Claims to being Irish?

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 11:46AM

biko wrote: »

Ergo, if you are Irish, you are Irish.
Clear as mud

this guy says you don't have to be irish to be irish
I think its very Irish.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 11:46AM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

But how can you be a part of a tribe when you don't feel any connection with anything the tribe members are supposed to believe and when you have no feelings for or against the values the tribe is supposed to espouse?

Why would you want to be a part of that tribe? That's not making sense.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 18-03-2020 11:52AM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Why would you want to be a part of that tribe? That's not making sense.

You said, "it's aboout being a member of a trbe" - I said it's not for the reasons I outlined.

It's a political label. It does nothing to define an individual. There are people who have never set foot in this country who have a stronger connection with being "Irish" than I do.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 11:59AM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

You said, "it's aboout being a member of a trbe" - I said it's not for the reasons I outlined.

It's a political label. It does nothing to define an individual. There are people who have never set foot in this country who have a stronger connection with being "Irish" than I do.

You have a connection with your friends your family your neighbors.

'Irish' isn't just this abstract thing. Its your landscape your people etc. Its grafton street. Its cork. The feeling of home.

Its a mindset and being familiar with it.

If you can't relate to what you think the values of the 'Irish people are' carve out your own. Find your place.

Make your own Irish identity because there are probably lots of people who feel the same way.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 18-03-2020 12:05PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

You have a connection with your friends your family your neighbors.

That very assumptive of you: both my paretns have passed way and my sister and I have nothing in common (although we are on good terms).

My friendships are built on common interests, not on nationality. My Irish friends are not my friends just because they are Irish!

'Irish' isn't just this abstract thing. Its your landscape your people etc. Its grafton street. Its cork. The feeling of home.

Again - I don't have any feelings for any of those things, What is it "home"?

It's a mindset and being familiar with it.

But I'm not!

If you can't relate to what you think the values of the 'Irish people are' carve out your own. Find your place.

THIS is my point! My "tribe" is carved you. I found it. And it's NOT based on being Irish!

Make your own Irish identity because there are probably lots of people who feel the same way.

WHy does my identity have to be Irish?? That's a illusionary barrier.

Redneck Reject71 · 18-03-2020 12:07PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Its about being a member of the tribe! Its not about bloodlines. It's not about a piece of paper. It's about the tribe.

Yes you can be Irish if you grew up in America and you are American etc.

You can be Irish if your parents were from Nigeria and you grew up here. Or if you moved here.

UNITE THE TRIBE! :pac:

And **** that other tribe over there like! **** THEM I SAY! We need to be strong or they will get us! :eek:

P.S I think that other tribe is probably coronavirus!

On my mother's side, to be in their tribe you have to have 2 things. Having a direct ancestor on the Dawes Roll (paper),and meet the blood quantum requirements (bloodlines).Just saying your apart of a tribe or culture, without any real connection, doesn't make it true.IMHO

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:11PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

That very assumptive of you: both my paretns have passed way and my sister and I have nothing in common (although we are on good terms).

My friendships are built on common interests, not on nationality. My Irish friends are not my friends just because they are Irish!

Again - I don't have any feelings for any of those things, What is it "home"?

But I'm not!

THIS is my point! My "tribe" is carved you. I found it. And it's NOT based on being Irish!

WHy does my identity have to be Irish?? That's a illusionary barrier.

Well if you live in Ireland ..don't want to feel a part of the community around you? Maybe you don't call it irish if you don't want to.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:13PM

Redneck Reject71 wrote: »

Just saying your apart of a tribe or culture, without any real connection, doesn't make it true.IMHO

i guess so ..we all human though!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 18-03-2020 12:23PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Well if you live in Ireland ..don't want to feel a part of the community around you? Maybe you don't call it irish if you don't want to.

I don't live in Ireland - I hated Irish society because I felt it was based on conformity and the bullying and ridicule of people who chose not to conform. This was and is my personal experience of the Irish community and being Irish and it's not what I entertain or stand for.

I now live in a place where I feel accpted for who I am and not who the "community" thinks I shuld be.

And THIS is why a being "Irish" (or any nationality) will never be anything more than a word on a passport to me: it's a concept that relys on collective conformity, not individuality.

fryup · 18-03-2020 12:34PM

irish is born & bred?? well that makes half the irish soccer team non-irish then

partyguinness · 18-03-2020 12:43PM

For the first time in centuries the majority of the island will remember St Patrick's Day.

