Why you are proud to be Irish?

LundiMardi

Chucky the tree wrote:

Obiovusly no within the week. IF he has a degree i can understand him staying to finished it.

It just annoys me the way people whinge and moan aobut how **** Ireland is, yet never even bother to try and move abroad. They dont even do any research on it.

i think i'll stay just to piss you off so...

arbeitsscheuer

LundiMardi wrote:

i think i'll stay just to piss you off so...

Excellent! Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?

LundiMardi

SebtheBum wrote:

Excellent! Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?

i feel better already, i think i'll go out and rejoice with the scumbag that's trying to steel my car....

Terry

seb, you don't like it here, yet you are quite happy with our education system. so happy with it, that it is getting you a job in another country?
yet another reason to be proud to be Irish. we have one of the best education systems in the world.
that quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, would i be correct in saying that your knowledge of this man and his work is a product of the Irish education system?

let me ask this question to all of you unhappy with Irleland; what country is better and why?
it's an impossible question to answer because every country is different and every country has its positives and negatives.

a better question would be; if you're unhappy with the current state of Ireland vis-a-vis politics, why not become a politician or political activist and change the system from within?

LundiMardi

julep wrote:

we have one of the best education systems in the world.

What's this opinion based on exactly?

julep wrote:

let me ask this question to all of you unhappy with Irleland; what country is better and why?

Canada

julep wrote:

a better question would be; if you're unhappy with the current state of Ireland vis-a-vis politics, why not become a politician or political activist and change the system from within?

Like the A-Team?

LadyJ

I'm unhappy with Ireland but I don't see what's so fantastic about other countries. I wouldn't be "proud" of my nationality no matter where I was from.
I think it's a pointless thing to be proud of.

arbeitsscheuer

LadyJ wrote:

I'm unhappy with Ireland but I don't see what's so fantastic about other countries. I wouldn't be "proud" of my nationality no matter where I was from.
I think it's a pointless thing to be proud of.

"Patriotism is the belief that your country is better than everybody else's simply because you were born in it"
Can't remember who that quote is from, but ya get the point.

Class divides us, not nationality.

Hagar

I see nationality as simply an extended family. Yes we are here by an accident of birth but we are still family.
If we can be shamed by the actions of some Irish people what's so strange in taking pride in the achievements of other Irish people?

Ruu_Old

When you live abroad, you realise how better you're off being Irish. Think of it this way, you dont want to be a loud mouthed, ignorant American.

Setun

I'm proud to be Irish when we get something right.

Like when...

Nalz

Ruu wrote:

When you live abroad, you realise how better you're off being Irish. Think of it this way, you dont want to be a loud mouthed, ignorant American.

True, we are portrayed as brilliant people over the world, apart from those who are ignorant to the facts of the situation in the north, we've got a good name...though I dont think its 100% deserved. the country has so much potential, but very few can make anything out of it. I dont think were the one the worst nations in the world in all aspects, and I too am glad Im in a first world country.

And Im proud of bein Irish, becuase I was born Irish, and see nothing really major wrong with the nation. stupid reason, but I suppose a hint of green runs through my veins

solas

when I was young I always wanted to be native american, purely for cultural reasons. Now I'm older I realise that a majority of (pure) native americans live in trailers on reservations with alcohol problems and a sense of loss for the past, so Ireland is pretty ok. We have a great hertiage and wonderful culture and customs, hope they're always chersihed and never lost.

Read - http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/patriotism.html

gaf1983

bottlerocket wrote:

Different language, vastly different culture and customs to much of the UK (scotland excepted).

A few reasons from our history -

Irish missionaries kept Latin and learning alive in much of Europe in the dark ages. Also, we never accepted domination from a foreign power and managed to keep our language and culture alive under extreme repression. When Irish people travelled around the world we contributed a great deal to the countries that took our people in.

For such a small country, we consistently punch above our weight in many different spheres and have exported so much to the world.

