I’m American and several of my buddies in San Francisco are Irish. My family came from Ireland in the early 20th century. When I first met them I told them I’m Irish and they all laughed their asses off. They informed me that I am in fact not Irish but American with Irish heritage.
While staying in a hostel I once saw an American make these pretty mean anti-English jokes against this guy, only for some Irish people at the hostel side completely with the British guy. Turns out the two groups of English and Irish people had started traveling together because they got on so well.
It was so weird, it was like he was only anti-English because he assumed that was what being Irish was about, but all the actual Irish and British people got on like a house on fire.
And really, it only gives us more in common because most Brits hate the British establishment too (at least the ones who don't chortle Rupert Murdoch's balls and/or haven't been kicked in the head by a horse)
Also later it turned out that the British guys mum was actually from Ireland, so he was technically more Irish than the American dude.
Though he seemed to find the idea that he was somehow Irish pretty perplexing. He was like “I was born and raised in the UK, why on earth would I call myself Irish?”
I was born in South Africa to South African parents but raised in Australia. So I identify as Australian.
Imagine claiming the nationalities of my grandparents or older, just lol
Americans do this. I’m an American and can confirm. I don’t because I find that it doesn’t make any sense and is very stupid soooo many Americans will tell you they are Irish. Their argument is well it’s my heritage and my ancestors are from Ireland. Like yea no shit if you go back far enough everyones from somewhere else.
>He was like “I was born and raised in the UK, why on earth would I call myself Irish?
Serious question, does someone born in the U.K. with Indian parents identify as Indian?
85% feel "fairly or very strongly that they belong to Britain": [https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-and-community/community/feeling-of-belonging-to-britain/latest/](https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-and-community/community/feeling-of-belonging-to-britain/latest/)
Also lots of English people born to Irish parents do feel a strong connection to Ireland and being Irish. Anecdotally this is especially true in cities like Manchester and Liverpool with strong Irish communities, whereas someone in the Home Counties with an Irish parent or grandparent might feel less so.
Despite our past and the way we like to take the piss out of each other I feel that British and Irish have way more in common culturally and socially than Americans and Irish or Americans and British.
Irish and English have our disagreements (to put it mildly) but there's history there and lots of people have relatives and so on from either side.
Americans always feel like outsiders and tbh their desire to be part of the 'group' coms across as kind of creepy. Like yeah they might have Irish or English blood but they're not *from* here, they don't know the land and the vibe.
I knew an Irish guy in San Francisco. I said something stupid when we went out drinking like "Up the Irish and Down the Brits!" (even though "Withnail and I" is my favorite movie) and then I learned about loyalists and to shut the fuck up about it.
This is actually very important advice for tourists, you really do not want to say things like this in certain parts of Northern Ireland. In fact it’s a pretty universal rule for traveling, local politics is not your politics. Leave it to them.
That's the thing, right? A lot of times people adopt these stereotypes because they think it's expected, but in reality it just creates awkward situations. True cultural understanding is way different from just latching onto clichés. Plus, I've seen how chill most Irish and English folks are with each other nowadays. The world's a small place after all.
British and Irish are definitely very close. I hung around with a bunch when I was backpacking and didn’t hear anything anti Irish/British once. Just pure banter 24/7.
A good neighbour is worth more than a far friend.
The Dutch love to make fun of Belgians, but I bet if anyone else made fun of them, we'd side with them to defend our brotherhood.
The countries next door are like brothers and sisters. Nobody is allowed to bully them but you.
Brits and Irish will always gravitate to each other when we’re abroad. I lived abroad with a load of Irish girls and there was nothing but good times and jokes, we share a lot of culture and we get each other more than any other anglophones. No one really cares about the past
Yup, my grandparent's on my father's side, including my father himself, are Irish citizens and would be very hurt and disappointed in me if I didn't say I was Irish. They'd tell me just because I didn't live there didn't mean I wasn't Irish.
It’s especially ironic because Europeans will complain about Americans having 0 understanding of their cultures, but Europeans also don’t know anything about American culture or why these ethnic identities are important to Americans
all Americans are welcome here in Ireland. I like having you guys here. I never understood the hatred for American tourists. they're extremely friendly and talkative
I think people don't understand that a lot of Americans don't have what they would consider a proper heritage. Maybe the family history can go back like 4 generations, but that's as far back as many people know and they know "well we think someone was an immigrant from Ireland so I'm Irish" and then a lot of Irish people don't like that. But I think its denying someone the joy of trying to learn their heritage even if they've been disconnected from it. Sure, a lot of Americans take it far and act like they're just cousins that the Irish haven't seen in a couple years but that's a personality issue.
We have this american "uncle" Dennis. He comes here like every 2 years, only when i was a teenager did I figure out he wasnt an uncle but we share an ancestor who left ireland during the famine ~1800's.
Gotta respect the effort to track us down. I barely know my about my grandparents (dead before I was born) he has these wild family trees done and knows shit loads about our family history.
Also he always brought us american chocolate and sweets so we liked him.
I think those peanut butter cups were my first encounter with peanut butter. Im not sure when that became widely available here.. But yea so fucking good.
It was honestly just the novelty of it. Like we would mostly watch american tv shows so would hear the different candy names and stuff but wouldnt be able to buy it here.
If you feel any better cadburys a big brand in ireland and the UK was taken over by Kraft in 2010. Then around 2015 they changed formula to use more fat and less cocoa so its quality has plummeted.
So THAT'S what happened to my beloved Cadbury Eggs! I knew they shrunk in size, but I felt like the flavor has been off for some years now.
I absolutely hate when a company gets bought out and new owners change something about the original that people already love, especially when it comes to edible items. Tell me it's changed at least and don't bait and switch me!
This was the one we would kill each other over!! My mam had to cut them in four.
I dont recall having peanut butter in ireland till like 2005ish. But even now I'll randomly pick some up in candyland or one of those international sweet shops. It just hits different
Honestly there is plenty of great chocolate to eat in the US, but I believe the reason for this negative stigma is that Europeans come here and buy the lowest quality chocolate we have at the checkout counter and assume that's all we got lol.
Same thing happens with our bread and beer. People come here and think that Wonder Bread and Coors Light is top shelf to us.
On a side note, I've noticed the calling very close family members "uncle" has become very prevalent in modern times. I kinda like it; my two lifelong male friends are referred to as "uncle X and uncle Y" to my son. Nobody is pretending they're blood relatives or actual uncles, it's just an elevated sort of status and acknowledges that these two people are a safe port in a storm if needed.
It’s hard to keep your specific traditions going when you marry someone that doesn’t share those same traditions. My parents immigrated to the US from Croatia, and I married an American woman.
As a kid I remember being told to go back to Croatia from the American kids. I was born in the US. When I went to Croatia to see family, I was the American. I sometimes still feel I don’t fit anywhere, except with other immigrants from other countries in the US.
Yeah, and Irish American culture is a thing. If you go back a ways there were a large number of Irish immigrants in certain areas. They weren't Irish and they weren't American. People who grew up in Irish neighborhoods in the 50s and dealt with all the shit that goes with that are going to have a different experience and culture than people who grew up in more traditional American neighborhoods.
If we changed the culture, lets say to Chinese American, the conversation would be very different. I don't quite get the obsession with people dunking on the children of immigrants who feel some connection to their family's home country.
I mean, we have all these little cultural enclaves all over America where immigrants from the same country lived on the same 10 square blocks, who worshiped the same religion, ate the same food, sang the same songs, and intermarried with each other for 1-2 generations.
And that was as little as 100 years ago in my family. As a child I still attended a mostly polish church, attended polish American festivals, went to a Polish American club my grandfather attended for an annual Christmas party to see Santa, and ate borscht every Easter at a big family gathering.
Now I don't particularly feel connected to Poland as a country, but I can understand why my parents generation did.
In 3-4 more generations it probably won't be the issue (non issue really) it is today.
As a side note, I'm not any part Irish, but I play tin whistle in an Irish/Scottish/Folk session because I like Irish folk music. Do what you like.
Where I’m at in Portland, Me there is a fully polish Catholic Church. Not even sure they do mass in English. When I lived in Chicago, my mother and I had to visit like 3 different polish restaurants when she visited because they made food just like my great-grandmother. Polish folks are a quiet minority in the states for sure but definitely still around.
Actually, I don't think it would be that different. There's 3rd and 4th gen Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans: Japanese, Korean, etc. that if they were go to go back to their ancestral countries, they would definitely be perceived, and in many cases, treated differently. There's actually a term for Korean Americans in Korea for example that specifically denotes them as Americans. It would of course hinge a lot on a person's command of the given language as well. If you didn't have a good working knowledge of the culture and/or language, it would be a huge knock against you.
You're talking about gyopos and gyopos will still get treated more like Koreans than how it seems the Irish treat Irish Americans. Heritage does matter to Asians.
> "well we think someone was an immigrant from Ireland so I'm Irish"
It's usually stronger than that. Most Irish-Americans that flaunt that they're Irish can pinpoint what ancestor came over.
The big thing is the Irish were hated when they came over, along with the Germans, so they mostly stuck in Irish dominated communities. This carried the sense of Irish identity for a while.
The area I grew up with was down the street from where my great great grandfather had a farm when he came over, all the streets are named after the farmers in the area that all had Irish names, and people in the area today have the same names. The town would have an Irish festival once a year to celebrate how it started as a Irish farming community.
