The Irish diaspora

[Acajack]

Here is Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec's Minister of the Economy and Innovation. Montreal-born and raised, he says his family has been French-speaking for multiple generations. Though he does speak English too I am sure. He is graduate of the Harvard Business School.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucY7KQrUKSs

[pj3000]

The Pittsburgh area, I think I once read, is second to Boston in percentage of Irish Americans.


The region's Irish history predates the potato famine-induced immigration when the "Scots-Irish" were the early settlers of western PA and Appalachia.

The many neighborhood and town names in the Pittsburgh region reflect it well: Carrick, Wilkinsburg, O'Hara, Castle Shannon, McCandless, Donegal, Ben Avon, Connellsville, McKeesport, McKees Rocks, Stanton Heights, New Stanton, Carnegie, McMurray, McDonald, McGovern, Sheraden, Croghansville, Munhall, Kennedy, Scott...

[destroycreate]

Never really understood why Irish-Americans were always so obsessed with talking about/referring to their (1/8th) Irishness. It's not really that distinct culturally compared to immigrants who have roots from more exotic regions of the world.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Never really understood why Irish-Americans were always so obsessed with talking about/referring to their (1/8th) Irishness. It's not really that distinct culturally compared to immigrants who have roots from more exotic regions of the world.

Exotic is just a matter of your perspective.

Also pretty intolerant of you, if they want to celebrate their irish-ness whats your problem with it ?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Never really understood why Irish-Americans were always so obsessed with talking about/referring to their (1/8th) Irishness. It's not really that distinct culturally compared to immigrants who have roots from more exotic regions of the world.

Who cares if it is or isn't 'exotic'? Irish Americans can be still be proud of their Irishness.

• Video Link

[dc_denizen]

You know where else you can find a lot of Irish? Civil war cemeteries

[jd3189]

The only Irish people I have met so far are those who are part Irish. I’ve only seen the full Irish on TV, along with the Scots.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Never really understood why Irish-Americans were always so obsessed with talking about/referring to their (1/8th) Irishness. It's not really that distinct culturally compared to immigrants who have roots from more exotic regions of the world.

You know lots of people with one Irish great-grandparent who talk up being Irish?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Shawn

You know lots of people with one Irish great-grandparent who talk up being Irish?

Literally tons of them in Canada.

And I have 1 or 2 Irish ancestors from the 1800s. But I never talk up being Irish.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Literally tons of them in Canada.

And I have 1 or 2 Irish ancestors from the 1800s. But I never talk up being Irish.

That's kinda crazy to think about for me. I guess that's how it might be throughout the US and Canada outside the Northeast and Chicago then? I can see why that would be annoying.

I'm just saying, in Mass if you're white and 1/8th anything, that's getting zero play. Especially if it's Irish. Because in Mass if you're only 1/8th Irish, you're highly likely to be Italian or Portuguese or French-Canadian or a mix of the three as well, and that's who you self-identify with.

I get the impression whites from the Northeast hold on to ethnic identities more than in other parts of the country.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

You know where else you can find a lot of Irish? Civil war cemeteries

Yes, for the Union and Confederacy. It's estimated that 38% of African Americans have some Irish ancestry. Many Irish were overseers or masters on Southern plantations. Where do you think these black O'Neals, Murphys, and Kellys come from?

[dc_denizen]

I think your confusing older scots-Irish with mid 19th century immigrant Irish. The potato famine wasn’t until 1847 which is when immigration really ramped up

150000 Irish fought on the union side

25000 fought for the confederacy

Most Irish soldiers were probably 19 and 20 year old peasants that had grown up in squalor and hunger in Ireland and emigrated to the us.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Shawn

That's kinda crazy to think about for me. I guess that's how it might be throughout the US and Canada outside the Northeast and Chicago then? I can see why that would be annoying.

I'm just saying, in Mass if you're white and 1/8th anything, that's getting zero play. Especially if it's Irish. Because in Mass if you're only 1/8th Irish, you're highly likely to be Italian or Portuguese or French-Canadian or a mix of the three as well, and that's who you self-identify with.

I get the impression whites from the Northeast hold on to ethnic identities more than in other parts of the country.

I'm from NY and am 1/8 (Ulster) Irish but never identity as such; mostly Italian and English. People here in Texas almost never identify with their ethnicity. My wife doesn't even know hers.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Shawn

That's kinda crazy to think about for me. I guess that's how it might be throughout the US and Canada outside the Northeast and Chicago then?

We got LOTS of euro-mutts in Chicago too.

I've never had an overly strong euro-ancestry identity because I'm so mutted-up myself. So many lines of my ancestry have been here in Chicago for so long that I identify a trillion times more strongly with that than I do with anything on the other side of a fucking ocean.

My paternal grandmother was 100% Irish.

My paternal grandfather was a British isles mish-mosh of English, Scottish, and Irish.

My entire maternal side was all continental - mainly German with some French/Alsatian sprinkled in.

So I'm somewhere between 25 - 50% Irish ancestry.

just enough for me to get properly blackout drunk on St. Paddy's day and urinate and/or vomit (perhaps both at the same time) in public.

[montréaliste]

Geez. I thought this thread had to do with the aftermath of St Paddy's day.

"Irish diapers."

I have to get new prescription glasses, and fill them. Slaìnte!

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by goat314

Yes, for the Union and Confederacy. It's estimated that 38% of African Americans have some Irish ancestry. Many Irish were overseers or masters on Southern plantations. Where do you think these black O'Neals, Murphys, and Kellys come from?

Those were mostly Scots-Irish: Scottish colonizers of Ireland (Ulster County, i.e. today's Northern Ireland) who then moved to the southern US. They mostly came over before the Irish.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by JManc

People here in Texas almost never identify with their ethnicity. My wife doesn't even know hers.

That's what I suspected. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, but definitely different from what I'm used to.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Those were mostly Scots-Irish: Scottish colonizers of Ireland (Ulster County, i.e. today's Northern Ireland) who then moved to the southern US. They mostly came over before the Irish.

Ulster's a province, not a county

Interestingly, even though Ulster and Northern Ireland are pretty much synonymous today, three of the counties that make the historical Ulster actually belong to the Republic of Ireland.

I personally do identify with my Irishness, but then again, I've got an excuse - I'm half Irish, was born in Dublin, and carry an Irish passport along with my Canadian one.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I've never had an overly strong euro-ancestry identity because I'm so mutted-up myself.

And that's the thing, right? I know my family genealogy on both sides (except the Ukrainian great-grandfather's line) back to their Irish counties of origin. For some branches of the family it's easy, as they never left Ireland in the first place or they went back. But I know without a doubt, there's English and Welsh and some Viking in there as well.

The Irish themselves are not really "Irish" anymore, and haven't been in a looong time. Most Irish have a percentage of Scandinavian admixture; Dublin was founded by Vikings, after all. Fun fact: Iceland's admixture has a substantial Irish component because the first Viking settlers to Iceland brought a bunch of Irish thralls with them from their holdings in Ireland.

And then you have about 1000 years of English and Scottish overlordship, with all the intermixing and raping which comes with that. Throw in some Spanish blood down south around Cork (i.e. Black Irish) and you've got a whole admixture stew. This is why 23 And Me doesn't report separate categories for Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English: it's all just called "British and Irish". There aren't enough genetic markers uniquely Irish among their reference populations to distinguish "Irish" from "British".

So . . . no one is really Irish anymore. No doubt I have a good degree of English colonizer blood. But the family will pretend it's Welsh

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Ulster's a province, not a county

God I hope no one in my family reads this! We're from Tipperary and Roscommon, and I'm embarrassed to say I've never made it to Donegal.