Do you have to be ethnically Irish to be considered Irish?

Wibbs

antfin wrote: »

Comparing dog breeds to human racial characteristic has been proven to be not a suitable comparison. Historically, at best it's been used as a misguided unscientific basis to implement, legitimise and enforce racial division and at worst it's been used to justify extreme racism. Biologicially it doesn't make any sense. The genotypic and phenotypic variation in humans is far lower than dogs.

Very much so. Though modern dog genetics are not very diverse at all(they were far more diverse 5000 years ago).

Phenotypic variation is high enough in humans, or put it another way if humans were observed by an alien species minus all our dodgy history around racism and treated like any other animal species they'd quite likely describe modern humans as different populations/sub species of each other adapted to local conditions through evolution. That makes as much sense zoologically.

You have the extremes in things like height between a native Dutch person or a Kenyan Masai and a Congolese Pygmy. The European populations have hair colours that run from nearly white, through red, brown and black, hair from laser straight to extremely curly, eye colours from silver, through blue, even purple to green and brown. That population alone shows far more diversity in eye and hair colours compared to all the people's of the rest of the world(where eye colour is nearly always brown and hair nearly always black). Then we have our very bones. A trained forensic pathologist would be able to spot a native African skull compared to a native Asian one or native European one in most cases. Even our teeth show subtle differences depending on population. And that's before population differences when it comes to health and diseases. Eskimos have more capillaries close to the skin and at the extremities than other populations as an adaptation to local conditions. They also have larger livers because of their traditional diet. Natives of Peru have larger blood vessels because of the altitude, those of the Himalayan plateau have a couple of adaptions to living at altitude, some of which seem to have come from an extinct human subspecies the Denisovans.

On that score alone we show quite a bit of diversity too. Europeans and Asians show admixture from Neandertals, Africans don't. They have some of their own local archaic admixture going on and that continent has the most human genetic diversity on the planet. Even within these groups there are differences. EG Asians and Europeans have different Neandertal genes. Asians also have Denisovan genes which neither Europeans nor Africans have(some populations like folks from New Guinea have remarkably high percentages). And this isn't "junk DNA" they're coding for proteins in the modern populations and those extinct groups are most certainly seen as sub species of modern humans.

So if you tested a random person's DNA and just looked for archaic admixture alone you'd be able to narrow down their background population origins pretty well. You'd see Asian, African, or European. New world populations would muddy the water of course, but even here you could have a stab at working out if they were more likely to be say Swedish American or Chinese American.

Humans are actually quite the diverse bunch and this should be celebrated not discarded on the back of political whim and attempts at social engineering, whether that be on the back of racism or rightonism. While the latter is far less damaging, it's also just as daft in many respects.

Wibbs

AlejGuzman68 wrote: »

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

Actually Ireland's population is quite narrow in diversity on the genetic level compared to some other places in Europe. While there was some admixture from Vikings et al, the "Irish gene" as it were is quite local.

Potatoeman

AlejGuzman68 wrote: »

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

Ethnically Irish is where your blood of from, it’s the same in every country. Look at Barack Obama, his nationality is American but his ethnicity is half Irish (because both his mothers parents are from Ireland) and half Kenyan (as his father was from Kenya). His mother isn’t genetically American as she is not a Native American. No white person in America is, though the native Americans did interbreed with the settlers so then you have to look at the genetic markers in their dna. Even at this level the research is still very uncertain, more so in areas that had invasions and migrations.

Gradius

Wibbs wrote: »

Very much so. Though modern dog genetics are not very diverse at all(they were far more diverse 5000 years ago).

Phenotypic variation is high enough in humans, or put it another way if humans were observed by an alien species minus all our dodgy history around racism and treated like any other animal species they'd quite likely describe modern humans as different populations/sub species of each other adapted to local conditions through evolution. That makes as much sense zoologically.

