What does an Irish person look like?

l3LoWnA

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Spanish people ,speak in espanol to tourists.
I always try my best to speak the few bits I can ,when I'm in spain. It's nice to respect people for who they are.

Are you saying that Spanish people always speak in espanol to tourists or are you telling them they should? I've been to the same resort 7 times now and this was the first time any Spanish people ever spoke to me in Spanish when I wandered into their establishment. (apart from the usual Ola that you get/give everywhere you go) I too, always say cúpla focal in Spanish when (if) I can.

yoshytoshy

l3LoWnA wrote: »

Are you saying that Spanish people always speak in espanol to tourists or are you telling them they should? I've been to the same resort 7 times now and this was the first time any Spanish people ever spoke to me in Spanish when I wandered into their establishment. (apart from the usual Ola that you get/give everywhere you go) I too, always say cúpla focal in Spanish when (if) I can.

Yeah in general they do ,unless they're skivvies in some posh place they'll speak english.
I've a tendancy to travel around spain when i'm over there and just walk into shops ,regardless of whether they're tourists spots or not.

Most people over there think i'm german ,lol:D

Wibbs

Oh yes and Irish women tend to have much bigger bewbs, regardless of their overall size compared to others in mainland europe. No wonder Irish men tend to be breast men. Ive both gone out and hung around with quite a few of our european neighbours and your average Irish woman looks like a dead heat in a zeppelin race by comparison. Especially when compared to the latin types.

orourkeda

http://www.culchiefestival.com/

yoshytoshy

Wibbs wrote: »

It's easy to confuse us with the english, scots and welsh. Naturally enough as we're very related to each other for the most part.

I don't agree with that wibbs ,english people always seem to have clearer complexions than irish.
Again ,they generally have more sunlight than us.

Wibbs

Different diet? Or as you say more sun? But on the DNA front we're pretty close in these islands for the most part. We're defo not "celtic" going by the DNA. The notion of a celtic ireland is more an invention of the late 1800's than anything based in reality Its similar to the zionist notion of israel and concurrent age wise. Both are BS.

yoshytoshy

Wibbs wrote: »

Different diet? Or as you say more sun? But on the DNA front we're pretty close in these islands for the most part. We're defo not "celtic" going by the DNA. The notion of a celtic ireland is more an invention of the late 1800's than anything based in reality Its similar to the zionist notion of israel and concurrent age wise. Both are BS.

Yeah I seen an isreal dna thing on tv ,done by a deutch lab I think.

I think sunlight/diet has the more significant part. Scots are much harder to tell the difference ,there complexion is probably closer to ours, in the pub all day:D

the purple tin

The Ray Darcy show did this question a couple of weeks ago. They got people to text in characteristics common to Irish men and women and got a characature(sc) artist to sketch out a typical Irish man and woman from them. Here's the pictures.

http://todayfm.com/Shows/Weekdays/Ra...ow%2fBlog.aspx

http://todayfm.com/Shows/Weekdays/Ra...ow%2fBlog.aspx

That woman in the sketch looks just like Kim from Kath and Kim.

K-9

Dylan Moran gets it, go to 1:40 in:

l3LoWnA

l3LoWnA wrote: »

This was a holiday resort full of mainly English and Irish tourists where in every bar, restaurant and shop you go into you are spoken to in broken English (and sometimes good English) At the beginning of the holiday I was addressed in English as they knew by the look of me that I was a tourist and more than likely spoke English. Towards the end of the holiday however, most of the Spanish began presuming I was Spanish too and started speaking to me in Spanish (why is that so hard to believe?) Two of the said Spanish people, from different shops apologised and even got embarrassed and explained (in English) they thought I was from Spain!! Jeez!! Do you think I made it up in my head and posted it on here?!? :rolleyes:

It's not that unusual. In any country, people presume you're from there unless you look REALLY foreign (which in Spain means very very pale skin and light blue eyes and none-Spanish dress sense) or are heard speaking your own language. When I was on holiday in Sweden, everyone spoke Swedish to me and I'm sallow with dark hair and eyes. I believe that people thought you were Spanish, but I don't think it's overly surprising. It just occurred to me that actually don't think I've ever been in any country where I wasn't taken for a local EXCEPT Ireland. It's the only place people assume I'm foreign which is hilarious, as it's the place I'm NOT foreign. Bah.

