WIBU to delete someone off my FB for sharing Irish 'jokes'...

[FourFriedChickensDryWhiteToast]

You know how years ago people used to tell really unfunny jokes based on the premise that Irish people were stupid/alcoholic/ terrorists?

Well it pissed me off 30 years ago but in general these days people no longer tell Irish 'jokes'.

so there is this English woman on my FB that I worked and lived with years and years ago. I hardly know her as an adult tbh as we were teens back then.<

Anyway so she shares this meme that is so unfunny, I didn't even smile. Something about 'Paddy' and a lorry of turf, and him wanting to send his lawn away to be cut. 'What's dat' says his mate...

So we have the 'funny accent' and the purported 'stupidity' of the Irish being shared as hilarious.

One of the women who 'liked' it is Jewish! (I knew her back then too) Imagine if I shared a Jewish joke!!? (well I wouldn't but it would go down like a sack of shit, and rightly so)

It is a little personal to me as my dad is Irish, spent his working life as an academic. So these kind of jokes piss me off. Especially in 2018.

WIBU to defriend her and tell her why? or would that be an over-reaction?

Comparison with the Jews seems in poor taste

You should read up on the Irish holocaust then and the story of the British in Ireland since the 1155 papal bull.

Hth

The trouble is, @counterpoint your posts were offensive to others on the thread. Your friend told the joke against herself, but, as we've seen on other threads, it's not the same if posters who are not Irish make digs against them. That's just xenophobic.

I'm a sea elf and I can't believe sea elf humour is still with us in the 21st century.

*of

My Irish dad who lives in England was given a potato in a secret Santa last year. He didn’t find it funny.

That really is awful, and actually very cowardly as Secret Santa is by definition anonymous. Despicable.

I see where you’re coming from based on modern Britain and Ireland, but historically and culturally, the Irish absolutely were a powerless and vulnerable group.

Yes and since then a number of other things have happened. I've lived all over GB and people are generally cool about Irish people and celebrate St Patrick's Day. That's pretty good going actually - I've known people who hate the English for things that happened long before living memory, and English who are remarkably pro Irish considering their experiences. In fact I think English who care about whether Irish are Irish (let alone dislike then) are an extremely attenuated fringe, whereas I have actually been sent to sleep by so many anti English rants I could not possibly count them.

Discrimination of the Irish is not a thing that ended in the 18thC, unfortunately. Until twenty years ago we were routinely, directly, oppressed in NI. And there's plenty of people who would like to see it resumed, and who choose to celebrate their ascendancy over us and threaten us at this time every year.

Somerville

Exactly. But....

8f you kick with the other foot it's us who want to convert them, pillage and treat them as they treated us. I left ni 22 years ago 9ver the harassment l, discrimination and hate I received daily since I was born.

For whomever denies that anti Irish sentiment doesn't exist read up on wee willy Frazer, Jamie Bryson and their band of merry sectarian knuckle daggers

Yes and since then a number of other things have happened. I've lived all over GB and people are generally cool about Irish people and celebrate St Patrick's Day. That's pretty good going actually

Not that I’m saying it’s the same thing, but you could say the same about a lot of powerless, minority groups. No two groups are the same, so I won’t make any direct comparisons.

The law has changed so that Irish people aren’t discriminated against, but there is still an underlying assumption that Irish people are impoverished, thick drunkards who only eat potatoes. Ime, you don’t have to go too far in England, to find a twunt who makes massive, negative assumptions about Irish people.

Read up a bit about why there are negative stereotypes associated with Irish people. It isn’t pretty. And no, it isn’t just a joke to anyone who knows anything much about it.

There are negative stereotypes across all of the U.K. - (Just to clarify that I had to google some of these and they’re not my opinion or what I think at all)

Scottish - kilt wearing bagpipe playing violent drunks who deep fry everything,

Welsh - sheep ‘lovers’, lazy, welchers, thieves , bit dim

Irish - lazy, thick, slow, impoverished

English - racist, chavs, violent thugs or ‘gammons’ responsible for Brexit.

