Ah you're a Catholic!

[Appleday11]

I moved to England to work last year. I'm Irish.

When I arrived at my workplace, one of my colleagues said "Ah you are Irish, this is a nice city, there is a Catholic church down the road that you can go to".

I think she was trying to be helpful but I thought it was quite bizarre. I'm not Catholic and I told her so.

Second time - I was out in the pub with a mixed group of people. Some of them I had never met before. One man said "ah you're Irish, you're a Catholic!" I told him Im not.

Third time- I was at another group. A woman said to me "you are Irish. Ah so you like such and such. And you are a Catholic". I told her I am not.

I found it strange as I have never really thought about religiom. Do some people here think that all Irish people are Catholics? My family were not religious at all and I was never brought up any religion

IMO it’s very odd to make such remarks, but I’d have thought that many people in the U.K. do tend to assume that Irish people are usually Catholics, even if just ‘nominally’ nowadays, not in the strict fashion* of former generations.

*An Irish friend of mine (same age as me) once shocked me by telling me that she and friends of 14 or so were once walking through their town, when they saw the door of the Protestant church standing open.

One of them said, ‘Dare we go inside?’
The others were appalled at the mere idea - surely they’d be struck dead?

But one of them did go in. They watched her fearfully, waiting for the thunderbolt, but she just stood there, saying, ‘Oh, it’s just like our church!’

From then on, friend (educated solely by nuns) said the ‘spell’ was broken.
But having been brought up so very differently, I was so shocked that anyone of my own age could have been so brainwashed.

Of course they don’t . I don’t. What generational trauma do English people have, as a nation?!

are you seriously suggesting you don’t understand there is (make clearer to observe, being more recent) generational trauma in the north of Ireland?

How strange. We are an Irish family, and I have never had this. We lived in London and then moved to the middle of the sticks to a little village, now back in a different city and no one has ever said anything about being Catholic.

Thinking about it the only time we were asked was when we were living in Germany a few years ago.

Yes but also it is alien to me and many others in British life where blended heritage is just the norm. Like I stated last night I have an Irish married surname but my DH has other ethnic heritage that he identifies with more than the Irish side. In fact he doesn't know much about Irish history at all! I am from London and grew up with an integrated diverse group of friends, I have Northern European heritage but I am British like the people I grew up with with an array of heritage. Ironically, a poster on this thread that is a U.S. Citizen has the cheek to reference the the intolerant nature of the Brits and even the Reformation FFS! 😂

Well in Ireland itself people assume you are Catholic even when you don’t practice . Like if you say a child is in second class it’s “aah so you’ll have the communion this year “. It really irks me seeing as most of them never go to mass and have their party and bouncy castle communions.

My family surname is Irish. Growing up an old lady opposite us referred to us as ‘The Catholics’ which we just found funny - we are not even Catholic

Yes, I agree, I don't want to offend people but I don't think many people in this day and age would have a clue.

My teens are very much into the Black British music that is celebrating cultural and social cohesion at the moment. It emphasises shared cultural experiences of being British rather than exclusion and how that makes you British identity. It's a challenge to devisive narratives that the media like to whip up, like seen on this thread. There is a deliberate attempt to misunderstand people's lived experiences as a Brit on this thread, you have to wonder why!

I think there is a bit of a difference between going to war for a few years and being occupied for centuries and having your language and culture forcefully repressed. The Great Famine caused Irelands population to drop by 25%, can you even begin to imagine that? The fact that you would even compare the two is quite telling about how much you grasp about the longterm damage done to Ireland by British rule.

And the fact it’s bit easier for a rich powerful nation to “move on nicely”

Isn’t Mohammad the most popular baby name in the UK. It’s diverse alright.

But this comes back to complete ignorance of what it means to be British, there is no knowledge (?) or acknowledgement of it's complex social realities. You seem to think the English are all Morris dancing oppressors when in reality you have cities and towns full of interwoven heritage where they definitely have their own trauma. I have the example of an English person whose heritage is ancestors who were fleeing pogroms or more recently the children of Kosovans who fled the Kosovo war. Only 36.8% of Londoners identify as White British.

