What constitutes to someone being Irish?

[Cybercubed]

Born there? Parents from there? Grandparents from there?

I'm born and raised in England, my parents are both Irish (mum from Belfast Dad from the ROI). In England whilst growing up people routinely called me Irish and so that's how I saw myself. Then I moved to Northern Ireland as teenager and had a reality check, because then everyone started calling me English. I still have an English accent so everyone still refers me to as an English person here. I've always understandably have a bit of an identity crisis therefore, compounded by the fact that the "British vs Irish" issue is right of the forefront of Northern Ireland politics as well I don't feel I fit in with either community here.

We've all heard of the term 'plastic paddy' which usually gets thrown at anyone with a non Irish accent calling themselves Irish. I personally don't really identify as anything more and feel kinda stateless but do you think calling yourself Irish should be reserved for those who are born and/or raised there only?

My parents are from the Republic of Ireland but have lived in England for all of their adult lives.

Despite being afforded the lifestyle they could only have dreamt of in Ireland and making fantastic friends here, they are inherently racist and sneering about the English. It is a theme I have grown up within their circle of Irish friends too.

I have resented it my whole life and I do not identify as Irish in any way, in fact - my heritage is something I rarely admit to.

Why is that English superiority? Havent you heard of imitation being the best form of flattery?

My ex was French (born, raised, we met in France). He had one of those names that has an equivalent in every language & is pretty universal. He deliberately chose to spell it in the English way as he preferred it. I thought that was quite flattering. Cant we think nice things any more? Must everything be a micro aggression?

So you believe that only someone who thinks they are superior to you can flatter you?

Anyway I have never mentioned irish people discussing the Troubles as it is warranted. The present day impact is easy to see, people are very much still alive who witnessed the atrocities, and I think the way the British acted was appalling at times. I educated myself on these matters a few years ago, and I would never minimise it. It is purely the very historical events (such as the famine) which I object to being raised needlessly and too frequently.

@LouisBalfour

My parents are from the Republic of Ireland but have lived in England for all of their adult lives.

Despite being afforded the lifestyle they could only have dreamt of in Ireland and making fantastic friends here, they are inherently racist and sneering about the English. It is a theme I have grown up within their circle of Irish friends too.

I have resented it my whole life and I do not identify as Irish in any way, in fact - my heritage is something I rarely admit to.

I’m really glad to hear this. That is my experience too and someone keeps reporting my posts when I give examples! No idea why. I’m reflecting on the reality of growing up in an Irish family and giving examples of the way people speak about the English.

Sorry not glad to hear they were racist about the English!

But because there seems to be compete disbelief on this thread that this is normal among the Irish. I’m Irish. This is my experience. But given when I give examples my posts are reported and deleted I’m starting to think I’m going bonkers here. I’ve said nothing that isn’t absolutely true!

Name one comment I have made where I have tried to kick British wrongdoing into the long grass, or minimize it.

I did upthread but you ignored it.

@Elasticate

Please can you repost?

@LouisBalfour

MMN123 I could speak at great length about it. I love my parents but as soon as I was old enough to understand how narrow-minded they are, I have massively resented them too.

My nephews and nieces that have grown up without the anti-English sentiment, are, with their one set of Irish grandparents, fully paid up plastic paddies (despite never setting foot in the country).

I’m fortunate that I have mixed parents and it wasn’t an issue within the family. But when I got old enough to spend time in friends and boyfriends houses - it was a revelation. There is an unhealthy preoccupation with the English and total blinkers when it comes to recognising the benefits of the Anglo Irish relationship. Happy to take and still act like they’re owed more! It’s a strange attitude. It makes no sense to me.

@MMN123 I don't think there is disbelief that some Irish people have negative feelings towards English people but you can't seem to accept that not all Irish people have this attitude. They really don't!

Well obviously not all do. You’d be hard pushed to think of any attitude that exists in 100% of any population. I’m just talking about the majority.

When Germaine Greer said ‘women have very little idea of how much men hate them’ I’m sure she accepted that some women did have an idea and some men don’t hate women.

But similarly, the English as a population have no idea how much the Irish hate them.

Of course some English know. And some Irish don’t. But I think the vast majority of English people have no idea any Irish people beyond the few in the IRA dislike them at all. Literally no idea.

@LouisBalfour
Obviously I don't know your parents and I am not trying to defend them but I don't think this would be uncommon among Irish emigrants of a certain era.

All of my grandfather's siblings emigrated to America during British rule - for economic reasons, had to rather than wanted to. Due to economic neglect and the tenant land situation, jobs were simply not there. Huge resentment against the British government and a view of America as the land of opportunity.

Several of my father's family emigrated to England during Irish rule but still getting back on its feet after independence. Again, this was due to economic reasons and I presume the reason they didn't go to America was that immigration policy would have been much stricter than a generation earlier. There was a view that without British colonisation of Ireland, the country could have had ran its own affairs and jobs would have been more plentiful. Instead, they had to move to England when really they just wanted to stay at home. View was that they were forced into emigration to a country that their parents had fought against for independence.

Disclaimer: this is just a viewpoint, and what I am aware of from personal experience. I am sure many many Irish ran kicking and screaming out of the country to escape the strict, traditional, Catholic society we had back then.

@MMN123 I would disagree that it is the majority view but little point in arguing that without something to back up either of our opinions.

