To be offended at people using "stupid" and "Irish" interchangeably?

[Yogahoneybunny]

Just that really - I am Irish and have been living in Scotland for a few years, and it has happened repeatedly. I am never quite sure what to say as it is always a flippant casual remark (e.g. In work someone often says a certain system is a bit Irish) but I find it weird given I am obviously Irish. I have sometimes said back that maybe they should think about what they are saying, given that I am Irish myself, but I seem to be viewed as hyper-sensitive.
Any ideas of a good come-back as I am useless at these things?!

No of course they didn't just turf the Irish out and shamefully my ancestors were part of it and therefore the misery inflicted. I will always feel ancestral shame I think. Although I do feel some sort of retribution that the land they stole was taken away when my great grandfather changed his religion. And I am not a woo person at all.

My MIL cannot understand why I don't think that Oliver Cromwell was the best thing to ever happen to Ireland......
How unreasonable of you to not be willing to see the benefits of attempted genocide.

I've heard 'beyond the Pale' used in two generally different ways - one is to indicate that it's lawless and wrong, very judgmental, the other only to describe something that's different, unexpected, and a bit confusing.
I sort of aspire to the second definition.

I'm of Irish stock.

I often say "That's Irish" when referring to something daft.

It doesn't bother me. There are far more genuine things which are deliberately meant to would or offend to get offended about.

But that's JUST me. If you don't like something, YANBU to complain.

'Well, Cromwell was the first republican in Ireland...'

Ha! I suppose he was technically.

I'm fond of saying 'to Hell or to Connaught' whenever I head West. There must be some shadowy, conquering types hiding in my ancestral DNA.

Squoosh Did not one of the Prime Ministers have the nickname BIFFO meaning Big Ignorant Farmer From Offaly . . . at least I think it was Farmer.

Ah yes, that would be the 'illustrious' Brian Cowen!

And black people were not seen to be feared, to be something to keep out?

Brian Cowen or Cows as ds used to say. So is Obama. Offaly is quite nice as is the west. But they sent people there because because it is rugged landscape, difficult to survive if you were farming.

To be fair to my MIL Ninja, I didn't say anything other than "he's not held in high regard in Ireland" and left it at that.

I'm not sure that a Christmas dinner is the best place and time to start educating someone on Cromwellian genocide. It's not like Irish history is a popular choice in British schools so why on earth would she know.

She wasn't altogether thrilled at the prospect of an Irish DIL but since I've done the decent thing and produced grandchildren she'd completely deny it now

Yes, my Dad and his family going back as many generations as can be counted are from County Clare. It's a big rock, a beautiful big rock, with a little bit of soil dotted in places.

'I'm not sure that a Christmas dinner is the best place and time to start educating someone on Cromwellian genocide.'

I'm not sure if it would be best discussed pre or post Christmas cracker jokes!

Love your username by the way, that poem always gave me shivers.

Christmas dinner, no probably not the best time. Although when then? Easter egg hunting?New years?

Forgot to add my as that post was a joke.

The only person I hear say this is my dh - Belfast born and bred!

And we live in Glasgow, never heard it otherwise!

Gawd, life's too short I'll have enough on my plate educating my two daughters !

Clare is beautiful, the west is like another country to me because I am in Dublin in a very urban area. if I won the lotto I would move to the west. Or a Scottish Island.

Be careful of the Scottish islands, absolutely beautiful places but people will know all your business and the amount of extra marital shagging that goes on would curl your hair.

The paddy wagon was padded with cloth and wool. It was used from the 1840s by the Met to transport any violent prisoners. 'Paddy' was also used as a shortening for 'padded cell.'

The Oxford English Dictionary (just looked it up in the giant dictionary in my desk old school ) has both paddy wagon and throwing a paddy as being derived from the derogatory term Paddy.

Oh? Just looked it up in my OED and in my edition it's simply 'in a hot temper, rage.' But then it does go on to say paddy wagon is US slang, which it may be, but it was certainly British slang in the nineteenth century

a midwife in one of our parental prep classes here in Scotland made that remark about something being a bit Irish. She apologised immediately so I was alright (I'm Irish) about it but another Irish couple there were very annoyed.

When I was younger, I thought it was "panda wagon" - it's black and white, eh?

I've heard that 'paddy wagon' was called such because a large number of the American police force were Irish emigrants.

I've heard this used in Ireland by an Irish person returned from England. It was used by them to refer to something 'unregulated'. I think the last few Irish governments with their dodgy cronyism (corruption really) and lack of enforcement of regulation is what she is referring to. Indeed they brought in measures to directly benefit their developer buddies. Tax breaks in development when the country had overheated even to the end. Bankers not penalised for practices or lying when they asked for the bail out when they were insolvent and said it was just a liquidity problem. Making the taxpayer take on the debt of private gamblers/investers who should have gone down the Swanee. They made Ireland a haven for crooks and crooked practices.

We don't even know half of what went on. They've had plenty of time for the bodies to be buried by now. I had to laugh when a relative was telling me about a programme about Greece and the corruption in government and tax dodging in a sanctimonious manner. I had to remind him that I never experienced a plumber,electrician or gardener in Ireland who didn't ask for cash in hand. In the midlands certainly, these categories have built fabulous houses and drive top of the range cars and 4x4's. If you didn't declare most of your income, wouldn't you? They use all the schools, hospitals, roads etc. funded by the ordinary paye taxpayer of course.

I suppose it goes on to a certain extent in all countries. However, am pissed how the slimy, corrupt quisling governments turned us into the wild west. Love the threats of fines and penalties if the new property taxes aren't paid. The guys who were allowed to bring the country to it's knees got away with so much.

I've gone off topic haven't I? and probably a rant

My point is when I heard the phrase used in Ireland, it was in a different way.

All my family are from beyond the Pale, from wild beautiful places that are indeed hard to farm compared to the fertile east (which was, naturally, the area the conquerors chose to inhabit).

I find the expression incredibly offensive. Back of the bus would be a good metaphor. I think it started oddly enough more in a "here be dragons" sense but has morphed in the English-speaking world to connote things which are outside the realms of acceptability, e.g. "racism is beyond the pale" to use a very ironic example. I literally cringe and sweat when I hear it and depending on the context I will explain to the user that it is a deeply offensive phrase.