Are we a laughing stock.?

Of course not, are you serious?

kneemos wrote: »

With our spudlike faces and our reputation for drunkiness,fighting and laziness do you think other countries really take us seriously.?

speak for yourself, im very handsome il have you know

It's not like we have people on the most beautiful list, top selling musician, great writers, artist and scientist of massive importance.

But then again we do and for such a small country that is impressive.

freckle stock, redhead stock, stockier stock, resilient stock, not the one you suggest.

I think a conclusion like that is a little difficult to qualify, considering the problems you listed aren't specifically Irish problems; if you want to see bad drinking cultures, go over to America, France, Australia or South Africa, if anything, they're worse than us. Ugliness isn't exactly a national trait, no matter what country you visit, the occupants will say the grass is greener on the other side. You can bring up our limited island gene pool, but really? Even then we're splitting hairs. Every nation thinks other countries' girls are more attractive than theirs.

What's more, contrary to the impression one would get from Irish masochism, Ireland has quite a good reputation internationally, which is one of the reasons our tourism trade is so strong. Americans consider it a badge of pride to be partially Irish, our fans were considered to be best at the European Championships (no racist violence, so it could be a lot worse), and it generally helps that Ireland has a history of neutrality and Irish soldiers only being used for peacekeeping missions that keeps us out of the political dogfighting that leads to countries like Britain and America being hated in the Middle East (and elsewhere).

The point is that people from other countries don't spend their days reading the Irish papers and going, "Tut tut, them Irish, they're not mature and responsible like we are!" They're generally busy focusing on their own problems, which every country has. People who have never lived in Ireland only go by Ireland's international reputation, which is to all intents and purposes in pretty good shape.

I don't judge people by nationality, we are human regardless of where our origins are.

Like I say I'm born in England, moved here when I was 14 (now coming 26), but consider here to be my home, infact I don't even consider myself to be English. If some people want to judge me because of my accent then thats there problem there's honestly nothing I can do about it. I can live here for the rest of my life but to some I always be judged because of my English accent.

Lisandro wrote: »

I think a conclusion like that is a little difficult to qualify, considering the problems you listed aren't specifically Irish problems; if you want to see bad drinking cultures, go over to America, France, Australia or South Africa, if anything, they're worse than us. Ugliness isn't exactly a national trait, no matter what country you visit, the occupants will say the grass is greener on the other side. You can bring up our limited island gene pool, but really? Even then we're splitting hairs. Every nation thinks other countries' girls are more attractive than theirs.

What's more, contrary to the impression one would get from Irish masochism, Ireland has quite a good reputation internationally, which is one of the reasons our tourism trade is so strong. Americans consider it a badge of pride to be partially Irish, our fans were considered to be best at the European Championships (no racist violence, so it could be a lot worse), and it generally helps that Ireland has a history of neutrality and Irish soldiers only being used for peacekeeping missions that keeps us out of the political dogfighting that leads to countries like Britain and America being hated in the Middle East (and elsewhere).

The point is that people from other countries don't spend their days reading the Irish papers and going, "Tut tut, them Irish, they're not mature and responsible like we are!" They're generally busy focusing on their own problems, which every country has. People who have never lived in Ireland only go by Ireland's international reputation, which is to all intents and purposes in pretty good shape.

wha?