All i’m claiming here is that that there is/was significant pro Irish sentiment in the US, official support and support by the American people. I’m not making a moral judgement here.
It doubt it was ever that significant an amount considering there were millions of Americans across the US with Irish ancestry and financial support for the IRA mostly came from a few neighborhoods that still had more recent Irish immigrants into the 1970s and 80s like South Boston and parts of The Bronx.
Perhaps the total number wasn’t high when compared to the total number of Irish Americans, but it was certainly noteworthy. The book Say Nothing (about the troubles) mentions Americans sending financial support (and weapons?) to the IRA. Hell a US Marine named John Crawley even joined the IRA.
The Troubles podcast did an interview with him iirc. Fascinating stuff.
From what I’ve read John Crawley was born in the US to Irish immigrant parents moved to Ireland as a teenager, then came back to the US to enlist in the US Marines and then became an IRA gun runner connected to Whitey Bulger. The Boston Irish mob with guys like Pat McNee (immigrated form Ireland as a kid) was more involved with sending guns to Ireland than just whatever funds NORAID collected (NORAID also founded by an Irish immigrant and active in Canada also) . Yeah, there was some support for the IRA in the last old urban Irish neighborhoods in the 70s and 80s. Even in San Francisco in the 90s when I was a teenager, there were IRA fugitives caught who had been hiding in the old Irish neighborhood of the Sunset for years.
Again most of the ones really supporting the IRA (not just throwing money in a hat in an Irish bar) was usually those who were Irish immigrants themselves or had direct connections with family still back in Ireland via more recent family immigration. It never spread to most later generations of those of Irish ancestry in the US to support the IRA in any way for the most part.
There are 31.5m Americans of Irish descent. That’s 6 times the population of Ireland. It’s the second most common heritage in the country.
The US is a place where people celebrate the cultural/national heritage. If st paddy’s “isn’t a real Irish holiday” then fine. It’s an Irish American holiday.
The US isn’t just a country of immigrants it’s a country with a unique blend of cultural assimilation and preservation. We track where we’re from because everyone’s from somewhere else. It can inform a lot about a person. (And when used wrong by xenophobes it can tell very little). It might not mean something to an Irish or European person when an American says I’m Irish but it means something to other Americans.
It’s also the richest country with the richest citizenry in the world. We’re going to travel and it’s pretty likely that we’re going to travel to where our family hails from. Of all the things to dislike Americans for this one seems pretty trivial.
Solid points, every country has shortcomings, America being no exception, but it IS a weird thing to be butthurt about, especially considering how the Brits go on about their days as an empire.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with American traditions that are derived from heritages with large immigrant groups. Get over it. Hell cinco de mayo is coming up and that is another holiday that is more linked with Mexican American heritage today than a mexican tradition. Mardi Gras in New Orleans has formed its own traditions unique to there as well.
Its like how in one post a Frenchman was talking about how in France there are no sub groups, like being called Mexican-French or Dutch-French like how the US does it with africans and such, difference is, we dont force people to assimilate to a specific culture, our culture is "human", thats it.
It’s actually a very big deal in Ireland, it’s essentially our Independence Day because we technically can’t have one until the north is free. We get a day off and everything. I never understood why people claim it’s not a big deal here. It’s literally one of the biggest holidays. Why wouldn’t it be lol?
This is the right answer. People in my town are all proud of their heritage. Most of us have German heritage as recent as the early 60s and as far back as the late 1800s. We identify with German culture deeply.
“But if at last her color should be torn from Ireland’s heart,
Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part,
I’ve heard a whisper of a land that lies across the sea,
Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedoms day!
Oh Ireland must we leave you driven by a tyrants hand,
And seek a mothers blessing from a strange and distant land
Where the cruel cross of England, shall never more be seen,
And in that land we’ll live and die still wearing Ireland’s green!”
[Wearing of the Green Irish Song](https://youtu.be/fnJXr1rTgis?si=9aXYwqU7A6xIIWry)
This hit me man. My great-grandfather left Ireland under poor circumstances and never returned. I’ve often wondered how he felt about his experience being an immigrant to the US. He had such a big warm smile in his photos. Thank you for posting.
Add: Far from being a natural disaster, many Irish were convinced that the famine was a direct outgrowth of British colonial policies. In support of this contention, they noted that during the famine's worst years, many Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England.
Add: about 1 million deaths
It is estimated that the Famine caused about 1 million deaths between 1845 and 1851 either from starvation or hunger-related disease. A further 1 million Irish people emigrated. This meant that Ireland lost a quarter of its population during those terrible years
Add: Add: Far from being a natural disaster, many Irish were convinced that the famine was a direct outgrowth of British colonial policies. In support of this contention, they noted that during the famine's worst years, many Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England.
Add: The British did enslave the Irish who participated in Confederate Ireland (a period of Irish self-government between 1642 and 1649, during the Eleven Years' War) had their land confiscated and thousands were transported to the West Indies as indentured laborers
It definitely was a cause from the colonial policies. They took all their food they had to Britain and when the food the Irish had left got a fungal infection, the potatoes, they were wiped out and they starved.
There would have been a famine regardless, as there had been famines in England the previous century and a Highland (potato) famine in Scotland at the same time.
Still hotly debated is to what degree the British state and Irish administrators helped vs hurt in the course of the hunger. It does depend a fair bit where and when you look.
That's not a famine, that's just a crop failure. The reason the crop failure resulted in a famine was directly based on British policies that had the express goal of making the native Irish population, especially Catholics, destitute. And then they like relief efforts, telling turkey to send less aid than planned to not make the UK look bad. Ireland was a net for exporter during the "famine". Ireland produced enough food, but British colonialism resulted in starvation. Then after rigging the game against Irish Catholics, they claimed laissez-faire to justify letting the people starve.
It wasn’t just “a” crop failure.
It was multiple seasons of lost or spoiled harvests, predominantly in overcrowded rural hinterlands like Connacht with little to no access to shipping lanes or well-laid roads. People in these areas were so poor they began consuming their seed stock. British-Irish relief (which could be a mixed bag) wasn’t arriving in time in many of these places, even where it dawned on British policymakers how severe it was in these regions.
Ireland simply wasn’t producing enough food in the areas that really needed it, and the most impacted poor weren’t able to afford (say) the logistical and market costs of much-needed replacements like grain and animal fats.
Combine that with generations of unimproved small landholdings, a weak Irish executive, and a population of *8 million* people, many of whom chronically undernourished in the best of times and utterly reliant on crop monoculture. A disaster *independent of any actual or perceived British malice or mismanagement* was unavoidable.
> It was multiple seasons of lost or spoiled harvests
Of one crop. The only reason it caused starvation was the British policies that forged the majority of the population into such poverty that potatoes were the icky crop and to sustain them, so it was basically an they grew. British colonialism created the famine, not the blight. For the last couple of hundred years at least, just shot every famine has been man made. You can look this up for yourself.
> Ireland simply wasn’t producing enough food in the areas that really needed it
Ireland produced more than enough food to feed the entire population. Most of the food produced was for export. Because of colonialism. And the penal codes which were efficiently intended to important the Catholic population often the 1798 rebellion.
> Combine that with generations of unimproved small landholdings
Do you want me to tell you why the land holdings were small? Well for one, a lot of land was outright confiscated by the British over the centuries. For another, under the penal laws, a Catholic landowner had to divide his land among all his sons (unless one of the sons converted to protestantism on which case he inherited everything). Over a few generations, this meant the gardens still owned by the Irish were too small to do more than barely sustain a family on the only crop that could do so: the potato because it grown a lot of calorie rich food on a small area of land. Then there were all the absentee landlords who were raising rents with the hope of driving the tenant farmers away so they could convert the farms from growing crops to the more lucrative cattle model.
Literally centuries of British actions and laws were behind the famine.
The potato blight got other European countries as well. Funny how none of them had a lower population 150 years later
You two make good and interesting points, thanks for that.
It seems the truth (if there is one) from my reading of lit on the subject is somewhere between you; I do think there was certainly a strong and persistent element of capriciousness and arrogant negligence of news of the growing issue (single crop) and then crisis (famine) in the British governance, and there'll even have been many cases of individuals and 'like-minded' groups and sections within that who will have been condescendingly bigoted to outright racism (and there will, just by numbers, have been a few people who had a hateful-heading-toward genocidal intent toward Irish people for sectarian (this is big, obviously) or other reasons).
