why must the irish always be associated with fighting

I suppose I dont really "hate" them. I was one who never bought into the idea that they're an "Irish" club and we should support them. If they had a history of having a lot of Irish players like Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool I might feel different. But besides Packie Bonner and Mick McCarthy for a little while, no ROI player of distinction has played there since the mid 70's when I started following soccer.
They could be Huddersfield or Dundee for all I care.

 

To put a bit of humour in the post,

George Carlin said it best. "Fighting Irish" is a nickname that exists because we Irish are the most laid back people in the world and wouldn't care. We've got bigger fish to fry. I mean there's no way Notre Dame could get away with calling their sports programmes the Notre Dame "Murdering Italians" or the Notre Dame "Bargaining Jews".

Sebastian

 

aye, but there's a difference between notre dame, which is a pseudo irish school, and the irish national team, which is not.

personally i found the 'fighting irish' thing insulting.

not half as insulting as the fella who went off on one about the the USA being 'a country', and the irish being 'a group of people' mind, but there you go.

still, there's idiots all over, I suppose.

 

I reckon this thead belongs in the WR forum.

Are they?

I thought everyone outside Ireland looked at Ireland through rose-tinted glasses.

How many people around the world with an Irish surname call themselves "Irish" and are more patriotic towards Ireland than their own country? Answer = far too many

Don't you know about "New York: Make the World Cringe Day"? It's an event that happens every year on St Patricks day.

 

Now the tag line of this forum is changed to "The Boys in Green".

Feel free to discuss further as long as it doesnt get out of hand

 

Sounds stupid to me, anyone who was born in America and grew up there is an American. I reckon what makes a person is the surroundings they grew up in. An Irishman can only be Irish if he was born in Ireland and grew up there.

I haven't got a problem. I just don't understand how a mass group of people can celebrate some Saint from a foreign country. ST Patrick didn't do anything for America.

 

Canadian.

 

Well I'd consider you Canadian, you might have been brought up Irish, or your parents tried their best to tell you about Ireland. But you grew up in Canada, so you know more about Canada than you do Ireland.

You might support Ireland, you've got a strong passion for Ireland. That doesn't make you anymore Irish.

 

Watch "Gangs of New York" and you'll see why the Irish are called fightin Irish.

 

Gangs Of New York is just Hollywood crap.

Anyway, I thought "the fighting Irish" stood for the Irish spirit. Nothing to do with punching people.

 

Do you consider Owen Hargreaves to be English? I certainly wouldn't. He was going to be born in England but his parents moved to Canada when his mother was three months pregnant. His whole family is English or Welsh except him.

Lennox Lewis is considered by most people to be Canadian. He was born in Britain and moved to Canada when he was TWELVE years old.

 

This is, with ease, the stupidest comment I have seen outside a rivalries forum

 

Dunno - there are always a few gems on the USA boards

 

I do believe that the man said he holds an Irish passport?

That makes him Irish, full stop!

 

If I move abroad and have a kid he'll be Irish in my eyes at least.

 

Nationality is, IMO, whatever you consider yourself to be. If pmannion thinks of himself as Irish, takes more interest in Irish affairs than Canadian, and holds more affection for the country of his birth than the one he lives in, then in what sense is he Canadian? You can't force someone to be patriotic about a place - you either do or you don't. And if you don't, who can say that you're wrong?

Re: the new tagline - "Boys in Green" reads better than "The Boys in Green", I think. I was happy enough with the old one, but it seems I'm in a minority.

 

I'm not arguing with pmannion, if he considers himself to be Irish then that's up to him, he's got a legitimate claim anyway because he was born there. He asked for my opinion.

In what sense is Lennox Lewis Canadian? In what sense was Bob Hope American? In what sense is Tony Blair English? Same applies to pmannion.

 

Research the history of New York and you will find that the Movie Gangs of New York (Hollywood crap aside) is loosely based on factual events.

The biggest flaw of the movie would have to be the timeline used. Five points and what took place their in the movie was not during the civil war times.

 

Factual events. That the Irish were the predominant ethnic poor at the time. They had to fight for any piece of the pie they could as well as the many ethnic groups to follow. Surely not justification for a reputation as a people that love to fight just for the fight.

 

As for myself, I consider myself to be Irish, but I happened to be born to Irish parents in England and moved back to Ireland when I was 3. I moved to the USA in when I was 23 and at 31 became a US citizen. But I'm still Irish. My 3 kids are all American.

When I moved here first it used to get on my nerves when almost every American would say "Oh I'm Irish". After a while I grew tired of this and I would answer them "oh really, what part of Ireland are you from?" They would say "well actually I'm from Seacaucus but my great great great great grandfather was from County Cork".

But everyone has their own view on this.

 

Fighting for a good reason!



"The Irish soldiers of the heroic San Patricio Battalion, martyrs, who gave their lives for the cause of Mexico"

They were persecuted in the US Army due to their Catholic faith.

This is one of the reasons why I always root for Ireland in the World Cups.

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~edrice/stampclub/mexico.htm