To say I'm half Irish

[Winederlust]

Just wanted to settle a petty argument between DH and I.
I was born in England. As was my mum. My dad also. However both his parents were born in ROI. They moved to the UK as young adults and met, married and settled with a family in England.
I think that, although my dad was born in England, he is full blooded Irish. Which in turn makes me half Irish. My DH reckons I'm quarter at best.
Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but just interested in the general MN population's thoughts?

Away with your “full blood” and “half blood”. This is what leads to the double-barrelled ancestry Americans on Facebook telling people of colour that they aren’t as Irish as Americans with ancestors who left the country in 1840. That their blood is polluted.

I’m Irish and a woman of colour, I’ve been told many of time by exclusively Brits and Americans that I can’t be Irish because I’m mixed race.

You are entitled to a passport if you want one.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Weegie&amp=true

This is pretty true actually

You aren't Irish at all. You were born here as were both your parents. But I agree you can think you are if you like.

@BanKittenHeels

I’m Irish and a woman of colour, I’ve been told many of time by exclusively Brits and Americans that I can’t be Irish because I’m mixed race.

That's awful. But not exclusive to people Brits and Americans. Still horrible for you, though.

Chinchinatii
If you have Fitz in your surname it's a Norman surname not Viking.
But the Normans were descended from the Vikings.

No wonder the passport office is kept busy. It's confounding.

I’ve been told many of time by exclusively Brits and Americans that I can’t be Irish because I’m mixed race.

What an awful attitude BanKittenHeels. What year are these people living in? And how do they describe the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar?

The Irish Passport Office will agree with the OP, Vivienmary

@serenada - you need to write your memoirs!

Your experiences would be wonderful to read. I have an aunt who was a fierce camogie player back in the days when the women wore wool skirts to play. I have a clear memory of watching her play a match in Clones, Monaghan, wayyyyy back in the early 70s. The field was a sea of mud and there was a steady heavy drizzle the whole day.

I'm tempted, too @mathsanxiety. Problem is we are all respectable, professional women now. Perhaps once we are retired...

Haven’t read all your posts, but I am actual Irish (well northern Irish) and if you told me you were Irish I would just smile and think isn’t it lovely you identify as Irish but not actually think of you as Irish but rather English with Irish roots. But knock yourself out and even get an Irish passport.

Don't put it off, please!

The generation of women who traveled around playing on godforsaken fields, in wool outfits, often with nowhere decent to change or wash before or after, were a wonderful bunch of Irish women who paved the way for future generations. My aunt was born in 1946 and worked in England during the heady days of the swinging late 60s and in NI in the early 70s (not so swinging, but a lively place for different reasons) after getting a qualification in a field related to agriculture. Women's sport and women's aspirations were considered matters to laugh about back in those days. Camogie was just about acceptable because it was a GAA sport.

@mathsanxiety

Oh yes. And it's a tough game. I'd like to do more research into it. The club is still going, actually and I know so much about it as it was parents of my school friends that set it up.

The mum was a nurse who came over in the 60s and wanted to set up something for the nurses who came in the 80s. She had quite a battle trying to get permission for us to use the field (at the time the council wanted to encourage football, rugby, tennis, etc).

Very interesting times.

The thing is we were all tennis and netball girls. We went to one of those London convent schools where we were very ladylike.

The girls who came over from Ireland were all girls who had been playing for years. We were absolutely thrashed. I think the score was 20-1.

We didn't have a clue. or stand a chance

Put it this way, I think it's because of our unique history that we are loathe to be described as English, even if born here. It's almost like blasphemy lol. The same animosity probably isn't true for some other cultures who moved to England. I suspect that's why people are so proud to say they're Irish. It's 104 years since the British took out and shot the 7 signatories to the Irish proclamation - without trial - just murdered in cold blood.

www.gov.ie/en/publication/583995-the-executed-leaders-of-the-1916-rising/

This is a list of the 7 signatories. All shot dead by the British Army in Kilmainham Gaol (which I recommend a tour of if you're ever in Dublin). They gave their lives - THEIR LIVES - for love of country. That is some loyalty.

Version of it sang by Rod Stewart here

Both of them go into a little of the history before singing it.

If you sing the Fields of Athenry when watching Ireland play rugby against England - THEN YOU BE IRISH.

Hahahaha there's a few girls competitive camogie teams around my parts of London. I'll ask them

I firmly believe that the utterly idiotic decision by Fine Gael prior to the last election to commemorate the RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary), a group of which were the Black & Tans cemented the downfall of Varadkar's government and the rise of votes for Sinn Féin.

Learn the words to this one OP and you'll definitely pass for Irish (became No 1 on Irish iTunes and even rated highly on Aussie and British iTunes after Varadkar's decision to commemorate them. Ireland went mental.

I found this interview really emotional too. I know Rod is Scottish, but he obviously has an affinity with the Irish.

A good friend of mine has grandparents who are Native American, French, Scottish and English.

He is 100% Canadian.

My parents were born in different countries than I was. I consider myself 100% nationality of my birth country. Where they were born really has no bearing on my culture.

Sorry, that link doesn't show the emotional part.

Btw
This is quite brilliant text if you wish to read it - it's The Proclamation that caused those 7 brilliant men to be shot dead by the British.

POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN:
In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA
P. H. PEARSE
JAMES CONNOLLY
THOMAS MacDONAGH
EAMONN CEANNT
JOSEPH PLUNKETT

To say that Irish and English cultures are similar, you really haven't got a clue. Yes, we both speak English, but that's where the similarities end.
You are a product of your history and we have VASTLY different histories, and perceptions of it.

Ireland was full of monasteries, farming, Kings and druids and paganism. Well until St. Patrick converted us all lol.

England was busy plundering and conquering other nations. We (the Irish) were quite content in our own land.

I often wonder whether Scottish people take offence to being called British or mistaken for being English.

It’s complicated, isn’t it?

For example, my parents were from Ireland and X (I won’t say where as there aren’t many of us with this particular mix and it might be revealing) but I was born and raised in England.

My husband is English and our children were born in Canada.

So the children are Canadian but... Are they fully English because both their parents were born and raised in England, or are they half English, one quarter Irish, and one quarter X? If the latter, that totally erases the fact that their mother, me, is English. Why do their grandparents’ nationalities count but mine doesn’t?

So, in short, call yourself whatever you want!

2 million people wouldn't have died from the 'famine', if we weren't under British rule. 2 million people died because of cruel British landlords who taxed us into oblivion. We had plenty of cattle, sheep, goats, corn which could have let us survive, but it was the British who caused the 'famine'. Genocide.
As Boris Johnson's father said - not verbatim - 'let the Irish shoot each other if they like'.
We were viewed as sub-human. When actually, we're an extremely well educated country. One of the highest in terms of university graduates in Europe. We were always educated. But because we spoke a different language, we were seen as less than.

but not all irish people agreed with the violent uprising.
some were unionists and some were nationalists rather than republicans.
some wanted ireland to remain united to britain, but with home rule, and to have a peaceful negotiated constitutional change, which had in fact begun.

violence did not cease when the british left.

things are never simply black and white.