Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

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

Options
24567…10

Comments

  • Options
    #32
    listermint
    Registered Users Posts: 33,795 ✭✭✭✭listermint


    Arghus wrote: »
    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.

    Nothing to be wary about tbf. They're just playing the prick . It's fairly cut and dry.


  • Options
    #33
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Honestly, I'm of two minds. I like the idea that gaining citizenship in a foreign country should make you of that nationality..

    But.

    Outside of western countries, it just doesn't happen. If you look (not simply racial) and/or behave foreign, you are foreign. I realise that we're in the age of complete acceptance, with race/ethnicity not having importance (and yet, being dreadfully important under the right circumstances).. but I've seen little sign any of that apparent acceptance is happening except on an individual level.

    At the moment, I'd view someone as Irish (ethnicity) due to them having a historical connection, whereby successive generations of their family, grew up, and died here. I don't view American Irish as being actually Irish.. In the case of pure nationality, anyone with an Irish passport can be "Irish".

    I know a variety of families who originated in Africa, their kids grew up in Ireland, have the Midlands accent (God help them), but they're very much not Irish in attitude and behavior... So, I dunno.

    I haven't formed a solid opinion on it yet.


  • Options
    #34
    Heroditas
    Registered Users Posts: 9,450 ✭✭✭Heroditas


    .anon. wrote: »
    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?

    Don't forget Piers Morgan!


  • Options
    #35
    Mad_maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    certainly not


  • Options
    #36
    Hamsterchops
    Registered Users Posts: 3,135 ✭✭✭Hamsterchops


    Children born in Ireland to Polish parents, are they Irish or Polish or Polski-Irish? Children born in England to Irish parents, are they English or Anglo-Irish? Are the children of African parents living in France French, or African, or Afro-French?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #37
    Bobblehats
    Registered Users Posts: 4,707 ✭✭✭Bobblehats


    vF_r-QDZEfA9.jpg


  • Options
    #38
    ulster
    Registered Users Posts: 209 ✭✭ulster


    What does he mean by Irish...Irish citizen? Then all you need is a passport.

    There's a few permutations of born and raised here/abroad and parents born and raised here/abroad that probably qualify someone to be Irish.

    idk...i think if you can eat a crisps sandwich then you'll definitely classify as Irish haha.. they should make that part of the citizenship test - I think most foreigners wouldn't eat it. Man, I saw a crisps sandwich once in a Cork airport cafe. i was wondering what traveller on earth is going to eat that. Absolutely woejus.... but 110 % certified Irish haha.


  • Options
    #39
    Strumms
    Registered Users Posts: 24,961 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    Good luck to the lad but...I could move to Kinshasa tomorrow, that doesn’t and won’t ever make me Congolese.

    If you are from the Congo or wherever , if you apply to come here, arrive, you would need a certificate of naturalization to be granted citizenship.


  • Options
    #40
    SharpshooterTom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    Heroditas wrote: »
    Don't forget Piers Morgan!

    Piers Morgans half. His mother was English, after his Irish father died his mother remarried a Welshman. Hence the name Morgan.


  • Options
    #41
    Hamsterchops
    Registered Users Posts: 3,135 ✭✭✭Hamsterchops


    Complicated it is ...

    Paul McGrath, born in England to an African father & and an Irish mother, who brought back to Ireland, ergo he's Irish. Which is fine, but it does show how complicated ones Nationality is.

    Not sure ethnicity even plays a part nowadays, I also think it's very important of how you see yourself and you own personal opinion as to your ethnicity!

    What's ethnically Irish?
    Can you be ethnically Irish if one or both your parents ancestors arrived on his island 200, 300, 400 years ago? Or does that make you not ethnically Irish.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #42
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Hamsterchops wrote: »
    Complicated it is ...

    Paul McGrath, born in England to an African father & and an Irish mother, who brought back to Ireland, ergo he's Irish. Which is fine, but it does show how complicated ones Nationality is.

    Not sure ethnicity even plays a part nowadays, I also think it's very important of how you see yourself and you own personal opinion as to your ethnicity!