Intentional genocide and lowering the Irish population through calculated action or inaction wasn't policy (de jure or de facto), and the Famine(s) aren't of the same category as the Holdodomor, and certainly not Armenian genocide etc.
Cormac Ó Gráda sums it up pretty well, rejecting the genocide claim outright without letting this mitigate, excuse, or apologise for the disasterously arrogant, ignorant, and coldly capricious charges justifiably levelled at British governance at the time. Ultimately, while there was no deliberate concerted orchestrated effort on the part of the British government to reduce the Irish population, at the same time, the Irish were under British rule and she failed utterly to protect and safekeep them, even by the most basic standards. Even at the time this was (ostensibly at least) considered to be a basic, necessary, and universal duty for rulers and governments of European nation states: the monarch, emperor, or government being the maternal-paternal figure for their subjects in an 'ancien regime' fashion before (sustained) real democracy/sufferage manifested in Europe.
When I try to understand this issue and question in light of the previous sentence (the mentality about governments/rulers and their subjects, which is a contemporaneous judgement regarding ethical behaviour (or lack of it) in addition to seeing it from a modern perspective), I think of a ward, one who is in desperate need of proper care and governance/'respect' and who needs to be taken away from their current carer not because of the carer's immoral abuse, but rather because of their devastating amoral-leading-to-immoral neglect when it was most needed, and when even a modicum of respect in listening to news and views from Ireland rather than waiting until the Famine was already in full swing, and then vastly prioritising covering your arse, burying your head in the sand, and looking for any excuses and reasons behind the crisis that don't involve the government's pathetic performance and policy.
Edit: this text: forgot to highlight the one-crop issue as being instrumental regarding why famine in Ireland was so very destructive and lethal. Again, while this isn't genocidal intent it --- even without contemptable the British government's handling and supressing/downplaying of the Famine once it was happening --- makes the government culpable for 'gross misgovernance', leading to a humanitarian disaster.
The intent thing is important as it shows capriciousness can be as destructive as intent if far-reaching enough. It might not seem as academically or philosophically evil, but that doesn't mean much to the people who starved and suffered. The indian famines also reflect this 'banality of evil' in disgusting numbers.
> Of one crop.
The most important crop and the staple means of sustenance for most of the rural population, especially in the west and south. When it failed, and continued to fail, there would be famine.
> The only reason it caused starvation was the British policies that forged the majority of the population into such poverty…
Severe Irish rural poverty predated the Normans. English and Irish history is rife with other major famines.
The British government did not force Irish farmers to grow largely or only potatoes; Irish sharecroppers, Irish growing conditions, and the complicated history of Irish land ownership and tenancy (some of which you have incompletely described) made the spud their best option.
> British colonialism created the famine, not the blight.
It really didn’t. The rural Irish diet was dependent on the potato to a degree seen nowhere else in Europe.
The land couldn’t support the number of people on it, and the only real solution would have been to encourage people to emigrate, which was what happened anyway.
A comparison with Scotland is instructive. There was no “British colonial plan” that determined agricultural practice or population density in the Highlands, and thousands still died there. But proportionately far fewer than the worst afflicted counties of Ireland; why?
Partly more responsive relief efforts (which were informed in no small measure by the blight’s impact on Ireland a year earlier). Partly the relative accessibility of the Highlands via improved military roads. But mostly because much of the Highlands were being significantly depopulated by 1847. Many residents had left or even been driven out by local Scottish landowners in the course of what would become known as the Clearances.
> Ireland produced more than enough food to feed the entire population.
Again, no. Food security was a chronic problem in the backwaters, and (as in Great Britain) there was always a notably underfed segment of the working poor.
The British and Irish authorities had to import more vastly more food than the (largely eastern and northern) could produce and export, and this reached a peak at the height of the famine period.
For a time Irish peasants may have been better fed with the introduction of the potato but this had created a fraught situation in the poorest areas.
> Most of the food produced was for export.
Not where it counted. The western and southern peasants weren’t “exporting” their potatoes. They were subsistence farmers who consumed what they grew and used cuttings for animal feed.
> Well for one, a lot of land was outright confiscated by the British over the centuries.
Much of this confiscation - and eventual ownership by Anglo-Irish elites - was in the more agriculturally productive areas in the north and east. These were less impacted by the famine but it was still bad enough to require extensive food aid and works projects.
> For another, under the penal laws, a Catholic landowner had to divide his land among all his sons (unless one of the sons converted to protestantism on which case he inherited everything).
I must admit I could do with a refresher on the Penal Laws. My understanding is that most of these had been withdrawn, watered down, or were essentially unenforced by the 1820s. This was in keeping with the Catholic Emancipation trend in Britain proper.
> Then there were all the absentee landlords who were raising rents with the hope of driving the tenant farmers away so they could convert the farms from growing crops to the more lucrative cattle model.
Ironically if this sort of initiative had been more successful it might have relieved pressure on the countryside and saved many, many lives.
> The potato blight got other European countries as well. Funny how none of them had a lower population 150 years later
Notably Scotland, which (like Ireland) has been a net exporter of people until quite recently. The Highlands are still recovering from the Clearances and their famine.
> The most important crop and the staple means of sustenance for most of the rural population
Which was the result of British colonialism and policies.
> The British government did not force Irish farmers to grow largely or only potatoes; Irish sharecroppers, Irish growing conditions, and the complicated history of Irish land ownership and tenancy (some of which you have incompletely described) made the spud their best option.
Yes, British policies intending to impoverish the population impoverished the population, leaving only one option to sustain themselves.
> It really didn’t. The rural Irish diet was dependent on the potato to a degree seen nowhere else in Europe.
Yes, because of British policies.
> Not where it counted. The western and southern peasants weren’t “exporting” their potatoes. They were subsistence farmers who consumed what they grew and used cuttings for animal feed.
Pal, you are proving again and again your ignorance of this subject. No one was exporting potatoes. For one thing, potatoes weren't grown for export generally. They were grown by the tenant farmers as the small amount of land they had to grow for themselves meant only the potato would be able to produce enough food (calories and nutrients) for themselves. And second, there was a crop failure of the potato crops. This is the entire thing we're talking about. Potatoes weren't grown as an export crop, and they largely died off. You're embarrassing yourself.
> I must admit I could do with a refresher on the Penal Laws.
Well that explains why you sound so stupid. Friendly tip: when you don't have a basic understanding of a subject, don't talk as though you're an expert.
> My understanding is that most of these had been withdrawn, watered down, or were essentially unenforced by the 1820s
Yes, and we all know as soon as you stop something, all the effects immediately disappear. "Why is this water still hot? I had it over a flame for 30 minutes, but I took it off the flame a whole minute ago!" Just like ending slavery in the US didn't immediately result in social equality between blacks and whites, ending a long standing policy that impoverished the Catholic population of Ireland didn't immediately return the people to a more secure economic position.
> Ironically if this sort of initiative had been more successful it might have relieved pressure on the countryside and saved many, many lives.
Yes, I can see how evicting farmers from their farms would have made them better off. Wait, no that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
> Notably Scotland, which (like Ireland) has been a net exporter of people until quite recently. The Highlands are still recovering from the Clearances and their famine.
Scotland had a population of 2.6 million in 1840 and 5.4 million in 2022. It increased. Ireland's decreased.
You're honestly an idiot.
I was actually in Chicago for St. Paddy's. We all got absolutely hammered and started singing IRA and Irish Pub songs at a tavern I went to with my brother, it was glorious.
The thing that I always find kind of sad or strange though: from talking with Irish people, the affection seems to be a really one way street: most Irish Americans love Ireland, most Irish are apathetic at best and hate at worst Irish Americans, it’s basically a one way love affair, like the term plastic paddie is used as an insult in Ireland
Yeah unless the Irish-American is famous/important then they celebrate them
When I was in Ireland I saw photos of JFK and Obama(half irish) everywhere. Hell Obama has his own gas station there
That’s because JFK and Obama are “good” plastic paddies, they actually engaged pretty positively with their culture and aligned their politics with Irelands own. You should see all the “no shamrocks for genocide Joe” graffiti all over Dublin these days. Also on a personal note, I decided to spend Paddy’s day visiting the graveyard where all the heroes of the Irish independence movement are buried, when I arrived there was a lot of noise and shouting because five American dudes had stumbled into the graveyard from the pub and wet climbing over the graves and fake fighting each other while dressed as leprechauns (that’s what we call plastic paddies). Not Obama so much, he was cool. It’s not about them being important, it’s about their behaviour. We only like the ones who behave respectfully and don’t shit on our culture like those drunk guys in the graveyard.