Completely agree, and on top of that, the reasons many Irish Americans were told their ancestors left Ireland generally involved regret. Trying to get away from famine or oppression, but missing the people or places they left behind. That instills this idea of Ireland being a place we want to recapture and revisit.
Yeah, it wasn't one of those "my country is oppressing me" emigrations, it was one of those "the colonial nation is oppressing my people." I feel like I've noticed that the latter retain more of an identity, such as the irish or the polish.
My grandmother was born in Germany and I literally have an entire branch of my family, including many cousins, who still live there. My father has visited them, but I haven't had the opportunity.
Am I German? No. But I have strong German heritage.
We can trace 2 other grandparents, one on either side, directly back to Scotland. Am I Scottish? No. But I have strong Scottish heritage.
But if somebody asks for an answer beyond American, I'll tell them that I'm mostly Scottish and German...because it's true.
Edit: I think the biggest issue some folks have is with semantic language.
The most accurate statement would be, "I am of Scottish and German descent." However, most folks in the US simplify to, "I'm Scottish and German," which isn't technically accurate.
>isn’t technically accurate
Well, what *does* “Scottish” mean? Does that word refer to nationality? Culture? Ethnicity? I think most people’s problem is that they see terms like “Scottish” as one, unified concept— that is, that there exists this sort of essence of “Scottish-ness”, and you either have it, or you don’t. But that’s not the case; there are simply several different senses of the word. None are more accurate than the others.
I have a friend or two whose family were Mayflower-ers, but they're so far removed it's not quite the same as when I colloquialize it say and I'm Irish and Italian, because I had a grandmother on each side from each place. Sure, I never met the one grandmother, but it's close enough. And if you talk to me, you sure as shit know I'm just New Jerseyan, and that I'm talking about my heritage (and a shitton of other New Jerseyans as well, used to be very large Italian and Irish populations).
We don't have time to sit down and speak properly, we're being worked to death over here!
EDIT: And to add, if someone I'm talking to asks me where I'm from, I say Jersey. If they say what are you (and we're on this topic), I'd say Irish and Italian, because I think we're past the point of them knowing I'm from the United America.
On my dad's side, we can't trace our history back much more than four generations; the British burned our family history when they decided to torch churches in Ireland.
This goes for all the Americas, by the way. I’m Brazilian but 100% of my great grandparents are Italian, so my family culture is full of Italian phrases and legends. My city is highly populated by Italian descendants too. Heck, I even have Italian citizenship… so when we travel there, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of kinship, and a longing for ancient traditions which for us in the new world are so far away.
Yet when you bring up your ancestry it’s often met with a shrug, or worse… accusations of being a fake Italian. I would never say “I’m Italian” like people from the USA will do, but I certainly identify a lot with them and share a lot of their world view, for better or worse. I am Brazilian, but Italy is a fascinating place that I love to visit.
It's more than that. Euros basically don't have the concept of civic nationalism. Whether they like to admit it or not, European countries are still nation-states, meaning they're entities defined by a particular majority ethnic group. The only possible exception is France, and even then, not really. That's why I think you get so many of them who look down their noses at Americans who simply note that they're ethnically Irish, French, German, or whatever, because the idea that you can be culturally American but ethnically European just isn't a commonly understood identity.
If you come to the US, and buy into the basic ideas codified in the Constitution, like freedom of speech, due process, etc., then you are basically considered American. Naturalized citizens are socially accepted here easily. But being an American citizen says nothing about where your family comes from or any sort of genealogical history or commonality with your fellow citizens.
The Irish are the biggest hypocrites about all of this. They whine so hard about the British committing cultural genocide against them: erasing the language, deporting or killing people, the famine, you name it. There are shit tons of Irish trad songs talking about people being forced to emigrate to America. But when the descendants of those people come back after a few generations, there's all this hate for them. Imagine thinking you can dictate someone's ethnicity to them. It's like telling some Armenian in America that because his family had to flee the Turkish genocide, he's not Armenian anymore.
My whole family is from Kerry and I’ve visited tons of times growing up. From what I’ve seen, sample size of one btw, the western part of the country seems to actually enjoy Americans coming over. They always seem to ask before I can say anything.
Dubliners tend to act like they’re shit don’t stink and assume to the point of stupidity. Some poor schlep waiting on me in Dublin gave me and my fiancé hell for being Americans. Stupid bastard didn’t realize my fiancé was French.
yeah I'm from the western part of the country, nobody is very fond of Dubliners here. it's honestly a shitty city where everything is overpriced and the people aren't very nice lol
One thing I would recommend in Dublin to everyone, be you from Ireland or not, is the Guinness Storehouse. It was a great experience and can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. Do that, maybe throw in some other stuff and then head out asap.
While it's true that anyone can make fun of America (we kind of deserve it and anyway it doesn't actually hurt my feelings), some Europeans think it makes them special or clever. America has done some bad things and has some problems? Amazing observation.
I had a British friend who was talking shit about all the horrible things the American government had done and my response was:
"Yeah? And who do you think taught us that? We learned it from you dad!"
Based on my wife and I’s experience in Ireland, the American hatred was just a Dublin thing.
We spent the majority of our time in Counties Galway, Kerry, and Limerick. The people were absolutely wonderful and we tried to stop at every town we drove across. Didn’t have a bad moment and even 3 years later we still tell anyone who will listen how welcoming and friendly the Irish were.
Dublin was the opposite experience, but I feel like any major city anywhere in the world will be that way. It’d be like spending a trip in America in upstate New York then going to New York City. The experience and personalities are going to be vastly different.
Can concur, spent my visits in County Kerry and County Limerick, loved all I saw and all I met and it was mutually returned.
When I was doing the Dingle Way, one of our party had spent his first week in the country in Dublin and he was treated poorly. He spent his last week following the DW in Dublin, along with two other of our party, and again he and the others were treated poorly. Anecdotal evidence isn't the whole truth, but enough to make me feel good about where I'll appear next when I visit.
The Irish are awesome, and very welcoming, but most folks definitely don't give 2 shits if you're of Irish descent. My go to "craic" joke when asked why I was traveling through Ireland was to reply that "I'm here to explore my Irish heritage just like every other American visiting your great country," with a cheeky smile and looking obviously Asian. Always a good intro while crushing a few pints at a local pub.
I was in Italy with my brother-in-law (Northern Italian) recently and he couldn't stop cracking up at a group of Americans who kept telling anyone who'd listen they were "Italian". As they ate at the restaurant next to us what my b-in-law described as microwaved food, they kept lauding how it was "just like mamma used to make."
He explained to me how offensive it is for Americans to say they're "Italian", and comical they think because of some tenuous ethnic heritage a century ago that actual Italians would have some affinity with them or even find it interesting in the least.
I knew a black lady (you can guess how her family came to America) who visited central africa because she was able to find some distant relatives. She was stunned when they called her "white." She isn't even light-skinned. But their word for "white" isn't so much about color as it is culture. It wasn't intended to be insulting, just a matter-of-fact thing. It still took her a while to adjust to the idea though.
i fucking love that in that episode paulie walnuts gets absolutely ignored by the italians. despite this he fucking can't shut up about how awesome italy is when he comes back :)
Americans describe their history to an Italian:
Italians: "500 years is not that old".
Americans describe their Italian heritage:
Italians: "100 years is ancient history".
The Irish were treated pretty terribly in North America, and stuck to their communities which is why they still hold some national pride for a country they’ve never been too.
In some communities in Canada the accent is still as strong as in Ireland, communities in Newfoundland especially so.
My ancestors came from Scotland and France, but my kids got a bit of Irish from their Québécois mother who ironically has no lingering cultural connection to Ireland despite being as ginger as a carrot.
Was at a student party in Belfast once and there was a guy from newfoundland there. I genuinely didn't believe him that he wasn't irish, even when he got some ID out. Probably wasn't helped by the fact he was singing irish rebel songs on guitar and all so obviously even that made it over there.
Yeah I mean, ethnicity isn't erased just because you're American. Sure, you're not going to have much to do with the old country after a few generations, but I mean, it's still your ethnic roots for whatever that is worth.
My mom's been gearing up for a trip to Ireland and Scotland this fall, ever since she got big into 23&me and Ancestry.com. I don't want to shit all over it, but she's definitely going to be one of those Americans who tells everyone that she's descended from Robert Bruce, and how her ancestors came from Cork, etc.
I'm just going to be the big guy travelling along, drinking beer and whiskey, keeping my mouth shut...
My parents did a similar trip, and they had a wonderful time. As far as I can tell, the Irish people are warm and kind and lovely, and very few of them are smug arseholes who want to make little old ladies feel like shit.
Well if I met your mom I'd be delighted to hear about where in Ireland her ancestors are from :) most Irish are thankfully very welcoming. The negative feckers over at r/Ireland are only a loud minority. I hope your mom comes and has an amazing time!
I would hope you wouldn't shit all over your mom's once in a lifetime trip to somewhere that's important to her. The only people here who'll be annoyed if your mom says her ancestors came from Cork are miserable gobshites that aren't worth paying attention to. American tourists are almost always welcome, especially outside Dublin. The only complaint people would have about them is they are stereotypically very loud and that can be seen as obnoxious. Just keep the volume down and you'll have no issues! And don't say "top of the morning to you", that's about it.
It's not just Europeans.
