Irish posters - "having a paddy"

[BarbaraHoward]

Irish posters - can I canvas your opinions on the use of "having a paddy" to mean "having a tantrum"? I've been having a bit of back and forth (well, plenty of forth not much back in truth) with MNHQ over the past day or two and I want to check that I'm not going against the majority view here.

IMO, the phrase is awful, and plainly anti Irish. I know most people using it aren't doing so to slag Irish people off, but the phrase is still awful IMO.

I've been here a long time, and reported the phrase more than I can remember. Usually, it's just deleted right away. Raising it on a thread always derails it as people just go on the offensive.

I reported it yesterday and got the immediate email that it was being checked out, but the post stayed up for hours despite a follow up email, another post and a thread in Site Stuff. It was then edited rather than deleted, which I thought was the norm for offensive language. I reported another use this morning and it's still up.

What are your views? Is this a fight worth having with MNHQ or am I out of step with the majority of Irish posters on here?

Thanks :)

I think too that anyone can post in Craicnet, but to be fair here the OP said she was specifically looking for Irish posters opinions on this issue.

And @PPop didn’t say anything about her Irish heritage until OP pointed that out again. She didn’t make it clear at first that she had any links to Ireland and what she was saying sort of made it sound like she didn’t.

So nobody actually said that someone born abroad or someone who has Irish heritage shouldn’t post in Craicnet.

I do think @PPop got a hard time though. I think that was simply because what she said has been said multiple times on multiple threads now, though I realise she wasn’t aware of that. It gets very wearing listening to people defend the expression. But that wasn’t her fault really, the simple dictionary definitions do tend to confuse people, I’ve seen it before…

Anyway, hope the derivation of ‘throwing a paddy’ is clearer now@PPop.

No, you're right, everyone with Irish citizenship is Irish regardless of how they came by it. I shouldn't have assumed that poster wasn't Irish (although if she had said so at that point I had missed it, just that she had a dad named Paddy, but that may have been my error).

What I will say is that these threads over the years have often demonstrated a marked difference in the views of Irish people raised in Ireland (where the phrase isn't used for fairly obvious reasons) and the views of Irish people raised in England (where it is). That's not particularly surprising. One imagines that many of the "new Irish" may not have Irish citizenship but will have experiences much more in line with the Irish in Ireland than the Irish abroad. This one comes down to culture, language and upbringing, not citizenship.

I do think @PPop got a hard time though. I think that was simply because what she said has been said multiple times on multiple threads now, though I realise she wasn’t aware of that. It gets very wearing listening to people defend the expression. But that wasn’t her fault really, the simple dictionary definitions do tend to confuse people, I’ve seen it before…

Yes that's true and I'll own my part in that. But it was Irish posters being fed up with arguing the point over and over again that resulted in MNHQ agreeing to delete the term when reported, which was the case for years. That's the point of the thread. I'm sort of out of patience with arguing this one.

I would also have more patience for a reply like @PPop 's if she had been within the first few posts rather than at the end of a long thread where the term has already been discussed. Posters not RTFT is a bugbear of mine, and given the broader issues wrt Irish posters on MN ATM, it does make one wonder whether that post was genuine.

I agree OP, the conversation started over a week ago and 19 pages. Wading in that late isn't ever going to land well.

I would add that only by spending time living or working in England (not UK) did I truly understand the differences between (Northern) Ireland and them.

I was born to emigrant parents in England and grew up there with an obviously Irish name in the 1960s and early 1970s. I remember exactly how the racist portrayals of the Irish in cartoons and 'jokes' and phrases like 'having a paddy' and 'that's Irish' and 'thick Mick' were used to dehumanise and debase Irish people, even little kids, at the same time as UK troops were murdering their own citizens in Northern Ireland and lying about it.

It's as unacceptable as the 'n' word.

Oh, and nobody on Craicnet has ever denied my right to comment on anything.

I've made my complaint - wonder will I get any response?

Its how language evolves surely ?