For me you really need to be born and bred here. Now, don't get me wrong if Casey in Chicago wants to claim she is Irish that's fine to feel some sort of connection- no skin off my nose.

I get a few folk in England every so often and the conversation will go like this:

Plastic Paddy: Oh what part of Ireland are you from? I am Irish
PG: The best bit. Cork. What part are you from? (I don't recognise the accent which sounds decidedly cockney)
Plastic Pady: Oh...am...oh..well my grandfather was Irish. I have never been.
PG: So why the fcuk are you standing there telling me you are Irish you gob****e.

And no its is not an "Irish Pub". This is London. The only place to find Irish pubs is in Ireland. It is an Irish 'themed' pub.

El_Duderino 09 · 18-03-2020 12:45PM

bubblypop wrote: »

Being Irish & irishness are two different things, for sure.

This is probably the crux of it. Being Irish is probably just a matter of nationality.

Irishness is everything else that encompasses being Irish including the culture, history, experience and memories.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:45PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

That very assumptive of you: both my paretns have passed way and my sister and I have nothing in common (although we are on good terms).

My friendships are built on common interests, not on nationality. My Irish friends are not my friends just because they are Irish!

Again - I don't have any feelings for any of those things, What is it "home"?

But I'm not!

THIS is my point! My "tribe" is carved you. I found it. And it's NOT based on being Irish!

WHy does my identity have to be Irish?? That's a illusionary barrier.

Well it doesn't have to be. But you live here. Its what you are ..sometimes even if you would prefer to be something else....its like being white ...or gay or black ...you just are it. Even if you don't like it or can't relate to it.

Being Irish influenced you ..even if that influence was bad or negative.

I mean had you grown up in a more open society ...you would be different ...but you didn't you grew up in Ireland.

Being here was a bad experience. Had you been somewhere else ...it would have been different.

You don't like your community. But that is actually part of your identity.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:51PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I don't live in Ireland - I hated Irish society because I felt it was based on conformity and the bullying and ridicule of people who chose not to conform. This was and is my personal experience of the Irish community and being Irish and it's not what I entertain or stand for.

I now live in a place where I feel accpted for who I am and not who the "community" thinks I shuld be.

/QUOTE]

mm i dont think you should be anything other than a kind person etc.

But you say ...who i am ....you are a girl who was born in Ireland. It is what it is.

I understand what you say about bullying etc. I experienced it and often i feel like an outsider in some ways.

But ..i am not American ..i am not Russian or Ukrainian ...

I mean not all my grandparents were from Ireland ..but my parents are. I am not catholic etc ...don't speak irish. Very different ...tbh i think i would be very different everywhere though.

I am just Irish. I have an Irish accent etc. If i could choose ..i would probably choose something more exotic ...or a larger country ....but ...well if i say i am not irish ..i am kidding myself ..and wanting to be more grandiose than i am.

Just because you never fit in back in Ireland .....doesn't help you escape being irish. Sadly.

Which must be horrible. It is what it is.

Thinkingaboutit · 18-03-2020 12:54PM

I see no great harm. In this ever shifting world, an ancestral identification is no real harm, and for some like Armenians or Jews, was or is the only one really possible. Sometimes, at worst, diasporas can fund violent outfits, having no understanding of the land their ancestors left. And as other others have pointed out: an Irish American Lobby can result Morrison Visas and the like.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:56PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is probably the crux of it. Being Irish is probably just a matter of nationality.

Irishness is everything else that encompasses being Irish including the culture, history, experience and memories.

There is a mindset though, a perception.

If you moved to China you would realize you are not chinese ...maybe after a time of being there you would feel chinese.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 12:58PM

Thinkingaboutit wrote: »

I see no great harm. In this ever shifting world, an ancestral identification is no real harm, and for some like Armenians or Jews, was or is the only one really possible. Sometimes, at worst, diasporas can fund violent outfits, having no understanding of the land their ancestors left. And as other others have pointed out: an Irish American Lobby can result Morrison Visas and the like.