    What's ethnically Irish?
    Can you be ethnically Irish if one or both your parents arrived on his island 200, 300, 400 years ago? Or does that make you not ethnically Irish.

    If your parents arrived here hundreds of years ago....you'd likely be dead by now tbh


  • Options
    #43
    RobAMerc
    Registered Users Posts: 5,862 ✭✭✭RobAMerc


    I was born in Ireland to non natively Irish parents. I never learned their language, I never really visit the country, I consider myself Irish through and through, I support our teams, and speak Irish to a fairly competent level. But to some I will never be considered Irish - as long as I have lived I am a foreigner to them. Funny thing is, to many of the same folks, I could be born in England with an Irish granny, have never stepped foot in the country - but if I played soccer for Ireland, they would die in a bar fight defending my Irishness.

    So to answer the question - Yes. The sad thing is, once you or your predecessors leave their homeland them and you are forever an 'other' in both their original and new home.


  • Options
    #44
    1o059k7ewrqj3n
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,779 ✭✭✭1o059k7ewrqj3n


    If you’re good at football, doesn’t matter to me where you are born, you are Irish as long as you declare for RoI.


  • Options
    #45
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    There are plenty of English people who have Irish parents.
    Plenty see themselves as English first.

    I have cousins from Scotland whose parents were both Irish. They visit here often but would consider themselves scottish first and foremost.


  • Options
    #46
    Hamsterchops
    Registered Users Posts: 3,135 ✭✭✭Hamsterchops


    Deleted User wrote: »
    If your parents arrived here hundreds of years ago....you'd likely be dead by now tbh

    Ha ha yes indeed, but if the ancestors of both parents arrived here at some point in the past (from another country) does that mean one is not ethnically Irish?


  • Options
    #47
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    SharpshooterTom wrote: »
    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?

    Not in my book.


  • Options
    #48
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    buried wrote: »
    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.

    I often flip it upside down.
    I could go live in Spain, China, Iran for 50 years, learn and speak the language and embrace the culture but nobody in their right mind would ever consider me Spanish, Chinese or Iranian...


  • Options
    #49
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    I was Born in London to Irish parents. Moved here when I was two.
    Am I Irish?
    If my parents had remained in England, would I be English?


  • Options
    #50
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    joe40 wrote: »
    I was Born in London to Irish parents. Moved here when I was two.
    Am I Irish?
    If my parents had remained in England, would I be English?

    You'd be a bit of both.. You'd have Irish heritage.


  • Options
    #51
    SharpshooterTom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    RobAMerc wrote: »
    I was born in Ireland to non natively Irish parents. I never learned their language, I never really visit the country, I consider myself Irish through and through, I support our teams, and speak Irish to a fairly competent level. But to some I will never be considered Irish - as long as I have lived I am a foreigner to them. Funny thing is, to many of the same folks, I could be born in England with an Irish granny, have never stepped foot in the country - but if I played soccer for Ireland, they would die in a bar fight defending my Irishness.

    So to answer the question - Yes. The sad thing is, once you or your predecessors leave their homeland them and you are forever an 'other' in both their original and new home.

    Well it might not mean much but I consider you Irish. Certainly you are more Irish than I am and I am so called "ethnically" Irish.

    I understand your identity crisis very well. I am Irish in England and English in Ireland. The caller wouldn't likely consider me Irish given my fenian background. You often hear right wingers sometimes question the loyalty of those Irish descent, do they have IRA sympathies, are they anti British etc. Anti Irish racism is still a problem in England so if people find out my background I might cop some sh1t with people who say come from a British military family also.

    By contrast though, I speak with an English accent, grew up playing cricket not GAA, didn't go to catholic schools, never learned any Irish. So I'm never going to properly Irish either to people here.

    I don't personally identify as one or the other, Id rather leave the "what nationality am I" on forms blank if I could.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #52
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    Rodin wrote: »
    You'd be a bit of both.. You'd have Irish heritage.

    How could I be a bit English if my parents were Irish?
    If I had Irish parents born and reared in England, then had children, would they be "ethnically" (whatever that means) English or Irish.


