Oi Paddy!

gurramok · 27-01-2012 11:30pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I'm surprised you mentioned Belgium, every time I've been there the people I have met have been overly friendly and approached me when they found out i was English. I've onl been to the a couple of places though, never Brussels.

Then again, Belgium herself is divided. I've been to both parts and the Dutch Flemish tend to call the French speaking part 'stupid', witnessed this first hand. Now how does that affect their attitude towards the English I do not know

positron · 27-01-2012 11:33pm

davet82 wrote: »

Have you ever been racially abused when abroad

I am not Irish, so not sure if this goes here, but will post it anyway.

Castlbar 2001 or 2002. I was browsing local shops for a new jacket, and wandered into this small shop along the main street. As I was looking around, to the corner of my eye, I think I saw a fairly old country gentleman type person coming towards me, throwing fists in the air, shouting and roaring with spit flying off (I had headphones on) and I thought the commotion is probably to someone by the door or whatever. By the time I turned around to look what is going on, I saw a younger man calming the older guy down and sending him off to the back of the shop, and then he kinda looked at me apologetically. I left the shop, and then it dawned on me that the old man was hurling abuse at me to get out of the shop, and his son / someone held him back and was doing a very poor apology. The old man was either a slightly off in the head, a racist, or thought I am Roma perhaps. Anyway, took me 2 weeks to get that out of my system, and never ever went back there.

Another time, weeks after 9/11 (in which I lost a good friend who used to work with me here in Dublin only a year before that), walking home from work, a car brakes and nearly gets on to the sidewalk and about 4-5 guys probably in their 20s roars 'f*ck off you f*cking muslim terrorist' etc etc - again, I could barely hear them as I had headphones on, but the message was loud and clear, couple of old women walking nearby covers their mouth in shock, dog leashes dropped etc etc.. It doesn't matter that I am not Muslim or that I am not from one of those trouble countries, but one shouldn't expect rational thinking from racist thugs anyway!

Another time, also in Castlebar, walking past the weekend market, an frail old couple folding away their stands, starts muttering 'fecking bin laden', 'fecking terrorists' etc as I walk by. A moment ago I was thinking admiringly off them (for working hard at their age), and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Ah well, at least they were not getting physical - what ever makes them happy.

Couple of times here in Dublin, an old gent taxi driver, got all chatty saying 30 years ago, you wouldn't see a 'coloured person' like yourself in here you know etc. I bit my tongue and said 'how interesting'.

What's worse, a Malaysian friend of mine, who is a doctor, gets proposed by older patients almost every week - 'ah I'll marry you, sure you are only here for the papers/passport, you are a lovely nurse. What, you are my Doctor, ahaha, you are so funny'.

Sindri · 27-01-2012 11:38pm

^^I feel sorry for you. Some people are idiots, I wouldn't take anything they say on merit, as it is hardly based on reason.

Fratton Fred · 27-01-2012 11:41pm

Doc Ruby wrote: »

You wouldn't like a few more feet meters of rope there laddie?

Call us back when millions of people are paying good money to watch morris dancing instead of Irish dancing, then you know you've finally achieved your own culture.

good god, why would anyone pay money to watch morris dancers?

are you mad

Jimoslimos · 27-01-2012 11:42pm

I think people here are overplaying the whole "ah you're not English - we love the Irish" experience with foreigners.

I'd say 90% of the time if you replied with, "Yes, I'm English" - the normal reaction would be something akin to "Ah Manchester United, The Queen, Fish & Chips - I love England"..........still probably not worth the 10% risk of a hostile response though:pac:

It would be like us meeting a Kiwi and saying "Are you Aussie?" The fact that we have unwittingly given him the most heinous of insults leads to try right our wrong by gushing about our love for all thing New Zealand, All Blacks, LOTR movie, Kiri Te Kanawa.....eh....running out of ideas here!

woodoo · 27-01-2012 11:48pm

Jimoslimos wrote: »

I think people here are overplaying the whole "ah you're not English - we love the Irish" experience with foreigners.

I'd say 90% of the time if you replied with, "Yes, I'm English" - the normal reaction would be something akin to "Ah Manchester United, The Queen, Fish & Chips - I love England"..........still probably not worth the 10% risk of a hostile response though:pac:

It would be like us meeting a Kiwi and saying "Are you Aussie?" The fact that we have unwittingly given him the most heinous of insults leads to try right our wrong by gushing about our love for all thing New Zealand, All Blacks, LOTR movie, Kiri Te Kanawa.....eh....running out of ideas here!

100%.

Meow_Meow · 28-01-2012 12:00am

When I was 17 I won a writing competition and the prize was a trip to Sky News where we'd chat with some of the main guys and get a tour of the studios. I was the only person from Ireland who won, but when I got there soon realised that one of the hot shots there who was in charge of showing us around was not a fan of Irish people at ALL.

