"I'm Irish American"

[MacMahon]

I've noticed that to many Americans their Irish, Scots, Italian etc. roots are a big part of their current identity. As a nation of immigrants in a New World I can see why this link to earlier generations is interesting and important.

But it's also something I find confusing.

I live in Yorkshire. I'm English. I have Irish ancestors on both side (great grandparents and great x2 grandparents). If I was in America this would quite possibly be a big deal. I'd be an Irish American and identify with the struggles and persecution that my people suffered at the hands of the English. But I wasn't born in America, I was born in Leeds, and my Irish ancestry play zero role in my identity.

I'm on an ancestry group and Americans are getting that DNA test done and finding out that, contrary to family lore that they are Cherokee or Mexican or Italian Americans, they're actually pretty much 'just' 100% British.

It makes me wonder how authentic this celebrating or identifying with their Irish/First Nations/Italian roots is, and how much is just (mistaken) tribalism and division.

@millenialblush

I agree. I have spent a lot of time in the USA and I always found it a bit cringe how much they play on being 'Irish'. Irish pubs everywhere, the obsession with St Patrick's day, dying the river green in Chicago. Yet ask them to point it out on a map and they'd be stuck...

And half of those 'Irish' people are as much English which is awkward

Not really @Courtier - they're simply celebrating the heritage they are proud of.

I think a lot of emigrants leave their home country with a very heavy heart. There is a lot of pain and loneliness and sadness at what was left behind. I think that translates into trying to keep something of your culture alive and passing it down the generations.

I suspect that sadness is stronger the bigger the distance between your new home and the homeland. The UK is geographically close so I suspect easier to adjust. I think America and Australia being so far from Ireland makes it a more intense separation. I could be wrong.

I think there's probably a lot of truth in that @jewel1968 - especially if you think of when most emigrated at a time when saying goodbye meant it would be the last time you saw your home country and family etc. Very sad indeed for all involved.

I had a lot of relatives who emigrated in the early 1900s. On Ancestry there are a lot of shipping records, some of the people who went to new Jersey and Canada made it back for visits after the Great War. I don't think any who went to Australia were ever in Ireland again.
One of the weirdest threads i was ever on was an anti Santa thread, many people couldn't accept that Santa is Santa in Ireland. Father Christmas is alien to me!

@eggandonion

I had a lot of relatives who emigrated in the early 1900s. On Ancestry there are a lot of shipping records, some of the people who went to new Jersey and Canada made it back for visits after the Great War. I don't think any who went to Australia were ever in Ireland again. One of the weirdest threads i was ever on was an anti Santa thread, many people couldn't accept that Santa is Santa in Ireland. Father Christmas is alien to me!

He's only Santa to ye young ones. He was Santy when I was growing up, at least in my part of the country.

I think he is Santy most parts of Ireland but used to be Daddy Christmas in Belfast! The thread was complaining that Santa was creeping in from America. I think Santa exists in parts of Britain?
It was very heated, and may have vanished.

I don’t think you’re genuinely concerned about “division”, OP, you’re just a bit sneery about this American habit.

Why should anyone deny their heritage?

If you want to deny yours then thats up to you OP, but the tone of this thread is American-bashing with a nasty anti-immigrant, mocking of cultural pride undertone. Which I guess you knew it would he.

Aside from that, just 2 posts in 'African American' was mentioned🙄 alongside a truly dim-minded comment. This post wasn't about African Americans but it never takes long for racists to stick their oar in, whatever a 'foreigner' post and thread may entail.

@eggandonion

I think he is Santy most parts of Ireland but used to be Daddy Christmas in Belfast! The thread was complaining that Santa was creeping in from America. I think Santa exists in parts of Britain? It was very heated, and may have vanished.

I remember that thread. Basically, if he was Santa to you, you were terribly déclassé and tawdrily American-influenced and wrong, and all right-minded people said Father Christmas.

The only thing worse was if you called him ‘Santa Claus’ and didn’t do SC being literally real with your children. Then you were tawdry and wrong, and a fun sponge denying your children the magic of Christmas.

One of the most relaxing things about being back in Ireland is that you can say words like Santa and kids without being judged! I used to say them anyway but the sideways eye and the ''below stairs'' vibe came your way!

@Emilyontmoor

Anyway I am now off to join the huge crowds celebrating Halloween in our high street, a Celtic festival that was not at all a feature of English culture twenty years ago when I first encountered the American phenomenon. It grew in importance in America, in no small part due to the immigration from Ireland, where it has always been celebrated, during the famine. American culture flew with it and now so has England…

I was a child in the 70s. We celebrated Halloween in NW England then- perhaps the Irish Catholic influence? We did t ' trick or treat' though.

Reading this thread, I don't know why the fuck I'm still in England as Ireland (& Northern Ireland) is truly amazing without the criticism or judgement that always seems to come with English people.

I think I need to step away from this thread now as I truly love my English DH, friends and where I live, but threads like these always remind me that there are a lot of English fuckers just below a very thin veneer, which I truly despise.

