Why is there so much sneering at Americans with European ancestry?

[BrBa]

I don’t understand! I identify with all my ancestors whether they came as religious refugees or early colonisers, were already indigenous to the region or brought in as slaves.

Yours
Swiss, German, Native American North, Central and South, Sephardic, Irish, South East African, Scottish, Acadian/French, and English

Irish living in Ireland.
Happy to have President Biden visit. The people I know were all quite interested, watched bits of it on TV etc. None of them were complaining about the visit or being sneery in any way.
I have no problem with him describing himself as Irish, I know what he means, it's just the American way.

As an aside, nobody in my family has met Miggeldy!! I feel quite left out now😂

Over the last few pages, there's quite a number of posts all claiming that the people of the Republic of Ireland understand the "I'm Irish!" declaration from Biden and others like him as referring to ancestry.

This is treating the people as though they all have the same view. We don't really have to go far to find anecdotal examples of how there are Irish people who correct Americans on this:

“I’m 100 per cent Irish,” says Brian Kelleher. His paternal grandparents came from Galway. He’s puzzled, though. “A friend of mine has been to Ireland, and he was in a pub somewhere, and he said he was Irish. He was gently corrected and told, ‘You’re Irish-American. We’re Irish’.”

And:

“I think the Irish in Ireland see us as Americans, the high and mighty Americans, who are well-to-do, and who made it, especially here in Boston,” says Kim Camillo."

Mary Beth Keane had an article in the Irish Times with the headline "‘I am so sick of Irish-Americans wishing for an old country they’ve heard about in stories’". She wrote:

"...because I know America has been good to us, and it would be wiser not to deny what I actually am: American. That's how our Irish relations see us, so why are we so reluctant to see ourselves that way?"

Already we can see that Americans of Irish ancestry have had what we can correctly describe as mixed experiences when declaring "I'm Irish!" to people from the Republic of Ireland. The same holds true for those of us who are from Northern Ireland too.

So, it's clearly not solely a British thing. People from the UK and Republic of Ireland have the same understanding of the English language. They both make indistinguishable distinctions of language identifiers, i.e., no real difference at a fundamental level.

And people from both are more often puzzled by such declarations as well as viewing them as a source of amusement to some degree.

As a paddy I can tell you that unfortunately many of the American's who can afford to come to Ireland to find their 'roots' are privilege, loud, wealthy, tone-deaf and patronising. That's the upshot.
I got chatting to some US visitors in a bar in the north and the guy, from NYC in his 60s, proudly told me he and his family used to donate to Noraid - who funded the IRA.
I told him that I had family members killed and injured in bombs planted by the IRA, that my childhood was marred by the violence of the Troubles in general, and that we never felt safe because the violence, bombs in particular, could be completely arbitrary in it's choice of victims.
I told him that him telling me he funded Noraid was the was the equivalent of me telling him I donated money to Al-Qaeda just before the 9/11 attacks.

It shut him up for about 5 minutes. But the fact that he even thought that was fine to come out with in Belfast of all places, just shows you the kind of American's who come over and claim ancestry.

While it appears that most people in the Republic of Ireland were happy about Biden's visit, it would be inaccurate to say all of them were.

To say nothing about Northern Ireland where it was a non-event.

Attached is a poster put up by Sinn Féin’s young political wing, Ogrà Shinn Féin stating Biden wasn't welcome...

Again, point is there exists more than one view point even on a small island which has two countries on it.

I’m 100 per cent Irish,” says Brian Kelleher. His paternal grandparents came from Galway. He’s puzzled, though. “A friend of mine has been to Ireland, and he was in a pub somewhere, and he said he was Irish. He was gently corrected and told, ‘You’re Irish-American. We’re Irish’.”

I'd love to know where his maternal grandparents were from.Guessing not Ireland, or it would have been said. So how does he get 100%?

Exactly. It's the cherrypicking that puzzles and amuses people from the UK and ROI.

I think a lot of it is down to them growing up in a family that mythologises the history of their Irish ancestors. Mythology is about emotions and not facts. I touched on this in regards to Biden a few pages back as he does the same thing.

I was talking about using traditional surnames as first names. I’m pretty sure first names like Harrison, Jackson, McKenzie etc were first used in the US, but they’re pretty commonplace here now.
But I’m sorry for having detailed the thread!