Bob the Seducer

[quote=[Deleted User];66869786]It's not that unusual. In any country, people presume you're from there unless you look REALLY foreign (which in Spain means very very pale skin and light blue eyes and none-Spanish dress sense) or are heard speaking your own language. When I was on holiday in Sweden, everyone spoke Swedish to me and I'm sallow with dark hair and eyes. I believe that people thought you were Spanish, but I don't think it's overly surprising. It just occurred to me that actually don't think I've ever been in any country where I wasn't taken for a local EXCEPT Ireland. It's the only place people assume I'm foreign which is hilarious, as it's the place I'm NOT foreign. Bah.[/QUOTE]

I've lived in Sweden myself and I can somewhat explain why they may have decided to speak Swedish to you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_Swedes

The same thing would probably happen if you looked Middle Eastern due to the sizeable numbers of Assyrians, Kurds and Iraqis in the country. There's also a fairly big number of people from the former Yugoslavia living in Sweden too.

Indubitable

mikom wrote: »

Victorian stereotype of the simian Irish

http://sanseverything.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/opper.jpg

I know a good few lads and a few women that look a bit like this.

Kinda like your avatar.

fryup

irishperson

mikom

kingofthe3rdyrs wrote: »

Kinda like your avatar.

Yeah.
Guess ould Queen Vic was right after all.

mikerowsopht

Ugly
Pale
Freckkly
Ginger Hair
Fat
Lazy

that about sums it up and yes I am Irish

Brendog

IRISH PERSON

1. Wind swept hair (to one side)

2. Dirty Fingernails

3. slanted grin

4. protruding chin

5. skwinted eyes

6. red face

7. Football/rugby/Saw Doctors shirt

8. and a pint in one hand



NON-IRISH PERSON

1. Tanned

El Horseboxo

My grandfather was Mexican and the dark skin and foreign look has stayed in the family even though my grandmother was Irish. My name is as gaeilge and i have a strong northside accent. Most of my mates are pretty dark for Irish people but none of them have any known foreign ancestry. So most peoples view of what Irish people look like is a little off.

fontanalis

El Horseboxo wrote: »

My grandfather was Mexican and the dark skin and foreign look has stayed in the family even though my grandmother was Irish. My name is as gaeilge and i have a strong northside accent. Most of my mates are pretty dark for Irish people but none of them have any known foreign ancestry. So most peoples view of what Irish people look like is a little off.

I think that view is clouded by the whole celtic myth thing, the idea that we are somehow unique and part of some different "tribe". Some of the stereotypes coming on film didn't help matters either, poor ALan Partridge got very confused.
Irish ancestry is very interesting; the first people to arrive on the islands came from the Basque region/North Spain about 12,000 years ago, then during the bronze age onwards there was alot of interaction with North Spain again (trading etc, there was also some mines around Cork and Kerry that was supposed to be important in the whole atalantic coast trading route extending to Portugal), of course then there are the Vikings and the Normans (more or less recylcled Vikings) and English settlement.
It's also very hard for Irish people to trace back their ancestry before the 19th century, you mentioned some Mexican ancestry in your family despite you're Gaelic surname, that can be misleading aswell as focusing on a surname more or less discounts maternal ancestry.

BraziliaNZ

From what I saw around town this weekend and in the papers - they are orange, overweight, wear denim skirts and psychadelic wellies.

Dionysus

fontanalis wrote: »

Celtic look? That's not celtic, the vast majority of Irish are decended from the first people to arrive in the island 12,000 years ago. The whole celt/celtic label is very corrupted.

Insofar as I'm aware the earliest known human settlement in Ireland is still the Mount Sandel mesolithic site near Coleraine. Radiocarbon dating has given it a date of c. 7000BC. It was discovered by a UCC archaeologist, Peter Woodman, in the 1970s.

