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

I don't know. I didn't ask!

I mean again, yes in parts of the UK but there was certainly a cultural melting pot where I lived, music tastes, food you ate, there certainly wasn't segregation this was late 90s early 00s and there isn't where I live now.

Are you in London?

My point is that the English are not some homogenous group of people that the Irish have conflict with. The English have a very diverse heritage and as such they don't see themselves as responsible for that why would they if their heritage for example was Ashkenazi Jewish that fled the programs in Ukraine. Or for example, I have Danish heritage my family were not English oppressors of the Irish.

Ah I just looked back and read that you are in London. I thought so. London in general is very multi cultural and accepting

My Irish mother lived in London in the 1970s. She liked it and had friends there. No abuse for being Irish.

She and my dad the decided to move to a smaller UK city. She said she was shocked when she moved there. She recieved such abuse. She told me that she went to a social group. She forgot to do something. The leader said "well what do you expect, you are Irish. You are stupid"

Her neighbour said to her 'ai hate the irish but you are not too bad".

She said in her workplace the people would make jokes about her being stupid and irish all the time

No

Yes im sure i didnt write that all English do this. I wrote some.

I have never experiemced abuse for being Irish in spain, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, USA.

I HAVE received abuse for being Irish in England.

I never assume a person's religion but I'd think an Irish person was more likely to be Catholic than anyone else I know. Although my Irish friends are atheist, not that it ever occurred to me to ask

Most of what we see of Ireland on TV involves Irish Catholics so I'm not surprised the assumption is so strong. Most of what we know about recent Irish history involves religion...Even now, I think English people expect most Irish to be culturally Catholic if not religiously so.

13% of India is Muslim, but only 2% Christian and less than 1% Buddhist. I get what you mean, and India is so huge that that's still a lot of people. But if someone is from India, especially from areas that aren't Muslim or Sikh heavy like, say, the Punjab, or Christian heavy (Kerala) etc it would be reasonable to assume they were at least raised Hindu.

I agree that 'Ah you're a Catholic, here's this church' etc is lazy stereotyping.

I grew up in London and lived there until a young adult. I'm still in the south east and just don't recognise this old fashioned outlook as I am still in a very diverse and secular area.

You wrote before

This is hilarious, I can guarantee being a teenager in late 90s West London was a much more diverse place to grow up with kids at school whose heritage or religious affiliation was much more culturally diverse e.g. South Korean, Chinese, polish, Turkish, Czech, Jamaican, Jewish than late 90s Ireland let alone in 2026

So you were in London at the period when you were talking about diversity.

If it doesnt happen to you, you wont see it im afraid.

People tend to be their racist selves where no one else can see it except the person they are abusing.

Anyone that called me names didnt do it in front of people. They did it when they were alone with me

Oh that sounds good, I want to watch

I am really surprised that you still receive abuse for being Irish in the UK. I'm not trying to be facetious but many people will be too ignorant or young to know of the troubles between England and Ireland. I have an Irish married surname but nobody ever mentions it or thinks anything of it.

People inherit views from their parents. Its the same in Ireland. Ive seem young people say "i hate the English". This was definitely a view passed down from their parents.

I get what you mean but Saudi is a bit different as even now synagogues, churches, anything but a mosque are illegal, so is trying to convert others to anything but Islam. It's not quite a direct parallel to Ireland where it was strict but never that repressive.

I very much have seen racism but not towards Irish people. I think it's quite strange that you think there is no racism in France, Greece, Germany, etc. Why would such countries be racist towards the Irish. Presumably it wouldn't even be racism in these countries as it has no historical relevance. I assume you are white?

Well if they watched the news in the past 100 years or so of anything that comes out of Ireland have they had their head up their own backsides? they must know the whole point of the issues there is no not everyone is Catholic?

have they been living under a rock?

That reminds me of a friend I had in 6th form. She had brown skin so people would assume she was muslim. She always wore jeans etc and no head covering but people used to tell her off for drinking alcohol. She used to shout "I aint no Muslim, I aint nothing" at them.

Yeah I remember when I was in Ireland it was more Catholic than it is now. My mother decided to not make me Catholic. Actually now i think of it, my mother asked me at age 7 if i wanted to be Catholic. She asked me because some of my classmates at that age were making their Catholic communion at age 7. I could have beem christened and then communed at that age.

I said no. My teachers didnt care that I said no. My Local church didnt care. We had freedom to choose.

There was definitely a bit societal pressure to be Catholic just to fit in. But we did have freedom to choose.

And obviously it has never crossed the minds of some that Ireland also has Protestants, Jews, etc, and always has.

My neighbours growing up in Dublin were CoI. Kids I went to school with were Plymouth Brethren. The CoI neighbours and the Plymouth Brethren families were a lot more churchgoing than many of the RC neighbours or fellow students.

There was a CoI National.School (primary school) in the suburb I lived in. There are old and well.established secondary schools run by CoI, Methodist and other protestant denominations.

Racism is not just to do with skin colour, it is to do with ethnicity.

I pointed out that the only place I have reveived abuse for being Irish is in Emgland.

The Irish are well liked everywhere else so it can be a bit of a shock to come to England and experience abuse. It obviously stems from the history between England +Ireland.

Great post.

I mean Im not culturally Catholic in any way.

Yes, I can well imagine that but that's more likely because of the history and the population size and the ethnic diversity is much smaller so there are more collective thoughts on this topic. In contrast that collective thought just doesn't exist here IME, mainly because it is a much more multicultural society where with a variety of references to different conflicts either via heritage or lived experience!

That said, I definitely think you are right and it is not ok to assume this and certainly not voice such an opinion.