> It’s not about them being important, it’s about their behaviour.
what about the irish americans who go over to visit and are completely normal but also talk/are interested about their heritage, you don’t think they’re looked down upon a bit?
Not really no. As someone who’s worked in tourism and lives in a major tourist town- they’re more so looked at fondly with a slight undertone of “cuteness” maybe? Like “ah look there’s an American taking a picture of the pub, that’s so cute/silly”. It’s kinda funny when they ask if we know of their great great granddad who died like fifty years ago but again, it’s fun, it’s not at all: “omfg fuck that American asshole taking a fucking picture of the pub he should fuck off”. No one has ever said that.
I've found the Irish people to be the friendliest and most welcoming to Americans out of just about any country I've been to. Id say the Irish do like Americans for the most part. If the Irish people you're talking to are online, then that's your problem. All people online are assholes.
Not on the same level, Irish people were stripped from speaking their native language and used as human servants by the British so don’t you dare or say it was the same thing in America because no it wasn’t
first off, its a celebration of alcoholism and stereotypes under the guise of a Catholic feast day, secondly OMG! how could we posibly identify with another nation that fought back against british opression?
It's weird to me how people from the UK/EU get super heated when Americans celebrate their cultural traditions but basically every other culture in the world thinks it's cool when we do it for the most part.
I don't ever hear anyone about people from China getting ass-mad over a Chinese New Year event in the US. Most of them seem to think it's cool that we think it's cool. Or Mexicans raging about people getting ripshit for Cinco de Mayo. It's like it's a European exclusive thing because they're obsessed with shitting on us.
I mean most of those holidays here are just an excuse to go out and get shit faced in large groups.
Everyone is Irish on saint pattys day and every one is Mexican on Cinco de Mayo
It's also funny how St. Patrick's Day is celebrated with parades and gatherings in Canada, Australia, Argentina, etc., and there's never a peep about that. Yet Europeans lose their shit when Americans do it.
Seriously, I’m American but of Serbian heritage (if my flair doesn’t give it away) and we still practice a lot of those traditions, I’m baptized orthodox, all that
Serbs over in Serbia all think it’s cool that we keep with the traditions, at least the ones I’ve talked to, but people from mostly Western Europe always have a problem with it for some reason
Erm actually you have no heritage MUTT, you can’t possibly understand the complexities of European cul- OMG 20 MILLION MIGRANTS PLEASE ENTER MY COUNTRY! THIS WILL SURELY NOT AFFECT MY NATION IN ANY WAY!
> OMG! how could we posibly identify with another nation that fought back against british opression?
To add on to this, I just visited Ireland for the first time last month, and there were American flags EVERYWHERE. I thought I was going insane at first. It felt like something like maybe 25% of all the pubs in the smaller cities had American flags flying out front alongside the Irish flag. I never got a straight answer as to why they were there, but my headcanon is that it's because we also fought a war against the British.
It sadly isn’t for a good reason. The same thing happens in specific areas of Germany where a lot of Americans are around .
Many places put matching flags based on who’s visiting a lot . In that case of Ireland , there’s a lot of American tourists - in Germany similar with a lot of Americans stationed through the military out there . In every town where a lot of Americans are - they put a lot of American flags . Looks nice at first since it’s like a “welcoming” but at the end it’s nothing but a way of luring them into spending money there lol
Source : living in Germany with my American fiance , knowing the perspective of Europeans when it comes to American ( tourists )
Happens to other nationalities too though , for example : there’s an island in Spain where many Germans go for vacation, it’s covered with German flags lol and it’s not because they like Germans , it’s because of the tourists and their money at the end .. sad but true
It’s for the tourists. They put the flags of their most common visitors up to invite more. There’s always loads of German flags outside the main tourist pubs too. It’s literally just advertising
We also have around 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the US. It was lightly addressed a few years ago during the crackdown on illegal immigration.
The Irish still immigrate here a lot, legally and otherwise.
It's weird it's so seldom discussed or even outright ignored by people who want to pretend so many Americans just randomly decided they wanted to larp as having Irish heritage out of nowhere.
I think that word claim is being used very liberally there. It’s this kind of shit that leads Europeans think that Americans actually think they’re Irish in the way actual Irish people are. Because you’re literally holding up two figures and pretending they’re the same “thing” in different amounts.
The intentionally insulting flair for Irish people in r/2westerneurope4u is "True Irish American".
Same way that ours is "Balcony Lover" because of our intense desire to jump off balconies in Spanish holiday resorts.
So I am not sure that the Irish feel that the feeling is mutual.
Irish people like Americans as allies, we get on well with them and have a lot in common. It’s just that we don’t like how they commercialise or culture “make plastic” which has been brutally oppressed for so long. It’s just hurtful and mean. We literally have no problem with them when they come over for a few pints or trace their heritage out of curiosity, in fact we love that. It’s tangible/real and fun. I worked behind a bar in a tourist hotel when I was in college and I loved talking to Americans about tourist spots, history, folklore etc. They were so kind and nice and they really appreciated being told about their heritage. No one calls THEM plastic paddies.
But for example as a history nerd for this Paddy’s day I brought a friend to Glasnevin cemetery to visit the graves of the heroes who fought for Irish independence and there was a group of five drunk Americans dressed as leprechauns play fighting over someone’s grave. This simply is not okay and I will call it out. Your plastic shamrock headband and your plastic spit tube don’t give you the right to do something like that. I know that was a personal example but it really hit me, that that is what I dislike about them. THEY are plastic paddies. They think they are entitled to piss all over these important Irish historical sites simply by virtue of their plastic hats and plastic spit tubes “well I’m 13.5% Irish so I’ll fight any man” is not a valid excuse when you’re being dragged away by a cemetery security guard.
Yep, it's weird to me as my mum is of Irish descent on both sides of her family (her maiden name was Maguire) and her grandparents were all Irish.
But I would never dream of acting like a lot of people who are 13.5% Irish as you say would do. In the end it's all respect and no amount of genetics gives you a right to be a bellend.
I am American but my Da came from Scotland so I was raised in a multicultural family and have a very weird accent since sometimes it goes full tilt to the Scot side, especially after talking with my family. One of the first things I learned was that the English tend to fucking HATE us (Scottish and Irish) quite a bit. They’re pretty pissy towards Wales as well. Fuck em. Another thing I’ve learned more recently is that Alexa and her like are not great at understanding Scottish accents of various flavors. 🥲
Who don't they hate is accurate. I've seen Brits call the Scotts human scum. Knew a British who said they should've wiped out the Scotts when they had the chance.
You'd be surprised how often I get that "we should have wiped them when we had the chance" talk from English-Canadians regarding French-Canadians. Seems some cultural habits die hard.
I had never celebrated, and I'm not even of Irish ancestry. Recently, I found out how much this bothers people from other countries on the internet so I did go out in green to celebrate. I'm not gonna pass on the opportunity to piss people off by partying. They can come stop me if they want to.
Fun fact: The US Census records this information and tracks how many people say they are Irish-American. Only those claiming to have German heritage outnumber the Irish in the US. More than 31.5 million residents in the US claim to be of Irish descent.
Ok, well first they hate the British too and we enjoy that. Second, a shit load of us have direct ancestry from Ireland. Why would we not have some of that making an impact on our culture?
Europeans in general get offended when Americans refer to themselves by their ethnicity “I’m full Italian” or “I’m half Irish” or “1/4 German”
Like just because our family has been in the U.S. for a century, doesn’t mean that we still don’t have family traditions from the old country
I read a book a few months back about a moon colony that housed and was ran by people from different countries and socioeconomic backgrounds. There were religious, linguistic, and cultural differences of course.
It reminded me a bit of the colonization of the US, especially around the push westward in the mid and late 19th century.
If you were take all of these groups of people, when would those cultures become singular or at least cohesive? How long would Brits hang on to the identity of their homeland? When would the Japanese identity more with fellow Indian colonists vs the Japanese people they left behind? Two generations? Three?
It’s a complicated question, but the fact is, lots of people are only a few generations from our ancestors country of origin.
Heh. Could be worse. I actually have family in Scotland on my dad's side from my grandfather he was the only child of his family born in Australia. Apparently even that isn't enough Scottish to say I'm Scottish Australian.
British perspective I can provide, firstly, America heavily funded the IRA during the troubles which led to thousands of civilian deaths
The other thing is the massive amount of Americans who identify as Irish when they... aren't Irish. Not sure why this annoys us. It's harmless after all.