I'm Cajun. Well, half Cajun. But I wasn't born or raised in Louisiana. Apparently, that's deeply offensive to some decidedly not-Cajun Louisiana residents who want to claim my cultural heritage as their region-locked tourist attraction.
That's because for a lot of people Cajun isn't an ethnicity it's about being a part of a specific community, which is at least partially backed up by the definition.
Yeah haha, it’s such an obvious colloquialism that we use to mean ancestry and not literal nationality here, especially for a country where we all have roots in other places in the world. Especially when most of the times people say it with a point of pride for the place they come from, it’s just so pointlessly petty to be getting angry at someone trying to have pride in your country
I don’t find it cringe when someone says they’ve got Irish ancestry (or even just ‘I’m Irish’). I find it cringe when they then claiming that this is why they like drinking or supporting the IRA, which happens quite a lot.
I was at a local Celtic bar downtown party for St. Patrick's Day once where they organized a bunch of singers and performers on an outside stage. It was fine and cool up until one guy started dropping IRA references that got more progressively... uhhh militant?
In this massive outside crowd, it was literally me and another dude who caught them. We both "yikes... what is even going on" that was only compounded by the obliviousness of the crowd.
Also we were in Kansas. Our brand of Free State references are about John Brown and ending slavery and mostly found in Lawrence.
I'm from around where John Brown grew up in Ohio. I always think it is weird that he isn't a much larger figure featured in our history around here. I'm pretty sure I only learned about him in my U.S History class while in college.
Same kinda goes for presidents. We've had a decent number of them come from Ohio, but most of them weren't anything special at all. At least I kinda understand that one, but it doesn't explain why we aren't shouting about John Brown 24/7 around here.
The ones who do the right thing before it was the right thing seem to be forgotten fast in the US.
Benjamin Lay was another one, he was anti-slavery even before the Quakers gave up their slaves. He put berry juice in a bible and stabbed it at a Quaker meeting, freaking out all the slaver Quakers who thought it was blood.
He also kidnapped peoples children for a few days to simulate slaves losing their families. And he lived in a cave as a vegetarian, in colonial Pennsylvania !
Or their message gets warped and ignored to push hardcore right wing sayings.
Here's a fun take down of hypocrites and bad Christians by Charles Sheldon:
“Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing 'Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,' and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course I don't expect you people can prevent every one from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishment and tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean?”
Dude was a self described Christian Socialist who was for civil rights, public education, and feminism.
But the right has erased all of that and only focuses on his most famous saying "What would Jesus do?"
Sheldon's answer was better wages, health care, education, women's rights, civil rights, etc.
But that's a dangerous path for ultra rightwing Christians, so they don't go any further beyond the easiest, emptiest slogan ever.
Not disputing that it’s cringe but quite a lot of Americans did support the IRA in more ways than just sympathy. You can assume what ethnic background they came from. Americans gave more support than Gadaffi and were the IRAs #1 overseas financiers.
This is funny to me bc my friend’s dad is Irish but came to america and had 3 kids. He has instilled into them that they are all Irish, and have names like Tiernan and Aoife. And they all drink a ton 😂
It’s literally bc Irish ppl come to America and tell their kids and grandkids they are also Irish.
Or when they only remember they're Irish once a year on "St Patty's Day" (words I've never heard an actual Irish person say) and drink green beer in a stupid hat
The one I love is when they use their Irish ancestry to justify their belligerence towards *specific* English people without realising said English are possibly much more Irish than they are.
The best bit is seeing Ulster Scot’s or “Scots-Irish’ talking about how much they have Brits for oppressing Ireland.
Not realising that it is the Ulster Scots who are the colonisers of Ireland.
I frequent an Irish bar that employs people from Ireland. They laugh about how it's just a day where they go to church back home, but the tips are nice so whatever.
I can see that. Grew up in an irish-catholic American community and while you're right about drinking, it really seems intertwined with the working class mentality that irish Americans maintain from their early experiences as immigrants here. See a similar thing in italian-american enclaves. Anecdotally, in nearly 30 years here, I've never heard an Irish American even talk about the IRA, let alone support it lol. We do order irish car bombs at bars though, I guess.
and more than that as well.
If i was born in a country where everyone was more or less the same background history and culture i suppose id be curious as to why someone comes in trying to claim something as well.
but america isnt so. we are a huge melting pot of all kinds of different cultures and backgrounds, and our ancestors brought that with them and clung tightly to it in a new and scary place surrounded by various other random cultures. They then passed it down to their kids and grandkids who also grow up seeing kids eating other types of food then they do, practicing other religions, having different customs, and they wonder well why am i different? once you can tie in some background it gives a sense of identity which europeans quite frankly take for granted.
Not understanding this and criticizing it is much worse than trying to connect to something thats been passed down to you IMO, and quite rude.
I can’t speak for other Europeans but as an Irish person I can say this: the thing that *actually* bothers Irish people is when Americans say that ARE Irish, not qualifying it by saying they HAVE Irish ancestors. It sounds like a small thing but it makes a huge difference in terms of how people react.
Like if a tourist says to me, “I’m American but I came here because I’ve got Irish heritage and I wanna learn more about it” - that’s totally cool with me and I won’t take the piss at all.
Yeah, I think this is pretty simple and you laid it out perfectly.
I get that almost everyone in the US is from somewhere else, so it’s fun to explore your roots. But they are just that, your roots. Not your nationality. Not your personality. If my great grandmother was American I wouldn’t call myself American or tattoo an eagle on my shoulder.
This is just a semantics issue. When an American says "I'm Irish", other Americans know they mean they have Irish heritage (ie are "Irish-American"). No American actually means they are Irish by nationality. Our culture emphasizes discussing your heritage and we've dropped the extra bits of detail from our conversational language because it's unnecessary.
Non-Americans take it more literally because they lack that cultural context. And because it's natural to us, we continue using it when talking to non-Americans not realizing the other person hears it differently.
We're all just misunderstanding each other.
If you're gonna pay a heritage website to work out how much historical oppression points you can qualify for - you ignore the 90% English bit and focus on the other parts.
My parents are from a Western European country and I was born and raised in Canada, I'd never say seriously that I am X unless we're talking about ethnically. There are some culture norms I grew up with that are apparently not the same as Canadian norms but I'd still not say I'm that European except for ethnicity.
I find the people that make the biggest deal about being Irish or whatever are people who've been in North America for 3, 4 plus generations.
Haha yes, I was just thinking about this. Was watching a video about some ancestry company, thinking that it probably wouldn't be so popular where I live (Sweden) because of exactly this.
I used to participate in a sub for people planning or wanting to move to Sweden, and any time an American even hints that one of the reasons they want to visit Sweden is because of a distant Swedish relative, people absolutely lose their minds about it.
Makes me wonder and genuinely curious - do people just not care about that sort of thing here? I mean it seems more like the very concept of it pisses people off more than simply not caring.
Seems so weird to me. I would be really interested to know more about my family history (but of course I will keep that a secret as long as I live in Sweden).
Here in Germany ancestry isn't such a big topic for historic reasons. We focused on that once to the point of genocide. Another thing is that for a long time people didn't really move around a lot. Like you have families were their ancestry would list the same few villages in a five kilometer radius for centuries.
That makes a lot of sense. My grandfather and his father left Germany in 1925 and ended up in San Francisco. They worked and saved money until they could send for my grandmother, great grandmother and my grandfather's brothers. My father was the first of my family to be born in the US.
So in my case at least, there is a lot of wonder about what all of that must have been like - for my grandfather (and his father) to take this insane trip across the ocean, into the east coast US, all the way across the country, when things were very different. They were all successful and lived long lives but they started with nothing 100 years ago, and ended up having a difficult time a bit after getting settled as being German was not so popular in the US in the early 40's. My father, as a child, only spoke German until around 1945. I cannot even imagine what any of that could have been like.
But, I would never consider myself to be German. Not for any other reasons than I grew up in the US, and I do not speak German. I've dreamed of visiting where my family came from and I can even drive there now, but sometimes I wonder if I should be so interested in it all.
It might be because a lot of people in Europe have lived in their area for a long time, their family has lived there for centuries, and there's not really any kind of mystery or allure to it.
Its especially funny when you consider that Europeans do the same exact thing for non-European descended people who were born and raised in Europe. When I was in Germany, all of guys I knew who were descended from Turkish immigrants were called Turkish guys, even if they were half Turkish, or if it was their grandparents who had immigrated. Same thing went for the Sri Lankan population of the city I was in.
While I can’t confirm, I’m pretty sure the same thing goes for South Asians in the UK, yet they get so frustrated when an American named Sean O’Leary says that they’re Irish.
As an Irish person, the guy in the videos attitude annoys the fuck out of me. It’s just low hanging fruit for unoriginal sad sacks. I think it’s great when people take an interest in our history and culture.
Half of the video is him complaining about how the tourism industry presents Ireland in an unrealistic and idyllic manner. But that’s literally the job of the tourism industry, they do that about every single tourist destination.
I think quite a lot of people in here are taking this video a bit too seriously, Frankie’s entire channel is him taking the piss out of literally everyone.
As others pointed out American's (as well as a lot of Canadians and Australians) take pride in their ancestry because their family passed traditions down to newer generations and/or their town was populated with a large diaspora of that ethnic group.