Lots of people who are not Jewish have Jewish ancestors. They wouldn't have grown up in a Jewish community or household or studied Judaism. Nor would they feel Jewish. Some of them might be happy muslims or christians.

Fritzbox · 18-03-2020 01:00PM

I imagine that if you went around speaking with an Irish or German accent while at the same time admitting you were also born in that country and spent your formative years there - while at the same time denying that you were actually an Irish person or a German - I'm pretty certain you would receive some very funny looks from people.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 18-03-2020 01:01PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Well it doesn't have to be. But you live here. Its what you are ..sometimes even if you would prefer to be something else....its like being white ...or gay or black ...you just are it. Even if you don't like it or can't relate to it.

Being Irish influenced you ..even if that influence was bad or negative.

I mean had you grown up in a more open society ...you would be different ...but you didn't you grew up in Ireland.

Being here was a bad experience. Had you been somewhere else ...it would have been different.

You don't like your community. But that is actually part of your identity.

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

mm i dont think you should be anything other than a kind person etc.

But you say ...who i am ....you are a girl who was born in Ireland. It is what it is.

I understand what you say about bullying etc. I experienced it and often i feel like an outsider in some ways.

But ..i am not American ..i am not Russian or Ukrainian ...

I mean not all my grandparents were from Ireland ..but my parents are. I am not catholic etc ...don't speak irish. Very different ...tbh i think i would be very different everywhere though.

I am just Irish. I have an Irish accent etc. If i could choose ..i would probably choose something more exotic ...or a larger country ....but ...well if i say i am not irish ..i am kidding myself ..and wanting to be more grandiose than i am.

Just because you never fit in back in Ireland .....doesn't help you escape being irish. Sadly.

Which must be horrible. It is what it is.

It's interesting that your first post refers to "being Irish" but yoru second one is "being born in Ireland". That's the difference I'm pointing at.

Yes, experience growing up in Ireland influenced me - but it influenced be as a person. It had nothing to do with my nationality.

Your last line is true - I am Irish - but it's a lable. It's a document, not an identity. It's like a religion. If you haave a religion assigned to you at birth, and if it works for you great - but it's just a coincidence. And if it doesn't, then you find some other way of defining who you are.

keithkk16 · 18-03-2020 01:04PM

Are they any good at football? If yes, then yes they are Irish

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 01:11PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

It's interesting that your first post refers to "being Irish" but yoru second one is "being born in Ireland". That's the difference I'm pointing at.

Yes, experience growing up in Ireland influenced me - but it influenced be as a person. It had nothing to do with my nationality.

Your last line is true - I am Irish - but it's a lable. It's a document, not an identity. It's like a religion. If you leave a religion - you get one assigned to you at birth, but it doesn't define what you believe.

Hmmm well as for religion ...you have a very Irish perspective on religion. In that we don't have many religions here bar Christianity.

Not all religions place any importance on belief. You are always a jew regardless of what you believe. And for jews ...what you believe isn't really important. Some jews believe in reincarnation. Some don't. It doesn't matter.

Not all religions are about what those people believe. Belief isn't central to many religions. Its not central to Buddhism or Judaism. It is to catholicism though.

You have an irish accent ...you were born here. You grew up here ..and know enough about Ireland to know you don't belong here.

Maybe your soul isn't Irish maybe your heart isn't ...but you are. You are probably also british or american or wherever you live now too though.

My mom is jewish ....for years i would say i can't relate to it ..i am pagan etc ...i am spiritual ...then someone just said ...get over it ...

I used to reject the Irishness thing ...then i realized that was just having this grandiose sense of self.

If i don't like Ireland i am just an Irish person who doesn't like Ireland.

My mother's mother was from New York ...her dad's family from Ukraine. I have pics of my grandmother as a kid in NY. But i know i would feel like a foreigner in those places.

Yes ..i am me. Totally different from my Irishness ....its a label ...its also probably something that affected the way i think etc.

beejee · 18-03-2020 01:13PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Why do you have to be anything?

What anout the 20-30-40-50 years that happened after your brith? Does dthat not count for anything or have you just made it all up?

There are many angles to identity and "belonging"

It's all well and good to think there's no distinction between people from other countries. But a moments thought will bring clarity.