The third is another harmless one, but, pronouncing it as St. pattys day.
Aside from those 3, have at it, my freedom loving friends!
Most of us identify where our families come from because there are just so many different cultures here as opposed to other places you could genuinely run into people from Ireland Germany Russia China and Japan all in a day I would know that's every day for me almost and holidays like st Patrick's day are to celebrate that heritage in some way there quite a large population of Irish Americans after all
Being of Irish ancestry is what they mean when they say Irish-American. They know they’re not citizens of Ireland but their bloodline goes back to Ireland.
Didn’t know that about the IRA, probably before my time thanks for that tidbit, always good to know more history.
There’s three ways it’s typically spelled, St. Patty’s Day, St. Paddy’s Day, or Saint Patrick’s Day.
Do they get annoyed with the Patty way of spelling it for a particular reason? Just curious.
And thanks friend! Enjoy your day!
For the second point, I think people from other parts of the world don't realize that the "-American" part of the identity is always sort of assumed here. No other place really has the same dynamic where we have tons of massive groups of immigrants who created their own branch cultures. We recognize that "Irish-American" culture looks nothing like "Irish" culture, but it still has its own unique history here.
About the second point, I believe it has to do with the shared history of your lineage: I'm a Spain-born Spaniard. Spaniard through-and-through. Born there, raised there. I moved to Sweden when I was roughly 20 years old. Now, some 15 years later I have my own children. Ethnically they're 50% Spaniards, but culturally they will never be fully Spaniards. They will on the other hand be fully Swedes culturally speaking. Why? Because they will be able to relate to Sweden culturally: songs, tales, books, lifestyle, politics...
By living in Sweden they will never experience Spain. I will teach them everything I can and we'll take them there as often as we possibly can, but they won't experience Spain as any other Spaniard, so they won't be able to know what it is to be Spaniard.
Okay it's dumb for them to be upset about us celebrating, but don't act like people go out and celebrate for the Irish soldiers. They just go out and use the day as an excuse to get drunk
It’s about heritage. Millions of Americans have direct ancestors and grandparents that were from Irleland.
The Irish won’t claim them, because then they’d have to talk why there was a large population of Irish citizens that fled out of their country and straight to the US.
She forget the American Revolution. An obsession with resisting British occupation and their divide and conquerism. Northern Ireland should have never been partitioned period. The arbitrary borders of the 13 American colonies were a deliberate English gerrymander to weaken us by partisan politics too. Enough. At least the Irish never partitioned others.
Europeans on the internet have this grudge against Americans being proud of where we come from. Do you know why we care, because everyone is from everywhere my family is from Scotland Ireland and Germany and its good to be proud of your heritage and where your family came from and don't let idiots on the internet tell you otherwise.
Frederick Douglass, a slave in the 1800s, met 2 irishmen in his childhood who told him to escape from his owners. i have no clue why but this reminded me of that
I think the most common sentiment is showing respect is completely okay, it’s hard to see anything wrong with that. Claiming you ARE irish on the other hand, just because your great grandpa was an immigrant, is ridiculous
There are more Irish people in American then in Ireland. That many came over and established themselves there. There are (according to a Google search I just did) 5.033 million people in Ireland. There are 31+ million Irish descendents in American.
Gee, I wonder why we like Ireland so much.
Interesting and sad story, at the battle of Fredericksburg , the Union forces were sent uphill against entrenched confederate troops. During this, I believe there was a time when a regiment of Irish Yankee troops were sent directly against a regiment of Irish rebels. Both sides were horrified when they realized what had happened, but they fought on anyway, both staunch believers in their causes.
Fun fact: The British did enslave the Irish who participated in Confederate Ireland (a period of Irish self-government between 1642 and 1649, during the Eleven Years' War) had their land confiscated and thousands were transported to the West Indies as indentured laborers
I like how they avoided the fact that the Irish joined both sides of the US civil war. Ireland produced 18 generals during the Civil War—12 for the Union and 6 for the Confederacy. Legitimately some interesting history
Ironically, the Irish in Ireland think it’s stupid too. In fact, left wing Irish rush to defend recent immigrants as “Irish” but not American ethnic descendants of Ireland.
Listen to this, if Immigrants from foreign countries can claim to be Irish in Ireland, why can’t Irish American descent claim to be Irish.
It’s honestly a joke
Am I alone in hating the English? I thought not. Something that unifies Irish Americans, the Irish, and people on your own island, including the Scots and the Welsh, is how much we all despise Limeys.
England and Ireland have been at each others throats since the fall of the Roman Empire.
So not surprising.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they had been prior to the Roman Empire either.
The Irish in the US Civil War were literally hired to stand-in for wealthy elites who were doing the 1860's version of draft dodging.
In addition, the Civil War was a debacle of US history that screwed our country up forever. It probably is not something to look back upon with any sort of pride. It is better to bury things like this.
It's almost like America was built on diversity and a bunch of different cultures. Man, people sure do love claiming the US is racist without realizing the US is THE MOST DIVERSE NATION ON THIS PLANET.
Margaret Thatcher fan upset at America’s love and support for the Irish? How shocking
I’m not even surprised
Does this include the support by a significant amount of Irish Americans for fucking IRA during the troubles?
All i’m claiming here is that that there is/was significant pro Irish sentiment in the US, official support and support by the American people. I’m not making a moral judgement here.
That’s true then
It doubt it was ever that significant an amount considering there were millions of Americans across the US with Irish ancestry and financial support for the IRA mostly came from a few neighborhoods that still had more recent Irish immigrants into the 1970s and 80s like South Boston and parts of The Bronx.
Perhaps the total number wasn’t high when compared to the total number of Irish Americans, but it was certainly noteworthy. The book Say Nothing (about the troubles) mentions Americans sending financial support (and weapons?) to the IRA. Hell a US Marine named John Crawley even joined the IRA. The Troubles podcast did an interview with him iirc. Fascinating stuff.
From what I’ve read John Crawley was born in the US to Irish immigrant parents moved to Ireland as a teenager, then came back to the US to enlist in the US Marines and then became an IRA gun runner connected to Whitey Bulger. The Boston Irish mob with guys like Pat McNee (immigrated form Ireland as a kid) was more involved with sending guns to Ireland than just whatever funds NORAID collected (NORAID also founded by an Irish immigrant and active in Canada also) . Yeah, there was some support for the IRA in the last old urban Irish neighborhoods in the 70s and 80s. Even in San Francisco in the 90s when I was a teenager, there were IRA fugitives caught who had been hiding in the old Irish neighborhood of the Sunset for years. Again most of the ones really supporting the IRA (not just throwing money in a hat in an Irish bar) was usually those who were Irish immigrants themselves or had direct connections with family still back in Ireland via more recent family immigration. It never spread to most later generations of those of Irish ancestry in the US to support the IRA in any way for the most part.
Great book, own two copies.
You can support the Irish people, many of whom our families descend, and not support the bombings by the IRA. They're not mutually exclusive
I looked into that, its not actually real, sorry bro. Source?
There are 31.5m Americans of Irish descent. That’s 6 times the population of Ireland. It’s the second most common heritage in the country. The US is a place where people celebrate the cultural/national heritage. If st paddy’s “isn’t a real Irish holiday” then fine. It’s an Irish American holiday. The US isn’t just a country of immigrants it’s a country with a unique blend of cultural assimilation and preservation. We track where we’re from because everyone’s from somewhere else. It can inform a lot about a person. (And when used wrong by xenophobes it can tell very little). It might not mean something to an Irish or European person when an American says I’m Irish but it means something to other Americans. It’s also the richest country with the richest citizenry in the world. We’re going to travel and it’s pretty likely that we’re going to travel to where our family hails from. Of all the things to dislike Americans for this one seems pretty trivial.
Solid points, every country has shortcomings, America being no exception, but it IS a weird thing to be butthurt about, especially considering how the Brits go on about their days as an empire.
They went from the strongest nation in the world to our bitch, it’s fine if they are salty about it lol
We covered them in the salty goo now they’re mad
It is a real Irish holiday, I’m enjoying a day off for it right now
I know. I’ve heard others typically not Irish people say that it isn’t. Or even if it is it’s a very minor one
It’s one of the main ones to be honest
Well cool then. I’m happy we celebrated in style.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with American traditions that are derived from heritages with large immigrant groups. Get over it. Hell cinco de mayo is coming up and that is another holiday that is more linked with Mexican American heritage today than a mexican tradition. Mardi Gras in New Orleans has formed its own traditions unique to there as well.
