About being "proud of your roots"

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I was just idly reading about Dermot O'Leary being "extremely proud of his Irish roots" (his parents are from Ireland, I believe, though he grew up in England). It suddenly struck me how weird I think that whole concept is.
Is it not just as absurd as someone being "ashamed"of their "roots"? How can they be a cause for either pride or shame?

I agree with MildVirago in that saying you're proud of your roots when your nationality and/or birthplace means you may have experienced significant discrimination, lack of opportunity and poverty, is essentially saying that you're proud to have flourished and prospered in the face of adversity and against the odds. Years ago, many people from particular immigrant backgrounds went to great lengths to distance themselves their roots, such was the expectation that their background was a bit shameful and would put them at a disadvantage.

My paternal grandparents emigrated from India and, like the sketch in Goodness Gracious Me, emphatically tried to assimilate themselves to the point of almost pretending they were not Indian. They wanted to be English, and all that being English meant back then.

I am proud to be English. Apart from that I get a kick out of exploring my roots and visiting places in the UK where my ancestors lived hundreds of years ago. I don't think it's unusual, considering the huge interest there is in tracing ancestry now.

Of course you're 'allowed', Bunny. Perhaps I should qualify what I said to suggest that immigrants of a nationality or background against which there has traditionally been prejudice may legitimately choose to express their sense of their own identity in terms of 'pride'. Which I think is an entirely different thing to the kind of dubious 'patriotism' that thinks Britain First (and equivalents in other countries) is an acceptable political party. Or they may choose not to give it any thought at all.

SirChenjin, surely you're not saying that you can answer for all of your BIL's feelings and experiences being from somewhere you presumably aren't from. I certainly can't speak for all Irish people in the UK. When you came here has a lot to do with your experience, imo, apart from anything else - when I first lived here, people with Irish passports and/or accents were still routinely pulled aside and searched at ferry ports and airports. The Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were still unjustly imprisoned. Irish republicanism was still public enemy number one. I didn't have the option then of Ireland simply neutral or 'just being somewhere I was from', because that wasn't how I was viewed.

JasperDamerel, yes, absolutely, the baby name forum on Mn is an interesting sidelight on 'soft' anti-Irish prejudice, for example.

On the fence! I don't like political nationalism, I agree it's not something you can help anyway, and I too got tired of hearing Americans and Canadians boasting about being "Irish" and "Scottish" which meant 14 generations back.

OTOH I'm from Yorkshire and I really am proud of it! (But that's different obviously – it's YORKSHIRE come on :o)

What a hypocrite. But I suppose people do tend to have more pride, and it's seen as more acceptable, if they see their nation or background as some kind of underdog.

Without wishing to get into any sort of debate or argument as I realise I am very biased, I am sick to death of the repeated calls for 'let it go', 'just get over it' etc etc.

While it would be lovely, it is a sentiment most commonly expressed by those who have never been directly affected by conflict/hardships of that nature.

The crimes that were committed in Ireland, in my relatively short lifetime, to innocent people I know, by forces acting on behalf of the government are awful. Of course this creates anger and, certainly in the context of Ireland, creates an intense pride, particularly when you move to England, and have to constantly listen to ill informed people telling me what the BBC incorrectly told them about what happened in my doorstep.

This is a key reason, in my mind, for the polarisation of British society down cultural lines. It is impossible to continually beat people's kinsmen over the head on the basis that they are different (trying to instil democracy in tribal countries etc) and not have an adverse reaction.

Anyway I'm off my soap box!

I had an Irish mother and an English father. My husband is Welsh and my sisters husband is Scottish. I always find it fascinating that my Irish, Welsh and Scottish family have such a strong sense of their national identity and sort of rally round it whereas the English contingent, me included, really don't have that.

Err that all sounded very mouthy! I meant to round off by saying, it is often the feeling of being different that forces people to over express themselves!

I'm Welsh and proud. Obviously.

But you can't have a blanket sense of equality in a culture when one way of looking/dressing/talking/celebrating is considered normal and socially acceptable, and one isn't.

My mums Polish and I wouldn't say I'm proud to be Polish I honestly don't care.

I've been asked before am I devastated that I'm Scouse? No actually I love being from Liverpool and that might make me a proud scouser but mostly because people (mostly in uni) act like its something I should be ashamed of yet they're in a University in Liverpool!

