ROTFL (Irish style)

[dianeduane]

I roared. An oldie-but-goodie from The Onion:

"Mary Gaughan, my mother's father's mother's mother, was from a tiny village called Ballydesmond," said the brown-eyed, brown-haired Kroeger, who is half German, one-quarter Swedish, one-eighth Dutch, one-sixteenth Belgian, and one-sixteenth Irish. "She married a sailor who was traveling from Rotterdam to America, and they settled in Milwaukee. Ever since, my family's been proud to be Irish."

...Meanwhile, I see that RTÉ is going live online with the Dublin St. Patrick's Day Festival / Parade, for those of you who might be interested in watching.

Enjoy the Day That's In It, everybody!

 

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

What is it about Irishness that gets so many to deny their other heritage?

(I'm English, right? Even though I have some Irish ancestry, and some of my cousins were born in, and still live in, Ireland.)

Perhaps I should insist on being called Norman rather than English, just because I can identify an ancestor who came over with King Billy the First.

No, tonight, I think I shall be enjoying some nice Swiss wine. And rereading George Mikes's Switzerland for Beginners. Just because.

[uozaki.livejournal.com]

I suppose this isn't the place to be proud of *not* being Irish, eh?

I stick with Saxon Turncoat, myself - earned ourselves some social promotion by Aiding and Abetting you Norman lot.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Be proud of what you are, not of what you aren't!

[tortoises.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotta love The Onion. :)

[triad-serpent.livejournal.com]

*grins* Ah, St. Patrick's Day...

I'm actually about 40% Irish, so...I have some genuine claim to the holiday, right...? Lol.

But, yeah, anyway, there's going to be a pack of us running around Taipei dressed all in green, tomorrow...we'll scare the natives, I'm sure, but oh well. ^..~

Heh...I remember in first grade how "leprechauns" trashed our classroom... There were little green-paint footprints all over the place... I liked that teacher. ^____^

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
~Kallen

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

This - 'So while the rest of the world are tucking in to corned beef and cabbage, [...]' - is part of the blurb at the top of the RTE page you linked to, so your efforts to get the rest of the world to understand that this is not the Irish national dish will be sadly undermined :-)

[ckd]

Indeed.

hr_macgirl is three-quarters Irish. Her mother and paternal grandmother were both born in Ireland. Green is her favorite color, and so she wears it most days. Just never on Evacuation Day[1]. Silly Boston faux-Irishness.

[1] In Boston (technically, Suffolk County[2], which is to say, Boston and a handful of other municipalities; Cambridge and Somerville also observe it, though they're in Middlesex County[3]), there's a holiday celebrating the British leaving Boston in 1776. Absolutely coincidentally, that just happens to be on St. Patrick's Day.

[2] Which technically doesn't exist, the county government having been abolished years ago.

[3] Also doesn't exist.

[cee-m.livejournal.com]

That's my family!!! English, Irish, French, Scottish, Swedish, Native American, German, who knows what else... but we still call ourselves Irish.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered what it's like to have an ethnic identity. It seems so important to people, I can't help but assume I'm missing out. The closest I can honestly claim is being a 4th generation Washingtonian (on my mother's side).

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah, American?

[lunza.livejournal.com]

All Americans originated somewhere else. That's the point.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's true of absolutely everyone except possibly those around the East African rift valley, and even those I would suspect have ancestry that has washed around the rest of the continent. Ancestry is like a fountain erupting in a lake, and the rivulets flowing around and mixing. Even in the Americas, there have been multiple waves of immigration over the millennia before the recent European-led flood.

[fgherman.livejournal.com]

The best Joel & I can do on ethnic heritages is try and figure out whose side of the family was more recently raped by Cossacks.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I'm 8th Irish my grandad was a Kelly (not an easy name to trace back!) I'm also part welsh, part scottish, part german.
I hate those "equal opportunity" forms that give you half a dozen ways of being "black" and only one way of being "white".
I usually pick "other" and add Celtic!

Enjoy St Patrick's day, which I would celebrate if I wasn't pagan and believe St Patrick was one of the primary misogynist catholics that was responsible for women being regarded as "chattel" and not allowed to attain Holy Orders. Worst of all though HE BURNT BOOKS. All the Ogham sticks that were recording all the celtic Churches early histories and all the "pagan legends".

[kitsunehime-aki.livejournal.com]

You know, speaking as a fellow pagan, I don't know if it's the best course of action to get all up and arms about the "ZOMG Burning Times"(even if it's about books). Plenty of book burnings were perpetrated by pagans too, and at this point the holiday is barely about St. Patrick himself. In many ways, the popular version of the holiday could be considered pro-pagan with it's emphasis on Irish and Celtic mythology and legend.
Why not take the day as an excuse to educate people (subtly) on who the Sidhe are, or who Finn McCool was?

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Most people when you mention elves nowadays think "Tolkein" and that's the endof thestory.
Pity really the Irish Sidhe were so much more than that - and a hell of a lot more fun!