Eastern European Countries

Check out After Hours, every time a "foreign women vs irish women" debate arises (about twice weekly) some gobsh1te claims that he has went out with Poles, Czechs, Russians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Irish, and that Irish women are sh1t.

Rather impressive seeing as 95% of ex soviet bloc women seemingly come here with their boyfriends.

I dont think theres a stigma, its more that its a simple rarity as they seem to all be in a serious life long relationship by 18 (though we have pulled a few, but they had boyfriends. so beware OP, dose bitchez is hoes yo.....)

mountainyman- eh, thread locked for what exactly? Saying that Irish people are quite racist? In fairness your oul man may have a sly **** to Destinys Child videos but you know he doesnt want you marrying them. All the OP said was that most Irish parents would take a rather *Tony Soprano in the episode where Meadow had the black Jewish boyfriend* view of things in this regard. Which in all honesty is true, my mother once said in relation to my preference for rap music "jaysus, yil be marryin some black girl next"

cmere Rihanna, rar

Not a PI moved to humanities.

I dont know if Id agree with you entirely Wes, although most of what you say there is true.
Social pressures do exist, coming from the individual, from his circle of friends, from his family, his community and his society, to adapt to the norms of his background, and 'partner up with' (for want of a better term) a girl of his own ethnicity/ religion/ heritage. And the same for a girl.

Choice of who to take as a wife, or a husband, is an intensely personal one, which is what makes the deciphering of a social pattern based on interracial marriages and families so impossible.
Is it the sign of a healthy society to see a white man holding hands with a black woman?
Is it the sign of a healthy society to see a second generation irish family of Pakistani origin speaking Urdu in the street?
The answer is probably both. People, generally speaking, shouldn't have to feel they must marry within their culture, or outside their culture.
Should a person actively choose to marry within their own culture, must it be construed as racism or racial or religious snobbery? there seems to be an unspoken rule that it is either 'okay for foreigners' or perhaps sometimes 'expected' of foreigners. For many people, myself included, who although Irish on paper 'look foreign', this is a grey area in comparison to more recent members of the Irish immigrant community. Are we Irish? Are we Asian/ African/ (insert nationality here)? Leaving aside for a minute the religious requirements there may be, it seems to me somehow less appropriate for a man with an Irish accent who has gone through the Irish educational system, and is involved in his community to search out a wife of his own ethnicity.
Is it always racism? Or are we so caught up in trying not to be racist that we are afraid to admit there might be something to benefit for society from "dating" girls (or men) from your own background?

Of course there is also the deeper, psychological element to this, the instinctive desire to marry one whom you can identify with. Someone else might remember a study that was done amongst sheep where sheep tend to breed with animals that are physically similar to themselves with regard to breed and type.

It's a complicated subject, but I dont think we can sweep it all up as wrong that people should choose to marry within their own culture.

Stigma attached to an Irishman marrying an Asian/ eastern european etc is a mirror of the tribalism that I feel exists here as strongly as within the immigrant communities to Ireland, which from what I see tends to me much more intense than most of the native (Germanic) European societies.