You have the extremes in things like height between a native Dutch person or a Kenyan Masai and a Congolese Pygmy. The European populations have hair colours that run from nearly white, through red, brown and black, hair from laser straight to extremely curly, eye colours from silver, through blue, even purple to green and brown. That population alone shows far more diversity in eye and hair colours compared to all the people's of the rest of the world(where eye colour is nearly always brown and hair nearly always black). Then we have our very bones. A trained forensic pathologist would be able to spot a native African skull compared to a native Asian one or native European one in most cases. Even our teeth show subtle differences depending on population. And that's before population differences when it comes to health and diseases. Eskimos have more capillaries close to the skin and at the extremities than other populations as an adaptation to local conditions. They also have larger livers because of their traditional diet. Natives of Peru have larger blood vessels because of the altitude, those of the Himalayan plateau have a couple of adaptions to living at altitude, some of which seem to have come from an extinct human subspecies the Denisovans.

On that score alone we show quite a bit of diversity too. Europeans and Asians show admixture from Neandertals, Africans don't. They have some of their own local archaic admixture going on and that continent has the most human genetic diversity on the planet. Even within these groups there are differences. EG Asians and Europeans have different Neandertal genes. Asians also have Denisovan genes which neither Europeans nor Africans have(some populations like folks from New Guinea have remarkably high percentages). And this isn't "junk DNA" they're coding for proteins in the modern populations and those extinct groups are most certainly seen as sub species of modern humans.

So if you tested a random person's DNA and just looked for archaic admixture alone you'd be able to narrow down their background population origins pretty well. You'd see Asian, African, or European. New world populations would muddy the water of course, but even here you could have a stab at working out if they were more likely to be say Swedish American or Chinese American.

Humans are actually quite the diverse bunch and this should be celebrated not discarded on the back of political whim and attempts at social engineering, whether that be on the back of racism or rightonism. While the latter is far less damaging, it's also just as daft in many respects.

Man, you're wasting your time. Good information and all, but you've fallen into the trap of tripping over yourself to prove what's already fact.

These people fart out any old thing and then disappear.

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction. They state the absurd like "gravity doesn't exist" and then run off.

So, it's good to hammer them with reality and information and facts, but it's high time these kind of things just went back to being laughed at and/or dismissed out of hand.

Wibbs

Gradius wrote: »

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction.

Yep. Such a pattern is a sure sign of a culturally current Accepted Truth(tm). There are plenty of such examples from history even recent history. Now unlike say slavery which was also a culturally current Accepted Truth(tm) and once just as firmly believed, this kind of culturally current Accepted Truth(tm) is far less damaging overall, or less obviously so anyway. In some who hold it it's very much in one direction and while claiming to be against identity politics and the politics of oppressor and oppressed it's mired in both.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Man, you're wasting your time. Good information and all, but you've fallen into the trap of tripping over yourself to prove what's already fact.

These people fart out any old thing and then disappear.

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction. They state the absurd like "gravity doesn't exist" and then run off.

So, it's good to hammer them with reality and information and facts, but it's high time these kind of things just went back to being laughed at and/or dismissed out of hand.

That's a slightly dismissive comment. The previous poster added a very insightful and educated piece to the discussion, which you consider a waste of time. It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to human racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines for at least the last 30 years. The sociological debate of distinguishing ethnicity from national identity leaves far more room for opinion and ambiguity, there are no facts in this space and to state it as such illustrates an insular and closed-minded mentality that is not accepting of outside influences. Just because some people don't feel like convincing you, a stranger on the internet, that their opinion might bare as much weight as your own you dismiss it.

Personally I assess if someone is so closed minded as to be unwavering in their opinion to the exclusion of all other opinions and if I perceive it to be as such I don't bother engaging further with those people as I'm not compelled to justify my own opinions. You can accept that as a win for yourself.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

That's a slightly dismissive comment. The previous poster added a very insightful and educated piece to the discussion, which you consider a waste of time. It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to human racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines for at least the last 30 years. The sociological debate of distinguishing ethnicity from national identity leaves far more room for opinion and ambiguity, there are no facts in this space and to state it as such illustrates an insular and closed-minded mentality that is not accepting of outside influences. Just because some people don't feel like convincing you, a stranger on the internet, that their opinion might bare as much weight as your own you dismiss it.