Mount Sandel



However, the earliest known human settlement in Europe has been dated to Atapuerca in northern Spain (along the Camino Francés of the Camino de Santiago). There, they have traced human settlement to between 200,000 BP and 400,000BP (Note: Early dates resulting from scientific dating techniques are expressed as “years BP” – ie years before the conventional date of 1950 on which all radiocarbon dating is based.)

Here's the UNESCO information on Atapuerca:

http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/989.pdf

This information from Spain makes it highly unlikely that it took hundreds of thousands of years for human settlement to move from northern Spain to Ireland. But, as things stand in 2010, the earliest known human settlement in Ireland can only be dated 9000 years ago to County Derry.

fontanalis

Dionysus wrote: »

Insofar as I'm aware the earliest known human settlement in Ireland is still the Mount Sandel mesolithic site near Coleraine. Radiocarbon dating has given it a date of c. 7000BC. It was discovered by a UCC archaeologist, Peter Woodman, in the 1970s.

Mount Sandel



However, the earliest known human settlement in Europe has been dated to Atapuerca in northern Spain (along the Camino Francés of the Camino de Santiago). There, they have traced human settlement to between 200,000 BP and 400,000BP (Note: Early dates resulting from scientific dating techniques are expressed as “years BP” – ie years before the conventional date of 1950 on which all radiocarbon dating is based.)

Here's the UNESCO information on Atapuerca:

http://whc.unesco.org/archive/advisory_body_evaluation/989.pdf

This information from Spain makes it highly unlikely that it took hundreds of thousands of years for human settlement to move from northern Spain to Ireland. But, as things stand in 2010, the earliest known human settlement in Ireland can only be dated 9000 years ago to County Derry.

I actually just read a book that mentioned Mount Sandel and the 9,000 year date so sloppy posting on my part.
Would a barrier to obtaining evidence of early irish settlers be the fact that sea levels were alot lower and evidence may be underwater?
Regarding the time it took for settlement to move from Spain to Ireland, isn't the current understanding that after the ice age Ireland was basically a "blank slate" human occupation wise, as it was uninhabitable during the ice age.
Incidentally there is now evidence of possible human inhabitation of Britain going back over 750,000 years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100707/ap_on_sc/eu_sci_first_northern_europeans

Irish Guitarist

Like this or maybe like this. Unfortunately some of them look like this.

Wibbs

fontanalis wrote: »

I actually just read a book that mentioned Mount Sandel and the 9,000 year date so sloppy posting on my part.
Would a barrier to obtaining evidence of early irish settlers be the fact that sea levels were alot lower and evidence may be underwater?
Regarding the time it took for settlement to move from Spain to Ireland, isn't the current understanding that after the ice age Ireland was basically a "blank slate" human occupation wise, as it was uninhabitable during the ice age.
Incidentally there is now evidence of possible human inhabitation of Britain going back over 750,000 years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100707/ap_on_sc/eu_sci_first_northern_europeans

Have to say the UNESCO info is massively out of date. Hell its plain wrong and would have been for at least 20 years. There were homo erectus in europe at least 1.5 million years ago. 200,000 yrs, even 400,000 yrs is a madly late date for human occupation of eurpe. I have in my possession two flint tools, one from the UK and one from France, both over the the 400,000 yr milestone.

As for Ireland chances are high that there were earlier settlements than the Mount Sandel date, we just havent found them yet. There were probably earlier hominids here too, but the various ice ages obliterated the evidence(southern england escaped the ice sheets hence the evidence there).

Irish ancestry is very interesting; the first people to arrive on the islands came from the Basque region/North Spain about 12,000 years ago, then during the bronze age onwards there was alot of interaction with North Spain again (trading etc, there was also some mines around Cork and Kerry that was supposed to be important in the whole atalantic coast trading route extending to Portugal), of course then there are the Vikings and the Normans (more or less recylcled Vikings) and English settlement.