Would you find commonality at having a sky burial as a Tibetan? Hung from the side of a cliff? Squatting down to eat meals as a Japanese person? Understanding, and relating, to the different God's of Japan and how they inform modern beliefs and practices? Walking around covered head to toe as a woman in some Arab countries, having to walk behind a man? American Indian systems of marriage? Polygamy as normal in India? The caste system perhaps?

And so on. The list is endless.

No, you wouldn't find any of those cultural, national identifiers as "normal", or "usual" or "just the same".

You are essentially blind to your own culture and the ways in which it has culminated to form your expectancies and way of life. It wasn't Egypt that formed your life, or China, or Norway. You are living the life created by untold generations of Irish people, the group of people that worked and warred and strove to create their version of life before this place was even called Ireland.

It's wonderful that the world is so diverse with so many fascinating elements and distinct people. Long may it last, lest we all become so blind as to what made us who we are, and we become a-historical blobs tthat all look the same and sound the same and believe in nothing more than a monocultural void of endless boredom.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 01:18PM

beejee wrote: »

There are many angles to identity and "belonging"

It's all well and good to think there's no distinction between people from other countries. But a moments thought will bring clarity.

.

Of course if I moved to the UK ..and lived there years ...i would start to feel british. And i would possibly then at one point be more british than Irish. But i would have always once have been just a girl from Ireland etc.

beejee · 18-03-2020 01:26PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Of course if I moved to the UK ..and lived there years ...i would start to feel british. And i would possibly then at one point be more british than Irish. But i would have always once have been just a girl from Ireland etc.

To some extent, perhaps. But the intricacies of cultural history cannot change so easily.

It's easy to pick our closest neighbour as an example, but move to Tibet and you'll find its not so simple.

Also, there's the question of transferable identity. If you spent years in England you might feel more English than Irish. But then what if you move to Canada for years? Are you then Canadian also? Indian? Mongolian?

I don't subscribe to that line of thought, I think who you are originally will always be the foundation and lens through which you experience the world.

I'm Irish, and it is self-evident.

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 01:29PM

beejee wrote: »

To some extent, perhaps. But the intricacies of cultural history cannot change so easily.

It's easy to pick our closest neighbour as an example, but move to Tibet and you'll find its not so simple.

Also, there's the question of transferable identity. If you spent years in England you might feel more English than Irish. But then what if you move to Canada for years? Are you then Canadian also? Indian? Mongolian?

I don't subscribe to that line of thought, I think who you are originally will always be the foundation and lens through which you experience the world.

I'm Irish, and it is self-evident.

Yeah that's true.

I think if you were someone who moved a lot you would feel like a gypsy. Transient. That's its own identity.

Still i would like to find out more about my mother's side of the family. Its not so easy.

But i know i go to the states or france ..i am just an Irish person ...

Bobblehats · 18-03-2020 01:31PM

Irish is I; is I to be irish. Irish as eyes are is Irish.

purplepanda · 18-03-2020 01:33PM

I have a dozen cousins born in England, living in Ireland, most went secondary school in Ireland & have younger siblings born in Ireland. 3 live in the Kerry Gaeltacht & speak fluent Irish.

According to some criteria they are not Irish, but just Plastic Paddies?

ILoveYourVibes · 18-03-2020 01:34PM

purplepanda wrote: »

I have a dozen cousins born in England, living in Ireland, most went secondary school in Ireland & have younger siblings born in Ireland. 3 live in the Kerry Gaeltacht & speak fluent Irish.

According to some they are not Irish, but just Plastics?

Nope more Irish than me! :P

Fritzbox · 18-03-2020 01:37PM

purplepanda wrote: »

I have a dozen cousins born in England, living in Ireland, most went secondary school in Ireland & have younger siblings born in Ireland. 3 live in the Kerry Gaeltacht & speak fluent Irish.

According to some criteria they are not Irish, but just Plastic Paddies?

How old were your dozen cousins when they returned to Ireland?

But on the whole they seem to be Irish...

Thinkingaboutit · 18-03-2020 01:39PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Lots of people who are not Jewish have Jewish ancestors. They wouldn't have grown up in a Jewish community or household or studied Judaism. Nor would they feel Jewish. Some of them might be happy muslims or christians.

Well then, if an ancestral identity means nothing, or is objectionable to someone, they just go on as before. That's up to them.

Claims to being Irish?

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