Personally I assess if someone is so closed minded as to be unwavering in their opinion to the exclusion of all other opinions and if I perceive it to be as such I don't bother engaging further with those people as I'm not compelled to justify my own opinions. You can accept that as a win for yourself.

A very insightful comment? No, it wasn't. It was vague and fuzzy and at the same time completely incorrect: "No such thing as ethinicty in this day and age". That's pure fantasy.

"It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines"? That's claptrap. It's the addition of "serious" words like "scientific" and "biological" to somehow add weight to a whole load of nothing. The point was that people are different, inherently, evidently, observedly, and for those reasons the ANALOGY is perfectly functional and correct.The point stands, unchallenged and unacknowledged by you.

You then state that there is far more ambiguity as to nationality, ignoring ethnicity wholesale, and also adding nothing to these supposed arguments.

1) you're making no defence of anything. You're saying nothing.

2) accusing me of being steadfast and closeminded.

3) using that as an excuse to avoid defending anything and saying nothing.

It's trollocks. Has it occurred to you that the reason I'm so resolute in my position is precisely BECAUSE there's sweet FA in terms of argument against that position?

"There's no such thing as gravity, and because you seem so closeminded to the idea of there being no gravity I'm not going to defend my position of there being no such thing as gravity"

Circular insanity.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

A very insightful comment? No, it wasn't. It was vague and fuzzy and at the same time completely incorrect: "No such thing as ethinicty in this day and age". That's pure fantasy.

"It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines"? That's claptrap. It's the addition of "serious" words like "scientific" and "biological" to somehow add weight to a whole load of nothing. The point was that people are different, inherently, evidently, observedly, and for those reasons the ANALOGY is perfectly functional and correct.The point stands, unchallenged and unacknowledged by you.

You then state that there is far more ambiguity as to nationality, ignoring ethnicity wholesale, and also adding nothing to these supposed arguments.

1) you're making no defence of anything. You're saying nothing.

2) accusing me of being steadfast and closeminded.

3) using that as an excuse to avoid defending anything and saying nothing.

It's trollocks. Has it occurred to you that the reason I'm so resolute in my position is precisely BECAUSE there's sweet FA in terms of argument against that position?

"There's no such thing as gravity, and because you seem so closeminded to the idea of there being no gravity I'm not going to defend my position of there being no such thing as gravity"

Circular insanity.

You read what you want and misquote all you like. I'm saying ethinicity is very different from nationality. I am also saying that human characteristics are not the same as different dog breeds as you tried to draw similarities (without a shred of evidence of how human races are the same as dog breeds). I am not saying everyone is the same and I love cultural difference both in my nation and every nation I visit as it enhances the human race. What I am saying however is national identity can change intergenerational regardless of ethnicity and if a person is born in Ireland they are then entitled to say they are from Ireland therefore they are Irish regardless of where their parents are from. If they choose to add their heritage to that identity that's also fine by me. Do you consider it logical that if stopped at the border of a country while travelling, a person born in Ireland of an Irish father and a Chinese mother should not be allowed to state themselves as being Irish? How then do they answer that question?

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

You read what you want and misquote all you like. I'm saying ethinicity is very different from nationality. I am also saying that human characteristics are not the same as different dog breeds as you tried to draw similarities (without a shred of evidence of how human races are the same as dog breeds). I am not saying everyone is the same and I love cultural difference both in my nation and every nation I visit as it enhances the human race. What I am saying however is national identity can change intergenerational regardless of ethnicity and if a person is born in Ireland they are then entitled to say they are from Ireland therefore they are Irish regardless of where their parents are from. If they choose to add their heritage to that identity that's also fine by me. Do you consider it logical that if stopped at the border of a country while travelling, a person born in Ireland of an Irish father and a Chinese mother should not be allowed to state themselves as being Irish? How then do they answer that question?

