Do you still celebrate your Irish roots, even if you're not Irish

[Stressedout65]

One of my paternal great grandfathers was Irish & I had an Irish surname until I got married. I even have a piece of clothing made from the Irish family tartan with the family name coat of arms emblazoned on it. I wanted to wear it to work today as we had the option of dressing for St Patricks Day (in England). I chickened out as it felt false & attention seeking. An Irish colleague said I should have worn it if I wanted to as it's part of my Irish roots & heritage. I feel my Irish roots are now so diluted it didn't feel right. How far back do you celebrate your roots & heritage if they're different to what you actually are now?
I do feel drawn to Ireland, it's culture & music. I don't know if this "connection" I feel is exaggerated because I lost my dad a year ago

Well "we" is Dublin.
I obviously can't speak for anyone else.

I was brought up in NI.

Bacon (ribs) and cabbage was an absolute staple of my childhood

My grandfather was from Ireland and my grandmother had Irish heritage. That makes me technically half Irish in heritage. I don't do anything for St Patrick's Day though, as my nationality is Canadian.

My maternal grandparents and paternal great grandfather were Irish and I went to Ireland a fair bit as a kid. I grew up with my Irish Nan living with us and my mum and her siblings felt v Irish so my heritage didn’t feel distant.

I am proud of my heritage and my grandparents hard work and struggles when they came to the UK but don’t feel Irish and don’t go on about it really. To be honest everyone seems to have an Irish grandparent knocking around somewhere so it doesn’t feel special but there does seem to be a thing about bigging up Irish roots in this country. I suppose it shows pride which is nice but always makes me cringe a bit when people go OTT. But I’m probably a miserable bitch.

It made me laugh when I went to NYC and the tour guide told us he was Irish. His family had emigrated to the US….during the potato famine.

16 Great great grandparents.

I know 1 of them was Irish. Mayor of Dublin I think. But that seems too distant for me.

My grandparents and parents are from Lancashire. So I have much more link with that part of the world. Yet I have never lived there so that seems strange as well to celebrate those roots.

To be fair, if you are positively disposed to a culture and they offer something fun to do, it doesn't take much to want to join in.

DH spent three years in Edinburgh and we had some really fun Burns nights in that time. So we celebrate it every year, despite not being Scottish. I don't see any issue with that.

My mum and dad are both Irish but we live in England. Though I wasn’t born there, I’ve always felt Irish, was raised in an Irish house, always felt more Irish than English and have automatic citizenship. I used to celebrate St Patrick’s but not so much now as I guess I’m too tired for a mid week party. Probably going off track of the OP but I have found over the years that people of Irish heritage are often described as half Irish (or plastic paddies ) whereas, I went to school with children of Greek Cypriots, Indian, Jamaicans, Turkish and they were all described fully as the nationality of their parents; never described as half. It’s bizarre.

Boiled bacon and cabbage? That's a new one on me. Don't know anyone who eats that

Really? I have never met an Irish person that doesn't eat bacon and cabbage or at least know about it.

I'm from the west of Scotland and have the usual 'mongrel' background of mostly Highland/Lowland Scots, North of England, Northern Ireland etc, but I was born and brought up in Scotland and therefore I am Scottish.

Same background. 4 Irish great grandparents and I still have my Irish birth surname. Plus a father who declaims to everyone he meets that he's Irish (think accent to rival Rab C). I've been to Belfast. Never been to RoI.

Maybe there's less of the Irish diaspora wherever OP lives, that it seems a bit more ... of a novelty there? **

I feel sorry for Irish chefs and diners. Being asked to do boiled bacon and cabbage by people sentimentalising about the old country must be like being expected to love fish and chips if you're English. I like both but not as much as you'd think.

@limitedperiodonly

Boris Johnson is a British subject just as are all people born abroad whose parent(s) are British. It most often applies to children of members of the Armed Services. I think at the time of Johnson's birth in 1964 it may have only applied to a child whose father was British. I could be wrong but I don't think British mothers could automatically confer their nationality to their children born abroad which is odd seeing as you generally know who your mother is but your father could be anyone.

Johnson's parents would have registered him with the British Consulate or embassy in New York when he was born which would have been like going down to the register office if they'd been at home in London. He was also a US citizen which is peculiar to people born on US soil. That's not always the case when a baby is born to foreign parents in other countries including the United Kingdom.
Quite often this presents problems when a foreign mother wants to take a US-born baby out of the US in the event of the breakdown of her relationship with the father. She can't without the permission of the father and State Department.

Johnson has relinquished his US citizenship and therefore his right to be US President for tax purposes. Be grateful that he's only fucking up our country and doesn't have the chance to fuck up on the world stage.

Anyway, fascinating though that is it's not the same as the way many people born in Britain or anywhere else are able to acquire Irish citizenship. Why would it be? Ireland and the US are two completely different countries. It is quite wrong to confuse the two but people often get muddled.

If everyone accepts Boris is British then why would it be an issue that a child born of Irish parents is Irish?

I don't see what the armed services has got to do with him, he wasn't born abroad because his father or mother was serving so not actually relevant.

