"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.

In some places Irish and Italian catholics were definitely discriminated against and formed into close knit supportive communities to survive this. The Kennedys changed that but he was the first Catholic president and his Catholicism was seen as a great barrier to him being elected. It’s not just about some romantic notion of Celtic homelands (or it might be now but it wasn’t in the early to mid 20th c).

Ireland has a good reputation around the world, England doesn’t.

@queenofarles

Nothing wrong with saying I’m Italian American or Irish American .

We’ve been to Arthur Avenue In the Bronx a few years back and the south Italian identity and heritage is just so strong , the shops, food, even how some dressed, it’s so Fascinating , everyone has a story about their grand/great parents and how they got here , They are very proud of their Ancestry.

And I think belonging to a sub tribe within the wider population is a nice feeling!

I am just plain old Irish and I would like to have somewhere i could go where I'd be accepted as not one of the wider population, but one of us

Makes complete sense.

@wallowmall

I'm on a few quilt Facebook groups and a few times have had to gently persuade people that their Irish relative living in Ireland probably doesn't want a quilt made up of shamrocks and leprechauns.

😁

Oh bless, that'd be so funny. Imagine receiving that!

@cuttlefishgame

I've done a fair bit of family history research in my time and have found all sorts going back centuries.

What I do find odd is that Americans become so invested in their great-great 1/16th's Irish ancestor rather than the other 15/16th's, made up of Italian, English, Hungarian, German, Spanish, French etc. They concentrate only on the Irish connection and ignore the rest.

Yes, I think that’s the bit that makes a mockery of all the, ‘I’m Irish’ comments. They’re not trying to claim any of the other heritages that they are equally part of!

I’d heard that before about US students spending a year at university in Ireland and assuming the Irish students would all welcome them with open arms as being ‘one of us’!

OP You do know that Ancestry is engaged in a scam to get you to pay to give them your DNA so that they can sell it on for profit. The valuation of these DNA ancestry businesses is based on that business model. It is a scam because beyond a couple of generations the DNA ancestry thing is basically about as scientific as astrology

Not true.

Ancestry don't sell your DNA.

www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/legal/privacystatement

It's also very different to astrology. Yes it's true that the way the site works is by comparing your DNA against the DNA of everyone else who tested, as well as against a reference panel of people whose DNA has been tested and whose ancestry has been rigorously investigated. The process isn't perfect and the algorithm does update regularly but the broad results are accurate and it's not a "scam".

www.ancestry.com/dna/lp/how-does-ancestrydna-work

I am not a salesperson for Ancestry - other DNA tests are available. But they are the market leader in the UK, and for most people using the tests in the UK it's about cousin matching and finding other test-takers who share your DNA.

Did you not see some years back that Antonio Banderas was nominated for an Oscar as a “person of colour”?! He’s Spanish for fuck sake.

I remember that, it is a thing.

I always thought the claim of having Irish ancestors was just a ploy of some wanna be politician to get votes

[quote OchonAgusOchonOh]@Naunet - oh, I see what you mean. I thought you meant officially in terms of ethnicity.[/quote]
To be fair, it’s not just Americans, I’ve seen Mexicans do it too, and in a way that shocks me even more because they’re likely to have Spanish heritage considering Spain and Portugal colonised Mexico.

I've met Americans who have said they are french or Dutch or whatever. When I've asked if they speak the language they say oh no. So then I ask is it that your mum or dad are from France or Netherlands? Nope. Turns out to be some great great grandparent. So they may be like a 16th whatever, max. With no language and no cultural connection.
Google Louisiana French, it’s fascinating!

one of the reasons people of Irish descent living in the UK don’t often flag themselves as ‘Irish’ the way Americans of Irish descent do is that there remains significant levels of anti-Irish prejudice towards Irish people.

Of course. But it’s not just Irish-American. I worked with an American woman once who described herself as “Dutch-American” due to one Dutch great grandparent. It doesn’t bother me, people can view that as an important part of their identity if they want, but you wouldn’t often find a Brit describing themselves as “Dutch-British” due to one great-grandparent.

However, is this uniquely an American trait? Maybe we’re the unusual ones and we just don’t know it because America is the place mainly portrayed on tv, no language barrier etc. The French may well also describe themselves as “Irish-French” due to a great great grandparent, I have no idea.

@CantBeAssed

I always thought the claim of having Irish ancestors was just a ploy of some wanna be politician to get votes

I agree. They definitely look at the electorate and get a breakdown of its ethnicity and if the politician is Tipp-ex white then they're not going to aim for the hispanic vote. When will the melting pot lose track of their 1 / 16th Irish/Scottish ancestory!? When it's 1 /32nd?

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

I got harangued by an Irish American online once for being English due to the Irish Famine.

I have, as it happens, only English Ancestry.

At the time of the famine my ancestors were illiterate and didn’t have the vote.

It is very hard for me to understand how it’s any part of my fault - it’s just an accident of birth.

The IRA were massively funded by Noraid, contributions by Irish Americans. It only stopped after Bush banned contributions to terrorist organisations in the wake of 9/11.

