"Sad thing to be, nonsensical thing to want to be" 💔🥀💔🥀

I just love the shade thrown to Ireland, Guatemala and Lithuania. he did not hold back. "Not even the Irish want to be Irish" 😭 Also I think he is American.
- Just confirmed.
  Person "In what part(s) of the world do you live?"
  NEET: "Pennsylvania, America"
- Was gonna quote trainspotting, but realized it's scots.
  Tommy: Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?
  Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!
- Don't worry lithuanians also don't want to be lithuanians.
- Your welcome
It's toned down since 23andMe was new, but I absolutely know people that will regularly call themselves by whatever European group they think gives them character.
I always ask if they have an EU passport.
- Missed out on one by a couple years through the citizenship by ancestry program:-/
- Dude i don't even have a us one
weird idiosyncrasies
Agreed, ChocoboEnthusiast
- Don't listen to them, you can be as enthusiastic about chocobos as you like! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I bet they also question "why would anyone want to be a woman?"

As a woman and the op I wonder this myself.

What a fucking weird and racist post. "not even the Irish want to be Irish"

Looks like it's just trying to be controversial. The Irish are fine, they have nothing to be ashamed of and lots to be proud of. Most of the world either doesn't know who they are or loves them.
It really is. As an American with some Irish, (if its a white from eastern europe it turned up on our dna test thingy) Im not sure if I or actual Irish people should be more offended.
The Irish have had a very ~~shitty~~ troubled past, is probably what they're getting at
- Nah, don't agree. They established a hierarchy of "good nationalities" to be and put others like Irish and Lithuanian below them.
- They didn't choose to be brutally colonized by the English

I’ve got Irish heritage. My dentist asked me about it because I have a red beard (brown hair). She explained that people with red hair are less responsive to Novocain. I always knew I wasn’t bullshitting that the dentist hurt me as a teen. Finally, proof!

Not only Novocain, but lots of different types of anesthesia. Im a ginger and have woken up in several procedures, even after warning the doctor I probably would.
- The band Eels in their song Novocaine for the Soul claims that efficacy of that drug is linked to having a soul and as we all know ginger do not have one.
- Sounds like hell.
I suppose you can't blame your earlier dentists, though. How were they supposed to know? And if they automatically treated redheads differently, would that be racism?
- You ask, because certain physical characteristics are known to be linked more often with certain things than others
- It's not racist to treat patients differently when you're talking about how likely they are to react to drugs. Children/teens tend to become bewildered and/or violent when waking up from anesthesia. It's not ageist to prepare for a worse case scenario by calling all hands on deck to hold them down to prevent injury.
- Isn't a racism judging someone's character based on ethnic heritage or physical expression rather than, you know, their character?
  Medical predisposition, nah that's racist!

They want to be European, but don't want the stink of colonialism, whilst also feeling like rebels, so Ireland it is!

Idk lol some of our ancestors are just from a place and sometimes that place is Ireland. Want my white-ass to lie to you instead?

I'm Hatian now.

It's just a very foreign thing for us eurooeans. If we're born in Italy, but some grandparent was born in Germany, we don't consider ourself to be german in any way. We'd consider ourself italian and nothing else. It just seems so incredibly odd to even consider oneself to be german if you didn't spend time growing up in Germany.
- I think the reason it's so prevalent here in the US is because the vast majority of the population ended up here at least in part due to immigration. So identifying as ethnically originating from elsewhere is a part of that self identity.
  The disparity however, is knowing that while traveling through Europe, this style of self identification falls flat because simply being ethnically from a place doesn't mean you can claim to be born and raised from there. And that meaning is what's different between the US and Europe.
- I guess that makes sense. We have our "heritage" pushed on us from a very young age, or at least we did when I was a child. In the 4th grade we did an entire reenactment of immigrating through Ellis Island, NY in which we had to research our countries of origin, then draw from a hat to see if we died on the journey, got small pox, or any other number of things all before being "accepted into the wonderful cultural melting-pot that is the United States".
  Then we grew up and learned that all immigrants are evil and must all be deported. /s?
  Regardless, my family immigrated from Ireland after having lived in County Cork for a very long time. This whole post just seems like shitting on people just to shit on people.
  Sad thing to be, nonsensical thing to want to be
  Well, thanks for calling me sad for a thing I'm mostly indifferent about and have no choice in, OP.
- Americans keep their ethnic identity distinct from their national identity. If an American national tells you they're Irish, they're invariably referring to the former.

like.. were a nation of immigrants. it's part of your identity in the US.

I think some people just like to be in touch with their ancestry which isn't suddenly cringe when you're white. But I think for some other people it's genuinely part of their victim complex. Irish people were among the most oppressed white minorities back in the day.

