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?

There's plenty of that, too, UneMoonit, but more specifically aimed at NI Catholics like me. When I moved to England in the mid 90's my Derry accent meant I was called a terrorist, a lot. That tailed off quite quickly after the GFA was signed, but has ramped up again over the past year.

I often have to teach English people that their own government agrees that working towards a united Ireland is a legitimate political aim. (It's part of the GFA.) Wanting to achieve that, peacefully, doesn't make me an IRA sympathiser or a terrorist.

Thank you for the info. I had never heard it before. The death statistics are pretty shocking (even if they are estimates as records are incomplete).
Giving an Irish person a potato as a present is pretty sickening

It’s racist, I didn’t realise how bad the racism for the Irish was till my DG told me about the horrible comments she had when she moved to the uk. It was vile she was judged to be an idiot when she was one of the smartest women I knew. They’re not funny and I glad most of those types of jokes have died out

BTW, at risk of being told I have a giant Redwood up my arse, the issue of red-hair bullying, which is so unique to Britain and not found elsewhere in the world, actually began as anti-Irish and anti-Scottish sentiment. It's why when one of my nieces came home sobbing on kick-a-ginger day her school treated it as racist bullying - all the redhaired kids who'd been assaulted (this was a school in a North-West England city) were from Irish Catholic families.

kick-a-ginger day
This can’t be an actual thing?

November 20th.
Apparently, it is intended as a joke. I think it came out of South Park. Every year "jokes" about it start trending on FB and then some school kids take it seriously and commit assault.

But don't worry, it's just a FB joke!!

her school treated it as racist bullying

Good!

I'm sorry, but I can't think of a reason for an English person to give an Irish person a potato that isn't xenophobic. Why would anyone give a potato as a Secret Santa Christmas present anyway??

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.

What absolute tosh. I applaud my friend's broad shoulders and ability to laugh at her own mistakes - for whatever reason she chooses to stick on them.

I wish more people here were as self-confident that they could laugh at the human condition.

Xenophobic, my ar*se. Do you even know what that (Greek) word means?

Somerville

Ue another mucker? Stick tree and forest. Comments weren't aimed at you but others

Counterpoint Perhaps you haven't noticed that your post making insinuations about Rhubarb's intelligence based on her nationality was deleted for breaking talk guidelines. We can see you, trying to defend the indefensible. Stop it.

Actually, two of your posts have been deleted now. I'd stop digging, if I were you.

Yes hi Amalfi -no worries it's all good.

My chuch of Ireland mum was called a terrorist more than a few times when she came to live in Liverpool from Ireland it’s not just catholics moving to the UK that get called

ilovegin112

Therein lies the stupitiy of the whole situation.

Somerville

The thing is people are going to make offensive jokes about all sorts of things - nationality, race, health conditions, disability, physical attributes and so on. And it'll all go over your head until one day one of those jokes hits a nerve. It will happen to us all at some stage and that's just life. Unless you ban comedy. And I agree that kind of comedy is tasteless and shit and I hate it too (I'm also Irish) but I do see it for what it is - a joke.

Jokes referring to Irish people as terrorists make no sense because the troubles in Northern Ireland were technically a civil war within the UK. I wish more people realised that.

When I was a child we had the English man, Scots man, and Irish man jokes, but it was always the English man who was the butt of the joke. (In Ireland) They usually weren't very funny, haven't heard one for years though.

I agree that it would be good if more people understood the nature of the troubles, CatKnitter, and that fewer people died in the RoI than in England/Scotland/Wales.
But being born on the island of Ireland makes someone, if they want to be, Irish. At present there are about 500,000 of us who are Irish citizens, with passports to match, who were born/raised/always resident in "Northern Ireland".

Counterpoint Right now you are the only person on the thread who has been deleted, so you should stop accusing others of being aggressive.

All I have to say to that, counterpoint, is REPORTED.

@MNHQ

I do hope you are applying the "3 strikes" policy to racism seeing as counterpart has had deletions and her last comment is the most openly racist one yet.

I’m sure you think you’re really witty and clever, counterpoint, but you’re really just coming across as an offensive arse.