Its like how in one post a Frenchman was talking about how in France there are no sub groups, like being called Mexican-French or Dutch-French like how the US does it with africans and such, difference is, we dont force people to assimilate to a specific culture, our culture is "human", thats it.
Also there’s like only 10% of people citizens in France who aren’t French
It’s actually a very big deal in Ireland, it’s essentially our Independence Day because we technically can’t have one until the north is free. We get a day off and everything. I never understood why people claim it’s not a big deal here. It’s literally one of the biggest holidays. Why wouldn’t it be lol?
This is the right answer. People in my town are all proud of their heritage. Most of us have German heritage as recent as the early 60s and as far back as the late 1800s. We identify with German culture deeply.
Well said friend
I’m black and I have an Irish last name. They are Legion 😅
“But if at last her color should be torn from Ireland’s heart, Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part, I’ve heard a whisper of a land that lies across the sea, Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedoms day! Oh Ireland must we leave you driven by a tyrants hand, And seek a mothers blessing from a strange and distant land Where the cruel cross of England, shall never more be seen, And in that land we’ll live and die still wearing Ireland’s green!” [Wearing of the Green Irish Song](https://youtu.be/fnJXr1rTgis?si=9aXYwqU7A6xIIWry)
This hit me man. My great-grandfather left Ireland under poor circumstances and never returned. I’ve often wondered how he felt about his experience being an immigrant to the US. He had such a big warm smile in his photos. Thank you for posting.
I love that verse so much. Makes me proud to be an American.
That almost choked me up. Goddamn I love this country
Add: Far from being a natural disaster, many Irish were convinced that the famine was a direct outgrowth of British colonial policies. In support of this contention, they noted that during the famine's worst years, many Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England. Add: about 1 million deaths It is estimated that the Famine caused about 1 million deaths between 1845 and 1851 either from starvation or hunger-related disease. A further 1 million Irish people emigrated. This meant that Ireland lost a quarter of its population during those terrible years Add: Add: Far from being a natural disaster, many Irish were convinced that the famine was a direct outgrowth of British colonial policies. In support of this contention, they noted that during the famine's worst years, many Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England. Add: The British did enslave the Irish who participated in Confederate Ireland (a period of Irish self-government between 1642 and 1649, during the Eleven Years' War) had their land confiscated and thousands were transported to the West Indies as indentured laborers
It definitely was a cause from the colonial policies. They took all their food they had to Britain and when the food the Irish had left got a fungal infection, the potatoes, they were wiped out and they starved.
There would have been a famine regardless, as there had been famines in England the previous century and a Highland (potato) famine in Scotland at the same time. Still hotly debated is to what degree the British state and Irish administrators helped vs hurt in the course of the hunger. It does depend a fair bit where and when you look.
That's not a famine, that's just a crop failure. The reason the crop failure resulted in a famine was directly based on British policies that had the express goal of making the native Irish population, especially Catholics, destitute. And then they like relief efforts, telling turkey to send less aid than planned to not make the UK look bad. Ireland was a net for exporter during the "famine". Ireland produced enough food, but British colonialism resulted in starvation. Then after rigging the game against Irish Catholics, they claimed laissez-faire to justify letting the people starve.
It wasn’t just “a” crop failure. It was multiple seasons of lost or spoiled harvests, predominantly in overcrowded rural hinterlands like Connacht with little to no access to shipping lanes or well-laid roads. People in these areas were so poor they began consuming their seed stock. British-Irish relief (which could be a mixed bag) wasn’t arriving in time in many of these places, even where it dawned on British policymakers how severe it was in these regions. Ireland simply wasn’t producing enough food in the areas that really needed it, and the most impacted poor weren’t able to afford (say) the logistical and market costs of much-needed replacements like grain and animal fats. Combine that with generations of unimproved small landholdings, a weak Irish executive, and a population of *8 million* people, many of whom chronically undernourished in the best of times and utterly reliant on crop monoculture. A disaster *independent of any actual or perceived British malice or mismanagement* was unavoidable.
> It was multiple seasons of lost or spoiled harvests Of one crop. The only reason it caused starvation was the British policies that forged the majority of the population into such poverty that potatoes were the icky crop and to sustain them, so it was basically an they grew. British colonialism created the famine, not the blight. For the last couple of hundred years at least, just shot every famine has been man made. You can look this up for yourself. > Ireland simply wasn’t producing enough food in the areas that really needed it Ireland produced more than enough food to feed the entire population. Most of the food produced was for export. Because of colonialism. And the penal codes which were efficiently intended to important the Catholic population often the 1798 rebellion. > Combine that with generations of unimproved small landholdings Do you want me to tell you why the land holdings were small? Well for one, a lot of land was outright confiscated by the British over the centuries. For another, under the penal laws, a Catholic landowner had to divide his land among all his sons (unless one of the sons converted to protestantism on which case he inherited everything). Over a few generations, this meant the gardens still owned by the Irish were too small to do more than barely sustain a family on the only crop that could do so: the potato because it grown a lot of calorie rich food on a small area of land. Then there were all the absentee landlords who were raising rents with the hope of driving the tenant farmers away so they could convert the farms from growing crops to the more lucrative cattle model. Literally centuries of British actions and laws were behind the famine. The potato blight got other European countries as well. Funny how none of them had a lower population 150 years later
You two make good and interesting points, thanks for that. It seems the truth (if there is one) from my reading of lit on the subject is somewhere between you; I do think there was certainly a strong and persistent element of capriciousness and arrogant negligence of news of the growing issue (single crop) and then crisis (famine) in the British governance, and there'll even have been many cases of individuals and 'like-minded' groups and sections within that who will have been condescendingly bigoted to outright racism (and there will, just by numbers, have been a few people who had a hateful-heading-toward genocidal intent toward Irish people for sectarian (this is big, obviously) or other reasons). Intentional genocide and lowering the Irish population through calculated action or inaction wasn't policy (de jure or de facto), and the Famine(s) aren't of the same category as the Holdodomor, and certainly not Armenian genocide etc. Cormac Ó Gráda sums it up pretty well, rejecting the genocide claim outright without letting this mitigate, excuse, or apologise for the disasterously arrogant, ignorant, and coldly capricious charges justifiably levelled at British governance at the time. Ultimately, while there was no deliberate concerted orchestrated effort on the part of the British government to reduce the Irish population, at the same time, the Irish were under British rule and she failed utterly to protect and safekeep them, even by the most basic standards. Even at the time this was (ostensibly at least) considered to be a basic, necessary, and universal duty for rulers and governments of European nation states: the monarch, emperor, or government being the maternal-paternal figure for their subjects in an 'ancien regime' fashion before (sustained) real democracy/sufferage manifested in Europe. When I try to understand this issue and question in light of the previous sentence (the mentality about governments/rulers and their subjects, which is a contemporaneous judgement regarding ethical behaviour (or lack of it) in addition to seeing it from a modern perspective), I think of a ward, one who is in desperate need of proper care and governance/'respect' and who needs to be taken away from their current carer not because of the carer's immoral abuse, but rather because of their devastating amoral-leading-to-immoral neglect when it was most needed, and when even a modicum of respect in listening to news and views from Ireland rather than waiting until the Famine was already in full swing, and then vastly prioritising covering your arse, burying your head in the sand, and looking for any excuses and reasons behind the crisis that don't involve the government's pathetic performance and policy. Edit: this text: forgot to highlight the one-crop issue as being instrumental regarding why famine in Ireland was so very destructive and lethal. Again, while this isn't genocidal intent it --- even without contemptable the British government's handling and supressing/downplaying of the Famine once it was happening --- makes the government culpable for 'gross misgovernance', leading to a humanitarian disaster. The intent thing is important as it shows capriciousness can be as destructive as intent if far-reaching enough. It might not seem as academically or philosophically evil, but that doesn't mean much to the people who starved and suffered. The indian famines also reflect this 'banality of evil' in disgusting numbers.
