Related to Americans.

scitpo wrote:

I've been saying this for years. You're only fully Irish in my mind if your parents were born here and you were brought up in Ireland as well.

Well born here at least... I'm looking at you Dermot O'Leary you stupid plank!:mad:
As for "Irish-Americans" if you have to go past your grandparents to have a ancestor born here then sod off, you're just American (or at least not Irish-American).

B-K-DzR wrote:

I don't care where people think they are from. If they want to be x,y,z and have some links to that place then good for them as long as they are interested in finding out more about the culture they wish to be a part of .

Dougal: Can I still be a priest?

:rolleyes: lol - I do find it funny how many Americans say they have Irish decent. I was in a cab in Chicago with the hubby and the African-American (to be pc) taxi driver said he had Irish decent (okay - he could have - but I think a lot of it is overexaggerated). Anyhow, yeah, a lot of yanks know a lot about nothing, some a quite well educated. I think in the states it unfortunately tends to be one extreme or the other - they are quite ignorant or they are fairly well informed. Suppose every culture has it's downfalls anyhow!

The-Rigger wrote:

Of more than half of American's I've talked too, when you mention a random everyday 1st world item such as a car, bus, a phone, etc etc

and they will stop you mid-sentance and say

'Y'all got those over there?!'.

The last time I was back in Ireland I was asked by an Irish person, someone under 30 who lived most of there life in an Irish city if we had tea in America. Not if we drink tea, but if tea is even sold over there. I have been asked all sorts of dumb questions about America by Irish people who have never been.

The-Rigger wrote:

The mind fcuking boggles.

Indeed it does.

estebancambias wrote:

Yank, a true American will not claim to be _______-American. Like I really doubt Tim McVeigh ran around Buffalo New York dressed as a God damn Leprechaun.

Exactly my point - i do not nor have I ever claimed to be a "true American".
I also dont claim to be Irish purely because that doesnt 100% fit either.

It must to be great to be you - born with a hurley in your hand.

yankinlk wrote:

I have the mother and the grandmother but was raised in the states. If I was raised say in Oz or Scotland and then returned to Ireland would you be quicker to say I was Irish then if I was raised in America?

To B-K-DzR - Exactly what im talking about! Personally I refer to myself as American-Irish and have never heard anyone else use that term.

You don't state where you were born, so if you were raised in the US I'm just going to have to guess you were born there too => you're American, not Irish.
American-Irish makes more sense as a term at least since it can be short for American of Irish descent but it's still silly fantasy on your end IMO.

Still tend to feel that if you're not born in a country (or possibly have lived there long enough to now be a citizen of the country) stop trying to claim connection to it. I.e. You're whatever nationality gives you your passport, I've never seen an "Irish-American" passport so all you "Irish Americans" can stop deluding yourselves.
E.g. guy in my class in school, born in Britain but had lived most of his life here in Ireland, still was a British citizen (had a British passport not an Irish one) though so we all considered him to be British not Irish.

I say potato you say potaato, you say Irish-American the rest of the world says Stupid-American.:p



As for the tea comment that person (the one wondering if the US had tea) must have been a complete idiot, tea is of Chinese origin so with the US being closer to China than Ireland if anything they'd get it more easily than us and probably have a larger variety.


I really don't see why people want to claim to be from places that they are not anyway, everywhere has it's problems;
e.g. Americans are percieved by those in other nations as loud, obnoxious and stupid, Irish however are percieved as alcoholic, thuggish and "too up themselves" (in the case of the ladies, seriously Irish women have a terrible reputation for being stuck up when it comes to lads trying to get to know them or just have a dance). I doubt there's any country out there that people don't have negative stereotypes about so what's the point to trying to pretend you're from somewhere else?

Or to put it another way why should Ireland be associated with America's rejects (why else can they not just be American, and not need some other descriptive term) without any consent on our end? You want to be Irish apply for citizenship, otherwise stop libelling us.

B-K-DzR wrote:

So basically i can change my nationality whenever i want?

I think you'll find that there is a requirement to have lived in the country for a certain amount of time (usually 5-10 years), changing citizenship is not that easy to do, if it were no-one would bother with work visas.

pvt. joker wrote:

You look at it as a question of political origin, Americans look at it from one of genetics. The only native americans are indians. Everyone else came from somewhere else and those customs get passed along. No one here says "i'm irish" in the context that they are a resident of that country, they say it in the context of "that's where my bloodlines are from"

I really don't understand what's so hard to understand about it.

Then I'm afraid that there is no such thing as Irish, the "original Irish" (as in first to get here from Africa) were wiped out millenia ago by the Celts.