There were the American tourists who told me a spoke ‘good American’ for an Irish girl. I thanked the thickos politely, and they left a decent tip.

Or the ones who kept photographing my class on a school trip to a museum because we looked ‘so cute’ in our uniforms - until our teacher finally
lost her rag and told them to sod off.

Interesting! I didn’t know that. And sorry for having detailed the thread!

But then there was the couple who asked me if I knew Eileen, from wherever, and I was about to tell them to do one, and that all Irish people Don’t actually know each other - and then they said the name of the village and I DID actually know her, she was a friend of aunts. 😂

‘I’m 100 per cent Irish,” says Brian Kelleher. His paternal grandparents came from Galway. He’s puzzled, though. “A friend of mine has been to Ireland, and he was in a pub somewhere, and he said he was Irish. He was gently corrected and told, ‘You’re Irish-American. We’re Irish’.”

😂

I have a US colleague who’s Polish through and through. Except it’s her maternal grandparents who are Polish, her own parents were born in the US and on her dad’s side they can trace the family back to the 1700’s USA.

Lol, same, my eyes were already rolling at them when I realised....yes,I actually do know exactly who you mean.

That's the other way round as the UK has long used surnames as forenames. Take the name John...only a forename, right?

No, it's a surname that dates as far back as 15th Century Wales.

So, we've been doing that well before the European colonisation of North America. Our customs and habits migrated with us.

I used to think Americans were all loud and patronising until I actually started travelling to the US, then I realised many of them aren’t like that arable, they’re lovely, and the ones that travel with their kids, parents, cousin, dog etc in tow to see the ‘old country’ really weren’t representative.

Just a small point - a pp mentioned that St Patrick's day parades are an American import and that they only started in Ireland in the 1990s... but I well remember freezing at St Patrick Day parades in small town rural Ireland in the early 70s. Lots of 'floats', well, decorated trailers pulled by tractors or vans, marching bands, the works. They might be an import but were certainly here earlier than the 90s.

I find their obsession with their own heritage (proud iterating of ancestors e.g. 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Scottish, 1/4 German, 1/8 Scandinavian, 1/8 Russian etc), whilst often racist to other races quite galling.

No one cares about your heritage!

“John” goes back as a first name to the bible. John was an apostle of Jesus and a writer of the gospels in the New Testament.

I think most Johns in Europe are named after him, not as a jaunty repurposing of a Welsh surname.

Of course, John has a Hebrew origin.

But it doesn't appear as a surname in the UK until the 15th century in Wales which is the point about a PPs belief we took the US trend of using surnames as forenames. We clearly didn't. 🤷‍♂️

No-one was talking about a "jaunty repurposing of a Welsh surname."

Regarding Irish and Northern Ireland...

I'm not British and I don't live in the UK. For me, and for most people I know, Irish are people from the ROI. People from NI are referred to as British.

Ireland is an independent country and their citizens are Irish.

' a pp mentioned that St Patrick's day parades are an American import and that they only started in Ireland in the 1990s.'

er, that's rubbish! St Patrick's Day has been a feast day for centuries, and as we all get the day off in Ireland a celebration. I remember parades etc from when I was a kid 50 years ago

Looked it up and the parades did start in America, but came to Ireland in 1903 (according to google at least). The feast day was celebrated before then of course.

'Regarding Irish and Northern Ireland...

I'm not British and I don't live in the UK. For me, and for most people I know, Irish are people from the ROI. People from NI are referred to as British.
Ireland is an independent country and their citizens are Irish.'

Many people, myself included, would say they are Irish if they're from the north. I actually say I'm Northern Irish, which I am.
Anyone born on the island of Ireland can have an Irish passport, anyone born in the North can also have a UK passport. You can hold them both at the same time. Many people do. Both catholic and protestant.
I live in England and am called and considered Irish by most people I meet because of my accent. They don't make the distinction.

Well yes. Irish people are from the country of Ireland, and NI is definitely in the UK.
But lots of people in NI consider themselves Irish and have IRish passports, They are also Irish. Although (and this will make those people angry) many Irish people from Ireland don't really consider them as Irish. Because they are from the UK.

It's complicated.

@Dishwasherdisaster ah well, your Google search certainly beats my experience as someone actually from Ireland...

There is a mix of identities in NI @Alondra.