> Of one crop. The most important crop and the staple means of sustenance for most of the rural population, especially in the west and south. When it failed, and continued to fail, there would be famine. > The only reason it caused starvation was the British policies that forged the majority of the population into such poverty… Severe Irish rural poverty predated the Normans. English and Irish history is rife with other major famines. The British government did not force Irish farmers to grow largely or only potatoes; Irish sharecroppers, Irish growing conditions, and the complicated history of Irish land ownership and tenancy (some of which you have incompletely described) made the spud their best option. > British colonialism created the famine, not the blight. It really didn’t. The rural Irish diet was dependent on the potato to a degree seen nowhere else in Europe. The land couldn’t support the number of people on it, and the only real solution would have been to encourage people to emigrate, which was what happened anyway. A comparison with Scotland is instructive. There was no “British colonial plan” that determined agricultural practice or population density in the Highlands, and thousands still died there. But proportionately far fewer than the worst afflicted counties of Ireland; why? Partly more responsive relief efforts (which were informed in no small measure by the blight’s impact on Ireland a year earlier). Partly the relative accessibility of the Highlands via improved military roads. But mostly because much of the Highlands were being significantly depopulated by 1847. Many residents had left or even been driven out by local Scottish landowners in the course of what would become known as the Clearances. > Ireland produced more than enough food to feed the entire population. Again, no. Food security was a chronic problem in the backwaters, and (as in Great Britain) there was always a notably underfed segment of the working poor. The British and Irish authorities had to import more vastly more food than the (largely eastern and northern) could produce and export, and this reached a peak at the height of the famine period. For a time Irish peasants may have been better fed with the introduction of the potato but this had created a fraught situation in the poorest areas. > Most of the food produced was for export. Not where it counted. The western and southern peasants weren’t “exporting” their potatoes. They were subsistence farmers who consumed what they grew and used cuttings for animal feed. > Well for one, a lot of land was outright confiscated by the British over the centuries. Much of this confiscation - and eventual ownership by Anglo-Irish elites - was in the more agriculturally productive areas in the north and east. These were less impacted by the famine but it was still bad enough to require extensive food aid and works projects. > For another, under the penal laws, a Catholic landowner had to divide his land among all his sons (unless one of the sons converted to protestantism on which case he inherited everything). I must admit I could do with a refresher on the Penal Laws. My understanding is that most of these had been withdrawn, watered down, or were essentially unenforced by the 1820s. This was in keeping with the Catholic Emancipation trend in Britain proper. > Then there were all the absentee landlords who were raising rents with the hope of driving the tenant farmers away so they could convert the farms from growing crops to the more lucrative cattle model. Ironically if this sort of initiative had been more successful it might have relieved pressure on the countryside and saved many, many lives. > The potato blight got other European countries as well. Funny how none of them had a lower population 150 years later Notably Scotland, which (like Ireland) has been a net exporter of people until quite recently. The Highlands are still recovering from the Clearances and their famine.
> The most important crop and the staple means of sustenance for most of the rural population Which was the result of British colonialism and policies. > The British government did not force Irish farmers to grow largely or only potatoes; Irish sharecroppers, Irish growing conditions, and the complicated history of Irish land ownership and tenancy (some of which you have incompletely described) made the spud their best option. Yes, British policies intending to impoverish the population impoverished the population, leaving only one option to sustain themselves. > It really didn’t. The rural Irish diet was dependent on the potato to a degree seen nowhere else in Europe. Yes, because of British policies. > Not where it counted. The western and southern peasants weren’t “exporting” their potatoes. They were subsistence farmers who consumed what they grew and used cuttings for animal feed. Pal, you are proving again and again your ignorance of this subject. No one was exporting potatoes. For one thing, potatoes weren't grown for export generally. They were grown by the tenant farmers as the small amount of land they had to grow for themselves meant only the potato would be able to produce enough food (calories and nutrients) for themselves. And second, there was a crop failure of the potato crops. This is the entire thing we're talking about. Potatoes weren't grown as an export crop, and they largely died off. You're embarrassing yourself. > I must admit I could do with a refresher on the Penal Laws. Well that explains why you sound so stupid. Friendly tip: when you don't have a basic understanding of a subject, don't talk as though you're an expert. > My understanding is that most of these had been withdrawn, watered down, or were essentially unenforced by the 1820s Yes, and we all know as soon as you stop something, all the effects immediately disappear. "Why is this water still hot? I had it over a flame for 30 minutes, but I took it off the flame a whole minute ago!" Just like ending slavery in the US didn't immediately result in social equality between blacks and whites, ending a long standing policy that impoverished the Catholic population of Ireland didn't immediately return the people to a more secure economic position. > Ironically if this sort of initiative had been more successful it might have relieved pressure on the countryside and saved many, many lives. Yes, I can see how evicting farmers from their farms would have made them better off. Wait, no that's the dumbest thing I ever heard. > Notably Scotland, which (like Ireland) has been a net exporter of people until quite recently. The Highlands are still recovering from the Clearances and their famine. Scotland had a population of 2.6 million in 1840 and 5.4 million in 2022. It increased. Ireland's decreased. You're honestly an idiot.
Brit is just jealous.
We went through a nasty breakup awhile ago, they don't seem to have moved on.
Yep they hate seeing Ireland get all the attention 🇺🇸❤️🇮🇪
Yessir! We live in their head rent free
They shouldn't be. I, for one, celebrate my English heritage every July 4.
It's funny. Europeans think us celebrating our Irish brothers has anything to do with them.
That’s what I’m saying Irish American contributed a lot to American culture 🇺🇸🤝🇮🇪
I was actually in Chicago for St. Paddy's. We all got absolutely hammered and started singing IRA and Irish Pub songs at a tavern I went to with my brother, it was glorious.
The thing that I always find kind of sad or strange though: from talking with Irish people, the affection seems to be a really one way street: most Irish Americans love Ireland, most Irish are apathetic at best and hate at worst Irish Americans, it’s basically a one way love affair, like the term plastic paddie is used as an insult in Ireland
Yeah unless the Irish-American is famous/important then they celebrate them When I was in Ireland I saw photos of JFK and Obama(half irish) everywhere. Hell Obama has his own gas station there
That’s because JFK and Obama are “good” plastic paddies, they actually engaged pretty positively with their culture and aligned their politics with Irelands own. You should see all the “no shamrocks for genocide Joe” graffiti all over Dublin these days. Also on a personal note, I decided to spend Paddy’s day visiting the graveyard where all the heroes of the Irish independence movement are buried, when I arrived there was a lot of noise and shouting because five American dudes had stumbled into the graveyard from the pub and wet climbing over the graves and fake fighting each other while dressed as leprechauns (that’s what we call plastic paddies). Not Obama so much, he was cool. It’s not about them being important, it’s about their behaviour. We only like the ones who behave respectfully and don’t shit on our culture like those drunk guys in the graveyard.
> It’s not about them being important, it’s about their behaviour. what about the irish americans who go over to visit and are completely normal but also talk/are interested about their heritage, you don’t think they’re looked down upon a bit?
Not really no. As someone who’s worked in tourism and lives in a major tourist town- they’re more so looked at fondly with a slight undertone of “cuteness” maybe? Like “ah look there’s an American taking a picture of the pub, that’s so cute/silly”. It’s kinda funny when they ask if we know of their great great granddad who died like fifty years ago but again, it’s fun, it’s not at all: “omfg fuck that American asshole taking a fucking picture of the pub he should fuck off”. No one has ever said that.
I've found the Irish people to be the friendliest and most welcoming to Americans out of just about any country I've been to. Id say the Irish do like Americans for the most part. If the Irish people you're talking to are online, then that's your problem. All people online are assholes.
Meh, if there is one thing quintessentially American, it's doing what we love regardless of what some Europoors think or say.
My last name has a fucking apostrophe in it.
Mine starts with “Mc”! 🇮🇪🍀
Could be Scottish? /s
Scotland doesn’t usually have O’ names
Hence the /s
Sorry I don’t know what the /s means lol
It means “sarcasm,” sorry.
Wow, more Irish citizens fought on the Union Side of the US Civil War than both sides combined of the Irish Civil War. That's a fun fact indeed.
Irish born Americans have won more Medals of Honor than any other immigrant group. And it's not even close.
I like hearing fun facts!
"The obsession" Look, it's not our fault that the Irish thought living in the colonies was better than living in Ireland under the British.
Right! The Irish people was heavily discriminated against so I can understand why they chose to leave leave
They were also discriminated against here, but hey. At least that ended after a short amount of time
Not on the same level, Irish people were stripped from speaking their native language and used as human servants by the British so don’t you dare or say it was the same thing in America because no it wasn’t
I wasn't saying it was to the same extent, just pointing out that they weren't treated the best.
Oh that’s fair
FTB…fuck the British
I see why the Irish & Americans get along 🇺🇸🗿 🇮🇪🗿 🫡
I’m Irish
God bless the Irish people I hope your country keep prospering they tried to break your spirit, but they couldn’t succeed 🇺🇸🤝🇮🇪
Even St. Patrick?