It was pretty pathetic behaviour of a forty odd year old man towards a 17 year old girl- he kept including snide put downs towards me in his presentation and basically telling me that Irish people were poor uneducated boggers with a bunch of corrupt hooligans running the country. I mean, sure they're corrupt, but they aren't blasting the shít out of brown people half way across the world, so he wasn't exactly one to talk.

Topper Harley · 28-01-2012 12:25am

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Normally I'd say the plural of anecdote isn't data, but when this many unrelated individuals come back with the exact same story...

...you have to start scratching your chin.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

And marvel at the amount of copycat bull****ting?

My father used to say: "The first time someone calls you a horse, you punch him on the nose; the second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk but the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."

Fratton Fred wrote: »

...sink a few pints of that good old English beer invented by the fine Englishman, Arthur Guinness and watch it down the kings Head.

Englishman?

Kildare?

Jimoslimos wrote: »

I think people here are overplaying the whole "ah you're not English - we love the Irish" experience with foreigners.

I'd say 90% of the time if you replied with, "Yes, I'm English" - the normal reaction would be something akin to "Ah Manchester United, The Queen, Fish & Chips - I love England"

It would be like us meeting a Kiwi and saying "Are you Aussie?" The fact that we have unwittingly given him the most heinous of insults leads to try right our wrong by gushing about our love for all thing New Zealand, All Blacks, LOTR movie, Kiri Te Kanawa.....eh....running out of ideas here!

I'd say that this combined with some people's assumptions of the English based on English football fans behaviour during the early 90s and lager louts on sun holidays all being assumed to be English has possibly tarnished their reputation somewhat.

I'm sure the same happens the other way too. I've heard that lately the reputation of the Irish in Australia has taken a hit because of a lot of loutish behaviour, although most normal Australians won't constantly bitch about this to a random Irish person they meet but would happily do so to an English/Scottish/Welsh person.

oppenheimer1 · 28-01-2012 12:29am

positron wrote: »

I am not Irish, so not sure if this goes here, but will post it anyway.

Castlbar 2001 or 2002. I was browsing local shops for a new jacket, and wandered into this small shop along the main street. As I was looking around, to the corner of my eye, I think I saw a fairly old country gentleman type person coming towards me, throwing fists in the air, shouting and roaring with spit flying off (I had headphones on) and I thought the commotion is probably to someone by the door or whatever. By the time I turned around to look what is going on, I saw a younger man calming the older guy down and sending him off to the back of the shop, and then he kinda looked at me apologetically. I left the shop, and then it dawned on me that the old man was hurling abuse at me to get out of the shop, and his son / someone held him back and was doing a very poor apology. The old man was either a slightly off in the head, a racist, or thought I am Roma perhaps. Anyway, took me 2 weeks to get that out of my system, and never ever went back there.

Another time, weeks after 9/11 (in which I lost a good friend who used to work with me here in Dublin only a year before that), walking home from work, a car brakes and nearly gets on to the sidewalk and about 4-5 guys probably in their 20s roars 'f*ck off you f*cking muslim terrorist' etc etc - again, I could barely hear them as I had headphones on, but the message was loud and clear, couple of old women walking nearby covers their mouth in shock, dog leashes dropped etc etc.. It doesn't matter that I am not Muslim or that I am not from one of those trouble countries, but one shouldn't expect rational thinking from racist thugs anyway!

Another time, also in Castlebar, walking past the weekend market, an frail old couple folding away their stands, starts muttering 'fecking bin laden', 'fecking terrorists' etc as I walk by. A moment ago I was thinking admiringly off them (for working hard at their age), and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Ah well, at least they were not getting physical - what ever makes them happy.

Couple of times here in Dublin, an old gent taxi driver, got all chatty saying 30 years ago, you wouldn't see a 'coloured person' like yourself in here you know etc. I bit my tongue and said 'how interesting'.

What's worse, a Malaysian friend of mine, who is a doctor, gets proposed by older patients almost every week - 'ah I'll marry you, sure you are only here for the papers/passport, you are a lovely nurse. What, you are my Doctor, ahaha, you are so funny'.

While part of your post shows clear prejudice and racism, the part in bold isn't. While it may not have been the wisest way to phrase it, 30 years ago there were very few foreign people living in Ireland, particularly those of a different ethnicity. It certainly wasn't abuse he was giving and his remarks reflect more of a generational gap than anything else.

There was no need to bite your tongue for that.