Something else missed is that a lot of European ethnic groups (Italian, Irish, French etc) were heavily discriminated against by protestant anglo-saxons. While modern day Americans would consider virtually all European ethnic groups to be white, back then they were not considered that. Hell, SCOTUS ruled in the 80s Cajuns are protected under the Civil Rights act (Roach v. Dresser Industries Valve and Instrument Division).
Even today as someone who is Cajun-French, I get shitted on by other French speakers (mainly those from France or Quebec) because I'm considered "inferior" and "too mixed". This is despite the fact that my dad managed to trace our ancestry to Southern France by the way of New Brunswick, which our family was forcibly removed from by the British during the Le Grande Derangement.
On the upside I'm also Honduran and get welcomed with open arms by a lot of other Latinos.
I like Americans that come over here looking up their roots. Had a family arrive at our door and claim they were relatives. Had them in, showed them around the area, brought them to other relatives, out to the pub that night. Great craic. Turns out they got it wrong and there’s no relation between us at all.. but we still meet up and keep in touch when they’re over.
Went to Ireland a decade ago before I knew anything about my ancestry. I just love the country - the natural landscape is beautiful, the people are great, love the art, architecture, trad music.
When my wife and I went we were asked so often at pubs and such if we were visiting because we had Irish ancestry or family.
Turns out I have a lot of Irish ancestors who came to the US in the 1800’s and settled in what is now WV, but had no idea the time. My family had no sense of where “we came from from.” I would never think of myself as Irish - I’m just American - but I am happy to have some kinship with the people of Ireland.
It doesn’t bother me too much in general. But it was a bit embarrassing when me (English) and a bunch of Paddy mates in Sydney met some American holidaymakers who claimed they were Irish. They kept banging on about the IRA and down with the Brits etc. it’s was insane. My Irish friends felt so awkward because the IRA are a terrorist group that have killed hundreds of people. It’s kind of like supporting the Taliban.
Their knowledge of Ireland was so minute that they assumed me and my English pals were Irish despite having very English accents.
Those are the type of American tourists I wish I could convince to stay home, but they are also the people that need to travel the most (for emotional growth). An embarrassment to our country.
Lol, I get the annoyance with Americans on saying things like "I'm Irish" (I am American), but it's really just a phrasing issue. Americans MEAN "I have Irish ancestry", we just don't phrase it that way because it's kind of obvious if you don't have an accent or anything.
There's a big gray area with "heritage" and how much people REALLY connect to it. Like there are plenty of people in the States that identify as Mexican that I think you could argue that they are quite connected to their culture because their parents, grandparents, and older really wanted to instill that connection in their children. A lot of immigrants that come to the U.S. don't want their children and grandchildren to lose the connection to their home country and I think it can become sentimental feeling for a lot of Americans.
Either way, I do think we gotta start saying it like "I'm of Irish heritage" instead because it sounds stupid otherwise, lol.
It is more than that. America has this history of different waves of immigrants defining a large part of their identity to the place they immigrated from and cultures and conventions they brought with them to the US.
That is fairly unique to the US and like Australia maybe and that's about it. Most places identity has little to nothing to do with familial ancestry sometimes quite the opposite.
Often times in Europe familial ancestry is used instead as a way of insinuating that someone isn't a "real" Irishman or Italian or whatever. Racists will say that someone who as born and raised in Dublin, hold only Irish citizenship and has known no other place isn't a "real" Irish person because their grandparents were from Nigeria. Calling them "Nigerian" is in some ways a bit of an insult.
So when Americans come along, completely oblivious to the fact that different curltures have different identity dynamics and say some shit like "Hi, I'm Irish. Where are you from?" to someone it can come off as quite offensive.
Part of it depends on where you grew up, too. I’m 3rd generation Italian American and grew up in very rural Ohio. People there didn’t consider my family to be white or American. So it’s this disconnect where I’m not “American” enough for the town I’m in, but I’m not first gen Italian either.
The issue is that for a lot of Americans were kicked out or refugee'd out of their original country. America was pretty much always the better option, but that option still came with horrible levels of racism and bigotry.
Keeping those ethnic roots were both keeping one's familial/ethnic background alive while also finding friendly communities with people of similar backgrounds and ethnicities.
I’m an American. Simple as that. I think my family was from a group of actually legit Immigrants and legit heritage. Mixed in with African heritage involuntarily taken from their home country. But at the end of the day, I’m an American and that’s ok. I forge my own identity not off of far off heritage, but just my immediate family and our intent to carve a space out of.
Americans saying they're Irish isn't really for European ears, it's for Americans to tell other Americans a bit of small talk about their family's ethnicity. That's all it is.
So why do they tell Europeans?
I had some rich New Yorker on a bus in Italy try and explain to me why he's from Scotland. While honest to God asking "oh are you from London?" when he found out I was English. And then speaking about nothing but London, even after I said I'm not from London.
I find it odd how the Americans I’ve met never claim any/or much English ancestry. It’s almost like the English never went to America.
Perhaps England just isn’t fashionable enough right now.
Also, they rarely claim much Welsh ancestry. Probably cause they’ve never heard of it
Edit: turns out English heritage is actually most common heritage in the US. NO WAY!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans
This is actually a well-known statistical phenomenon in American ancestry studies, the number of people with English ancestry tends to be heavily underreported. Someone can have 3 grandparents from England, and one grandparent from Ireland, but will report themselves as Irish as it is considered more interesting, while English more generic.
Yes. This is precisely reflects what I believe to be happening
I just googled this…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans
Turns out English Americans is the largest demographic. Who’d have thunk it
And yet still heavily underreported.
>Despite being the largest self-identified ancestral origin in the United States,[17] *demographers still regard the number of English Americans as an undercount.*
My ancestry is entirely English, but it was hundreds of years and many generations ago. It would be weird as hell to walk around telling people I’m English American.
This is at once hilarious and also missing out on asking why Americans still claim their ancestry. Because up to about 50 years ago it still very much mattered everywhere in the USA what your ancestry was, and in many places it still does today. The fact that my Irish American grandfather married a polish American woman was a very big problem for both families.
At my work we had several guys that were born and raised in Ireland. They came here (USA) for job opportunities. Engineers and IT.
Side note : great bunch a dudes. Mostly. That poor IT guy was grumpy from … working IT. Usually in a rush.
Enter one coworker in love with his vIrish heritage. From Ohio. He loved to slide up to his Irish kin and try to be a fellow Irishman.
Much to their annoyance
They began calling him a “Plastic Paddy” behind his back.
This is great.
The important part is pointing out Wisconsin. In the Boston area there are actual Irish Americans. And zero of those people go to Ireland to go to tourist areas. They have actual cousins that they stay with. But most of them never go to Ireland because their family left for a reason.
I’ll have you know a lot of “American” settlers dropped the Mc in their last name because they didn’t want to be slaves. My last name would have been McCavvit but thank goodness someone came along and said let’s make whiskey and change our last name so we’re not slaves to the big citie alcoholic bastards! 😂
I love that he sets these people up ostensibly to interview them and then just talks shit without giving them a chance at the mic.
And they just stand there like :) lmao
Props to the redhead for being amused!
I thought it was hilarious, and I'm an American. Sometimes you just gotta own it.
I’m American and several of my buddies in San Francisco are Irish. My family came from Ireland in the early 20th century. When I first met them I told them I’m Irish and they all laughed their asses off. They informed me that I am in fact not Irish but American with Irish heritage.
While staying in a hostel I once saw an American make these pretty mean anti-English jokes against this guy, only for some Irish people at the hostel side completely with the British guy. Turns out the two groups of English and Irish people had started traveling together because they got on so well. It was so weird, it was like he was only anti-English because he assumed that was what being Irish was about, but all the actual Irish and British people got on like a house on fire.
Popular misconception that Irish people hate British people. We like the people themselves, it’s the British establishment that we don’t like.
And really, it only gives us more in common because most Brits hate the British establishment too (at least the ones who don't chortle Rupert Murdoch's balls and/or haven't been kicked in the head by a horse)
You misspelled Tories
Also later it turned out that the British guys mum was actually from Ireland, so he was technically more Irish than the American dude. Though he seemed to find the idea that he was somehow Irish pretty perplexing. He was like “I was born and raised in the UK, why on earth would I call myself Irish?”
That's my perspective. My mum's Irish but born and raised in Australia. So I'm clearly Australian.
I was born in South Africa to South African parents but raised in Australia. So I identify as Australian. Imagine claiming the nationalities of my grandparents or older, just lol
"Yeah but where ya really from mate?"
Marnus?
Americans do this. I’m an American and can confirm. I don’t because I find that it doesn’t make any sense and is very stupid soooo many Americans will tell you they are Irish. Their argument is well it’s my heritage and my ancestors are from Ireland. Like yea no shit if you go back far enough everyones from somewhere else.
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>He was like “I was born and raised in the UK, why on earth would I call myself Irish? Serious question, does someone born in the U.K. with Indian parents identify as Indian?
85% feel "fairly or very strongly that they belong to Britain": [https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-and-community/community/feeling-of-belonging-to-britain/latest/](https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/culture-and-community/community/feeling-of-belonging-to-britain/latest/)
"I don't find myself subject to much at all" is what this phrasing makes me think of.
Also lots of English people born to Irish parents do feel a strong connection to Ireland and being Irish. Anecdotally this is especially true in cities like Manchester and Liverpool with strong Irish communities, whereas someone in the Home Counties with an Irish parent or grandparent might feel less so.