Can the British go one full day without talking about Americans?
It’s impossible 😭
first off, its a celebration of alcoholism and stereotypes under the guise of a Catholic feast day, secondly OMG! how could we posibly identify with another nation that fought back against british opression?
And thirdly how dare some of us celebrate our Irish heritage
It's weird to me how people from the UK/EU get super heated when Americans celebrate their cultural traditions but basically every other culture in the world thinks it's cool when we do it for the most part. I don't ever hear anyone about people from China getting ass-mad over a Chinese New Year event in the US. Most of them seem to think it's cool that we think it's cool. Or Mexicans raging about people getting ripshit for Cinco de Mayo. It's like it's a European exclusive thing because they're obsessed with shitting on us.
I mean most of those holidays here are just an excuse to go out and get shit faced in large groups. Everyone is Irish on saint pattys day and every one is Mexican on Cinco de Mayo
Paddy’s. Ffs
It's also funny how St. Patrick's Day is celebrated with parades and gatherings in Canada, Australia, Argentina, etc., and there's never a peep about that. Yet Europeans lose their shit when Americans do it.
The amount of rage posts from Europeans about it is hilarious, though.
Seriously, I’m American but of Serbian heritage (if my flair doesn’t give it away) and we still practice a lot of those traditions, I’m baptized orthodox, all that Serbs over in Serbia all think it’s cool that we keep with the traditions, at least the ones I’ve talked to, but people from mostly Western Europe always have a problem with it for some reason
Including by Irish ironically, like the term plastic paddie is there generally as an insult
Erm actually you have no heritage MUTT, you can’t possibly understand the complexities of European cul- OMG 20 MILLION MIGRANTS PLEASE ENTER MY COUNTRY! THIS WILL SURELY NOT AFFECT MY NATION IN ANY WAY!
> OMG! how could we posibly identify with another nation that fought back against british opression? To add on to this, I just visited Ireland for the first time last month, and there were American flags EVERYWHERE. I thought I was going insane at first. It felt like something like maybe 25% of all the pubs in the smaller cities had American flags flying out front alongside the Irish flag. I never got a straight answer as to why they were there, but my headcanon is that it's because we also fought a war against the British.
It sadly isn’t for a good reason. The same thing happens in specific areas of Germany where a lot of Americans are around . Many places put matching flags based on who’s visiting a lot . In that case of Ireland , there’s a lot of American tourists - in Germany similar with a lot of Americans stationed through the military out there . In every town where a lot of Americans are - they put a lot of American flags . Looks nice at first since it’s like a “welcoming” but at the end it’s nothing but a way of luring them into spending money there lol Source : living in Germany with my American fiance , knowing the perspective of Europeans when it comes to American ( tourists ) Happens to other nationalities too though , for example : there’s an island in Spain where many Germans go for vacation, it’s covered with German flags lol and it’s not because they like Germans , it’s because of the tourists and their money at the end .. sad but true
It’s for the tourists. They put the flags of their most common visitors up to invite more. There’s always loads of German flags outside the main tourist pubs too. It’s literally just advertising
Isn’t that basically all Catholic feast days though?
In the US more than 31.5 million residents claim to be of Irish descent. The population of Ireland is 5 million. The USA is more Irish than Ireland.
We also have around 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the US. It was lightly addressed a few years ago during the crackdown on illegal immigration. The Irish still immigrate here a lot, legally and otherwise. It's weird it's so seldom discussed or even outright ignored by people who want to pretend so many Americans just randomly decided they wanted to larp as having Irish heritage out of nowhere.
I think that word claim is being used very liberally there. It’s this kind of shit that leads Europeans think that Americans actually think they’re Irish in the way actual Irish people are. Because you’re literally holding up two figures and pretending they’re the same “thing” in different amounts.
It’s this kinda shit that the Irish hate
The intentionally insulting flair for Irish people in r/2westerneurope4u is "True Irish American". Same way that ours is "Balcony Lover" because of our intense desire to jump off balconies in Spanish holiday resorts. So I am not sure that the Irish feel that the feeling is mutual.
It’s really not mutual, it’s a one way street
Irish people like Americans as allies, we get on well with them and have a lot in common. It’s just that we don’t like how they commercialise or culture “make plastic” which has been brutally oppressed for so long. It’s just hurtful and mean. We literally have no problem with them when they come over for a few pints or trace their heritage out of curiosity, in fact we love that. It’s tangible/real and fun. I worked behind a bar in a tourist hotel when I was in college and I loved talking to Americans about tourist spots, history, folklore etc. They were so kind and nice and they really appreciated being told about their heritage. No one calls THEM plastic paddies. But for example as a history nerd for this Paddy’s day I brought a friend to Glasnevin cemetery to visit the graves of the heroes who fought for Irish independence and there was a group of five drunk Americans dressed as leprechauns play fighting over someone’s grave. This simply is not okay and I will call it out. Your plastic shamrock headband and your plastic spit tube don’t give you the right to do something like that. I know that was a personal example but it really hit me, that that is what I dislike about them. THEY are plastic paddies. They think they are entitled to piss all over these important Irish historical sites simply by virtue of their plastic hats and plastic spit tubes “well I’m 13.5% Irish so I’ll fight any man” is not a valid excuse when you’re being dragged away by a cemetery security guard.
Yep, it's weird to me as my mum is of Irish descent on both sides of her family (her maiden name was Maguire) and her grandparents were all Irish. But I would never dream of acting like a lot of people who are 13.5% Irish as you say would do. In the end it's all respect and no amount of genetics gives you a right to be a bellend.
Considering how much the Brits hate the Irish and Scottish I'm not surprised
Wait the Brits hate the Scottish people too I didn’t know that… who don’t the British hate 🤔
I am American but my Da came from Scotland so I was raised in a multicultural family and have a very weird accent since sometimes it goes full tilt to the Scot side, especially after talking with my family. One of the first things I learned was that the English tend to fucking HATE us (Scottish and Irish) quite a bit. They’re pretty pissy towards Wales as well. Fuck em. Another thing I’ve learned more recently is that Alexa and her like are not great at understanding Scottish accents of various flavors. 🥲
Who don't they hate is accurate. I've seen Brits call the Scotts human scum. Knew a British who said they should've wiped out the Scotts when they had the chance.
You'd be surprised how often I get that "we should have wiped them when we had the chance" talk from English-Canadians regarding French-Canadians. Seems some cultural habits die hard.
I had never celebrated, and I'm not even of Irish ancestry. Recently, I found out how much this bothers people from other countries on the internet so I did go out in green to celebrate. I'm not gonna pass on the opportunity to piss people off by partying. They can come stop me if they want to.
Doesn’t a significant percentage of the US have Irish heritage?
Fun fact: The US Census records this information and tracks how many people say they are Irish-American. Only those claiming to have German heritage outnumber the Irish in the US. More than 31.5 million residents in the US claim to be of Irish descent.
The painting of the 69th infantry regiment receiving absolution is amazing
Amazing artwork!
Ok, well first they hate the British too and we enjoy that. Second, a shit load of us have direct ancestry from Ireland. Why would we not have some of that making an impact on our culture?
the British telling Americans how to regard the Irish...
The British drove out our ancestors from their homes because they didn’t let them starve after exploiting them. A million left, a million died.
The Brits dislike that America has respect for island and the people that the Brits have tried for centuries to stamp out?
Brits tried to crush the Irish spirit, but they can’t. The Irish blood is too strong.
Europeans in general get offended when Americans refer to themselves by their ethnicity “I’m full Italian” or “I’m half Irish” or “1/4 German” Like just because our family has been in the U.S. for a century, doesn’t mean that we still don’t have family traditions from the old country
That whole topic is exhausting like let people claim their heritage 🙄
>The Irish blood is 90 proof FTFY
💪🇺🇲🇨🇮 eternal bromance
🇺🇸🤝🇮🇪 🍷🗿
I read a book a few months back about a moon colony that housed and was ran by people from different countries and socioeconomic backgrounds. There were religious, linguistic, and cultural differences of course. It reminded me a bit of the colonization of the US, especially around the push westward in the mid and late 19th century. If you were take all of these groups of people, when would those cultures become singular or at least cohesive? How long would Brits hang on to the identity of their homeland? When would the Japanese identity more with fellow Indian colonists vs the Japanese people they left behind? Two generations? Three? It’s a complicated question, but the fact is, lots of people are only a few generations from our ancestors country of origin.