[quote Elasticate]@MMN123 I would disagree that it is the majority view but little point in arguing that without something to back up either of our opinions.[/quote]
Very true - it was the majority view among those I mixed with both in the UK and Ireland. Outside my own family. And because I didn’t notice it until I was well into my teens it was quite a big adjustment for me when I realised it was quite normal. In hindsight I can now see there were teachers at school who were well known as staunch republicans and maybe it’s best that at the time it didn’t occur to me that they were horrid to me because of my dad. In hindsight it’s obvious but I’m glad I didn’t recognise it as a child.

I’m also aware that many people will profess to have no prejudice but will then behave in a manner that demonstrates prejudice!!

MMN if I'm not incorrect, you've stated that you're Irish. Why would Irish 'staunch republicans' dislike you for being Irish?

It is purely the very historical events (such as the famine) which I object to being raised needlessly and too frequently.

@Wolfgirrl
So does that mean you will never again inflict your ill-informed opinions on Ireland and WW2 on the internet?

If you intend to keep on trotting out the old libels, maybe you should admit that you hold others to a standard you refuse to adhere to yourself.

Why don't Irish people care about how Poland was invaded, millions of people killed there etc.

@Wolfgirrl
Please explain appeasement, and follow that up with the phoney war.

If you wish you may add an account of Churchill hanging Poland out to dry after Yalta, basing his abandonment of Poland (and the rest of Eastern Europe) on geopolitical calculations involving potential Soviet designs on Iran and Iraq. What a pity for millions of people that south central Asia had oil. They had his Iron Curtain speech to console them, so that's something.

Extra points for dismissing the British Union of Fascists as a bunch of toffs who liked dressing up/ irrelevant.

That was supposed to be @Sarahpaula, not wolfgirrl.

Also - explain the significance of the current 'Polish Plumber' trope.

It was certainly strange. Like being in the twilight zone. I could hear the women seated behind me commenting on how gorgeous all the lovely little black girls were with their little plaits. Nobody thought it was racist.

@MMN123
Could you explain to Wolfgirrl how it might be perceived as racist to suggest that Irish people should be flattered that someone in the UK chose to use an Irish name?

why should they [the British poor] have or feel a debt of colonial guilt?

@Flaxmeadow
Maybe ask the people who sold their houses en masse when Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean families arrived?
And the landladies who put up signs discouraging Irish, blacks and dogs from applying for a room?
Enoch Powell wasn't talking to himself in his speech of 20 April 1968.

I do get very fed up with Irish people bringing up grievances against England from hundreds of years ago, particularly when they use the word 'you', and say we should all be 'educated on Irish history' etc, presumably to make us feel guilty or responsible when we are neither.

@Wolfgirrl - no, it's in hopes that you will stop posting ill-considered, ill-informed, outright racist garbage on a public forum. The advice is given with your own interests at heart, in other words.

How you feel after going to the trouble of informing yourself is entirely your business.

Ireland sat back and watched hundreds of thousands of English men (and boys, some as young as 14) be brutally massacred fighting a common (and truly evil) enemy that would have invaded you, enslaved you, and wiped your culture/language off the face of the planet. Ireland offered zero assistance, and never apologised. Remember, the Nazis saw the English as a 'superior' bloodline to the rest of the UK, we would have fared better than the Irish if the Nazis had invaded. Regardless, the English people (not the government) suffered through the most unimaginable horror and the Irish benefited from that without lifting a finger.

Every single word you post about Ireland in WW2 is A SHAMELESS LIE, @Wolfgirrl.

70,000 Irish people served in the British armed forces, including two nephews of a serving minister in deValera's government, my father and his brother.

@Wolfgirrl
Happy to let England defend you, not happy to admit it or show any gratitude..

Happy to let Ireland help you defend yourself against the Nazis, not happy to admit it or show gratitude -
I give you Winston Churchill's petulant, ungracious speech of 13 May, 1945.

Churchill knew well that he was powerless in the face of the Irish American vote, and could not just send troops to occupy Ireland, which he wanted to do but patted himself on the back for not violating a sovereign state's neutrality regardless. How galling for him that Roosevelt (and behind him the Democratic Machine) called the shots during WW2. FDR even weighed in successfully against the imposition of a draft in NI.

And then came the kick in the teeth from FDR in February 1945 in the form of a bilateral civil aviation agreement with Ireland that guaranteed the hegemony of American civil aviation in long distance civilian air travel, jump started the development of Shannon Airport and bypassed the UK completely.

Here's what Churchill failed to mention in his infamous speech (even he came to feel a certain amount of remorse for its outrageous churlishness):

• British aircraft and warships routinely entered and exited Irish territory without protest.
• Allied airmen who crashed in Ireland were shunted to NI. Axis airmen were interned.
• Meteorological information was shared by Ireland with the UK.
• deValera interned and imobilised leaders of the IRA during WW2, executing one IRA prisoner.
• The Germans were breaking the Allied merchant shipping code until 1944, making the Treaty ports irrelevant.
• In 1942 Britain and the Allies broke the German diplomatic code, and were thus reassured by all communication between the Foreign Office in Berlin and the German Legation in Dublin that no collusion was taking place between Ireland and Germany.
• Irish and British intelligence liaison was broad and deep.

Churchill knew all of this.

Just for once I would like to hear some criticism of Sweden's massive material aid to Germany.