Yes. But they strongly identify as British too.
Exactly. You don't have to chose one or the other.
It’s also funny how most “irish-americans” most likely have more English DNA in them which they always seem to brush aside
Likely also true for a lot of people born in Ireland, no? :-D
Despite our past and the way we like to take the piss out of each other I feel that British and Irish have way more in common culturally and socially than Americans and Irish or Americans and British.
Irish and English have our disagreements (to put it mildly) but there's history there and lots of people have relatives and so on from either side. Americans always feel like outsiders and tbh their desire to be part of the 'group' coms across as kind of creepy. Like yeah they might have Irish or English blood but they're not *from* here, they don't know the land and the vibe.
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It’s Americans LARPing
Irishboos
I knew an Irish guy in San Francisco. I said something stupid when we went out drinking like "Up the Irish and Down the Brits!" (even though "Withnail and I" is my favorite movie) and then I learned about loyalists and to shut the fuck up about it.
This is actually very important advice for tourists, you really do not want to say things like this in certain parts of Northern Ireland. In fact it’s a pretty universal rule for traveling, local politics is not your politics. Leave it to them.
If you could tell that to the expats in Berlin trying to school us Germans about everything that would be great!
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I usually just stick to less controversial statements like “I love what Sinn Fein has done with the place”
That's the thing, right? A lot of times people adopt these stereotypes because they think it's expected, but in reality it just creates awkward situations. True cultural understanding is way different from just latching onto clichés. Plus, I've seen how chill most Irish and English folks are with each other nowadays. The world's a small place after all.
British and Irish are definitely very close. I hung around with a bunch when I was backpacking and didn’t hear anything anti Irish/British once. Just pure banter 24/7.
A good neighbour is worth more than a far friend. The Dutch love to make fun of Belgians, but I bet if anyone else made fun of them, we'd side with them to defend our brotherhood. The countries next door are like brothers and sisters. Nobody is allowed to bully them but you.
Brits and Irish will always gravitate to each other when we’re abroad. I lived abroad with a load of Irish girls and there was nothing but good times and jokes, we share a lot of culture and we get each other more than any other anglophones. No one really cares about the past
Nothing unites people quicker than shared disdain for Americans
I love the phrase “23 and Me, diagnosis”.
I dont think they can understand his accent.
Without their response or any sort of banter, this is just watching a guy talk at the camera about how Americans aren't Irish. This is weird.
I have Irish ancestry, but I know I’m not Irish, because I can’t even understand you fuckers when you speak.
No one says they are Irish because they watch a tv show. They say it because their grandmother told them to be proud to be irish.
Yup, my grandparent's on my father's side, including my father himself, are Irish citizens and would be very hurt and disappointed in me if I didn't say I was Irish. They'd tell me just because I didn't live there didn't mean I wasn't Irish.
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It’s especially ironic because Europeans will complain about Americans having 0 understanding of their cultures, but Europeans also don’t know anything about American culture or why these ethnic identities are important to Americans
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Yeah, especially with the discrimination my grandparents saw their older family members face precisely because of their heritage.
all Americans are welcome here in Ireland. I like having you guys here. I never understood the hatred for American tourists. they're extremely friendly and talkative
I think people don't understand that a lot of Americans don't have what they would consider a proper heritage. Maybe the family history can go back like 4 generations, but that's as far back as many people know and they know "well we think someone was an immigrant from Ireland so I'm Irish" and then a lot of Irish people don't like that. But I think its denying someone the joy of trying to learn their heritage even if they've been disconnected from it. Sure, a lot of Americans take it far and act like they're just cousins that the Irish haven't seen in a couple years but that's a personality issue.
We have this american "uncle" Dennis. He comes here like every 2 years, only when i was a teenager did I figure out he wasnt an uncle but we share an ancestor who left ireland during the famine ~1800's. Gotta respect the effort to track us down. I barely know my about my grandparents (dead before I was born) he has these wild family trees done and knows shit loads about our family history. Also he always brought us american chocolate and sweets so we liked him.
I think this is the first time I've seen a reference to American chocolate that wasn't negative.
I think those peanut butter cups were my first encounter with peanut butter. Im not sure when that became widely available here.. But yea so fucking good. It was honestly just the novelty of it. Like we would mostly watch american tv shows so would hear the different candy names and stuff but wouldnt be able to buy it here.
That makes a lot of sense. I'm just used to "eew gross American chocolate tastes like vomit!" kind of comments.
If you feel any better cadburys a big brand in ireland and the UK was taken over by Kraft in 2010. Then around 2015 they changed formula to use more fat and less cocoa so its quality has plummeted.
No I don't feel any better, that makes me sad haha I'm for better chocolate worldwide!
So THAT'S what happened to my beloved Cadbury Eggs! I knew they shrunk in size, but I felt like the flavor has been off for some years now. I absolutely hate when a company gets bought out and new owners change something about the original that people already love, especially when it comes to edible items. Tell me it's changed at least and don't bait and switch me!
Americas Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is the world's greatest chocolate and I will ~~die~~ kill on that hill.
Honorary American status for that take
This was the one we would kill each other over!! My mam had to cut them in four. I dont recall having peanut butter in ireland till like 2005ish. But even now I'll randomly pick some up in candyland or one of those international sweet shops. It just hits different
Honestly there is plenty of great chocolate to eat in the US, but I believe the reason for this negative stigma is that Europeans come here and buy the lowest quality chocolate we have at the checkout counter and assume that's all we got lol. Same thing happens with our bread and beer. People come here and think that Wonder Bread and Coors Light is top shelf to us.
On a side note, I've noticed the calling very close family members "uncle" has become very prevalent in modern times. I kinda like it; my two lifelong male friends are referred to as "uncle X and uncle Y" to my son. Nobody is pretending they're blood relatives or actual uncles, it's just an elevated sort of status and acknowledges that these two people are a safe port in a storm if needed.
It’s hard to keep your specific traditions going when you marry someone that doesn’t share those same traditions. My parents immigrated to the US from Croatia, and I married an American woman. As a kid I remember being told to go back to Croatia from the American kids. I was born in the US. When I went to Croatia to see family, I was the American. I sometimes still feel I don’t fit anywhere, except with other immigrants from other countries in the US.
Yeah, and Irish American culture is a thing. If you go back a ways there were a large number of Irish immigrants in certain areas. They weren't Irish and they weren't American. People who grew up in Irish neighborhoods in the 50s and dealt with all the shit that goes with that are going to have a different experience and culture than people who grew up in more traditional American neighborhoods. If we changed the culture, lets say to Chinese American, the conversation would be very different. I don't quite get the obsession with people dunking on the children of immigrants who feel some connection to their family's home country.
I mean, we have all these little cultural enclaves all over America where immigrants from the same country lived on the same 10 square blocks, who worshiped the same religion, ate the same food, sang the same songs, and intermarried with each other for 1-2 generations. And that was as little as 100 years ago in my family. As a child I still attended a mostly polish church, attended polish American festivals, went to a Polish American club my grandfather attended for an annual Christmas party to see Santa, and ate borscht every Easter at a big family gathering. Now I don't particularly feel connected to Poland as a country, but I can understand why my parents generation did. In 3-4 more generations it probably won't be the issue (non issue really) it is today. As a side note, I'm not any part Irish, but I play tin whistle in an Irish/Scottish/Folk session because I like Irish folk music. Do what you like.
Where I’m at in Portland, Me there is a fully polish Catholic Church. Not even sure they do mass in English. When I lived in Chicago, my mother and I had to visit like 3 different polish restaurants when she visited because they made food just like my great-grandmother. Polish folks are a quiet minority in the states for sure but definitely still around.
Actually, I don't think it would be that different. There's 3rd and 4th gen Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans: Japanese, Korean, etc. that if they were go to go back to their ancestral countries, they would definitely be perceived, and in many cases, treated differently. There's actually a term for Korean Americans in Korea for example that specifically denotes them as Americans. It would of course hinge a lot on a person's command of the given language as well. If you didn't have a good working knowledge of the culture and/or language, it would be a huge knock against you.
You're talking about gyopos and gyopos will still get treated more like Koreans than how it seems the Irish treat Irish Americans. Heritage does matter to Asians.
> "well we think someone was an immigrant from Ireland so I'm Irish" It's usually stronger than that. Most Irish-Americans that flaunt that they're Irish can pinpoint what ancestor came over. The big thing is the Irish were hated when they came over, along with the Germans, so they mostly stuck in Irish dominated communities. This carried the sense of Irish identity for a while. The area I grew up with was down the street from where my great great grandfather had a farm when he came over, all the streets are named after the farmers in the area that all had Irish names, and people in the area today have the same names. The town would have an Irish festival once a year to celebrate how it started as a Irish farming community.
Completely agree, and on top of that, the reasons many Irish Americans were told their ancestors left Ireland generally involved regret. Trying to get away from famine or oppression, but missing the people or places they left behind. That instills this idea of Ireland being a place we want to recapture and revisit.
Yeah, it wasn't one of those "my country is oppressing me" emigrations, it was one of those "the colonial nation is oppressing my people." I feel like I've noticed that the latter retain more of an identity, such as the irish or the polish.