Irish people were among the most oppressed white minorities back in the day.
Most of the Irish Americans I know are just keen on dishing it back out to whatever Other they can target. I'm also related to most of the Irish Americans I know, so take that as you will.
There is a difference between being in touch with your ancestry to claiming you are literally a nationality which you aren't. Americans always say "I'm Irish, Italian etc. etc." and proceeds to be the ultimate arbiter of what is real Irish, Italian etc., when in reality they had some great-grandparents in of their family tree branches who may have been of that nationality.
By all means be interested in your ancestry, study the archives, learn about your distant family, but it does not suddenly make you Irish, Italian etc., you are American.

Irish and Italians are interesting because they were historically considered 'colored' or at least on the same societal rung as colored people.

Guatemala is awesome. The countryside is beautiful and the people are descended from one of humanity's major civilizations, the Mayans.

I realize OP is only half-serious, but they still come off as really ignorant.

How did I come across as "ignorant" Take this from someone who has been to Guatemala. Anyone who knows anything about Guatemala would say what I said.
"The countryside is beautiful and the people are descended from one of humanity’s major civilizations, the Mayans."
You can cherry pick nice places from anywhere. Places like Mexico, Baltimore, South Africa, Brazil, Detroit and Guatemala have have some nice places here and there but let's be honest like most of South America it's a poverty filled shithole and most Guatemalans/South Americans would even agree with me on that.
As someone who is doing a massive research project on the Maya peoples right now, that civilization was technologically way ahead of the game! They had toilets with a sewage system, clean aqueducts and water purification measures, and ball sports a thousand years before the colonizers that fucked em up. A THOUSAND YEARS.
- Not to mention the 200 000 people cities when in Europe a 50k city was considered big

It's the same nonsense as invoking "the luck of the Irish". Said by people who have absolutely no idea about Irish history.

Darn those extra lucky Irish.
In Fact it's well known that they fought overwhelming on the north side of the US civil war because they knew which side was gonna win from their luck, and it had nothing to do with recognizing slavery as another form of the serfdom they just escaped from.

I have a friend who came over from Moscow and is an immigrant to the U.S. herself. A few years ago she started telling me she has Irish heritage and she knows it because she felt it in her bones and can see it in her dreams. Now she goes twice a year to 'reconnect with her roots.' She was so confident that she did a 23andme and it showed that she was 99% of her heritage with a 1% broadly european. That 1% is what she is now claiming is her Irish portion.

I don't know. I really don't even know.

Mine said I was 0.2% Mongolian so now I endearingly tell stories of my Grandpa Khan.
- You need to be listening to The Hu now all day every day to reconnect with your roots. And also just because they are awesone
if 1% irish heritage makes you irish then i should be able to claim citizenship in most of europe
- Fucking no one tell this person about the EU and free movement.

There are some great YouTube videos of Irish people having to deal with American tourists who think they’re Irish.

The best is that one 'follow me, I'm delicious' Irish guy. He said ''Everyone I know is Irish, so it's hard for me to get excited about it''

Funny story, my lineage is Irish and Lithuanian. So take that, I guess.

Admitting you have problems is the first step.

It’s fun to make fun of Americans who are proud of their Irish ancestry. I dunno why. But it is.

Source: american cheese American with Irish composing a decent chunk

Citizenship question: my grandfather's parents were born in Ireland. My grandfather, who didn't know he had been adopted until much later in life (by a Jewish woman), became an Irish citizen in his 50s and had dual citizenship until his death.

As a desperate American.... can I get Irish citizenship through my grandfather, a naturalized Irish citizen who was not born in Ireland?? I can (understandably) not find an answer to this on the Irish citizenship website.

Sincerely, an American who spent 12 hours protesting at a No Kings rally yesterday

I don’t think so, it has to be more direct IIRC. I’ve been looking into it too, for the same reasons. My Great Grandmother emigrated here… nope.
One of your grandparents had to be born in Ireland, not just obtained Irish citizenship later in life. If he was born in Ireland, you'll need his original birth certificate. More info here.
That said, I have a few formerly US coworkers who did get Irish citizenship by naturalization. That requires life in Ireland for at least 5 out of the last 9 years. Studying doesn't count, so you'll either have your current employer transfer you here, or you'll find a job and move here. Your employer will apply for a 2-year work visa, which can be extended for another 3 years, after which you can apply for permanent residency. If you are employed in one of the critical skills jobs, you can apply for permanent residency in less than 2 years.

Eh it depends on who you are and where you're from. Chicago and Boston have a lot of Irish heritage. Everywhere else it's mostly just St. Patrick's Day, aka amateur night. So it's mostly just an excuse for the lightweights to go get drunk on shitty beer.

