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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Happy St Paddy's Day! A friend told me that most cultural customs associated with today has to do with Irish American culture (Boston and New York), and not with the culture of Ireland, itself.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Happy St Paddy's Day! A friend told me that most cultural customs associated with today has to do with Irish American culture (Boston and New York), and not with the culture of Ireland, itself.

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Similarly, I'm given to understand the Cinco de Mayo is a bigger thing in US than in Mexico, for similar reasons.

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Happy St Paddy's Day! A friend told me that most cultural customs associated with today has to do with Irish American culture (Boston and New York), and not with the culture of Ireland, itself.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
At a cursory glance, the Dublin festivities would seem to be perhaps a little less "stage Irish" than what I associate with the American versions.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Happy St Paddy's Day! A friend told me that most cultural customs associated with today has to do with Irish American culture (Boston and New York), and not with the culture of Ireland, itself.

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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig agaibh!. (I think the Irish made up that phrase just so that we Americans would have something to say on this day. Very courteous).

St. Patrick was, of course, an American by birth. He was born at what is now the campus-town of Cornell University. The neighborhood's old Latin name was Bannavem Taburniae which means "Pub crawl through nine taverns."

I've always liked this passage from St. Patrick's Confession. It describes an incident that occurred after he escaped slavery in Ireland and was trying to get home to Albany, New York:

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Et post triduum terram cepimus, etc. And after three days we came to land. And we wandered for twenty-eight days through a wilderness, and their food ran out, and hunger overcame them. And the next day their captain began to say to me, "What do you say, Christian ? Isn't your god great and almighty ? Why can't you pray for us, since we're perishing with hunger ? For it looks as though we aren't likely ever to find any people." So I said openly to them, "Be turned with all your heart and faith to the Lord our God. For nothing is impossible with him; so that today he will send food into your path, so much that you'll be full. For all things are his." And by God's help, it was so. For a flock of swine appeared on the trail right in front of our eyes. And they slew many of them, and stayed there for two nights well-refreshed. And their dogs were revived; for many of them were weakened, and wandered from the trail half-dead. And after this they gave great thanks to God, and I was honored in their eyes.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
This article is apt:

Why I don't celebrate St Paddy's

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Corned Beef, Green beer, calling it St Patty's Day, banning LGBT groups from parades and disso scumbags insulting members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the NYC parade?

These are things safely left in the US with the rest of the cartoon and monocultural version of Irish identity that is Irish-America.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
This article is apt:

Why I don't celebrate St Paddy's

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Corned Beef, Green beer, calling it St Patty's Day, banning LGBT groups from parades and disso scumbags insulting members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the NYC parade?

These are things safely left in the US with the rest of the cartoon and monocultural version of Irish identity that is Irish-America.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
This article is apt:

Why I don't celebrate St Paddy's

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The bigotry and ignorance of this post

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Corned Beef, Green beer, calling it St Patty's Day, banning LGBT groups from parades and disso scumbags insulting members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the NYC parade?

These are things safely left in the US with the rest of the cartoon and monocultural version of Irish identity that is Irish-America.

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is misplaced, but understandable.

The message in the article linked in this post

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
This article is apt:

Why I don't celebrate St Paddy's

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less so.

The celebrations in America are in part, reflections of the oppression felt by Irish immigrants in their arrival in America and for long after. The culture was attacked. And it was suppressed, both from outside and inside. Many immigrants to the US suppressed their own background, desiring to blend in. Education was less accessible to early immigrants, how were they to learn of the auld country when they could not even learn of the one they were in?
Celebrations became enthusiastic to show pride in that which was disdained.
The author of the article complains Americans do not understand the history of what they are celebrating without himself understanding the why of the celebration.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

The celebrations in America are in part, reflections of the oppression felt by Irish immigrants in their arrival in America and for long after. The culture was attacked. And it was suppressed, both from outside and inside. Many immigrants to the US suppressed their own background, desiring to blend in. Education was less accessible to early immigrants, how were they to learn of the auld country when they could not even learn of the one they were in?
Celebrations became enthusiastic to show pride in that which was disdained.
The author of the article complains Americans do not understand the history of what they are celebrating without himself understanding the why of the celebration.
Apologies, wrong click.

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Do a google for the nest of ignorance that is AOH Brooklyn before chucking shillelaghs at an actual Irishman living in modern Ireland, thanks.