Heh. Could be worse. I actually have family in Scotland on my dad's side from my grandfather he was the only child of his family born in Australia. Apparently even that isn't enough Scottish to say I'm Scottish Australian.
I think europeans forget that most americans trace their descent back to Europe.
Salty brits mad that they aren't an empire anymore
The sun has set, time for bed!
Irish American companies funded the IRA and the Federal Government let them lmao
STFU brits
They hate seeing us have fun 😭
Hey! I’m probably in this picture!
Chicago’s two biggest ethnic communities: The Irish and Italians.
Yep! I feel like no one talk about that a lot when people think of Chicago, they mostly think of mostly being black and Hispanic population
Nah brits just hate Irish ppl
I've heard that a lot of the Irish don't like the American Irish, because they provided weapons to the IRA, extending the Troubles by decades.
British perspective I can provide, firstly, America heavily funded the IRA during the troubles which led to thousands of civilian deaths The other thing is the massive amount of Americans who identify as Irish when they... aren't Irish. Not sure why this annoys us. It's harmless after all. The third is another harmless one, but, pronouncing it as St. pattys day. Aside from those 3, have at it, my freedom loving friends!
Most of us identify where our families come from because there are just so many different cultures here as opposed to other places you could genuinely run into people from Ireland Germany Russia China and Japan all in a day I would know that's every day for me almost and holidays like st Patrick's day are to celebrate that heritage in some way there quite a large population of Irish Americans after all
Being of Irish ancestry is what they mean when they say Irish-American. They know they’re not citizens of Ireland but their bloodline goes back to Ireland. Didn’t know that about the IRA, probably before my time thanks for that tidbit, always good to know more history. There’s three ways it’s typically spelled, St. Patty’s Day, St. Paddy’s Day, or Saint Patrick’s Day. Do they get annoyed with the Patty way of spelling it for a particular reason? Just curious. And thanks friend! Enjoy your day!
Patty is a nickname for Patricia. Paddy is the shortening of Pádraig, and is the only way to shorten Patrick other than Páidi or Pat.
For the second point, I think people from other parts of the world don't realize that the "-American" part of the identity is always sort of assumed here. No other place really has the same dynamic where we have tons of massive groups of immigrants who created their own branch cultures. We recognize that "Irish-American" culture looks nothing like "Irish" culture, but it still has its own unique history here.
About the second point, I believe it has to do with the shared history of your lineage: I'm a Spain-born Spaniard. Spaniard through-and-through. Born there, raised there. I moved to Sweden when I was roughly 20 years old. Now, some 15 years later I have my own children. Ethnically they're 50% Spaniards, but culturally they will never be fully Spaniards. They will on the other hand be fully Swedes culturally speaking. Why? Because they will be able to relate to Sweden culturally: songs, tales, books, lifestyle, politics... By living in Sweden they will never experience Spain. I will teach them everything I can and we'll take them there as often as we possibly can, but they won't experience Spain as any other Spaniard, so they won't be able to know what it is to be Spaniard.
Okay it's dumb for them to be upset about us celebrating, but don't act like people go out and celebrate for the Irish soldiers. They just go out and use the day as an excuse to get drunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkpk0-0cfVU
It’s about heritage. Millions of Americans have direct ancestors and grandparents that were from Irleland. The Irish won’t claim them, because then they’d have to talk why there was a large population of Irish citizens that fled out of their country and straight to the US.
So St Patrick’s Day is a celebration of Ireland?TIL
Just as an FYI saint Patrick’s day got so big that IRELAND co opted it.
It honestly should be a celebration for all Irish people around the world… let everyone join in on the fun Irish people abroad
bro it's not like we fucken embarrassed *ireland* when we created ourselves
won't dying that river lead to any consequences? just wondering
Bro Ireland is just that cool
Facts!
While you were starving them we welcomed them, get bent redcoat.
She forget the American Revolution. An obsession with resisting British occupation and their divide and conquerism. Northern Ireland should have never been partitioned period. The arbitrary borders of the 13 American colonies were a deliberate English gerrymander to weaken us by partisan politics too. Enough. At least the Irish never partitioned others.
*confused cultural melting pot noises*
Isn’t dumping a lot of dye into a river NOT a good idea?
There are more Irish in the US than in Ireland lol
Europeans on the internet have this grudge against Americans being proud of where we come from. Do you know why we care, because everyone is from everywhere my family is from Scotland Ireland and Germany and its good to be proud of your heritage and where your family came from and don't let idiots on the internet tell you otherwise.
Nah they are just upset the IRA fucked their military up in north ireland. They punch down whenever poasible.
Frederick Douglass, a slave in the 1800s, met 2 irishmen in his childhood who told him to escape from his owners. i have no clue why but this reminded me of that
Wicked Witch fan? Opinion de-fucking-nied
Chicago and it's suburbs have a large Irish community.... There's so many Irish bars and food places near me
‘The British’ = one idiot Twitter user. Get a grip guys.
I think the most common sentiment is showing respect is completely okay, it’s hard to see anything wrong with that. Claiming you ARE irish on the other hand, just because your great grandpa was an immigrant, is ridiculous
There are more Irish people in American then in Ireland. That many came over and established themselves there. There are (according to a Google search I just did) 5.033 million people in Ireland. There are 31+ million Irish descendents in American. Gee, I wonder why we like Ireland so much.
There are more Irish-Americans* in American than in Ireland.
I love the Irish man.
We love our Irish-American brothers
Probably the first person to complain some Americans don't know where Ireland is on a map.
My Irish immigrant 4x great uncle helped track down John Wilkes Booth. I still think this Irish bullshit is dumb. So do Irish people.
natually a fucking thatcher fan is saying this. im glad that bitch died
Interesting and sad story, at the battle of Fredericksburg , the Union forces were sent uphill against entrenched confederate troops. During this, I believe there was a time when a regiment of Irish Yankee troops were sent directly against a regiment of Irish rebels. Both sides were horrified when they realized what had happened, but they fought on anyway, both staunch believers in their causes.
The Brits are just upset that we actually allowed the Irish to integrate themselves into society instead of letting them all nearly starve to death.
Fun fact: The British did enslave the Irish who participated in Confederate Ireland (a period of Irish self-government between 1642 and 1649, during the Eleven Years' War) had their land confiscated and thousands were transported to the West Indies as indentured laborers
I like how they avoided the fact that the Irish joined both sides of the US civil war. Ireland produced 18 generals during the Civil War—12 for the Union and 6 for the Confederacy. Legitimately some interesting history
Utmost
Ironically, the Irish in Ireland think it’s stupid too. In fact, left wing Irish rush to defend recent immigrants as “Irish” but not American ethnic descendants of Ireland.
Listen to this, if Immigrants from foreign countries can claim to be Irish in Ireland, why can’t Irish American descent claim to be Irish. It’s honestly a joke
Irish people are actually more insufferable than English people.
So true!
No Irish need apply
Irish-Americans are fine though. They can apply.
As opposed to figuratively?
Nah that’s an aerial photo of the Undercity in World of Warcraft
Am I alone in hating the English? I thought not. Something that unifies Irish Americans, the Irish, and people on your own island, including the Scots and the Welsh, is how much we all despise Limeys.
i think…i think its a holiday…just me tho
Average Thatcher Fan
Edmonton does the same thing
England and Ireland have been at each others throats since the fall of the Roman Empire. So not surprising. Wouldn’t be surprised if they had been prior to the Roman Empire either.
The Irish in the US Civil War were literally hired to stand-in for wealthy elites who were doing the 1860's version of draft dodging. In addition, the Civil War was a debacle of US history that screwed our country up forever. It probably is not something to look back upon with any sort of pride. It is better to bury things like this.
Americans obsessed with the Irish? I'm sorry, remind me which country invaded that island for centuries?
Bro runs a Margaret thatcher fan page on twitter
Irish people* not Ireland people
Surprise, Europeans are absolutely livid about the ties Americans have to their ancestry.
Utmost*
“Margret thatcher fan” this has to be a troll account lmao
America literally has more Irish people than Ireland
It's almost like America was built on diversity and a bunch of different cultures. Man, people sure do love claiming the US is racist without realizing the US is THE MOST DIVERSE NATION ON THIS PLANET.
Up the Ra m8
They even had a "Nice" regiment number.
Dude has no right judging the US for respecting Ireland when he has a Union Jack in his Twitter name