  • Options
    #53
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    RobAMerc wrote: »
    I was born in Ireland to non natively Irish parents. I never learned their language, I never really visit the country, I consider myself Irish through and through, I support our teams, and speak Irish to a fairly competent level. But to some I will never be considered Irish - as long as I have lived I am a foreigner to them. Funny thing is, to many of the same folks, I could be born in England with an Irish granny, have never stepped foot in the country - but if I played soccer for Ireland, they would die in a bar fight defending my Irishness.

    So to answer the question - Yes. The sad thing is, once you or your predecessors leave their homeland them and you are forever an 'other' in both their original and new home.

    You're Irish, simple as that.

    You may choose to identify with your Parents Country also that is up to you.

    This notion of heritage or ethnicity is nonsense.


  • Options
    #54
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    joe40 wrote: »
    How could I be a bit English if my parents were Irish?
    If I had Irish parents born and reared in England, then had children, would they be "ethnically" (whatever that means) English or Irish.

    You'd be from Irish parents but born and reared in England. It's not as simple as 1/2 or 1/4 Irish .


    My family are Irish as far as we know.
    Do I consider someone who moves here as a child/teenager from Africa to be the same Irish as me? No I don't and Im sorry if people don't like it.

    If I moved with a white Irish child to Nigeria, that child would never be Nigerian to me and I would never be Nigerian no matter how long I was there.


  • Options
    #55
    ExMachina1000
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,748 ✭✭✭ExMachina1000


    I hold duel citizenship Ireland and Australia. I recieved Australian citizenship and passport as I live there for 7 years . Sponsorship- permanent residency- citizenship. I am not Australian. Nothing about me , my history etc is Australian.
    I'm Irish.

    A piece of paper doesn't change the fact just because I lived there for a while


  • Options
    #56
    begbysback
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭begbysback


    It depends on how good a footballer they are.


    Actually in the current climate it just depends if they have a pair of football boots.


  • Options
    #57
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    ExMachina1000 wrote: »
    I hold duel citizenship Ireland and Australia. I recieved Australian citizenship and passport as I live there for 7 years . Sponsorship- permanent residency- citizenship. I am not Australian. Nothing about me , my history etc is Australian.
    I'm Irish.

    A piece of paper doesn't change the fact just because I lived there for a while

    Im always very suspicious of anybody shouting from the rooftops about their new nationality wnen they get a passport after 5 years.
    No real football fan even changes their club never mind their nationality.


  • Options
    #58
    joe40
    Registered Users Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭joe40


    Rodin wrote: »
    You'd be from Irish parents but born and reared in England. It's not as simple as 1/2 or 1/4 Irish .


    My family are Irish as far as we know.
    Do I consider someone who moves here as a child/teenager from Africa to be the same Irish as me? No I don't and Im sorry if people don't like it.

    If I moved with a white Irish child to Nigeria, that child would never be Nigerian to me and I would never be Nigerian no matter how long I was there.
    What if that person moves and has children here. Are the kids Irish?


  • Options
    #59
    Hamachi
    Registered Users Posts: 2,489 ✭✭✭Hamachi


    joe40 wrote: »
    This notion of heritage or ethnicity is nonsense.

    Why? Because you say so? Who are you to make that determination?

    For the record, I agree that poster is Irish. However, for you to dismiss concepts like heritage and ethnicity, reveals astounding levels of ignorance, particularly from someone who claims to be an educator.


  • Options
    #60
    begbysback
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭begbysback


    joe40 wrote: »
    I was Born in London to Irish parents. Moved here when I was two.
    Am I Irish?
    If my parents had remained in England, would I be English?

    I’ve no idea if you are then considered Irish or English, but I am very impressed by your independence at two years of age having left your parents in England.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #61
    Rodin
    Registered Users Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Rodin


    joe40 wrote: »
    What if that person moves and has children here. Are the kids Irish?

    The kid would have nothing but Irish in their heritage.
    They'd only have lived in Nigeria.

    There's no formula.


Advertisement