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I don’t wish to generalise and say that this is the way all Irish Americans think

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Originally posted by Wilfried:
The critique that the day has degenerated into an excuse for drunken debauchery and a celebration of kitchy caricatures of bits of Irish culture seems pretty apt, especially if what you say are it's origins are true.

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In what way are these benighted diasporites "in the way"?

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
Yup. As remarked earlier, I live here in Ireland so would have a good idea of the cultural history of my own country. Bin the patronisation, thanks.

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Originally posted by fletcher christian:
posted by mousethief:

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In what way are these benighted diasporites "in the way"?

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I think the writer of the article means that in the sense of the hanging on to old political division while most who actually live in Ireland have moved on.

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There is also a dismal history of certain Irish Americans giving support to "the cause", even when the majority of the players have moved on.

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Originally posted by fletcher christian:
posted by mousethief:

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In what way are these benighted diasporites "in the way"?

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I think the writer of the article means that in the sense of the hanging on to old political division while most who actually live in Ireland have moved on.

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In the sense that support was still being given to things like NORAID (with questions being asked as to what exactly the money was spent on) and the peculiar propaganda that suggested the children of the Republic were being oppressed by the British at a time when the actual number of British citizens living in the Republic was not even big enough to fill a one street village. Even today I am amazed at tourists from the States who ask in all innocence, 'When will the Church of Ireland give the two Dublin Cathedrals back to the irish?', or, 'We hear that good Catholic children are subjected to the horrors of Protestant schooling here.' Sometimes I wonder if, when they venture into the wilds, d they still expect to see a Catholic priest and his flock gathered around a mass rock.

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Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Ideas, both political and cultural that are based on utter ignorance can 'get in the way' of what Ireland is really like in many ways. It also, I am sure, gets in the way when the ignorant fund 'a cause' they know nothing about, yet if terrorism takes place on their own soil their level of tolerance seems understandably low.

But maybe you meant something else? Is there an Americanism I have missed?

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
monocultural version of Irish identity that is Irish-America.

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It's not the mainstream Irish Republican movement represented by Sinn Fein which is part of the Northern Ireland government and endorses the Police Service of Northern Ireland

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It is this bit which might have got in the way.

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Originally posted by Ronald Binge:
monocultural version of Irish identity that is Irish-America.

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I cannot speak for your travels through America, but mine have been through a large bit. And my experience tells me they do not fit the less-than-nuanced view many Europeans have.
Fuck the AOH and their anti-LGBT stance? Right behind you carrying a banner. Fuck all Irish-Americans? Don't believe they all fit that mold. Rarely do all of any group.

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The parade was primarily composed of Irish Americans, who were the object of the puzzled attention of Dubliners, many of whom were focussing on the majorettes bravely wearing short skirts in the wet March weather of the Liffey.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
Augustine wrote:

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The parade was primarily composed of Irish Americans, who were the object of the puzzled attention of Dubliners, many of whom were focussing on the majorettes bravely wearing short skirts in the wet March weather of the Liffey.

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A Scottish friend of mine once told me about a comedy-show skit on Scottish TV, about a pair of Canadian backpackers who go to a pub in Scotland and sit around yelling to the locals about how Scottish they are.

Stage-Scottish being kind of the Canadian equivalent of America's stage-Irish.

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Well, Fletcher said that NORAID is part of the problem. And NORAID supported Gerry Adams back in his armed-resistance days. And Gerry Adams is one of those republicans you mention who is part of Sinn Fein and the Northern Ireland government.

So yes, as far as I can tell, the people who vote for Sinn Fein are endorsing the same political party that was endorsed by the supposedly deluded Irish-Americans in NORAID.

An article by a NORAID member. Gerry Adams is descrined as sending fraternal greetings to one of their meetings.

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I'll not defend the funding of terrorism and I do think tourists should have a little knowledge of their destination. However, what percentage of Americans are we speaking of? My objection on this thread was the very large brush strokes being painted with, not specific allegations. The dismissive attitude shown irked. I understand the frustrations of people embracing a caricature of one's culture rather than attempting a true understanding, it is annoying and frustrating. However, I would not charge an entire group with the sins of a few.

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Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Well, it's just as well that I hadn't charged the many with the sins of the few then isn't it!

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I understand the frustrations of people embracing a caricature of one's culture rather than attempting a true understanding, it is annoying and frustrating. However, I would not charge an entire group with the sins of a few.

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