The thing that strikes me about the basque connection is maybe we're related to them because they're the last remnants of the earlier hunter gatherers. We may have come from northern france or the UK, but those early genes were absorbed by later populations and we only find them in northern spain now? I would defo agree with you that we're not "Celts" though. Certainly not genetically. It seems the celtic invasion was much more cultural than physical. Our viking ancestry is pretty dilute too, especially compared to the lineages you find in places like the shetland which have very clear viking lines. Ditto with the normans and the later english. The english lines, unless from eastern regions are very like ours anyway so would be hard enough to spot differences, especially when the english would have generally bred with their own over here. The relative lack of norman stock is more puzzling as their own lot the vikings were here already and the normans did get jiggy with the locals almost immediately. In stark contrast to the normans in england where they avoided the locals like the very plague. Clearly we had better looking women It was a few 100 years before an "english" king could even speak the language. Richard the lionheart could barely speak a word of it.

One interesting one I read was that in Iceland the female line is very Irish. It looks like the viking boyos grabbed the women here. Icelandic women have won more beauty pageants than anyone else save for the columbians(or brazilians?). They would be Irish women genetically. So much for being munters in our DNA

fontanalis

Wibbs wrote: »

Have to say the UNESCO info is massively out of date. Hell its plain wrong and would have been for at least 20 years. There were homo erectus in europe at least 1.5 million years ago. 200,000 yrs, even 400,000 yrs is a madly late date for human occupation of eurpe. I have in my possession two flint tools, one from the UK and one from France, both over the the 400,000 yr milestone.

As for Ireland chances are high that there were earlier settlements than the Mount Sandel date, we just havent found them yet. There were probably earlier hominids here too, but the various ice ages obliterated the evidence(southern england escaped the ice sheets hence the evidence there).

The thing that strikes me about the basque connection is maybe we're related to them because they're the last remnants of the earlier hunter gatherers. We may have come from northern france or the UK, but those early genes were absorbed by later populations and we only find them in northern spain now? I would defo agree with you that we're not "Celts" though. Certainly not genetically. It seems the celtic invasion was much more cultural than physical. Our viking ancestry is pretty dilute too, especially compared to the lineages you find in places like the shetland which have very clear viking lines. Ditto with the normans and the later english. The english lines, unless from eastern regions are very like ours anyway so would be hard enough to spot differences, especially when the english would have generally bred with their own over here. The relative lack of norman stock is more puzzling as their own lot the vikings were here already and the normans did get jiggy with the locals almost immediately. In stark contrast to the normans in england where they avoided the locals like the very plague. Clearly we had better looking women It was a few 100 years before an "english" king could even speak the language. Richard the lionheart could barely speak a word of it.

One interesting one I read was that in Iceland the female line is very Irish. It looks like the viking boyos grabbed the women here. Icelandic women have won more beauty pageants than anyone else save for the columbians(or brazilians?). They would be Irish women genetically. So much for being munters in our DNA

My understanding of the basque region connection is that the area was like a "genetc hub", as in it was a region that could sustain a population during the ice age and as the ice age retreated the people moved north, also at this time the areas of Normandy, Cornwall and Southern ireland were connected due to low sea levels so the idea of ancestors of people from that ice age refuge making it to ireland very early is very likely.
Also there is the fact that these people mightn't necessarily been in the Basque region, they may just have retreated to what later became the Basque region so it's a case of common ancestry not descending from them, although with their unique language they make a fascinating group.

I think the R1b haplogroup is still undergoing study as it's thought the North Sea area/Dogegrland may be understated in the make up.

What would you base your Northern France/UK ancestry on? My reading has just been Stephen Oppenheimer and Bryan Sykes, is there anything else that covers this? I think Barry Cunliffe has a good book that focuses more on archaelogical/cultural connections.

Maybe the Vikings had good taste . . . .

caseyann

Mostly brunettes or blonds with blue eyes and green,slim for the most part and small,then you have some who have red hair,some with freckles some without.Then we have brown eyes also,pale skin sallow skin dark skin.
We have a great variety height weight eye colour hair colour for everyone,just so happens you hate yourselves so hate yourself and call your self ugly and fat and what ever dont include the whole nation in your self hate :rolleyes:
Self hate is so unattractive lol