Well, they're about as Irish as African Americans are African, so at least the naming convention is consistent.

Exactly. They will never ever get this. No matter how many times or how many people explain it to them.

This reminds me of a story an Irish friend tells about stumbling on some irish themed (think saint patrick's day ) parade while working in Boston. He asked some spectators what was going on and they told him, aggressively in that boston way, it was an irish thing they were irish you had to be irish to understand, before asking him where he was from. He's from Cork.

Yeah Canadians all thought I was from Newfoundland or Newfy.

Which is also kinda strange as some black Americans could be of Jamaican or Trinidad or Cuban or Brazilian origin and identify more with those countries than the African continent. The black Irish have much more justification if they wished to call themselves African Irish as most of them are second generation and even they simply call themselves black Irish for the most part and those that don't would tend to refer to themselves as Nigerian Irish or Ghanain Irish or whatever country of origin their parents came from.

I said Irish and Italian because it is factually correct wrt South Philadelphia. Had nothing to do with anything else. I'm just glad I didn't mention the Mummers Parade and dropped some knowledge on that...

cv just wants to turn it into a whole other thing because he thinks my post was directed at him. In case you haven't noticed, he's obsessed with every post now because he thinks everyone is out to get him. It's no wonder he has a containment thread

And then when I did directly address him he went on a tirade full of sarcasm, straw men, and projection over a simple explanation

Irish have nothing to do with Columbus so I'm inferring it as a sly dig against me.A dog whistle ya might say

They call themselves that, but... Bill Clinton actually reached the White House, and was involving himself in the Northern Ireland issue, and claiming to be Irish in the 'green', nationalist, republican sense, like Kennedy I suppose, before anyone pointed out to him that Clinton (a bit like McMichael) is actually an 'orange', Ulster Scots Protestant surname, associated rather strongly with the Unionist cause. The president got a bit umpty and sulked, 'Well, I *feel* Irish.' Which he is, but just not in quite the green-beer, top-of-the-mornin', where's-me-shillelagh way he imagined. Fortunately he took the point and the peace process benefited from his interest and goodwill. But most people who consider themselves 'Irish-American' actually have Ulster Scots Protestant surnames and don't even know what that means.

Course, it can be confusing, because, for instance, Adams is an English Protestant surname and McGuinness is a Scots Protestant surname, and those two men (you know the men I mean) acquired their surnames through one bloodline and their Catholic religion and nationalist social identity through another. And Martin McGuinness was always a huge fan of the England cricket team. And the number of Americans who could even begin to understand that... you could probably fit 'em in a phone box.

Yeah and the head of the loyalist gang known as the Shankill Butchers was called Lenny Murphy so there y'go.

Some (although not all) Irish people refer to Irish Americans as "Plastic Paddies" in Ireland.

Sounds pretty racist, bro. Showed your true colours finally, eh? GOTCHA.

Yeah...You certainly showed me. Just telling it how it is over my way. I don't refer to
them that way as I regard all Americans as...well, Americans, really. Not really interested how they consider themselves in terms of origin.

And I am Irish. I can use the P-word anyway

Which one?

Whaddya mean which one? Jasus Ya think I meant the other one?

I'm just taking the piss

Live preliminary hearings begin for Ahmaud Arbery shooting suspects trial

To clarify, I think the latest linked video is the same as the other three, except it's all as one and the audio is much better and in sync, nor is it actually live.

Just struck me how odd it is that German-Americans never call themselves that. And there's huge numbers of them. And Germans just off the boat were a significant part of the Union army in the Civil War, and Lt Timmermann, who captured 'the Bridge at Remagen' in 1945, was born and brought up in Frankfurt before his family emigrated to America. And where else does Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf's name come from? Yet German-Americans never call themselves that.

And Dutch-Americans. Early settlers, practically aristocracy, but never call themselves that. Or, indeed, English-Americans, all those Browns and Smiths and Johnsons and Robinsons. Never call themselves that. Weird.

It fell out of favor because of Hitler.

Not always true. I grew up in the European immigrant community in Chicago and Germans there claimed it. There is a heavily influenced town north of Dallas that proudly celebrates being German Americans. However most don’t because it is fairly easy to “blend” in but also to avoid the bigoted stigma of being German in America.

I have several friends from Iran but who are the most American people I know. But they go to great lengths to hide where they came from because the typical American is racist and bigoted and doesn’t process nuance at all.

This is pretty much the tl;dr of my post. After World War Two the prejudice against Germans escalated. This likely influenced multiple generations to assimilate more quickly to avoid being scorned.

Like Candace Owens

The World Wars can't have helped much. On the other hand, Eisenhower and Nimitz, the hot dog and the hamburger... And it seems there are actual, annual 'German-American' parades in a number of US cities. But you do hear a lot more in normal discourse about 'Irish, Italians and Poles'.

It may indicate that, if you have enough social power, you don't need to be a 'Hyphen-American' except for special occasions. But if you don't, you do.

Irish experiences derail,

Summer between year 3 and year 4 of Uni some Irish girls move into the building a good friend lived in. It was the PMs daughter and her 2 close friends. Those girls knew how to PARTY. They were snorting, rolling, smoking, drinking, banging. This is before smart phones and social media is barely a thing.

It was like an edm rave met an 80s disco except in the apartments every day

Yeah Irish chicks like to party. The daughter's name was't Ahern was it?