What has happened economically in that 15 years is nothing short of exceptional. To go from being on our knees in the 1980's to one of the richest countries in the world is a great achievement and something we can all be proud of.

There are many things to dislike about Ireland, as with any country, and things are far from perfect. National pride is more than tricolours, celtic jerseys and hating England. It gives people a sense of belonging and achievement and in my opinion is therefore worthwhile.

A few questions arising from your remarks, bottlerocket:

1. Why would you classify Ireland as sharing more customs and culture with Scotland than the rest of the UK?

2. On "punching above our weight." - what are you talking about? Italia 90? Getting to the quarter finals of one of the worst World Cups ever seen in history having only scored two goals along the way is not punching above our weight, it's just poxy. If you're talking about Eurovision, we never do well in it anymore. If you're talking about our economic performance in the past few years, well, sure, it was good, but lots of small countries have performed well economically, such as Denmark, Botswana, Norway, to name but three. As the following letter in today's Irish Times shows, the economic performance hasn't exactly benefitted everyone lucky enough to be proud to be Irish:

wrote:

Madam, - The promiscuous spray of commentary generated by last Saturday's vicious unrest has been remarkably empty of both insight and prescription.

Beyond the preparedness, or otherwise, of the Garda, coverage has focused almost exclusively on three points: the wisdom of allowing a provocative unionist march through the city centre; the vile debasement of "republicanism" by the rioters; and the resultant defacement of secular, tolerant Ireland.

The three points are intertwined. The argument runs that, having basked for long in the sheen of European modernity, the Republic could now retire the tattered colours of old and live fully up to its own promises: civil rights for all, and open debate between all points of view. Saturday's violence put the lie to such optimism.

As such, the premises of the argument lead naturally to designate the rioters as far beyond the pale of contemporary Ireland, and below contempt: they are "green fascists", given over to "feral tribalism" and sprung from the rank "undergrowth of our housing estates", where politics takes on "feral forms".

What sustains such blanket rhetoric, taken from both ends of The Irish Times spectrum - Fintan O'Toole and Kevin Myers - is a palpable undertow of class resentment. What every Dubliner knows, and what was brought vividly to international television screens at the weekend, was that "thug" and "rioter" is code for "knacker" and "scumbag". Those undoing the masonry of O'Connell Street were not from the leafy precincts of Foxrock or Malahide. They were from those fearful housing estates passed over by the exuberance of the boom: Jobstown, Ballymun, Darndale.

Saturday's riots were not about sectarianism: they were about the class tensions that produced the upsurge in urban republicanism. The historic decline of Dublin's working class, against the backdrop of unprecedented prosperity, has created a lost generation of young people without access to most of the luxuries of modern Ireland, and with little to give meaning to their lives.

The popularity of Sinn Féin's brand of nationalism in areas such as the north inner city or great swathes of west Dublin, bespeaks a wider sense of cultural dislocation. Nationalism - in the guise of meaningless support for a defunct IRA, or wearing the Celtic strip, or in votes cast for Gerry Adams's cynical and corrupt politburo - gives force and shape to lives otherwise disconnected from the mainstream of David McWilliams's Ireland. It reclaims a sense of belonging, a vestige of "Irishness", that has long been disdained as useless by the flux and speed of Hibernian modernity.

What we saw last Saturday was not an anti-Protestant protest or an attempt to claim the legacy of the insurgents of 1916. Beyond a vague scattering of obligatory Tricolours, it was remarkably vacant of ideology.

In essence it was a brief revolt against the placid shopfronts of tourist Dublin. Such actions deserve not the slightest tincture of romance: they were despicable in their callous disregard for human life (I speak as a first-hand witness).

It would be a grave error, however, to dismiss the rioters as people who are somehow irrelevant in modern Irish society - the mere remnant of a long-dead creed. For they are the truest product of social forces that are still now drastically transforming, for better and worse, the constitution of the State. - Yours, etc,

SEAN COLEMAN, Brian Avenue, Marino, Dublin 3.