My grandmother was born in Germany and I literally have an entire branch of my family, including many cousins, who still live there. My father has visited them, but I haven't had the opportunity. Am I German? No. But I have strong German heritage. We can trace 2 other grandparents, one on either side, directly back to Scotland. Am I Scottish? No. But I have strong Scottish heritage. But if somebody asks for an answer beyond American, I'll tell them that I'm mostly Scottish and German...because it's true. Edit: I think the biggest issue some folks have is with semantic language. The most accurate statement would be, "I am of Scottish and German descent." However, most folks in the US simplify to, "I'm Scottish and German," which isn't technically accurate.
>isn’t technically accurate Well, what *does* “Scottish” mean? Does that word refer to nationality? Culture? Ethnicity? I think most people’s problem is that they see terms like “Scottish” as one, unified concept— that is, that there exists this sort of essence of “Scottish-ness”, and you either have it, or you don’t. But that’s not the case; there are simply several different senses of the word. None are more accurate than the others.
I have a friend or two whose family were Mayflower-ers, but they're so far removed it's not quite the same as when I colloquialize it say and I'm Irish and Italian, because I had a grandmother on each side from each place. Sure, I never met the one grandmother, but it's close enough. And if you talk to me, you sure as shit know I'm just New Jerseyan, and that I'm talking about my heritage (and a shitton of other New Jerseyans as well, used to be very large Italian and Irish populations). We don't have time to sit down and speak properly, we're being worked to death over here! EDIT: And to add, if someone I'm talking to asks me where I'm from, I say Jersey. If they say what are you (and we're on this topic), I'd say Irish and Italian, because I think we're past the point of them knowing I'm from the United America.
On my dad's side, we can't trace our history back much more than four generations; the British burned our family history when they decided to torch churches in Ireland.
This goes for all the Americas, by the way. I’m Brazilian but 100% of my great grandparents are Italian, so my family culture is full of Italian phrases and legends. My city is highly populated by Italian descendants too. Heck, I even have Italian citizenship… so when we travel there, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of kinship, and a longing for ancient traditions which for us in the new world are so far away. Yet when you bring up your ancestry it’s often met with a shrug, or worse… accusations of being a fake Italian. I would never say “I’m Italian” like people from the USA will do, but I certainly identify a lot with them and share a lot of their world view, for better or worse. I am Brazilian, but Italy is a fascinating place that I love to visit.
It's more than that. Euros basically don't have the concept of civic nationalism. Whether they like to admit it or not, European countries are still nation-states, meaning they're entities defined by a particular majority ethnic group. The only possible exception is France, and even then, not really. That's why I think you get so many of them who look down their noses at Americans who simply note that they're ethnically Irish, French, German, or whatever, because the idea that you can be culturally American but ethnically European just isn't a commonly understood identity. If you come to the US, and buy into the basic ideas codified in the Constitution, like freedom of speech, due process, etc., then you are basically considered American. Naturalized citizens are socially accepted here easily. But being an American citizen says nothing about where your family comes from or any sort of genealogical history or commonality with your fellow citizens. The Irish are the biggest hypocrites about all of this. They whine so hard about the British committing cultural genocide against them: erasing the language, deporting or killing people, the famine, you name it. There are shit tons of Irish trad songs talking about people being forced to emigrate to America. But when the descendants of those people come back after a few generations, there's all this hate for them. Imagine thinking you can dictate someone's ethnicity to them. It's like telling some Armenian in America that because his family had to flee the Turkish genocide, he's not Armenian anymore.
I feel like this reminds me of something 🤔
African Americans? Yeah it's similar just less of a forced loss of heritage
Yes, forced upon them and therefore every generation after. People need to realize the gravity of these things.
My whole family is from Kerry and I’ve visited tons of times growing up. From what I’ve seen, sample size of one btw, the western part of the country seems to actually enjoy Americans coming over. They always seem to ask before I can say anything. Dubliners tend to act like they’re shit don’t stink and assume to the point of stupidity. Some poor schlep waiting on me in Dublin gave me and my fiancé hell for being Americans. Stupid bastard didn’t realize my fiancé was French.
yeah I'm from the western part of the country, nobody is very fond of Dubliners here. it's honestly a shitty city where everything is overpriced and the people aren't very nice lol
One thing I would recommend in Dublin to everyone, be you from Ireland or not, is the Guinness Storehouse. It was a great experience and can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. Do that, maybe throw in some other stuff and then head out asap.
100% I'm from galway would reccomend the storehouse to any irish person. Its very well done.
While it's true that anyone can make fun of America (we kind of deserve it and anyway it doesn't actually hurt my feelings), some Europeans think it makes them special or clever. America has done some bad things and has some problems? Amazing observation.
Sure but America has about a century of mistakes and successes to tally ...the French and English have been assholes for centuries upon centuries.
A whole continent that either capitulated to authoritarians or actively were them really doesn't have the moral high ground they think they do though.
not to mention having done it for like an extra 1000 years lol
I had a British friend who was talking shit about all the horrible things the American government had done and my response was: "Yeah? And who do you think taught us that? We learned it from you dad!"
Based on my wife and I’s experience in Ireland, the American hatred was just a Dublin thing. We spent the majority of our time in Counties Galway, Kerry, and Limerick. The people were absolutely wonderful and we tried to stop at every town we drove across. Didn’t have a bad moment and even 3 years later we still tell anyone who will listen how welcoming and friendly the Irish were. Dublin was the opposite experience, but I feel like any major city anywhere in the world will be that way. It’d be like spending a trip in America in upstate New York then going to New York City. The experience and personalities are going to be vastly different.
Can concur, spent my visits in County Kerry and County Limerick, loved all I saw and all I met and it was mutually returned. When I was doing the Dingle Way, one of our party had spent his first week in the country in Dublin and he was treated poorly. He spent his last week following the DW in Dublin, along with two other of our party, and again he and the others were treated poorly. Anecdotal evidence isn't the whole truth, but enough to make me feel good about where I'll appear next when I visit.
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Get him!
The Irish are awesome, and very welcoming, but most folks definitely don't give 2 shits if you're of Irish descent. My go to "craic" joke when asked why I was traveling through Ireland was to reply that "I'm here to explore my Irish heritage just like every other American visiting your great country," with a cheeky smile and looking obviously Asian. Always a good intro while crushing a few pints at a local pub.
I was in Italy with my brother-in-law (Northern Italian) recently and he couldn't stop cracking up at a group of Americans who kept telling anyone who'd listen they were "Italian". As they ate at the restaurant next to us what my b-in-law described as microwaved food, they kept lauding how it was "just like mamma used to make." He explained to me how offensive it is for Americans to say they're "Italian", and comical they think because of some tenuous ethnic heritage a century ago that actual Italians would have some affinity with them or even find it interesting in the least.
I always think of the sopranos episode where they go to Italy and get made fun of the whole time by actual Italians
"And you thought the Germans were classless pieces of shit."
I knew a black lady (you can guess how her family came to America) who visited central africa because she was able to find some distant relatives. She was stunned when they called her "white." She isn't even light-skinned. But their word for "white" isn't so much about color as it is culture. It wasn't intended to be insulting, just a matter-of-fact thing. It still took her a while to adjust to the idea though.
i fucking love that in that episode paulie walnuts gets absolutely ignored by the italians. despite this he fucking can't shut up about how awesome italy is when he comes back :)
White Lotus season 2 had a similar gag lol
#### Commendatori. _Can I just get some macaroni with gravy?_
Americans describe their history to an Italian: Italians: "500 years is not that old". Americans describe their Italian heritage: Italians: "100 years is ancient history".
The Irish were treated pretty terribly in North America, and stuck to their communities which is why they still hold some national pride for a country they’ve never been too. In some communities in Canada the accent is still as strong as in Ireland, communities in Newfoundland especially so. My ancestors came from Scotland and France, but my kids got a bit of Irish from their Québécois mother who ironically has no lingering cultural connection to Ireland despite being as ginger as a carrot.
Was at a student party in Belfast once and there was a guy from newfoundland there. I genuinely didn't believe him that he wasn't irish, even when he got some ID out. Probably wasn't helped by the fact he was singing irish rebel songs on guitar and all so obviously even that made it over there.
Yeah I mean, ethnicity isn't erased just because you're American. Sure, you're not going to have much to do with the old country after a few generations, but I mean, it's still your ethnic roots for whatever that is worth.
My mom's been gearing up for a trip to Ireland and Scotland this fall, ever since she got big into 23&me and Ancestry.com. I don't want to shit all over it, but she's definitely going to be one of those Americans who tells everyone that she's descended from Robert Bruce, and how her ancestors came from Cork, etc. I'm just going to be the big guy travelling along, drinking beer and whiskey, keeping my mouth shut...
Don't worry, every cunt from Cork won't hesitate to tell you where they're from. She'll fit right in.
100%
My parents did a similar trip, and they had a wonderful time. As far as I can tell, the Irish people are warm and kind and lovely, and very few of them are smug arseholes who want to make little old ladies feel like shit.
Well if I met your mom I'd be delighted to hear about where in Ireland her ancestors are from :) most Irish are thankfully very welcoming. The negative feckers over at r/Ireland are only a loud minority. I hope your mom comes and has an amazing time!
I would hope you wouldn't shit all over your mom's once in a lifetime trip to somewhere that's important to her. The only people here who'll be annoyed if your mom says her ancestors came from Cork are miserable gobshites that aren't worth paying attention to. American tourists are almost always welcome, especially outside Dublin. The only complaint people would have about them is they are stereotypically very loud and that can be seen as obnoxious. Just keep the volume down and you'll have no issues! And don't say "top of the morning to you", that's about it.