Pointing out that an analogy is not the exact same thing as the subject at hand is not a point worth making. That's what makes an analogy an analogy.

"I'm saying ethnicity is very different from nationality".

So an ethnically Irish person is Irish, and a Chinese person born in Ireland or with an Irish passport is only lawfully Irish, and they are not the same. That's what you're saying, correct?

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Pointing out that an analogy is not the exact same thing as the subject at hand is not a point worth making. That's what makes an analogy an analogy.

"I'm saying ethnicity is very different from nationality".

So an ethnically Irish person is Irish, and a Chinese person born in Ireland or with an Irish passport is only lawfully Irish, and they are not the same. That's what you're saying, correct?

No I am saying a person born in Ireland of one Irish born parent and one Chinese parent is entitled to call themselves Irish, not compelled but entitled.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

No I am saying a person born in Ireland of one Irish born parent and one Chinese parent is entitled to call themselves Irish, not compelled but entitled.

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

Gradius

Gradius wrote: »

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

I suppose I'll just answer my own question then.

Different things are different. Cows are not satellite dishes, bricks are not colours. It is self-evident

More than that, it is genuinely insulting to insinuate otherwise.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

Firstly, I don't consider "ethicnally Irish" to be a thing. Ethnically, the Irish are indisthinguishable from many other nationalities, particulary our fellow inhabitants of the British Isles. Secondly, everyone is inherently different! I am different from every other person in Ireland and I haven't seen any clones floating about. I wouldn't define nationality by any genetic predisposition towards a physical characteristic whether it's height, hair colour, eye colour or skin colour. It would be like saying that only tall people can call themselves Dutch! A person born in Ireland and living in Ireland is entitled to call themselves Irish, in my view. I don't believe in excluding others due to differences.

KaneToad

You don't even have to be female to be considered a woman. So, no.

atilladehun

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here (invaders to the ancients who created many of our ancient structures) had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

antfin

atilladehun wrote: »

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

That's it exactly. Some people seem happy to exclude but not be excluded. Take the main factors of "ethnicity" and logically follow it through and it's not possible to define where you draw a line. Ancestry - there are very few people in Ireland that can claim to have a 100% definite ancestral line born solely of ancient Irish origin. Culture - many of our customs are shared with the Scottish and English, so if you only engage in customs that are common to all and not uniquely Irish are you still "ethnic Irish". Language - I don't speak Irish, nor do my parents, through lack of interest rather than opportunity to learn it, can I no longer call myself Irish?

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Firstly, I don't consider "ethicnally Irish" to be a thing. Ethnically, the Irish are indisthinguishable from many other nationalities, particulary our fellow inhabitants of the British Isles. Secondly, everyone is inherently different! I am different from every other person in Ireland and I haven't seen any clones floating about. I wouldn't define nationality by any genetic predisposition towards a physical characteristic whether it's height, hair colour, eye colour or skin colour. It would be like saying that only tall people can call themselves Dutch! A person born in Ireland and living in Ireland is entitled to call themselves Irish, in my view. I don't believe in excluding others due to differences.

You don't consider ethnicity to "be a thing".

I'm sorry, but these ridiculous assertions are mickey mouse. As another poster says below, you can be a woman if you're a man, vice versa. There are many other seriously questionable "beliefs" and they all share the same foundations.

1) "Belief" trump's fact. And that's the end of discourse.

2) very little in the way of any argument. As per the comment quoted, it quickly veers away from reality to personal beliefs. See point 1) above.

3) by attaching a belief to purely emotion, it gains some popular support. Like cats meowing on the internet, it's a cute notion. But it will always boil down to 1) above.

"Ethnicity isn't a thing."

"I don't personally believe in gravity"

Like wishing everyone in the world had tons of money, it's all very commendable. The thing is, it's commendable for a 7 year old.

Infantilisation. The corruption of truth, the dismissal of science.

When confronted with a simple yes/no question, using your own words, you swing wildly in to 1) above.