@ManifestingWisdom

One of the most relaxing things about being back in Ireland is that you can say words like Santa and kids without being judged! I used to say them anyway but the sideways eye and the ''below stairs'' vibe came your way!

This Santa discussion is confusing me, where can you not say Santa without being judged? I grew up in SE England and think Santa/Santa Claus/Father Christmas were all used pretty much interchangeably. Am I committing a terrible faux pas?

@ManifestingWisdom

One of the most relaxing things about being back in Ireland is that you can say words like Santa and kids without being judged! I used to say them anyway but the sideways eye and the ''below stairs'' vibe came your way!

What I’m enjoying about being back is the lack of hysteria about schools, Ofsted reports and a thinly-disguised concern with social class and ‘getting ahead’. There’s only a tiny number of fee-paying schools, and pretty much everyone’s kids here just go to the nearest school.

I don't think I ever said Father Christmas when I lived in England, I had no idea I might have been upsetting people.

My kids went to local community school, my northern Ireland relations were horrified. No transfer tests, no blazers, long summer holidays, transition year.

Reminds me of the Irish poet who gave a talk about Christmas at an event in Leeds (I think). He talked affectionately about being a Wren Boy at Christmas time. After his talk a woman came up to him full of sadness and compassion. She thought he had said he had been a Rent Boy in his youth.

As a Scot living in the USA for 20 years, I must admit I give people claiming to be 1/16 Scottish a wide berth.

They tend to think themselves "more Scottish" than the Scottish, so for my sanity I have to stay away.

They have an old fashioned, inaccurate view of what my country is like but are not interested in being educated about the modern country.

Youdial--When I lived in the UK, I found people loved to talk about their "real" American experiences of riding on Greyhound buses and talking to folks in diners. But had no interest in talking to complicated, intellectual Americans who were around them and who didn't fit their simplistic image of what real Americans are like. They didn't want to be educated about the U.S., either. But so fucking what?

@PrincessNutella

Youdial--When I lived in the UK, I found people loved to talk about their "real" American experiences of riding on Greyhound buses and talking to folks in diners. But had no interest in talking to complicated, intellectual Americans who were around them and who didn't fit their simplistic image of what real Americans are like. They didn't want to be educated about the U.S., either. But so fucking what?

Why would British people in the UK need to be "educated' about the USA when they were having informall conversations about their holiday experiences.

This sort of "educating' that some Americans like to do is what this thread is (partially) about. I do not need to "educated" about Russia by a Russian American. I'm Russian- you're not so sod off. This is what the Italians and Scottish etc are saying.

Well said znaika.

I've experienced being educated about America by Americans. I've never quite experienced being educated about any other country in the same way and I didn't ask for it. I seem to have met a number of Americans who feel their country is the most important and we all need to know about it. Thankfully I've also met some more balanced Americans.

I read somewhere that the largest number of immigrants to the US were from Germany.

The number from Britain (in particular England) wasn't proportionally that great. The English were the first to move to the Thirteen Colonies in large numbers and so when they became independent (nb a couple of the Founding Fathers had English-born parents) it meant that the English language became the default, setting up the appearance that English ancestry was the default. This became less and less accurate over time, particularly with German and Irish immigration in the nineteenth century.

And of course the slaves didn't count. The wonderful US Constitution that we are all supposed to admire didn't afford them any protection.

Also the early Americans sort of repudiated their British links. For example the reason why the Methodists became so big there is because most of the Anglicans switched to them. And Britain was a huge rival to the US right up to WW2 and there were Cold War-style proxy skirmishes as late as the 1920s.

I do wonder at the phrase 'African American'. Africa is a hugely diverse place and African Americans have little in common with people from any part of it. Still, if the Africans don't object then I don't see what anyone else should.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I find it revealing that the English people who start these threads (and they regularly do) always focus on Irish-Americans. They'll throw in other ethnicities a bit but really it's the Irish-Americans they're annoyed with. Why? Who knows, it has nothing to do with English people.

My theory is that it is because of the English that there are millions of Irish-Americans. Historically, Cromwell rounded up significant % of the population when he invaded and deported them to America to make room for English colonists. Then there was the Great Famine where the English were forcibly exporting grain from Ireland despite the blighted potato harvest failures, causing millions to flee to America as starving refugees.

Mostly Famine emigrants, and people leaving after it due to poverty, which continued after the South became independent.

The population of Ireland in 1841 (pre-Famine); was 8.8 million.

In 1851 it was 6.5 million.

In 1931 it was 4.2 million.

Now it's 6.9 million. It still hasn't reached pre-Famine levels. I remember traveling round Connaught and seeing lots of ruins of deserted hamlets.

In comparison the population of the isla Great Britain was 14.9m in 1841 and is 64.6m now.

A lot of Irish actually got turned away from American ports. They also went elsewhere. One of my Irish ancestors was transported to Australia for theft. The other men joined the army and stayed in the colonies when they were discharged. The women from memory were mostly domestics. None that I know of went to the US.