No longer having irish conotations it just means having a strop similarly gay meant happy snd no longer used in that context

Its how language evolves surely ?

No longer having irish conotations it just means having a strop similarly gay meant happy snd no longer used in that context

Racist language framed to justify genocidal policies 'evolves' when the culture that developed it tries to laugh it off?

I can think of so many words that racists could make that argument about, but all of them would be banned if there were relatives of, or even advocates for, the survivors who complained.

But for some people, human rights, and even common civility, don't apply to the Irish. How much has not changed.

The Irish connotations are actually all too visible to many Irish people @Maddy70. Just because the history behind the saying isn’t visible to you doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive to others. It’s not okay.

Nah, me either. People are so precious these days.

it's so shocking when the victims get uppity

Yes that does make more sense

And changes the anti-Irish derivation how?

Yes indeed, Paddy Whack, the 19th century 'comic' character invented to demonstrate the subhuman character of the Irish in the decade that about a million of them were starved to death by UK government policy, Makes SO much sense.

"Having a paddy" is not a nice phrase.

What thread is it on OP. More of us should report it.

Just adding another voice who never heard this phrase growing up in Ireland but heard it regularly when living in England. It used to bother me, especially when applied to my toddler having a tantrum. Haven’t heard it except from the English in laws since moving back to Ireland either.

It's been a few threads over the past few weeks. Reporting this thread and stating your support for the phrase to be deleted or edited in general (or whatever your own views are) would probably be most useful.

I remember being in Spain once. There was an older English man in my tour group.

He said to me "we were taught from a young age that irish people were stupid and backwards".

True story.

What I feel sad about is that Irish and English relations are still so bad. They really are bad

Im real life, I still see some English people calling Irish people stupid,

and I still see some Irish people hating all English people because of what their ancestors did.

Right, some English people invaded and did a lot wrong to Ireland, in history. But that was the rich people at the very top of English society who did it back then.

The every day English person did nothing to Ireland.

I was at an art group recently. And there happened to be some Russian people and some Ukranian people there. They met for the first time there. And they got on woth each other beautifully

The Ukranians in the group really seemed to recognise that it is just a few people in power in Russia that wanted to invade Ukraine. Lots of every day Russian people didn't want that to happen.

I think on the individual level, English and Irish people get along just fine.

A lot of people would say otherwise.

My English friend told me that he got a huge amount of abuse in Dublin recently.

@BarbaraHoward i got a response to my email from HQ. Here’s the main gist.

“We understand that phrases like "throwing a paddy" can feel offensive and upsetting, particularly to Irish MNers, and we acknowledge the frustration in your mail. Our intention is never to minimise anyone’s feelings or to suggest that the phrase is acceptable in all contexts.

As a site, our approach to moderation is centred on assessing the intent and context of reported posts. For phrases like this one, while the term undoubtedly has offensive origins, many people use it without understanding or meaning harm. Rather than simply deleting such posts, we aim to educate users about the potential impact of their words and encourage respectful conversations that promote awareness. Balancing the need to create a welcoming community on Talk with our goal of fostering meaningful and open discussions is challenging, but in our experience, proscribing certain phrases outright risks shutting down discussions entirely, as it can create an environment where people are reluctant to engage for fear of saying something unintentionally wrong.

We appreciate that this approach may sound insufficient to you and recognise that it places some of the burden on those who are directly affected by these phrases. We truly don’t want you, or anyone else, to feel unsupported or that these concerns are not taken seriously.

Please be assured that your comments will be shared with the team as part of ongoing discussions about our moderation policies. We are committed to ensuring that our platform is welcoming and respectful for all Mumsnetters, and your perspective is an important part of that effort.…,”

I responded and said whilst I understand that often the intention isn’t to offend that every thread ends with a skew of people - who generally haven’t experienced anti Irish sentiment personally - telling us not to be offended and that a message from HQ asking prior to recognise this would be welcome.

Wow they sent you a long and detailed reply. That's good at least.

I complained about something once and I got a one line reply.

So are we allowed to talk about funny golliwogs and picaninnies now?