No, Lucky, I think that's an important point. The revelations and the endless tribunals, reports, apologies, equivocations etc on Church-State child abuse, the Magdalen laundries, the industrial schools, symphisiotomies (which I'm almost certainly mis-spelling), financial corruption surrounding the Post-Tiger crash etc etc etc, mean that there's a level of continually coming to term with the recent past in Irish politics and in Irish identity that is largely current absent from, say, English political discourse.

I wouldn't say it has any effect on my sense of my own irishness, but yes, ill-informed dinner-party lectures based on one misconstrued BBC report on the Tuam babies do mean that Irishness is still often being 'interpreted' as other in the UK. So you can't 'let it go' as the OP glibly recommends, because your nationality isn't 'neutral' or incidental, or without associations, for a large set of the UK's population. And I say that in the full awareness of how much easier it is to be Irish in the UK now than at any point.

If you feel the land of your forbears gave you language, music, art, philosophy ... then that is something to be proud of.

Oh yes, Goat, we've all met that drunken revisionist. Maybe he goes to everyone's barbecues.

Vocational I've been twice and going again in Feb but being a tourist this time around!

Oh phew, I thought I was going to get torn to shreds!

My biggest pet peeve is the cocked head followed by 'but you're British if you're from Northern Ireland' - my DH just chuckles now and tells people to walk away! Presumably these same people would not (for instance) tell a person who looks Chinese, and who says they are Chinese, that they aren't Chinese - even if they are born and bred British...!

I wonder if the problem is that "proud" doesn't have quite the right meaning for the concept that we are trying to express, in that genuine pride should bem as one pp suggested, related to something that you have achieved, or the achievements of a person very close to you - so you can be proud of yourself for getting a great degreee, proud of your son for winning a tennis game, proud of your Dad for facing an illness with bravery. Can you be proud of someone you never met? I think that you can perhaps be proud to be related to that person.

As an example, I was watching an old episode of Who do you think You Are (the US version) with America Ferrera, whose great grandfather was a General in Honduras who started a revolution. She was fascinated by this but, quite rightly, stopped short of expressing pride as his motives were not clear from the documents that she was shown.

On the other hand, a different episode, with a black actress called Elfre Woodard (whom I hadn't heard of) went back to her great grandfather's roots as a slave in Georgia and it was clear that he had worked phenomenally hard to build up a prosperous life as a farmer after emancipation. I don't know if she actualy used the word "proud" but she was clearly very impressed by what he had done and, in my view, would have had every right to say she was proud, even though she did not know him personally and played no part in his achievements.

On a personal level I am Scottish but have not lived there since I was 18. I'm now 42. Since my "roots" are obvious, I am constantly being asked about Scotland and I have felt less and less cultural connection to the place as the years have gone by. I can't find it in myself to be proud of a place. But I am proud of my family's hard-working background in the mines, and of my grandfathers and Great Aunt who served in WW2. Is pride the right word to use there? I'm not sure, but I can't think of a better one.

and have to constantly listen to ill informed people telling me what the BBC incorrectly told them about what happened in my doorstep.

I do know what you mean, Luckystar, and this^, in particular, must be horrible.

I totally get what Dermot is saying.

I'm constantly surprised by how ignorant British people are about Ireland (my home country). Seemingly nice people mock my accent, laugh at my expressions, make potato jokes and generally act like racist bastards in a way they would never do if I were black or Asian.

So, rather than putting my head down and feeling belittled by these shitheads, I feel proud. Proud of my accent, proud of my traditions and proud of my home country.

If you'd like to tell me I can't feel that way you can fuck the fuck off.

Bualadh bos for cailindana!

Youc an be proud of something difficult you personally achieved like running 10 miles or becoming CEO of BP or caring for your dying granny but you should not be proud of something for which you had no input.

We are all from Africa originally. Those are our true roots.

My grandad and siblings, his parents and their parents all came over to the England because of the uprising in Ireland, northern Ireland in particular in the early part of the last century. My grandad was sent over alone as a 4 yr old to live with his grandparents (though his grandad was mainly absent as he was a gypsy) my great grandparents sent him over in the 20s as they were worried for his safety (this was the late 20s, early 30s) They faced such prejudice that two generations on I was not allowed to say they were Irish, even though both my grandad and grandma were (both dad's parents) I still don't understand the family history, but I understand why someone would be proud their family had overcome traumatic periods in their life. I'm not sure that means specific to a nationality though but I do find the history aspect interesting. People tell me I look Celtic as well, which I always find really bizarre!

Cailin agreed wholeheartedly. Potato jokes, ffs! I do love potatoes though