Irish Translation Forum

I find it offensive at times.

BridMhor wrote:

Antóin wrote:Americans of Irish decent often refer to themselves as Irish

That's no different to the American born Greeks, Italians, Polish etc who refer to their roots in the same way.

In Australia the Italian and Greek diaspora are a lot more connected to the their heritage, especially in Melbourne, which is called The "Wog Capital", people who are 3rd, 4th, 5th generation of Greek/Italian heritage, they still speak Greek/Italian.

My friend lives in Melbourne, and her great-grandparents are from Italy, and she and her family are still native Italian speakers, and they are culturally very Italian, same goes for the Greek communities.

I really love them It shows that people can maintain their culture and language abroad even in the face of a overwhelming Anglo-Celtic Australian culture.

But are majority of Irish Australians, are not like that, we can forgive them for not speaking Irish, since even their ancestors probably didn't speak it, but they aren't culturally Irish. I guess the term Plastic Paddy makes it's way into that.

They have their own Anglo-Celtic culture, Australian culture. And a lot of them aren't proud of it, when it comes to what they are, they are never Irish-Australia, Or English-Australia, they say they're Irish or English. If you were to ask a majority of Australians what they are, they would hardly say Australian.

But it's still a young country, they've got the culture, they just need the pride, patriotism.

I only use the word Irish as my ethncity or Nationality for the sake of simplicity. I am a Hiberno-Anglo-Gael. It's hard to put in a pipe and smoke it tho...
Quite often the notion of words that describe identity are so subjective that dictionaries offer little to no help, in fact just because something is said in a dictionary that doesn't automatically make it a complete meaning. I'd search a little deeper than Collins. But identity is dynamic and ever changing as are the meanings of the words that describe them, as such I think that is why we have so much difference regarding the apparently simple words like Irish English Gaelic etc but it is the diversity that allows a tradition to breathe and create life...after all where two rivers meet that is where the high concentration of life occurs. I have English blood, Irish blood, Gaelic blood, Scandinavian blood, Spanish and Portugese blood, North African, Southern Russian and Scottish....pure race my hole!!!!!