Should Ireland's economy falter in the years to come, will that be something for the Irish people to feel deeply ashamed about?

Regarding the monks allegedly keeping Latin alive 1500 years ago, I don't think it's fair or logical to be proud of the scholarly achievements of a group of élites long since deceased. Certainly, those monks would have been entitled to feel proud, but not people who were born in Ireland in the 20th Century.

Regarding your point about Irish being a different language, I don't deny this, but it is spoken by only a minority of people, in much the way that certain minorities in different regions of Britain may speak Welsh or Scots Gaelic. Most Irish people speak English, or Hiberno-English, which is not really different to the language spoken in the rest of the British Isles.

snickerpuss

I don't buy into that the riots were just class tensions stop blaming the poor working class kids from darndale etc stuff.
I'm from coolock and neither me nor my friends felt any need to go and tear up the place due of that fact.

Terry

i've seen footage of the riots and saw a guy i know being arrested. he is not poor and he is not interested in the socio-political climate of this country. he's just an idiot. i would say that 99% of those involved fit into the same catergory.

plenty of people are poor. but it's not always because they are lazy bums who want to sponge off the state. many people didn't benefit from the celtic tiger boom because they were permanently disabled of suffered from mental illness. there are many other factors too.
did you see the age of most of the rioters? a lot of them were too young to be in full time employment. some were well dressed, as if they had just stepped out of the office.
the rioters were just the usual scumbags running amok. the ones you see in your town every night of the week. the ones down by the river drinking their cans of dutch gold and hassling passers by.
this was nothing to do with money or politics. it was caused by idiocy.

dSTAR

Why am I not surprised that this thread would become politicised and a forum for people to vent their beliefs or offer social commentry?

There are other threads on the Dublin riots and a whole forum dedidated to politics. Please read the question again and try to stay on topic.

GreenHell

I'm proud to be Irish, I'm proud to be from cork, I'm proud to have a liberal out look on life. What makes me most proud to be from Ireland is when I meet people from other countries and they go "your irish your a nice race of people".

Our country is far from perfect, well its far far far from perfect we got our large share of assholes but I would not want to be from any where else.

fatherdougalmag

GreenHell wrote:

"your irish your a nice race of people".

(sic).
Beware of Greeks baring gifts. When you rely on other people to tell you how great you are, that's not such a great thing. I tend to find that kind of comment patronising. In other words, they're saying it because that's what everyone says about the Irish. But what's to qualify it? Depending on where you live you could easily argue against it. I was in college in Carlow and left my bike at the college overnight only to return the following day and find it mangled. If we were truely a "nice race" that **** shouldn't go down. As long as there are gurriers - from bankers, builders and their ilk to window washers and thieving feckers - don't subscribe to the illusion that we're a great race. We are far from it. When the governement declines your autistic child their educational right by kicking them out of specialist pre-school at the age of 5 then the furthest thing from your mind is that we are a "nice race of people".

GreenHell, don't take it personally but I'm going through a hard time trying to reconcile Ireland as being a nice place to bring up kids. Yours just happened to be the last post in the thread. I'm mucking in like everyone else handing over ~42% in tax but I'm not getting value for money and I sure as hell don't want my kids growing up here paying tax for the same ****ty service should they be confronted with the same crap we've had to put up with over the past 3 years just to get a constitutional right fulfilled - and still fighting.

pbsuxok1znja4r

The prevailent feeling in the thread so far seems to be one of "well I'd much rather Ireland than some other loser country". So I guess Ireland is the lesser of multiple evils. Which in itself is nothing to be explicitly proud of. Rather we should be less ashamed of our country than other nations.

Personally I'm not especially proud to be Irish, one way or another. I've come to hate nationalism in most of its guises. I think I'd rather live in Sweden, too.

