If you give your children Irish names...

[SeanChailleach]

...because it's part of their heritage that you want them to have, do you also teach them some Irish even if you live outside of Ireland?

Interesting conversation about what being Irish means. To be honest I wouldn't consider people born to Irish parents, but raised in other countries, to be Irish. To me nationality is all about where you're brought up. So a person of direct Irish heritage might learn the language (far more fluently than me! that's great) and play camogie and play the tin whistle and know lots of rebel songs, but I'd personally consider someone born in China (for example) but brought up in Swords/Ballincollig/Dungarvan to be 'more' Irish because it's where you grow up that makes you who you are. In my opinion at least.

I hope that doesn't cause offence to anyone. I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper of what it means to be Irish, it's just my take.

P.S plastic paddies to me are those Americans with one Irish great-grandmother who act like a dick on St Patricks day.

So we have 3 children all raised abroad due to Mamaís work commitments but all raised through Gaeilge due to heritage. all have non - Gaelic names as I wanted ease of international recognition but all 3 are more líofa than their father who has lived 39 years of his life in Ireland!

I’m sure you’d be able to get things on Etsy.

To be honest I wouldn't consider people born to Irish parents, but raised in other countries, to be Irish.

I think that’s quite a narrow definition. We don’t always choose where we are born or brought up. Why can’t I be Irish if my parents are?

Ohh interesting thread! Moving to ireland from England in a few months and my son will be starting in a gaelscoil with no Irish!!
Going to get some of the resources mentioned here to help as I'm English and useless..!

I haven’t said I consider myself Irish, to be fair, and it also wasn’t the thread title/OP question. Though fwiw when your entire family is Irish in Ireland, and your experience of living elsewhere as a child was such that you definitely didn’t feel English, of course you may “feel” Irish.
In any case my kids don’t have Irish names because I think I / we are Irish. They have Irish names because with dead grandparents, this is one link to a key part of our cultural heritage. They know they aren’t Irish, though Irish passports will confuse things somewhat, post brexit.

@classica that's a really interesting to read that. I can see why you might think that if you lived in Ireland all your life, so those of us from elsewhere obviously have different experiences. But growing up in England at Catholic school in the seventies/eighties was more Irish than English English. Being Catholic, attending Catholic school, used to be mainly Irish thing. That's changing though, both the church and many people leaving the church so it is not the unifying experience it was. It has been through generations so why you get "Lancashire Irish" "Brummie Irish" etc. The thing is, over so many generations was always the hope of going home some day.

To be honest I wouldn't consider people born to Irish parents, but raised in other countries, to be Irish.

Not sure about this, my parents are immigrants (irish & french) & although I was raised in England my cultural norms reflect my parents. Same for my Indian, Caribbean, Ghanaian etc friends.

I'm going to start a thread on Craicnet if anyone wants to talk about learning Irish/ finding ways to use it / teaching it to kids etc while living elsewhere.

@doingitmyself Thanks for pointing out the Iarla Ó Lionáird version of Casadh an tSúgáin in "Brooklyn" - anyone who hasn't heard Irish, listen to this, it's so gorgeous, it really shows the beauty of the language.

On an altogether different level, and more as a fun way of learning the language, I do like the energy of Seo Linn and the songs they've recorded at TG Lurgan, like this one:

This is such an interesting thread. My family consider themselves as having Irish heritage, my brothers have Irish names. My great grandparents were all Irish and my family have lived in Liverpool ever since which obviously has quite a strong Irish Catholic heritage. My parents have a dual citizenship but have never lived in Ireland My brothers are named after family members but my grandparents weren’t taught Irish by their parents and haven’t passed anything down.

Love Seo Linn

and YouTube. Look for Clisare on the 'bold words'. and Mrs Shoe-horn, she'll teach you right.

Mrs Shoe-horn?

Siobhan. Can't remember the name of the vids. She teaches Irish on YouTube, and is lovely - it's some years since I looked, though. Pronounces her name 'Shoowarn' , hence it sometimes appears in the comments as Mrs Shoe-horn as a gentle and loving joke.

@Classica
I agree with you, I cannot stand ppl claiming to be Irish or Scottish (mostly Americans) when they’ve never set foot in either country and their great great granny sailed over 120yrs ago.
My dad was born in Ireland brought to Scotland as a toddler, my mum was born in Scotland as was I, I’m Scottish and have never referred to myself as anything but.
I have Irish/Scottish heritage but was born and bred in Scotland.
I find it very twee at the desperation to grab onto an identity that’s not theirs, Scottish/Irish seems to be the cool thing to claim to be.
My grandparents were Gaelic speakers, I’m beyond rusty, my DC have Gaelic names which is in keeping with our family.
I’m a bit mystified by ppl who use Gaelic names yet have not a single Irish/Scottish connection, quite odd.

@HerMammy if you live in the ‘new world’, that is, countries that were settled and colonised by the British, and that have indigenous populations of their own (thinking US, NZ, Aus, etc), then you don’t really know what it’s like to have ancestors that travelled a long way, often in the dim and distant past, to get somewhere.

You feel as if you gave an affinity with those long-dead ancestors, even if a lot of time has passed.

My ancestors came to NZ a couple of years after the Treaty was signed, and yes, rightly or wrongly, I feel an affinity with them. I’m fascinated by then, and of the dangerous voyage they took to get here.

Clearly, I cannot claim to be Māori! Therefore, I’m described as NZ European. My ancestors hail from England, Scotland and Ireland. I grew up with a McSurname.

I admit - I find your post quite dismissive. I get it’s because you don’t have experience of the sort of thing you’re describing.

It may seem really silly to people born and bred in the ‘old countries’. But it’s real to us.