I’ve seen/heard jokes about all of these types of things over the years between but it seems it’s only ok to say negative things about the English. Not that I think it’s ok to be negative about anyone based on a where they come from, but it’s more ‘acceptable’ to be negative about the English than any of the other British isles.

Excellent reply / suggestion @CambridgeA!!

Those stereotypes do exist. And if any of my fb friends, (if I was on fb), put up a meme saying all English people were chavs I’d think they were a massive twunt also.

There is something especially offensive about an English person making an ‘Irish people are thicko paddys’ joke though, due to the history. But all the stereotypes you list are pretty foul.

I would have had to tell that I found it offensive before I deleted or blocked her.

I don’t understand why it’s more offensive for an English person to repeat a negative stereotype than any other person? Surely it’s just as bad the other way, yet I’ve seen plenty of other people saying offensive stuff against the English with glee.
(I’m half Armenian/half Swedish and have lived in many cities all over the U.K. so have no bias really, just what I’ve observed)

You see the word chavvy daily on mumsnet and hardly anyone pulls the poster up on its offensiveness.

I don’t know if it’s a simple “one is more offensive than the other” thing as you can’t compare the two. I said it was especially offensive for an English person to make a thicko paddy joke, considering the history. That’s not the fault of the English person who makes the joke. It’s clearly cuntish to make xenophobic/ racist jokes about anyone, but it's just an unfortunate fact imo that an English person making sneery jibes about how thick Irish people are, will be seen as particularly offensive to some Irish people.

That doesn’t mean it’s any better to say all English people are chavs. That’s not at all what I was saying.

Ime, on a side note, the word chavvy is often pointed out as offensive on MN and afaik, it isn’t a word used exclusively to describe English people.

I am the first to admit that I’m really stupid/uneducated/unknoweldagble on a lot of racism subjects (I am educating myself when things crop up to understand before the hate starts)
But I really don’t understand the significance of a potato?

Hid have a read of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFaminee_(Ireland)

Potato famine = ‘Irish hollocaust’ at the hands of the British. Having a potato gifted to an Irishman by an Englishman... Perfectly innocent of course, but it’s a sensitive subject I imagine, for some. Of course the famine / holocaust was a very long time ago, but obviously Anglo-Irish relations have been pretty bad in more recent times, so these things get dragged up again and again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFaminee_(Ireland) proper link

Apologies, I’ve only ever seen ‘chavvy’ in reference to people like Katie price, the beckhams and Rooney's and the ‘only in Essex’ reality type programmes, and to describe English names on the baby boards.

I understand the history angle, if not all the history (presuming something similar to if the Turkish were to make jokes about the Armenians)?

Third time lucky? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFaminee_(Ireland)
Feck sake

Oh just google it. Wiki doesn't want to play ball.

@Hidillyho

The worst famine in the whole of Europe in the 19th century was the Great famine in Ireland, also known as the potato famine. At that point Ireland had been invaded by England and decisions made from London, and by absentee British "land owners". When the potato blight disease arrived and potato plants rotted in the field, instead of shipping in produce to field the Irish tenant farmers, export of potatoes and grain to England continued. There were minimal relief efforts to start with, and then none at all.
More than a million men, women and (many, many) children starved to death. More than 2 million emigrated quickly. The potato famine meant that the population of over 8 million in 1840's fell to 6 million by 1850's and was under 5 million by Irish independence in 1921.

So a potato as a Christmas present for an Irish person? Not funny in any way.

The law has changed so that Irish people aren’t discriminated against, but there is still an underlying assumption that Irish people are impoverished, thick drunkards who only eat potatoes. Ime, you don’t have to go too far in England, to find a twunt who makes massive, negative assumptions about Irish people.

You'd think if English people were really going to indulge in nasty and hateful stereotypes towards the Irish with xenophobic intent it might be more body parts of kids raining down on the m62 and stuff, not potatoes and being cheeky drunk chappies.

Luckily that's not a thing so much. I mean we've intermingled so much anyway, it's like being Welsh or Scottish.

Sorry I don’t know what you’re referring to there Une? Body parts of kids raining on to the M62? I don’t get what you mean.