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

It’s a ‘fair’ assumption as the majority are in some areas of Ireland. My friend is Turkish. Lots of people ask whether shes muslim, admittedly it’s usually food or drink related. She just answers ‘no’ she’s not a practicing Muslim and will eat pork and have the occasional glass of wine. Again……it’s a ‘fair’ but incorrect assumption in her case. She doesn’t rage about it.

Its really not worth getting this worked up over. I can see why it’s an assumption. It’s incorrect in your case……just say ‘no’.

@Appleday11

Pagans/Druids as well.

Lol. Im not 'raging'in any way. Im sitting here having a cup of tea.

Its just a topic of discussion.

That tool McGregor is not one bit popular here! In fact the vast majority of us in Ireland think he should be locked up!

My friend's son had an English visitor explain to him what a Playstation was. That was about five years ago.

There is a notion that some people have that Ireland is somehow "backward" compared to the UK.

Yes I know. :). Though I did visit the USA before his rape (in ireland) case. He is presumably less popular in the USA now.

Apologies I see you meant he’s popular in the USA! I wish he’d emigrate there😁

Now tea drinking would be a fair Irish stereotype, we drink more tea per capita than anywhere else in the world except Turkey.

I do love a cup! Haha

Returnofthetoad did you watch the new Netflix series "how to get heaven from Belfsst" from the makers of Derry girls? I enjoyed it. There a lot of fr ted and derry girls actors in it

And ‘identify as Catholic in some form’ includes atheist cultural Catholics, bouncy castle Catholics, people who attended Catholic schools because that’s what there was, people who never darken the door of a church apart from weddings and funerals etc etc.

True. Anyone I know that is Catholic in Ireland are not practicing in any way. They were just made Catholics because their parents msde them catholics to fit in at cstholic school

Irish people generally consume British media growing up, whereas few British people have ever watched Irish media. I’m starting to wonder if you’re trolling now. Not very long ago Britain and Ireland were involved in a conflict. Attitudes in a lot of Britain still reflect the biases from that time, and they haven’t learnt much more (in my experience). In their experience Irish = Catholic and that’s what all the fuss regarding the troubles was about in their eyes. I’ve found they tar all Irish people with the one brush

Well yes, I have known a lot of Irish people and been out with Irish men and they were all actually Catholic.
Ive been to irish catholic weddings, irish society balls where there was a distinctly catholic attendee list and stayed with my ex boyfriend on his uncles farm in the cottage in the grounds that his granny used to live in before they built the new farm house.. and was surrounded by the very catholic thing of pictures of jesus and the sacred heart complete with glowing light up heart (extremely disturbing at night in the middle of nowhere in an ancient cottage).
So for me I do actually assume first an irish person is probably catholic. Although I do appreciate not all will be.

In fairness, when we were kids (40s and Irish) the country was mostly catholic. It is a lot more diverse now.

I have found people are shocked that we don’t close shops on Sundays in Ireland and in many ways Ireland is now less religious than the UK. I found the way kids play groups in England are often in churches etc… really mad when I moved here. Also the way the schools are so religious here - two of the good schools near us have a policy of accepting practicing christians ahead of other religions - they had a form to get signed by the church you attend to prove attendance (that ruled us out as our kid isn’t baptised and we’re not religious). My partner (English Protestant - though he would say agnostic) attended Sunday school as a kid - I don’t know anyone in Ireland who had that forced upon them!

I also have found that shocking about England. All the shops near me dont open until 12pm on Sunday.

In Ireland the shops open at normal times on Sunday.

I'd say yourself and your friend were more the exception rather than the rule though so hardly that shocking that someone meeting you would assume you could be Catholic, kinda weird of them to verbalise it though.

What blew my mind was the evangelical vicar telling DS’s Year 2 class at the C of E village school in the Midlands that Genesis was literally true, and that Halloween was unchristian. In fairness to our nuns, who were not a great lot, none of them thought that god made the world in a week or that going around the neighbours in a witch’s hat and bin bag was going to conjure up Beelzebub.

I'm English, and personally presume there are a higher proportion of Catholics (and protestants) in Ireland due to the history, especially in comparison to England where religion seems to be dying, but I would never assume an individual's religion. And I'd certainly never go around stating 'oh you must be Catholic then'. Unless someone is wearing a habit or a hijab or whatever, there's no need to be assuming anyone's religion, and even so, it's just not something you bring up. I'm surprised anyone does to be honest lol, as it's not really part of British culture to chat about religion casually as no one usually gives a shit, I always thought that was an American thing!

Only about 4% of the Irish population is Protestant.

English people tend to have very outdated and stereotypical ideas about other nations which they're not shy about voicing.

I'm Irish too and my time in England was a bizarre experience, Within minutes of leaving the airport the taxi driver we hired was ranting and raving about foreigners the whole drive, it was very uncomfortable as we were obviously not locals.

I was actually quite suprised at the level of ignorance, xenophobia and racism there, Ireland has those issues too of course but I didn't realise just how behind England was until I went.
Within the first three days I got insulted by strangers at a Tesco just on hearing my accent while I spoke with my sister and the same again by a few doddery old men when we went out for dinner, we were going to leave but the staff were nice and seated us away from them. They didn't say anything to the men though, in Ireland they'd have been kicked out for that behaviour.

That was another thing, English people don't seem to speak up when these things happen even when they happen in crowded public places, I find back home people are more likely to speak up and defend a stranger.
Saying that overall most of the people we spoke with were decent but not as friendly or helpful as Irish are.

Sorry to hear the ignorance is still there, my experience was a few years back and
hopefully England will improve with time.

What are "bouncy castle Catholics" please?
Sounds like my kind of Church!

Yeah apologies, I'm including Northern Ireland as well, which I guess I would in real life too, as I don't know enough people from either Northern Ireland or the Republic of to distinguish between accents!

The point remains though, that due to history, it's hard not to make some kind of assumption about religion. Just as if I was meeting someone from Saudi Arabia, I might be presuming they come a Muslim background. Assumptions are everywhere. I would expect people to make assumptions about me too, based on my sex, my country, what I wear, my accent (I have a really broad Derbyshire accent!), etc. I truly don't care as long as people don't comment out loud.

The important thing imo is not the automatic assumption, but your second thought where you challenge the assumption and filter what comes out your mouth lol. Think what you like in the privacy of your mind, but there's literally no reason at all to assume out loud about someone's religion. I'd only ever bring religion up if someone else brought it up first (and honestly I'm a diehard Atheist so I'd personally avoid it full stop as it's all bs to me lol).

I was in England on holiday once. I was on the phone. This old man next to me at a bus stop heard my accent, glared at me and said "are you over here stealing our jobs"

I replied "no im just on holiday!"

I should have told him to stop being so rude , but sometimes shock makes me freeze!

You might just possibly be voicing some outdated and stereotypical ideas there.