A decade earlier I was watching the news with a mix of Americans and Canadians and they were fully amazed that as an English person I was appalled by the Orangemen and their marching through Catholic areas. They thought every English person would be behind them. No nuanced understanding at all.

Years before that I worked in Central London, used to drink in the Sussex Arms (bombed: 1 dead several injured), listening to the controlled explosions going off all the way up Tottenham Court Rd. hosted a party of American colleagues who moaned about how scuzzy it was not to have rubbish bins on tube platforms. “And why do you think that might be?” was met with a flummoxed ‘no idea’.

And I think belonging to a sub tribe within the wider population is a nice feeling!

I am just plain old Irish and I would like to have somewhere i could go where I'd be accepted as not one of the wider population, but one of us

This makes sense

For decades now though any anti-Irishness displays only a very lower middle class hyacinth bouquet mindset. I never worried about anti-Irishness in the UK, as the only people who ever said anything to me were not in positions of power above me with any control over my life. This is how it is now. Ireland is a modern European country with adequate/good health care and a well educated population. It's so dated to look down on the Irish. Anybody who reveals how out of date they are, I just pitied them, and that was over 15 years ago as although I spent 13 years in London, I've been back 15 years now.

I think it’s a beautiful thing for people to identify with their roots and link to their ancestors.

Unless an American is Native American, really they should be something American, including British, Australian, etc. They’re people who see themselves as ‘American’ because they’re white and instead ask those who look Asian, Black, Latino, etc “where are you really from”.

I think your post also shows privilege. Because someone who look Asian or black hasn’t got the luxury of identifying as from Yorkshire because even if their parents came here as part of Windrush or following the 2nd world war, for e.g. , they’ll be asked where they’re really from or worse be told to go back home at some point.

One of my parents siblings moved to USA and thus my cousin's are American. Absolutely no links to forced immigration/early American struggles etc.

They are 1/8th Irish, as am I, through the same family member.

They describe themselves as Irish American. I am aware of my Irish heritage, but don't prioritise it my over cultural backgrounds in the way my cousin does.

It is curious.

Obviously I don't know what my experience would have been in the USA.
Although I'm Irish my surname is English. And when I was in the USA the people I spoke to didn't seem to register that I was Irish not English.

There's no reason why they should be experts on accents a continent away but it did used to surprise me.

@queenofarles it really is, and I love listening to it. However the most recent "french" Americans I met were from Chicago 😆

@NutellaEllaElla

It's bordering on appropriation. How they can call themselves Irish/Scottish when they've never even been, couldn't point it out on a map is beyond me. It's embarrassing.

Yep - it’s their (partial) ancestry, not their nationality. Joe Biden said “I’m Irish”. No you’re not mate, you’re American through and through. It’s this kind of nonsense that led to Americans supporting and funding the IRA when they were blowing people up in Britain.

It’s very selective too. Loads of Americans call themselves Irish because they have an Irish great-grandma or something, but imagine how it would have gone down if Obama had proudly called himself Kenyan!

It's worth noting that a DNA test can't identify a genetic 'ethnicity'. It can only tell you which modern populations your genetic make up is most similar to. It doesn't necessarily mean you're literally from there. They call it an 'ethnicity estimate'. Taking into account the way that your DNA can come in different proportions from each grandparent (i.e. not necessarily 25% from each) as well, you could very easily have a set of Irish great-grandparents and not obviously appear genetically 'Irish'.

Psychological equivalent of losing virginity! Lol

My ancestry is Irish and I'm American. I have some distant relatives in Ireland but never went to actual Ireland until I was in my 30s.

In my parents' generation, in a Northeast US city, people said "Irish" or "French" or "Italian" to refer to communities/neighbourhoods/people. So my parents were second-generation immigrants but still lived in an "Irish" neighbourhood and met at the "Irish" church. Growing up people would hear my surname and be like "Oh you're Irish".

As I recall, sometime in the 80s people started saying "Irish-American" etc. Because obviously not actually Irish. I would never dream of calling myself Irish now.

I think some people do try to cling to it because it's a way to avoid getting sucked into the homgenising machine.

But on the other hand it can be a sort of cringey and sinister way of appropriating a culture and trying to get a free pass from recognising one's own white privilege. Like no Biden, you're a white American Chad, own it.

Kingsley Read the UCL link for the actual science.

Ancestry hang on to your DNA unless you expressly ask them to destroy it. Why do you think that might be? They have no reason to hang on to it unless they regard it as having value beyond the immediate results of their analysis?

These are businesses and are valued by the market for the DNA records they hold.

@CantBeAssed

I always thought the claim of having Irish ancestors was just a ploy of some wanna be politician to get votes

Well, it’s certainly that, too. Biden reiterating the US position on Brexit and the NI protocol — that nothing can be allowed to happen re. borders that threatens the Good Friday Agreement — is in part a matter of not alienating the sizeable Irish-American vote.

A decade earlier I was watching the news with a mix of Americans and Canadians and they were fully amazed that as an English person I was appalled by the Orangemen and their marching through Catholic areas. They thought every English person would be behind them. No nuanced understanding at all.

That happens here though, I've been told I obviously supported the IRA as an adult because I have an Irish name 🤔 And plenty have no idea about loyalist involvement.