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 :)

God that's awful. The moderation here has always been... Variable, shall we say.

Why Irish twins and not Catholic twins then?

I admit this one doesn't bother me as much as other phrases but I can understand why others don't like it and it's not a phrase I've ever used. I was aware of it before MN though.

My great granny...Belfast before partition...had two babies within a year.
An academic gent we knew in England an his wife, very devout Catholics, had two babies within a calendar year. There was gossip...1980s so not current...that they would attempt two within an academic year.
The ban on contraception in the Irish state must have been responsible for a lot of the phenomenon, coupled with low breastfeeding rates.

@BarbaraHoward yeah I was pretty shocked tbh, especially as I had "saved" them with a previous report ( naming a "murderer " who was a child and therefore legally protected- nobody is allowed to know. It was all the same thread) Any way not to derail yours.
I "fell" into your thread by chance, it was trending at the bottom but I agree, if you something inappropriate and are called out it, apologies, and stop using it. Just because " I didn't know" if someone's taken time out to correct & educate you listen to them.

I report quite a bit, always report spam etc. I'm less inclined to help now tbh.

ETA I reported something a few weeks ago that I thought could jeopardise a trial as did others, I was very surprised it was left up.

With respect, when Irish people tell you they consider consider the term derogatory, just don't use it. The fact that some of your forebears were Irish, and your religious beliefs, doesn't make it any less ignorant and disrespectful when you use it. Being of Irish descent doesn't give you any kind of right to use ethnic slurs.

And surely no one is this dense? No one is denying that some Irish families had children close together in time because of a post-colonial theocracy's outlawing of 'artificial' contraception -- that isn't why the term is derogatory. Think about it.

@BarbaraHoward I think we are of the same mindset :)

Hmm. How did the word 'paddy' become 'old fashioned English ' for a bout of ill temper I wonder?

Then the 'derogatory Irish slang' seems a bit off too. Paddy isn't an Irish word. Some Irish names are indeed used in idiomatic expressions. Tadg a' dhá thaobh - a devious person. Dónal na Geallaí - the man in the moon. And so on. This has sent me down a linguistic rabbit hole. Much more fun than the conspiracy ones.
Apparently, all words starting with P in Irish are loan words.

Well now I'm trying to think of an Irish word starting with p. Unfortunately I've feck all Irish these days.

Poll, péist, póca, póg

There's loads. But they are not from an Gaeilge it seems. The language is Anti P for some reason 😂. Irish is a Q Celtic language. British ( Welsh, Breton, Cornish) are P Celtic. So we say Ceann for Head ; they say Pen. Etc etc

Pláta and páipéar come from old French. Praghas comes from Norman.

Pet, cross, clock and car all come from one of the celtic languages.

At least that's what Wikipedia says https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_loanwords_in_Irish

It also says "Most words that begin with ⟨p⟩ in the language are also foreign loans, as ⟨p⟩ did not exist in prehistoric or early Old Irish (such as póg "kiss" (Old Welsh pawg, Latin pacem "peace"), peaca (Latin pecatum "sin")."

It's really interesting. I didn't know any of that.

Which is a little ironic given there is no letter q in Irish.

Interesting. All I came up with was paiste.

Yes it's fascinating. So 'carr' was an Celtic word which was borrowed by Latin.Root of chariot , cart etc. Sorry....it should be a separate thread!

Very much welcoming the derailment, keep 'er lit.

@mathanxiety if my observations about the English are prejudiced, then so be it. These are things I have observed time and again: inability to say what they mean is absolutely infuriating and creates a distance, making many English people seem not fully genuine to those of other cultures.

Growing up in 80s West Belfast will not have helped endear me to English people either.

#sorrynotsorry

So what should we make of Bunny Carr ?

😏

I quite like the idea of Bunny Carr tearing around the place in a chariot.

Stop the lights!

Sudden flashback to my first visit to Armagh in 1986, foggy November evening, walking up a curving hilly street while a British army patrol walked down, coming into, and passing out of, visibility one at a time, loudly making 'Irish jokes' and pointing their guns at me (live ammunition, safety catches off).

I'm pretty sure they were not members of the landowning aristocracy.

I had a similar experience in 1987. The level of anti-Irish vitriol was shocking. The whole rifle thing with the safety off was terrifying.

Anyone remember gluaisteán for car? Now I see it's a car ferry. I can't keep up.

Puzzles how some contributors come on craicnet and lecture Irish people on their history and culture. Some attitudes never change. Croppies not lying down now and some don't like it. 😉

.

No of course they're not member of the landowners aristocracy.

But if people join the British army they don't get any say on where they are sent to. They are told where to go by the men at the very top.

I remember reading an account by a British soldier. He was told that he was being sent to do a stint in Northern Ireland. He wrote that he didn't want to go. But he had to go.

There were a lot of things done wrong in Northern Ireland of course. No ones taking away from that.