My parents are Irish and I have an Irish name. Strangely I am the only one out of my numerous siblings with an Irish name! My siblings all have very popular English names, but then we were all born in England.

I went for family names for my children, but none of them would be considered traditional Irish names.

@FierceBarrie
I’m not dismissing at all, as I said my dad was born in Ireland but I’ve never described myself as Irish because I’m not.
I would say you’re a New Zealander obviously not a Maori, you have European heritage but you’re not Scottish/Irish.
You are dismissive yourself that unless my ancestors had a ‘voyage’ I can’t understand your ‘affinity’.
I could write paragraphs a plenty about my family history but have no need to, I know what I am and don’t need to desperately grasp at something I’m not.

@DoingItMyself

For my fellow 'plastic paddies' everywhere.

I think Iarla is a genius, but trying to make Mr Afro Celt Sound Sustem look like a mountainy aul fella in that scene cracks me up.

DH and I are Irish. DS was born in London, given an Irish name and surname and lived in rural England until he was eight, and I always spoke bits of Irish with him — DH’s is at sub-‘An bhfuil cead agam dul amach? level — despite not really speaking any since my own Leaving (which was a looong time ago). We moved back to Ireland and he slotted in fairly unproblematically to third class Irish.

I did make homemade labels and stick them around the house on stuff and play a lot of Skara Brae and Altan.

@DoingItMyself I think you mean Siobhán from Bitesize Irish. What a lovely woman! I could watch that every day just for the sunny cheerfulness.

@GloriousMystery I've just tried to translate our house rules. Quite proud of the result, especially this one:

"Ba choir do chách brístín ar thóin, i ndiaidh dhá bhliain. Chá le feiceáil i ndiaidh seacht mbliain. Léine ar chabháil fós, máise do thoile."

@classica thanks for making your point so respectfully because it's so important. People raised in Ireland (even if not actually born there) feel their main identity is Irish, and their heritage from elsewhere is less significant.

I'm not totally sure whether it matters what you call yourself though, "Irish" or "Irish-American" or whatever, if you want to call your kids Irish names with Irish spellings to reflect their heritage, it makes sense to learn some of the language too. Which is the main point of this thread.

@SeanChailleach Yes, I probably do! And she is a delight.

@GloriousMystery More Iarla for teaching and learning. I missed out on AfroCelt due to avoiding 'World Music'. When I 'found' Iarla, I thought he was something akin to a Pope - learned, venerable, serious. So wrong!

Would you post more of your house rules, @SeanChailleach? I very much enjoyed that.

Thank you, @DoingItMyself, In fact I've only ever seen Iarla live as The Gloaming, because of living mostly outside of Ireland in places no one toured.

@Classica, I remember when DH and I had DS in London, there was another Irish couple in our NCT group, who referred to their newborn as their 'Plastic Paddy', which, while I get that it was a joke, took me aback a bit, because I'd always interpreted that phrase as you do, someone whose great-great granny left Oughterard in the 1860s, and also because I've always viewed it as a negative phrase.

@GloriousMystery the full pants rule continues, courtesy of pedantic 4yo:

Ba choir é culaith snáimh nó léotard, is eá. Athraigh do chuid éadaí sa seomra folctha, chá áit eile.

Some other rules are:
Tá cead agat brógaí ar an úrlár cruaidh.
Bíodh brógaí ar chos sa gháirdín, de dheasc na beacha.
Nuair a bhfuil fonn ort labhairt le duine, bíodh a haghaidh le feiceáil agat.
Bíodh cách sa chómhrá. Bíodh cómhrá príobhoideach i bpríobhoideas.
Fáilte a dhéagóir! Ar chóir do d’aosta eolas cá bhfuil tú?
Fáilte a pháiste de 8 go 12 bhliain! An bhfuil a fhios ag d’aosta go bhfuil tú anseo? Mura bhfuil, idir inis do, nó fán amach ar an ghort.

Bain taitneamh as!

I am Irish, and all my children are Irish. I lived in Ireland for most of my life but now I live overseas. My children never went to school in Ireland and don't have a single word of Irish, they also don't have Irish names. They are however still proud of being Irish and not knowing the language doesn't diminish that in the slightest.

I know what I am and don’t need to desperately grasp at something I’m not.

@HerMammy
That's pretty mean spirited.

Heritage means a lot to people whose ancestors emigrated from Ireland, especially given the fact that starvation, eviction, dire poverty, or complete lack of opportunity were the reasons to emigrate for tens of thousands of people. Even if they didn't pass on the language, ancestors often passed on stories filled with the sadness about leaving, and a sense of that remains an element of family lore.

My American DS decided against a certain career choice because it would have involved renouncing his right to Irish citizenship. That passport and what it signifies means a lot to him. His feelings on the matter are tied up with his feelings as my son and for my side of his family.

A friend of his had to go to the Polish Consulate in our city to officially renounce his Polish citizenship, and it was a hard day for his entire family and for him. He didn't have an alternative, sadly.

All these kids called Tadhg and Orfhlaith and Méabh, to honour their heritage, would you not want them to know the stories and songs and sweet sounds of conversation in the language? Their actual heritage?

Maybe they just liked the sound of the name, or named them after a grandparent, or wanted to keep the name alive. There are other reasons to give a child a name than just honouring their heritage.

I don't have an Irish name, but I did attend an all Irish secondary school and was fairly fluent for many years. But I never really used it enough, and my skills dropped off, especially when I went to live abroad.
As pp said it's difficult to keep a language going without conversational practice.
Honestly, if I had kids I would encourage them to learn Spanish or some other language that they could travel with.

There's plenty of people in Ireland who hate speaking Irish, or only have a few words - not because they don't respect their heritage , but because it's taught really badly in schools.

I still have nightmares about Peig Sayers!