If Boris can be British although he was born elsewhere I can be Irish even though I was born in England. Nothing odd about it, not cultural appropriation, it is exactly the same.

I feel sorry for Irish chefs and diners

Why? The chefs get to decide whether or not to put it on the menu and the diners in Irish restaurants generally get to make their own choice of meal, they won't be force fed cabbage.

@BorderlineHappy

Boiled bacon and cabbage? That's a new one on me. Don't know anyone who eats that

We did growing up.
Boil the bacon and then cook the cabbage in the same water.

@DownNative you are coming across as very sneery

One of my favourite meals growing up. I don't have it often as DH doesn't like it and I can't be bothered doing it for one. With fried bacon it has to be potato farls.

I don't drink Guinness, don't drink alcohol at all in fact.

Born and bred in London to Irish parents. I sound like a cockney, but I very much feel Irish. Very proud of my Irish heritage. I’ve been called ‘plastic Paddy’ before, which I find ridiculous. I grew up on an Irish home. I’m Irish.

(Although I hated bacon & cabbage growing up, and still do now, and I am tee total )

I feel sorry for Irish chefs and diners.

It's not really a restaurant dish

@limitedperiodonly

I don't mind boiled bacon but it's an odd thing to be proud of.

That's an odd thing to say because I can't see anyone claiming to be proud of it. Saying you eat it, you like it or you've heard of it hardly qualifies as claiming to be proud of it.

@SpaceshipDay

(Although I hated bacon & cabbage growing up, and still do now, and I am tee total )

I had a mad craving for it with one of my pregnancies, I think having cabbage twice a day for months put my husband of cabbage for life. I don't think it was genetic though as with another one I craved curry and I have no links to India and with my first it was marshmallows. I swear I had so many marshmallows it wouldn't have been a surprise if the baby had turned out like the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.

Most of my heritage is Irish, other than a bit of Scottish from my paternal grandmother. Growing up, we'd probably think it was quite an Irish household. In the language, turn of phrase, food, humour. The area I lived in was almost all people of Irish heritage. Day to day I'd say I feel more Scottish than Irish, because that's where I was born and raised. I love my Irish roots though, and probably have an unconscious bias/love towards Ireland. It's ingrained.

@ancientgran no one is denying you your right to confer Irish citizenship upon your children or grandchildren if they comply to the criteria but why is it so difficult for you to understand that different countries have different rules about citizenship?

Boris Johnson is British and was American for a while.

I am eligible for Irish citizenship because of my grandparents but I took it up 25 years ago because I qualified as an artist which was a tax break open to people who did not necessarily have any Irish links aside from owning property there.

The Irish government were flexible as to who counted as an artist. They wanted the money and I wanted to save it. Win win.

I have never eaten boiled bacon and cabbage in Ireland and it's been a good 40 years since my non-Irish mum dished it up. She did it with barley and I was fascinated by the clear salty gravy with golden fairy rings of dissolved fat on top. Cheap stews aren't exclusive to the Irish as people from many other backgrounds including the English will attest.

I think if you want to celebrate your Irishness then you should! DH's parents used to live in Ireland (they're not Irish) and it was any excuse for a party. No-one would start nit-picking that you weren't Irish enough.

I've just read up about Irish tartan again. According to what I've read there are not many Irish tartan, but 100's of Scottish ones. I've also read that the tartan is mostly linked to counties in Ireland & to clans in Scotland. However, I have found links of tartan belonging to Irish surnames too, so I'm a bit confused. I don't want to show my surname though as it would be outing, and my name is definitely Irish. (I share it with an Everton & England football player)
Anyway, I'm English & don't consider myself Irish at all. But I have been to Ireland a few times, love the people & the music, so I see no harm in celebrating it. I didn't want to seem false & attention seeking by claiming this link to Irish great grandparents & wearing this tartan if it is genuinely Irish tartan. Losing my dad & looking at my family tree has made me think about it & wonder if there are any very distant relatives such as second cousins in Ireland too

@Uafasach

I feel sorry for Irish chefs and diners

Why? The chefs get to decide whether or not to put it on the menu and the diners in Irish restaurants generally get to make their own choice of meal, they won't be force fed cabbage.

But why would you crave boiled bacon and cabbage or Guinness just because you were Irish? I am of Irish descent and I don't. I don't expect Irish people to.

It seems as ignorant and stereotypical to me as saying all Londoners like jellied eels and gin or all Germans like sausages and lager and all Russians drink vodka.

We all like to wander down memory lane but it is weird to assume that people living in Ireland in 2022 want to eat what your Irish mammy cooked you in England in 1952 or live in that world.

All my great, great grandparents on my dad’s side came here in the 1840s and my name is Irish too. Like you, I think it’s too long and too many generations ago for me to claim any Irishness. I’d hate to be like those odious Americans who rock up in Dublin, claiming to be Irish.

I'm Irish in Ireland and the Americans are very welcome as far as I'm concerned. I think it's very natural to be interested in your roots, in your ancestors. I find it interesting at least.