That's the thing. When you start out from a position of untruth, it is simply a matter of time until you're pigeon-holed. And then it's onto the emotional feel-good 7 year old stuff to escape.

Gradius

atilladehun wrote: »

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here (invaders to the ancients who created many of our ancient structures) had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

There's another way to weasel out of argument too.

Present an obscene extreme of the question, offer fook all else, and then disappear.

"Those Chinese shouldn't be shooting people within these precise parameters. Is it right or wrong?"

To which the non-answer goes "well sure, people have been shooting people forever."

That's not an answer or argument. Also, note the plea to emotion, the "feels". That attachment is Paramount.

Would you be making the same comments about essentially erasing the character and existence of aboriginal people in Australia?

You would in your shyte

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

You don't consider ethnicity to "be a thing".

I'm sorry, but these ridiculous assertions are mickey mouse. As another poster says below, you can be a woman if you're a man, vice versa. There are many other seriously questionable "beliefs" and they all share the same foundations.

1) "Belief" trump's fact. And that's the end of discourse.

2) very little in the way of any argument. As per the comment quoted, it quickly veers away from reality to personal beliefs. See point 1) above.

3) by attaching a belief to purely emotion, it gains some popular support. Like cats meowing on the internet, it's a cute notion. But it will always boil down to 1) above.

"Ethnicity isn't a thing."

"I don't personally believe in gravity"

Like wishing everyone in the world had tons of money, it's all very commendable. The thing is, it's commendable for a 7 year old.

Infantilisation. The corruption of truth, the dismissal of science.

When confronted with a simple yes/no question, using your own words, you swing wildly in to 1) above.

That's the thing. When you start out from a position of untruth, it is simply a matter of time until you're pigeon-holed. And then it's onto the emotional feel-good 7 year old stuff to escape.

Did I say anywhere that I didn't believe ethnicity to be thing? Read what I said not what you wish I said! I said "ethnic Irish" in my view is not a real thing. It's okay if you can only read some words, just go really slow and you'll understand the context and specifics of what I actually said. Also, I'm not a grammar teacher but a basic rule on the use of quotation marks is when you directly 'quote' something not paraphrase or misquote or twist language to what you want to it say so please don't misquote me again and then preceed to build your incoherent argument around contradicting something I never said.

That said you seem to not be engaging in a goodwill debate or offering any level of respect so I'll bow out here and wish you good luck.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Did I say anywhere that I didn't believe ethnicity to be thing? Read what I said not what you wish I said! I said "ethnic Irish" in my view is not a real thing. It's okay if you can only read some words, just go really slow and you'll understand the context and specifics of what I actually said. Also, I'm not a grammar teacher but a basic rule on the use of quotation marks is when you directly 'quote' something not paraphrase or misquote or twist language to what you want to it say so please don't misquote me again and then preceed to build your inherent argument around contradicting something I never said.

That said you seem to not be engaging in a goodwill debate or offering any level of respect so I'll bow out here and wish you good luck.

"I'm a 7 year old and have no argument so I'll bow out here"

I like how you specifically don't believe in Irish ethnicity. Terribly convenient. Those beliefs, that's what it's all about. La la la.

I will say, your point on grammar was stimulating

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

"I'm a 7 year old and have no argument so I'll bow out here"

I like how you specifically don't believe in Irish ethnicity. Terribly convenient. Those beliefs, that's what it's all about. La la la.

I will say, your point on grammar was stimulating

Maybe learn to have a coherent and logical debate without resorting to personal insults and you'll get more engagement. You're coming across as the sort of person that was too clever for university so went to the school of life so now he needs to teach everyone else what's right.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Maybe learn to have a coherent and logical debate without resorting to personal insults and you'll get more engagement. You're coming across as the sort of person that was too clever for university so went to the school of life so now he needs to teach everyone else what's right.

You have said nothing of value.

You have avoided plain yes/no questions.

You have appealed to emotion over fact.

You have made the vaguest mentions of there being arguments, yet failed to elaborate on a single one.

You persistently present yourself as "arguing" and then permitting yourself to escape any argument.

