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've heard far worse anti-English sentiment than anti-Irish. When I was growing up if you didn't slag off the English every chance you got you'd be accused of being a "West Brit".

Some of the posts on here are CRT adjacent. Just because you feel offended doesn't mean offense is intended. Not everything is about race. Anti-Catholic sentiment is not the same as anti-Irish sentiment. Most of my Catholic family have anti-Catholic sentiment now after the horrendous scandals related to the church.

I refuse to believe in magic words. Because I am not a child.

You're going to come here to Ireland and give your cousins a telling off...even though you weren't offended and have indeed used the term yourself? You read on Mumsnet that you should be offended so now you are? Is that right?

Not Irish (well, about 1/4, of which I'm proud). This was a common phrase when I was growing up. Then I was told that some (?many ?most) Irish people find it offensive. So I obviously stopped using it. There's been quite enough historical anti Irish bigotry, with scarily recent blatant examples, without thoughtlessly perpetuating a negative sentiment. Other slurs aren't let stand, so why should this one, even if used unknowingly.

Of course it's racist.

I've literally never heard that phrase before until it came up on here. Not once in my life! I guess that's a good thing, if it's meant as a racial slur against me. I'm born in the UK so second gen, all my family are Irish. I'm wondering if people avoid using it around people they know have Irish background? I guess I wouldn't necessarily be offended if I heard it simply as I would really even know it's origins. If it's akin to 'going ape' then I guess it's saying Irish people are massively uncouth, almost subhumanly so. Which is fucking horrible.

Waves, Irish and living here, traced back as far as records. I am offended.

Do you want to see my passport and birthcert?

As for 'beyond the pale' , I always understood it to mean something outside the boundaries of normal decency. Nothing at all rascist🤔

Pale is an old name for a pointed piece of wood driven into the ground and — by an obvious extension — to a barrier made of such stakes, a palisade or fence. Pole is from the same source, as are impale, paling and palisade. This meaning has been around in English since the fourteenth century and by the end of that century pale had taken on various figurative senses — a defence, a safeguard, a barrier, an enclosure, or a limit beyond which it was not permissible to go. The idea of an enclosed area still exists in some English dialects.
[...]
The earliest figurative sense that’s linked to the idiom was of a sphere of activity or interest, a branch of study or a body of knowledge, which comes from the same idea of an enclosed or contained area; we use field in much the same way. This turned up first in 1483 in one of the earliest printed books in English, The Golden Legende, a translation by William Caxton of a French work.

The Phrase Finder adds that the first printed reference of the phrase "beyond the pale" (rather than just the word pale in its figurative sense) comes "from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella."

In that work, the character Ortheris withdraws with his beloved to a country lodge for 'quiet, calm and ease', but later venture further - 'Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk'. Such recklessness rarely meets with a good end in 17th century verse and before long they are attacked by armed men with 'many a dire killing thrust'. The message is clearly, 'if there is a pale, you should stay inside it', which conveys exactly the meaning of the phrase as it is used today.

Yeah so offensive that Mumsnet haven't deleted anything.

Whenever an English person living in Ireland posts about experiencing xenophobia they are told they are wrong/it doesn't exist/they must be imagining it/be mentally ill.

They are inconsistent as the OP said. Did you read the posts or are you just here to argue with your toenails?

My DH is Irish - (born in the UK and raised here, and doesn't have an Irish accent - ) but he is still Irish. He's not bothered about it/doesn't care if people say it. His parents who moved here in the 1960s didn't care about it either. I know some Irish people - including DH's extended family, and they're not fussed about it. People are entitled to be offended if they want, but some Irish people genuinely aren't arsed.

I do roll my eyes a bit when non-Irish people get offended by it, as I am sick to death of people getting offended on behalf of others.

All this said, I don't say it, because I am aware it offends some people. I just say 'having a moment' or 'throwing a tantrum!'

I do sometimes think that some people look hard to find something to be offended by though.

JMO. Don't come at me! The OP did ask for peoples opinion! And that is mine.

Well, I didn't know it referred to Irish people ( although I know Paddy is a now offensive term for Irish people, as well as being a nice shortened version of Patrick, or Padraigh).

I thought it meant padding the floor with your hands and feet when having a tantrum, or maybe being in a padded room?

However, here is the point..

Now I know it can be offensive to Irish people, I'm not going to use the word anymore in conversation or in writing..because there are other words that I can use that are not offensive.

See, it's not that difficult is it? I don't care that some Irish people aren't offended by it..some are,and therefore out of common decency you just choose another word don't you?

My parents are Irish and this was a commonly-used term. Also Irish twins. Never occurred to anyone to get offended but it’s good that we can now do so. Everyone likes to be offended these days.

I believe the pale of settlement/beyond the pale can also refer to Russia in the 1700s with regards to Jewish Pogroms. I think that's the association I had of the phrase.

That's also offensive..

..associated with the obsolete “paddywhack,” meaning an Irishman who likes to drink and brawl.

Having just now looked it up 'paddywagon' needs to be considered too.

I reckon when a lot of us were growing up here the Troubles were still in full force.
I'm not in any way saying anti-English sentiment is ok but the past, as they say, is a different country.
I very much don't think the same attitudes prevail today in Ireland for the majority of the population anyway.

It's always been obviously offensive to me - but I'm a Scot, so I've had this fight many times over similar supposedly 'affectionate' ways of referring to Scots.

If a term is derogatory, or is being applied in a derogatory way, or has its origins in a racial slur, and it refers to a culture or ethnicity that is not your own, then just don't use it. Ever. Even if you think your intent is benign, you are still reinforcing and perpetuating the racist effects.

I didn't know this was offensive for years . I said it once in my (Irish) dad's hearing. I didn't make that mistake again!

I agree with this.

I find it offensive, though accept others don't. I also accept many people using it don't realise the anti-Irish connotations and origins, so it is not (always) used through ill-intent. I think it's helpful to give people the opportunity to edit their post when it's pointed out to them but if they refuse then it should be deleted.

GinForBreakfast · Today 16:34

I've heard far worse anti-English sentiment than anti-Irish.

Oh yes. Especially on here!

Just because you're offended doesn't mean your feelings trump us non-offended Irish. I don't use the phrase, don't hear it much but it doesn't offend me. If it's so offensive why haven't Mumsnet deleted anything?

This. ^

It’s not hard.
Can you understand the difference between someone named as Karen and someone being referred as being ‘a Karen ‘ ?

The name Karen is obviously not offensive, however being called ‘A Karen” is used as a prescriptive for an unpleasant woman.

Same applies to being named Paddy and being called ‘ having a Paddy’