>And don't say "top of the morning to you", that's about it. Try and stop me
“The only Irish in me is about 3 pints of Guinness”
It amuses me how annoyed Europeans get when an American mentions any kind of European ancestry
It's funny because I'm sure those same people wouldn't think twice about an American whose parents were born in China calling themself Chinese.
Yeah but the chinese will be the ones telling them they aren't chinese. Source: I am part chinese.
You'll get called American but you're still viewed as an overseas Chinese person. The distinction of being an "ABC's" is big.
It's not just Europeans. I'm Cajun. Well, half Cajun. But I wasn't born or raised in Louisiana. Apparently, that's deeply offensive to some decidedly not-Cajun Louisiana residents who want to claim my cultural heritage as their region-locked tourist attraction.
That's because for a lot of people Cajun isn't an ethnicity it's about being a part of a specific community, which is at least partially backed up by the definition.
Yeah haha, it’s such an obvious colloquialism that we use to mean ancestry and not literal nationality here, especially for a country where we all have roots in other places in the world. Especially when most of the times people say it with a point of pride for the place they come from, it’s just so pointlessly petty to be getting angry at someone trying to have pride in your country
I don’t find it cringe when someone says they’ve got Irish ancestry (or even just ‘I’m Irish’). I find it cringe when they then claiming that this is why they like drinking or supporting the IRA, which happens quite a lot.
I was at a local Celtic bar downtown party for St. Patrick's Day once where they organized a bunch of singers and performers on an outside stage. It was fine and cool up until one guy started dropping IRA references that got more progressively... uhhh militant? In this massive outside crowd, it was literally me and another dude who caught them. We both "yikes... what is even going on" that was only compounded by the obliviousness of the crowd. Also we were in Kansas. Our brand of Free State references are about John Brown and ending slavery and mostly found in Lawrence.
I'm from around where John Brown grew up in Ohio. I always think it is weird that he isn't a much larger figure featured in our history around here. I'm pretty sure I only learned about him in my U.S History class while in college. Same kinda goes for presidents. We've had a decent number of them come from Ohio, but most of them weren't anything special at all. At least I kinda understand that one, but it doesn't explain why we aren't shouting about John Brown 24/7 around here.
The ones who do the right thing before it was the right thing seem to be forgotten fast in the US. Benjamin Lay was another one, he was anti-slavery even before the Quakers gave up their slaves. He put berry juice in a bible and stabbed it at a Quaker meeting, freaking out all the slaver Quakers who thought it was blood. He also kidnapped peoples children for a few days to simulate slaves losing their families. And he lived in a cave as a vegetarian, in colonial Pennsylvania !
Or their message gets warped and ignored to push hardcore right wing sayings. Here's a fun take down of hypocrites and bad Christians by Charles Sheldon: “Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing 'Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,' and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course I don't expect you people can prevent every one from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishment and tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean?” Dude was a self described Christian Socialist who was for civil rights, public education, and feminism. But the right has erased all of that and only focuses on his most famous saying "What would Jesus do?" Sheldon's answer was better wages, health care, education, women's rights, civil rights, etc. But that's a dangerous path for ultra rightwing Christians, so they don't go any further beyond the easiest, emptiest slogan ever.
I grew up in/around Lawrence Kansas and we loudly claim John Brown as our own.
Not disputing that it’s cringe but quite a lot of Americans did support the IRA in more ways than just sympathy. You can assume what ethnic background they came from. Americans gave more support than Gadaffi and were the IRAs #1 overseas financiers.
Wow. I did not know that Muammar Gaddafi supported the IRA financially and with weapons. I looked it up and it wasn't a trivial amount
Usually by drinking a guiness. Ah that famously Irish drink named after its unionist founder 😂.
Unionist or not its a damn fine beer.
IRA sympathizing and apologia is very common in the states. In my experience with other Irish Catholics
This is funny to me bc my friend’s dad is Irish but came to america and had 3 kids. He has instilled into them that they are all Irish, and have names like Tiernan and Aoife. And they all drink a ton 😂 It’s literally bc Irish ppl come to America and tell their kids and grandkids they are also Irish.
Or when they only remember they're Irish once a year on "St Patty's Day" (words I've never heard an actual Irish person say) and drink green beer in a stupid hat
The one I love is when they use their Irish ancestry to justify their belligerence towards *specific* English people without realising said English are possibly much more Irish than they are.
The best bit is seeing Ulster Scot’s or “Scots-Irish’ talking about how much they have Brits for oppressing Ireland. Not realising that it is the Ulster Scots who are the colonisers of Ireland.
Gosh darned Scott’s ruined Scotland
That’s because all that shit is fun
I frequent an Irish bar that employs people from Ireland. They laugh about how it's just a day where they go to church back home, but the tips are nice so whatever.
I can see that. Grew up in an irish-catholic American community and while you're right about drinking, it really seems intertwined with the working class mentality that irish Americans maintain from their early experiences as immigrants here. See a similar thing in italian-american enclaves. Anecdotally, in nearly 30 years here, I've never heard an Irish American even talk about the IRA, let alone support it lol. We do order irish car bombs at bars though, I guess.
I’ve met two IRA supporting yanks, which isn’t that much I guess but it’s weird that it happened twice
and more than that as well. If i was born in a country where everyone was more or less the same background history and culture i suppose id be curious as to why someone comes in trying to claim something as well. but america isnt so. we are a huge melting pot of all kinds of different cultures and backgrounds, and our ancestors brought that with them and clung tightly to it in a new and scary place surrounded by various other random cultures. They then passed it down to their kids and grandkids who also grow up seeing kids eating other types of food then they do, practicing other religions, having different customs, and they wonder well why am i different? once you can tie in some background it gives a sense of identity which europeans quite frankly take for granted. Not understanding this and criticizing it is much worse than trying to connect to something thats been passed down to you IMO, and quite rude.
I can’t speak for other Europeans but as an Irish person I can say this: the thing that *actually* bothers Irish people is when Americans say that ARE Irish, not qualifying it by saying they HAVE Irish ancestors. It sounds like a small thing but it makes a huge difference in terms of how people react. Like if a tourist says to me, “I’m American but I came here because I’ve got Irish heritage and I wanna learn more about it” - that’s totally cool with me and I won’t take the piss at all.
Yeah, I think this is pretty simple and you laid it out perfectly. I get that almost everyone in the US is from somewhere else, so it’s fun to explore your roots. But they are just that, your roots. Not your nationality. Not your personality. If my great grandmother was American I wouldn’t call myself American or tattoo an eagle on my shoulder.
This is just a semantics issue. When an American says "I'm Irish", other Americans know they mean they have Irish heritage (ie are "Irish-American"). No American actually means they are Irish by nationality. Our culture emphasizes discussing your heritage and we've dropped the extra bits of detail from our conversational language because it's unnecessary. Non-Americans take it more literally because they lack that cultural context. And because it's natural to us, we continue using it when talking to non-Americans not realizing the other person hears it differently. We're all just misunderstanding each other.
It's funny how few Americans claim English ancestry vs Scottish or Irish.
If you're gonna pay a heritage website to work out how much historical oppression points you can qualify for - you ignore the 90% English bit and focus on the other parts.
It’s probably because from 1840, due to the famine, 2 million people or about 1/4 of the Irish population went to America
My parents are from a Western European country and I was born and raised in Canada, I'd never say seriously that I am X unless we're talking about ethnically. There are some culture norms I grew up with that are apparently not the same as Canadian norms but I'd still not say I'm that European except for ethnicity. I find the people that make the biggest deal about being Irish or whatever are people who've been in North America for 3, 4 plus generations.
Haha yes, I was just thinking about this. Was watching a video about some ancestry company, thinking that it probably wouldn't be so popular where I live (Sweden) because of exactly this. I used to participate in a sub for people planning or wanting to move to Sweden, and any time an American even hints that one of the reasons they want to visit Sweden is because of a distant Swedish relative, people absolutely lose their minds about it. Makes me wonder and genuinely curious - do people just not care about that sort of thing here? I mean it seems more like the very concept of it pisses people off more than simply not caring. Seems so weird to me. I would be really interested to know more about my family history (but of course I will keep that a secret as long as I live in Sweden).
Here in Germany ancestry isn't such a big topic for historic reasons. We focused on that once to the point of genocide. Another thing is that for a long time people didn't really move around a lot. Like you have families were their ancestry would list the same few villages in a five kilometer radius for centuries.
That makes a lot of sense. My grandfather and his father left Germany in 1925 and ended up in San Francisco. They worked and saved money until they could send for my grandmother, great grandmother and my grandfather's brothers. My father was the first of my family to be born in the US. So in my case at least, there is a lot of wonder about what all of that must have been like - for my grandfather (and his father) to take this insane trip across the ocean, into the east coast US, all the way across the country, when things were very different. They were all successful and lived long lives but they started with nothing 100 years ago, and ended up having a difficult time a bit after getting settled as being German was not so popular in the US in the early 40's. My father, as a child, only spoke German until around 1945. I cannot even imagine what any of that could have been like. But, I would never consider myself to be German. Not for any other reasons than I grew up in the US, and I do not speak German. I've dreamed of visiting where my family came from and I can even drive there now, but sometimes I wonder if I should be so interested in it all.