You have mightily convenient "beliefs" without anything mentioned to back up those beliefs.

So yeah, it's worthy of derision. As for your comment on University, it implies that you have a university degree. A strange defence for one who has been utterly defeated to fall back upon.

Your guess, as if you wouldn't see it coming a mile off, is utterly wrong too.

Wibbs

atilladehun wrote: »

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here (invaders to the ancients who created many of our ancient structures) had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

For a start "Celts" is a bit of a historical and genetic misnomer and covers a large swathe of Europe, with similar enough cultures, but quite a wide genetic diversity. "Celts" didn't come here in any numbers, or at least few enough that they left zero trace in the genes of native Irish people. Vikings and Normans(who were basically the same peoples, with some northern French in the latter) had much more of an impact on the Irish genetics, but even here today not as much as is commonly expected.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

Actually the place had many names, pretty much all of which we know of were given by outsiders; Hibernia, Scotia, Iournia(SP), which then could be used internally. Eire which gave us Ireland was a goddess IIRC and only recorded in the medieval, though it may have a much older root. And the idea of a nation state like we think of them today was extremely fluid back then. It may have been called Hibernia or whatever, but not so much in the way we would consider it today. The Irish themselves thought far more clannishly(big shock) and were more about family, local area, province, rather than the island as a whole entity under one rule. That said those that travelled overseas, missionaries and the like were quite clear about the fact that they were Scotti or Eriugena(Irish born), as were those who spoke of them. For a Frank to claim he was Eriugena or vice versa would have been a WTF? moment.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Actually most populations around the Old World remain remarkably and surprisingly stable over time, even through periods of invasion and conquest, which is how the vast majority of cases of various cultures came together

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

Sounds fantastic in theory, but again the breadth of human history shows us that disparate cultures rarely come together peacefully, or peacefully for long anyway. Where actual multicultural societies existed they did so under overarching imperial powers who were quite strict about too much coming together of cultures, especially "alien" ones.

As for Irish genetics and this "broad diversity" you speak of(Vikings were pretty narrow genetically too btw).

Earlier post wrote: »

Is ethnically Japanese a thing? Ethnically Persian? Ethnically Native American? Ethnically Congolese? With the exception of the Japanese, the rest would have had more back and forth and mixtures going on in their pasts than the Irish population. Here's an article from the Journal on the genetics of Ireland.

One of this study's authors says this:

For one, Irish people are, to a large degree, distinctly Irish.

Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri, who helped to devise the study, told TheJournal.ie: “In terms of the genetic diversity for Irish people, there’s actually very little. And the diversity we do see is very subtle.”



Compare the Irish population to England. More mixing going on in the latter. Our genes can even be narrowed down to provinces(and family names) within Ireland.

dd973

These things are elastic, there's a certain type of Hibernia than thou sort here who'd reject Connolly, Larkin, Clarke, Paul McGrath, David O'Leary, Shane MacGowan and Dermot O'Leary on account of their birthplaces, I've always found these types have a preening grating chauvinism about being from here, many of them don't even live here themselves but prop up bars in some dismal shopfront Irish pub somewhere like Wood Green.

As far as I'm concerned someone who was born here or came here young, went through the schooling system, learnt the cupla focal, grew up among Irish friends in an Irish town even if they have Iraqi, Polish or African parentage can call themselves Irish.

Someone born outside the state to dual Irish parentage is also Irish, people of a further remove entitled to Irish citizenship are technically and legally Irish.


Even an English person of no Irish heritage who might have married an Irish person and has been here for decades can as well as they're acculturated to life here and paid into the system.

dd973

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

If you are born in England you are English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Nunan

indioblack

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

If you are born in England you are English.

My brother was born in England, sent as a baby to relatives in Ireland, was raised there, educated there, worked all his life there. Paid his dues and is buried there. Considered himself to be Irish. Defining himself as Irish was important to him.
As for me, I'm content to occasionally be considered Irish here, [still happens sometimes], and English when I visit my relatives in Cork. Doesn't bother me either way.