Topper Harley · 28-01-2012 12:33am

Meow_Meow wrote: »

...and basically telling me that Irish people were poor uneducated boggers with a bunch of corrupt hooligans running the country. I mean, sure they're corrupt, but they aren't blasting the shít out of brown people half way across the world.

I'm sure if they had the capabilities and could benefit from it personally, they would, à la Messrs Bush.

Fratton Fred · 28-01-2012 12:40am

Topper Harley wrote: »

Englishman? Kildare?

Arthur Guinness, like a lot of his "Class" was Anglo Irish.

Whether that made them English or Irish depends on how good or bad they were.

If he had evicted a few tenants during the famine, he would have been English, but as he invented a beer famous the world over, he is Irish.

That's how I see it anyway.

Meow_Meow · 28-01-2012 12:41am

Topper Harley wrote: »

I'm sure if they had the capabilities and could benefit from it personally, they would, à la Messrs Bush.

Nah, I personally feel that due to our own historical experiences, it really is fundamentally against the Irish mindset to go setting up camp in other countries and staging phony wars on terrorism which amount to little more than killing the natives and draining them of their resources. Even if we did have the capabilities to do so.

In conclusion, the fecker should have picked on someone his own size, and Sky News is only good for setting the time on your phone.

Ahh, also met David Trimble at an event in London who refused to shake my hand when he was informed that I was from Dublin. Awkward.

dreamers75 · 28-01-2012 12:42am

In manchester around 97 me and a few mates went to see United vs Forest. i wanted to drink my way to the stadium but the others wanted to go shopping. So im hungover actually still pissed and walking tru stupid shops and my mate finds a bag in a sports shop he likes. lad in shop says "yeah i have to go in the back and get it "...........40 minutes later im saying "they taking the piss etc" mates having none of it actually believe your man is in the back looking in the back. Finally after shop dude break he comes out the bag. I grab it and say "we will never fit 1000lbs of Semtex in that" and walk out. The shop lads smirk went from

to :eek: in about 2 seconds.

btw it wasnt long after IRA blew up a shop over there.

Its people like me that give irish a bad name.

Another time in Leeds we were waiting for a lift to mates family gaff and had a few pints in a snooker hall, my mate in probably not his brightest moment ever asked the barman if he could leave his bag behind the bar while he went for a piss. barman looked something like this :eek::eek:

Dudess · 28-01-2012 12:45am

On holidays in Majorca one English guy started being a prick to me all right, going on about the f'ucking paddies and their terrorism - a big gang of other English people I was hanging around with told him to stfu.
There's a minority of ignorant gobshytes anywhere - certainly wouldn't cloud my view of the entire people of which they're part. That's being as bad as them...

Fratton Fred · 28-01-2012 12:47am

Meow_Meow wrote: »

Nah, I personally feel that due to our own historical experiences, it really is fundamentally against the Irish mindset to go setting up camp in other countries and staging phony wars on terrorism which amount to little more than killing the natives and draining them of their resources. Even if we did have the capabilities to do so.

Really? what makes you think that?

Sindri · 28-01-2012 12:48am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Arthur Guinness, like a lot of his "Class" was Anglo Irish.

Whether that made them English or Irish depends on how good or bad they were.

If he had evicted a few tenants during the famine, he would have been English, but as he invented a beer famous the world over, he is Irish.

That's how I see it anyway.

Well Guinness is a Gaelic surname. What is common, and what happened Wellesley's family as well, is that after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland the Gaelic lords and family's had to adapt to the new political and societal realities.

That is why we see, for instance Wellesley's family, originally called Colley, a Gaelic Irish surname, actually marry into the Anglo-Irish ruling society and discard their patrilineal surname of Colley, who had been Gaelic lords, for Wellesley. The same happened with religion.

Topper Harley · 28-01-2012 12:52am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Arthur Guinness, like a lot of his "Class" was Anglo Irish.

Whether that made them English or Irish depends on how good or bad they were.

If he had evicted a few tenants during the famine, he would have been English, but as he invented a beer famous the world over, he is Irish.

That's how I see it anyway.

He was born in Kildare to an Irish family, that makes him Irish... at least that's how I see it, certainly not English.

And if he had evicted a few tenants during the famine, that would have made him a cunt, an Irish cunt.

Sindri · 28-01-2012 12:53am

Meow_Meow wrote: »

Nah, I personally feel that due to our own historical experiences, it really is fundamentally against the Irish mindset to go setting up camp in other countries and staging phony wars on terrorism which amount to little more than killing the natives and draining them of their resources. Even if we did have the capabilities to do so.

In conclusion, the fecker should have picked on someone his own size, and Sky News is only good for setting the time on your phone.

Ahh, also met David Trimble at an event in London who refused to shake my hand when he was informed that I was from Dublin. Awkward.