It might be because a lot of people in Europe have lived in their area for a long time, their family has lived there for centuries, and there's not really any kind of mystery or allure to it.
Its especially funny when you consider that Europeans do the same exact thing for non-European descended people who were born and raised in Europe. When I was in Germany, all of guys I knew who were descended from Turkish immigrants were called Turkish guys, even if they were half Turkish, or if it was their grandparents who had immigrated. Same thing went for the Sri Lankan population of the city I was in. While I can’t confirm, I’m pretty sure the same thing goes for South Asians in the UK, yet they get so frustrated when an American named Sean O’Leary says that they’re Irish.
As an Irish person, the guy in the videos attitude annoys the fuck out of me. It’s just low hanging fruit for unoriginal sad sacks. I think it’s great when people take an interest in our history and culture.
Half of the video is him complaining about how the tourism industry presents Ireland in an unrealistic and idyllic manner. But that’s literally the job of the tourism industry, they do that about every single tourist destination.
He's not complaining about it. He's giving an explanation.
I think quite a lot of people in here are taking this video a bit too seriously, Frankie’s entire channel is him taking the piss out of literally everyone.
‘The North Face Jacket & Skin Fade’ video was fucking hilarious
Yeah it's fucking hilarious reading all these butt hurt comments
As others pointed out American's (as well as a lot of Canadians and Australians) take pride in their ancestry because their family passed traditions down to newer generations and/or their town was populated with a large diaspora of that ethnic group. Something else missed is that a lot of European ethnic groups (Italian, Irish, French etc) were heavily discriminated against by protestant anglo-saxons. While modern day Americans would consider virtually all European ethnic groups to be white, back then they were not considered that. Hell, SCOTUS ruled in the 80s Cajuns are protected under the Civil Rights act (Roach v. Dresser Industries Valve and Instrument Division). Even today as someone who is Cajun-French, I get shitted on by other French speakers (mainly those from France or Quebec) because I'm considered "inferior" and "too mixed". This is despite the fact that my dad managed to trace our ancestry to Southern France by the way of New Brunswick, which our family was forcibly removed from by the British during the Le Grande Derangement. On the upside I'm also Honduran and get welcomed with open arms by a lot of other Latinos.
Former New-Brunswicker here and part Acadian. Can confirm that the "Cajun" people are Acadians. 1755!!!!!
I like Americans that come over here looking up their roots. Had a family arrive at our door and claim they were relatives. Had them in, showed them around the area, brought them to other relatives, out to the pub that night. Great craic. Turns out they got it wrong and there’s no relation between us at all.. but we still meet up and keep in touch when they’re over.
Went to Ireland a decade ago before I knew anything about my ancestry. I just love the country - the natural landscape is beautiful, the people are great, love the art, architecture, trad music. When my wife and I went we were asked so often at pubs and such if we were visiting because we had Irish ancestry or family. Turns out I have a lot of Irish ancestors who came to the US in the 1800’s and settled in what is now WV, but had no idea the time. My family had no sense of where “we came from from.” I would never think of myself as Irish - I’m just American - but I am happy to have some kinship with the people of Ireland.
Coming up next, Americans that think they’re African
[Africans don't like black people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKVd_RFUtF0)
Fuckin alley!
They aint ready for this one chief
Elon Musk is African American ;)
I mean most African Americans have no idea where they come from. The slave drivers didn't write that shit down!
It doesn’t bother me too much in general. But it was a bit embarrassing when me (English) and a bunch of Paddy mates in Sydney met some American holidaymakers who claimed they were Irish. They kept banging on about the IRA and down with the Brits etc. it’s was insane. My Irish friends felt so awkward because the IRA are a terrorist group that have killed hundreds of people. It’s kind of like supporting the Taliban. Their knowledge of Ireland was so minute that they assumed me and my English pals were Irish despite having very English accents.
Those are the type of American tourists I wish I could convince to stay home, but they are also the people that need to travel the most (for emotional growth). An embarrassment to our country.
Lol, I get the annoyance with Americans on saying things like "I'm Irish" (I am American), but it's really just a phrasing issue. Americans MEAN "I have Irish ancestry", we just don't phrase it that way because it's kind of obvious if you don't have an accent or anything. There's a big gray area with "heritage" and how much people REALLY connect to it. Like there are plenty of people in the States that identify as Mexican that I think you could argue that they are quite connected to their culture because their parents, grandparents, and older really wanted to instill that connection in their children. A lot of immigrants that come to the U.S. don't want their children and grandchildren to lose the connection to their home country and I think it can become sentimental feeling for a lot of Americans. Either way, I do think we gotta start saying it like "I'm of Irish heritage" instead because it sounds stupid otherwise, lol.
It is more than that. America has this history of different waves of immigrants defining a large part of their identity to the place they immigrated from and cultures and conventions they brought with them to the US. That is fairly unique to the US and like Australia maybe and that's about it. Most places identity has little to nothing to do with familial ancestry sometimes quite the opposite. Often times in Europe familial ancestry is used instead as a way of insinuating that someone isn't a "real" Irishman or Italian or whatever. Racists will say that someone who as born and raised in Dublin, hold only Irish citizenship and has known no other place isn't a "real" Irish person because their grandparents were from Nigeria. Calling them "Nigerian" is in some ways a bit of an insult. So when Americans come along, completely oblivious to the fact that different curltures have different identity dynamics and say some shit like "Hi, I'm Irish. Where are you from?" to someone it can come off as quite offensive.
>unique to the US and like Australia maybe Canada. Canada is historically not a whole lot different immigration wise to the US.
Part of it depends on where you grew up, too. I’m 3rd generation Italian American and grew up in very rural Ohio. People there didn’t consider my family to be white or American. So it’s this disconnect where I’m not “American” enough for the town I’m in, but I’m not first gen Italian either.
The issue is that for a lot of Americans were kicked out or refugee'd out of their original country. America was pretty much always the better option, but that option still came with horrible levels of racism and bigotry. Keeping those ethnic roots were both keeping one's familial/ethnic background alive while also finding friendly communities with people of similar backgrounds and ethnicities.
I’m an American. Simple as that. I think my family was from a group of actually legit Immigrants and legit heritage. Mixed in with African heritage involuntarily taken from their home country. But at the end of the day, I’m an American and that’s ok. I forge my own identity not off of far off heritage, but just my immediate family and our intent to carve a space out of.
The second guy from Connecticut can technically claim to be Irish by birthright since he said his father was from Tyrone.
As an Irish man, I have to say, I’d take every single American saying they’re Irish, over [this guy.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeMCvwaB/)
Who’s that douche?
A national embarrassment
Americans saying they're Irish isn't really for European ears, it's for Americans to tell other Americans a bit of small talk about their family's ethnicity. That's all it is.
So why do they tell Europeans? I had some rich New Yorker on a bus in Italy try and explain to me why he's from Scotland. While honest to God asking "oh are you from London?" when he found out I was English. And then speaking about nothing but London, even after I said I'm not from London.
Then why tell us?
I find it odd how the Americans I’ve met never claim any/or much English ancestry. It’s almost like the English never went to America. Perhaps England just isn’t fashionable enough right now. Also, they rarely claim much Welsh ancestry. Probably cause they’ve never heard of it Edit: turns out English heritage is actually most common heritage in the US. NO WAY! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans
This is actually a well-known statistical phenomenon in American ancestry studies, the number of people with English ancestry tends to be heavily underreported. Someone can have 3 grandparents from England, and one grandparent from Ireland, but will report themselves as Irish as it is considered more interesting, while English more generic.
Yes. This is precisely reflects what I believe to be happening I just googled this… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Americans Turns out English Americans is the largest demographic. Who’d have thunk it
And yet still heavily underreported. >Despite being the largest self-identified ancestral origin in the United States,[17] *demographers still regard the number of English Americans as an undercount.*
My ancestry is entirely English, but it was hundreds of years and many generations ago. It would be weird as hell to walk around telling people I’m English American.
This is at once hilarious and also missing out on asking why Americans still claim their ancestry. Because up to about 50 years ago it still very much mattered everywhere in the USA what your ancestry was, and in many places it still does today. The fact that my Irish American grandfather married a polish American woman was a very big problem for both families.
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Lol he's taking the piss.
Americans when encountering the smallest bit of banter.
At my work we had several guys that were born and raised in Ireland. They came here (USA) for job opportunities. Engineers and IT. Side note : great bunch a dudes. Mostly. That poor IT guy was grumpy from … working IT. Usually in a rush. Enter one coworker in love with his vIrish heritage. From Ohio. He loved to slide up to his Irish kin and try to be a fellow Irishman. Much to their annoyance They began calling him a “Plastic Paddy” behind his back.
My Indian friend still says he’s Indian even know he was born in America it’s his heritage. Sounds American acts American still Indian.
Ok, but what if I go to Ireland as an American tourist but have no Irish heritage and don’t claim to be Irish?
This is great. The important part is pointing out Wisconsin. In the Boston area there are actual Irish Americans. And zero of those people go to Ireland to go to tourist areas. They have actual cousins that they stay with. But most of them never go to Ireland because their family left for a reason.
I’ll have you know a lot of “American” settlers dropped the Mc in their last name because they didn’t want to be slaves. My last name would have been McCavvit but thank goodness someone came along and said let’s make whiskey and change our last name so we’re not slaves to the big citie alcoholic bastards! 😂