:

go to hotornot.com and seach men and women of any age by location, ireland

or search by keyword: 'ireland'. most of the results are irish people...

solas

I remember someone saying once that Irish are either quite ugly or very beautiful and that there really is no in between.

nesf

I'd argue, that like most countries, the majority of people here are average/plain by the country's standards.

alleepally

When you are away on holiday it's great fun to try spot the Irish person. I think the freckles and pale skin is the giveaway.

Niall123

Every Irish person hates another Irish person because of where they're from.

Civilian_Target

Xiney wrote:

I guess it's because he's what I personally found most of the Irish people I met on my travels to be (with the regular exception of bus drivers): Super friendly.
Of course, that's only because he wants in your pants.

How does that make us different from men of any other nationality exactly?

stormkeeper

According to my friends over here in London, I "look Irish"... oddly enough I have the dark hair and dark eyes and a longish face the OP mentioned. I'm also somewhat pale in complexion, but that may be mostly due to not being outside so much! However, I wasn't born in Ireland, I was born in England, but I lived in Ireland for nearly 18 years, since I was very young... I dunno if that's a factor in how a person would look at all. I'm actually of mixed heritage, English, Icelandic, Danish and small bits of German and Irish...

It's kind of hard saying down how an Irish person looks, or should look because of all the factors involved... being how the other family members look, genetics, heritage, that kind of stuff. You'd be ages trying to find out how any particular race should look, because for the most part, we all have aspects of other races...

dundalk cailin

Laguna wrote:

You should've turned around and said "Funny that, I thought all French people had moustaches, wore striped shirts and wore braids of garlic around their neck whilst riding a bicycle with a stick of French bread under their arm while whistling Joe Le Taxi"...

now why didnt i think of that!! they do say that irish people speaking french is 'cute' and there was me all paranoid that i was sounding completely weird :rolleyes:

stevenmu

Anybody who's walked around Boston will know you can walk into an area and just know by looking at the people that you've walked into an Irish area. They just look Irish, and I could never put my finger on exactly why, but even their clothes looked Irish. The weirdest part was they all had Irish accents, even the ones who's Irish roots were from way back and they'd never even been near Ireland. It was freaky, if it wasn't for the sun shining and the functioning public transport I wouldn't have known I was abroad.

dundalk cailin

stevenmu wrote:

if it wasn't for the sun shining and the functioning public transport I wouldn't have known I was abroad.

Retr0gamer

I can always tell Irish people a mile off when I'm on holidays. The three dot scar from the vaccination on the arm gives it away instantly.

Aisling(",)

celticwarriorjb wrote:

You forgot the pail skin there.QUOTE]

Not so much anymore a lot of us are turning orange

LegacyUser

you forgot overweight.

The Sweeper

Straight brown hair, back in a pony tail at the nape of their neck, with two shorter bits that curl around their ears and point at their chin. And f*cking terrible clothes.

That's the girls. The blokes still seem to have a t-shirt n shirt combo obsession.

And yes, pale skin, blue eyes, dark hair.

Niall123

It doesn't matter if ya look Irish ya gotta smell Irish aswell!

Sangre

No one has ever guessed I'm Irish by looking at me...ever. When I worked in retail I was constantly asked what part of Spain/France/Italy I was from or 'boy you're English is good'

As far back as I can trace its Irish, even have the classic Kilkenny name Phelan (dads from Clonmel)

And my God did American women go nuts for Irish accents!

Nightwish

when I lived in Scotland, I was constantly being asked "what part of Canada are you from?" by the customers in work.
What does a Candian look like? or maybe to the Scots the Irish accent sounds Canadian?

many of the posts are quite accurate with regards to the Irish female. But people of specific classes do tend to look alike also. How about the rural Irish male-big build, messy hair, check shirt, missing at least 1 tooth and with a face like a well scrubbed potato

jonny68

Sparky_S wrote:

our green suits with a big buckle on it and our huge green hats, oh and not forgetting the pint of guinness and saying "top of the morning to ya"