I’m English, but descended from Irish people who were forced to come here in the 1840s. I had relatives return and fight in the Easter Rising, and I feel very proud of them. I understand the generational trauma of Irish people though it’s not something that affects me. What I don’t understand is the hatred of the Irish towards British people today. Direct it towards the British institution by all means, but not the man on the street. It’s pure racism.

It’s not ignorance, you’re misunderstanding what generational trauma means in this context. It’s an event or series of events everyone in the country were subjected to at the same time. Like the troubles, or the pandemic . Do you not see how generational trauma arises from those events? It’s about a population, not an individual. Individual generational trauma is not what we’re talking about, so throwing out examples of individuals who fled dictators or were abused as children won’t be relevant to the conversation, you’ll be wasting energy doing it.

Ireland is a rich country the GDP per capita is more than double the UK figure.

That is recent as I presume you know

It is you who have misunderstood my point as I am responding to your earlier post of justified hatred of the British. The generational trauma and the impact of the British rule should be acknowledged and people should be educated on it but complex social realities of British heritage makes it morally questionable to attribute collective responsibility based upon 'British' ancestry.

Yes and?

I don't think it is 'hatred' tbh. I think the ignorance of 'the man in the street' doesn't help, like the poster who thought comparing a war to centuries of occupation and repression was a fair equivalence, the 'get over it' attitude when the occupation still affects Ireland to this day. The minimisation of what Britain put Ireland through isn't very likeable. Things like Brexit where a huge decision was made by the British people with zero regard to a peace deal probably don't really help either.

Day to day we don't go around with pitchforks angry at the Brits. Most Irish people have English relatives, English friends, English neighbours etc. About quarter of a million people in Ireland were born in the UK. Nobody is going around hating them all. I can't think of a single British person that I hate.

Nobody likes a pompous attitude though and 'we moved on nicely' why can't you from a former colonial power to the people still dealing with the effects of colonialism is never going to go down well.

@Goldenbear This is a pointless discussion, you have a rigid view that you’re not interested in exploring and I can’t stand it when people pretend not to understand clear points to obfuscate. Let’s just leave it here

You don't think the second world war caused any generational trauma? What about the British Jewish community do they qualify for meeting your threshold of generational trauma from the second world war?

Hardly rigid, you have a considerable lack of self awareness there! My points are relevant and justified but you don't want to acknowledge them as you prefer to stick to your limited view of the real world.

Do you genuinely think that the effects of ww2 in the UK can be compared to the effects of British rule in Ireland?

Very odd thing for people to assume.

I've got Irish ancestry but was told a self proclaimed Irish expert who was English that the place name my family was from couldn't be correct as he knew it wasn't. I'd been and taken photos of the sign. He soon shut up.

Yes, I do think the impact of generational trauma existed for those in the second world war. Do you think that British Jews did not experience generational trauma?

I'm sure British Jews did. You are talking about 0.5% of the population and using them as some kind Trump card which I find quite distasteful tbh.

I don't believe that the average British persons experience of a 6 year war where Britain was hailed as the triumphant heroes can be compared with the affects of centuries of colonial rule that led to the loss of 25% of the population, incredible poverty, land dispossession, the loss of the native language, degradation of culture, and still sees the country split in 2.

The effects of British rule ran so incredibly deep and probably even contribute to why this thread was started.

British rule for instance through cultural, legal and religious marginalisation of Irish Catholics led to awful stereotypes of Irish that were exported abroad. British colonial propaganda often portrayed the Irish as indolent, undisciplined, or prone to violence. Centuries of colonial policy that denied land ownership, education, and political rights helped create a narrative abroad that Irish society was “behind” more “civilized” nations. British authorities often used the “Irish problem” as a cautionary tale abroad. Newspapers and officials described Irish unrest, famine, and poverty as evidence of supposed Irish deficiencies. In 19th-century U.S., political cartoons depicted the Irish as ape like, violent, or drunk, imagery often rooted in British propaganda during famine and uprisings. This kind of thing stays with you and informs how you move within the world today. Jewish people too have had to fight against propaganda and stereotypes. Tell me how ww2 had anything like that effect for the average British person?

It just isn't comparable for so many reasons that I would take up a whole thread detailing them.