Setun

scouser.tommy wrote:

The prevailent feeling in the thread so far seems to be one of "well I'd much rather Ireland than some other loser country". So I guess Ireland is the lesser of multiple evils.

When I was younger I remember wanting to leave Ireland and get a job in the UK or US. Now, there's no way I'd like to work in the US after spent a while there some summers ago, there's a really fake attitude about everything over there as if they're trying to convince you to buy something.
I think I've realised <watch out, generalisation coming up> that I'm proud of the Irish people. We're <mostly> real and down-to-earth and energetic, friendly people. We are perceived this way internationally, I think that's a good thing.

And yes, I've realised I would much rather Ireland than other countries.

bottlerocket

gaf1983 wrote:

1. Why would you classify Ireland as sharing more customs and culture with Scotland than the rest of the UK?

Because Scots gaelic and Irish are very, very similar languages. In my post I referred to language as well as customs and culture.

gaf1983 wrote:

2. On "punching above our weight." - what are you talking about? Italia 90? Getting to the quarter finals of one of the worst World Cups ever seen in history having only scored two goals along the way is not punching above our weight, it's just poxy.

Well I didn't mention either of these, but personally I thought Italia 90 was a great achievement and one many would point to when talking about pride in this country. How many world famous writers and poets have we produced? Is a country of 4 million with few natural resources becoming one of the worlds wealthiest over a 20 year period, not punching above its weight? When our people had to leave, they had an enormous influence on the development of other countries, principally the UK, USA and Australia. This country has had an impact far beyond our shores.

gaf1983 wrote:

the economic performance hasn't exactly benefitted everyone lucky enough to be proud to be Irish:

What is your point here? I didn't mention the riots or socio-economic make up of those involved. IMO the riots had nothing to do with economics at all but rather the misguided sense of patriotism of those involved. In my original post I said pride and patriotism are more than celtic jersey and brit-bashing. The people on O'Connell St last week did not make me feel in any way proud to be Irish. Anyway back on topic..... (Sorry OP, but had to mention the riots to respond!) If you mean that not everyone has benefited to the same extent from the boom, well that is self evident. The utopian state does not exist anywhere, and the challenge facing the country now is to build a more inclusive society and bring the boom and its benefits to those who have thus far been left behind, to the extent that is possible.

gaf1983 wrote:

Regarding the monks allegedly keeping Latin alive 1500 years ago, I don't think it's fair or logical to be proud of the scholarly achievements of a group of élites long since deceased. Certainly, those monks would have been entitled to feel proud, but not people who were born in Ireland in the 20th Century.

By your logic the US shouldn't celebrate 4th of July, nor should India celebrate Gandhi's achievement because, after all, they didn't do it themselves. Should the French cancel Bastille day? I could go on, but part of nationhood and nationality is a shared history and it is important that nations acknowledge and remember their past to learn the lessons of both good times and bad. I ask you, what would you celebrate? In your opinion, do only those directly involved have the right to proud? For example, if Brazil win the world cup do only the players and coach have a right to celebrate and be proud?

If you don't believe in for national pride or feel we should have a connection with the past then fair enough, that's your right the same way these are only my personal opinions. It's good that this debate is happening in Irish society at the moment so we can redefine what sort of a country we have become and where we want to go from here after the radical changes of the last 20 years.

thejuggler

I am not particularly proud to be Irish. I think it's sad that the Irish are known worldwide for being big drinkers (what a pathetic thing to be known for)
A lot of Ireland is still very repressed (despite all the progress we've made)
I would sooner have been born in Australia, NZ or the US tbh

Hagar

thejuggler wrote:

I am not particularly proud to be Irish. I think it's sad that the Irish are known worldwide for being big drinkers...I would sooner have been born in Australia, NZ or the US tbh

Good choice, it's not as if Australians are thought of as sheep-shagging chauvinists, or Americans as dumb money-hungry xenophobic gun-nuts.

I can't think of anything bad to say about NZ unless we include rugby.;)