Seriously, who gets drunk on Miller or Budweiser? It's like trying to run a car engine on Kool-aid.

Irish by birth. Catholic by choice. Fishtown by the grace of god.
Not me, but an actual shirt you can by in one of phillies more popular neighborhoods. Just wanna let ya know philly has plenty of irish pride, even if its mostly located in a working class now gentrified neighborhood with an American style history of racism and also a history of chart topping drug problems.
The population of Ireland is around 5.3 million. More than 6 million people have immigrated to the U.S. from there. Factor in kids, grandkids and such... It makes sense that there would be a number of people claiming Irish heritage. Also the number of people who find an Irish accent attractive is non-zero.
Edit: a quick search found 9.4% of the U.S. population is of Irish decent. (Mixed obviously). So more Irish than all Asian decents combined if I read it correctly.
- Yup there are more people of irish decent in usa the there are humans in Ireland

My wee Irish grandmother would take issue with this. Her pride was more about being Catholic, but she was definitely Irish. Soda bread. Weird Easter pastries. Ya, cabbage and alcohol too. Just little bits and bobs of Irish culture.

... Um ... I personally claim that I'm a European mutt. Drunkards all.

We as Americans lack a certain amount of culture, we look to our pasts and see what it is our families have come from. So many Irish came here, for so many reasons, the cultural heritage barely came with it, leaving a big gaping hole in what we tend to identify ourselves with.

I like to use the analogy of the Native American Indian who was displaced and massacred, captured and forced to go to Indoctrination camps as children. Where they applied the “kill the indian, save the child” methodology, abhorrent to think of, its not far off from cultural genocide.

So, we look back and find our parents and grandparents nationalities, where they have come from, we adopt what little we know of what it means to be Irish. All thats left here is Irish bars and St Patricks Day, Boston and Chicago. Americans will happily tell you about their heritage but its not a long story to tell. We are the children of immigrants striving to find a way to make a home and anyone else to connect with for community.

I agree with 99% of you comment but
We as Americans lack a certain amount of culture
Is just plain false.
American TV, film, music, fashion, food, technology food and to a lesser extent sports are so influential on the world stage they aren't even thought of as American half the time.
Like it or not, half the world's wearing blue jeans drinking coca cola watching Hollywood movies or posting about it on shitter while rock or rap plays in the background.
- I thought that would be the point I would get called out on. I tried to phrase it around what capitalism makes, its such a short sighted cultural influence that bears very little of what we internalize. I see our American influence everywhere, but we still lack something more concrete to anchor our individual identities.

We err they obsessed because red heada are hot and irish beer os better the American beer

Uh, 'scuse me, I am proud to be Irish _{and Scottish, both from about 400 years back} I take pride in my heritage by regularly listening to Celtic music.

come out ye black and tans, 24/7/365
- Good news, you can start listening to Kneecap now!

I use it to explain my massive capacity for alcohol

"I'm scotch/Irish on one side and German on the other, 3 generations both sides and they bred in the community until my parents!" as I'm on my third boot and finally starting to slur my speech lol

I usually joke "The Polish in me knows how to drink, the Irish in me doesn't know how to stop."
Beat me to it. Take my upvote!

My great grandparents came to the US and claimed to be Irish. We strongly suspect this was a lie and they were German but arrived during a time where Germans were... unpopular.

My dad's side of the family was supposedly Irish. Bunch of reprobates and thieves. I would admit to being related to none of them even if they could prove it with papers lol

Nothing against Irish people. Just thought I'd share.

Because we have a holiday that is more or less Irish Pride Day (St. Patrick's Day).

If there was a Lithuanian Pride Day, there'd probably be just as many Americans searching their ancestry for a Lithuanian connection.

My maternal great-grandfather fled Ireland after the Civil War ended because he was a republican fighter. Does that count?

I’ve been asking this same goddamn question dude. I don’t get it

The Irish was the last white European immigrant community that was treated poorly after immigration so by claiming to be part of that they get to claim to be part of that oppression and use it to pretend to themselves they are an underdog regardless how much their existence would be unlike any actual Irish immigrants.
- That is gross

It's economically stable white people trying to find a way to be the victim.
\ You don't see actually marginalized white people (poor, disabled, etc) doing this, just suburban Karens and shit

Edit:
\ All these down votes but no counterarguments.
\ It's almost like people are mad because not only does this perfectly explain the phenomenon, but we can see tons of examples in American society of the oppressors trying to claim victimhood for repercussions to their actions. The glove fits.

Getting drunk on St. Patty's

St. Paddy's, sir.
- Ah, of course.

Nice to see someone liked it.