I added that to his Wikipedia page.:D:D:D

Doc Ruby · 28-01-2012 12:57am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Really? what makes you think that?

You're as indefatigable as a Frenchman... oh wait...

Sunnyisland · 28-01-2012 1:00am

Another time I was in Grand canary in a hotel and meath had one the All Ireland, and where all there with lots of there supporters, and me being a Dublin man was told I was not wanted in the same room.The look I gave the meathman had him scurrying back over to his meathmates.

Meow_Meow · 28-01-2012 1:01am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Really? what makes you think that?

Because Irish people generally appear to be more sympathetic to those who are being occupied than the occupier. We are more interested in peace keeping missions than expanding our influence abroad or playing games in the Middle East.

Sindri wrote: »

I added that to his Wikipedia page.:D:D:D

LOL! Just saw it XD
It's all fun and games til it ends up in an arts student's history essay :P

Topper Harley · 28-01-2012 1:02am

Meow_Meow wrote: »

Nah, I personally feel that due to our own historical experiences, it really is fundamentally against the Irish mindset to go setting up camp in other countries and staging phony wars on terrorism which amount to little more than killing the natives and draining them of their resources. Even if we did have the capabilities to do so.

But I'm not talking about the Irish people, I'm talking about the few in power that the rest of us are too lazy to do anything about. How Irish.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

gurramok · 28-01-2012 1:04am

Meow meow, the cat, you're class. I raise my Irish coffee(to keep me warm) to you

EdIt, probably Sindri but both nicks are good people

Meow_Meow · 28-01-2012 1:07am

Topper Harley wrote: »

But I'm not talking about the Irish people, I'm talking about the few in power that the rest of us are too lazy to do anything about. How Irish.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Even then though- the Irish are too chilled and laid back to declare war and start rummaging around the deserts for some oil when there's perfectly good turf out back. Although it would be nice to liven things up a bit for Irish a soldiers- a friend of mine said that the only action the tanks see is when they have sex with their gfs in them. Oy.

Topper Harley · 28-01-2012 1:07am

Sindri wrote: »

I added that to his Wikipedia page.:D:D:D

Meow_Meow wrote: »

LOL! Just saw it XD
It's all fun and games til it ends up in an arts student's history essay :P

Ah Wikipedia, the cause of and solution to, all of your college essay's mistakes.[1]

Footnote:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Trimble

Martyn1989 · 28-01-2012 1:14am

Working briefly in a Hotel in Wales I got a bit of stick from the Mancunian kitchen staff. Just the basic "Your a potato" kind of stuff. They where clever lads

I just did this lads accent back at them (which wasn't far off)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdDKb8juAwY

I didn't get it nearly as bad as the scouse waiter.

billybudd · 28-01-2012 1:21am

Started my first job in a london kitchen when i was 18, a real old English institution of a restaurant with lots of lords, earls etc and alot olf MP's, three hours into it and what came over the radio? the IRA are after bombing canary warf, was called all sorts of names for the next few days some in humour and some not, one lad was just a complete prick calling me every cliched Irish name going, asked him to give it a rest countless times, one day we are all sitting around eating our lunch and he is calling me a murdering c8nt etc so got up and gave him a kick in the balls, pandemonium follows both held apart was fine he never called me anything again and we became good friends after it, he opened a restaurant a few years later and begged me to come work for him i did for awhile and we still keep in contact.

Alot of English people are just clueless, worked with another guy from southampton who wouldnt come visit Ireland because his old man was in the royal navy and he thought he would be targeted...:pac:

Fratton Fred · 28-01-2012 1:23am

Sindri wrote: »

Well Guinness is a Gaelic surname. What is common, and what happened Wellesley's family as well, is that after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland the Gaelic lords and family's had to adapt to the new political and societal realities.

That is why we see, for instance Wellesley's family, originally called Colley, a Gaelic Irish surname, actually marry into the Anglo-Irish ruling society and discard their patrilineal surname of Colley, who had been Gaelic lords, for Wellesley. The same happened with religion.

I know.

Did you know O'Connell called it Guinnesses Protestant Porter and also said of Wellington "Being born in a barn does not make one a horse".

Somehow though, both those statements have been accredited to the accused, not the accuser.

But, calling it English beer is handy especially when someone calls a Jaguar an Indian car.

Doc Ruby · 28-01-2012 1:25am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

But, calling it English beer is handy especially when someone calls a Jaguar an Indian car.

Personally if I was English I'd be delighted to be called French. They even have their own culture and everything.

woodoo · 28-01-2012 1:26am

Meow_Meow wrote: »

Ahh, also met David Trimble at an event in London who refused to shake my hand when he was informed that I was from Dublin. Awkward.

What year was this?

Oi Paddy!

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