Fed up with jokes about 'stupid Irish' people?

[Happyspendingthedayinthegarden]

My maternal grandparents both came from Ireland and I am proud of my heritage.

For context I work for a Govt Dept that is very keen on promoting inclusive non-discriminatory policies - we even have to take a regular training programme to ensure that we are aware of direct and indirect discrimination.

Yesterday on a group 'Wellbeing' chat someone put a joke about 'Paddy' which was the usual Irish 'Paddy is stupid' kind of joke. IMO the joke would have been amusing if it had been 'Fred' or 'John' eg: not racially focussed. This joke got several 'likes' & generated other 'Paddy' & 'Murphy' type jokes. I felt insulted but didn't call it out because, well, I felt that would make me a WOKE Party Pooper.

AIBU & over-sensitive?

Irish here - I find this idea that the English are a nation of uncultured swines and that the Celts are somehow bastions of cultured civilisation equally offensive, tbh.

This. You can’t complain about offensive nonsense and then go into a similar rant.

Sorry the Brits don't value literature, music and poetry- eh? Is this satire? I am not being defensive as have Danish heritage only a couple of generations back and still have family there, that is certainly not the view of English people which I think you are getting at.

Tbh, I think this is a divisive nonsense thread!

Absolutely agree with this, Ireland at this stage is far ahead of the Britain in a lot of areas, Britain has been rapidly declining for decades whereas Ireland has been rapidly progressing during that same time and continues to progress

To make such sweeping generalisations about a country that has a population of nearly 70 million as opposed to Ireland's just over 5 million, seems a bit drastic a position.

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This is certainly worth complaing about, there have been cases won for constructive dismissal, where Irish people have been targeted with this sort of rubbish at work. Imagine being the (unjustifably) butt of everyone's "jokes," day in, day out.

Gotback · Today 11:50

Mark Wood is from Ashington in South Northumberland. Us Geordies can tell quickly that someone is from Ashington / Bedlington.

Like some posters here, I have Irish and Wesh ancestry. Dad's dad was from Armagh, mam's mam from Ballymena and mam's dad from rural Wales. It seems to be a certain type who complains about Irish, Scots and Welsh, with lazy stereotypes and urban myths:

"Oh, I went into a pub in Wales and they stopped talking English and started in Welsh."

The kind who go to Spain, complain about the food and want a cooked breakfast and moan that the waiter's English isn't 100% flawless.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything like that. All I get is the Irish and Scottish calling all English people evil tbh

Maybe I’m from the wrong generation to notice though. I’m 29 and from Northern England and I don’t think I’ve heard an anti-Irish statement my whole life. If anything I’ve only heard family feeling bad for the Irish because they think they’re victims of Westminster like my home town.

I was being satirical - no offence meant.

Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Elgar, Byrd, William Walton, the Bronte sisters, Byron....Many British musicians & poets.

This. It all feels very last century and now more likely that people scratch around to find and claim Irish/Welsh/other ancestry for a more interesting identity - and passport where possible. There are clearly some thicko dinosaurs around like OP encountered who would get in big trouble for such comments, esp in civil service. It still seems okay to make jibes at straight white males, which gives said males grounds to get wound up about it, which no good will come of.

Agree. I'm fed up of the casual racism and pompous superiority levelled against English people by a tiny minority of people from elsewhere in the British Isles and elsewhere.

Yes, there are historical reasons for this but, frankly, most people have moved on and this kind of narrow-minded, lazy and ignorant flag-waving belongs to Trump the past.

Er what ? Ireland has nothing to do with Westminster.

Is your office in the 70s?!

Not you aren’t being over sensitive, that is bizarre. send the trail to HR and ask them to send a reminder out.

The education system again. Not much there about the British effect on Ireland's history is there? Many British people still think Ireland is part of the UK. Seriously.

Funny story here about Welsh suddenly speaking Welsh: It WAS about 1986 - so maybe not relevant to now. My late DH was Welsh speaking. We went into a pub in N. Wales. He sat down & I went to the bar to order our drinks. Locals started speaking in Welsh. We drank our drinks &, as we left, my DH said (in Welsh) you should be careful what you say about people - have a good evening & good night to you all. 😜

Also, when we got married in 1988 we moved into a small community in Wales. My DH was quite a well-known local club rugby player. Our neighbour confronted him asking in (in Welsh) if he couldn't have found a nice Welsh girl to marry rather than a (forgive the spelling) 'Sice' which is a derogatory word for a stranger. He answered (again in Welsh) that the trouble with Welsh girls is that they are in danger of becoming opinionated prejudiced old women like her & he'd thought that she would have welcomed me & made me feel comfortable being so far away from her (my) own family who lived in Cornwall.

I know. Imagine taking offence at a joke... oh no wait, that's what this thread is about 😂

I actually think this poster was actually recognising the fact that Westminster (i.e. British aristocracy) treated Ireland and the Irish very badly indeed - but that these same people also treated people in the North of England very badly and continue to do so today.

We, the English, are not one big homogenous lump, many of us are sick to death of London/SE and the Westminster cabal, and we were (and many outside the SE still are) exploited and disenfranchised by the Westminster-based political and economic system in the UK.

So, please don't lean into universally hating the English - it's not only unfair, but it's also neglectful of English social and political history where people have been treated very badly for centuries by a wealthy aristocracy - usually, and still, from London/SE and Westminster.

There’s a certain post brexit middle class English view of Ireland being like this but it’s not especially true - there is a huge brain drain of young people leaving Ireland to work in the UK/Australia/Canada because there’s no work, a housing crisis in the East that leaves the UK standing, a fairly crap health service (no worse than the NHS but no better), and plenty of racism. The education system is more effective overall, but I would say (and this bit is a personal view) that it’s more middling than the UK - fewer lows, but also fewer highs.

My FIL's wife was just telling me this morning that she'd been at her local surgery yesterday and was asked if she 'drinks' by the GP. Being honest, she confessed to regularly having no more than four vodkas every Saturday when they go out with friends to the local. To which the GP said 'what is it with the Irish and binge drinking?'

She's still in shock.

Her reply was to say something about the rest of her company who are English but manage to drink more.

She's going to report it to the surgery manager on Monday.

@ExpressCheckout I don't recall saying that I hated the English. But maybe you were generalising.

You see, Ireland has been Independent since the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1921 ratified in 1922. Westminster is a feature of NI politics though as is the NI Assembly. Different country. The Act of Union in 1801 abolished the Parliament in Dublin (ruled by the British) and moved operations to Westminster. It was only until 1921 that Westminster featured in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Free State was declared in 1922. So I don't understand the justification you are putting forward.

As I said, the average Irish person would know far more about British history than many British would know about Irish history and the British effect on it (mostly malign) over centuries.

You're confused. I'm Irish, and know the history well. The point stands ..Ireland has had nothing to do with Westminster for a hundred years