NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > News > Do Irish Americans like Ireland better now after the downfall?

Do Irish Americans like Ireland better now after the downfall?

Boston Globe writer says Ireland now reverting to its old image

CATHY HAYES,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, December 20, 2010, 5:38 AM

Updated Monday, December 20, 2010, 6:03 AM

Larger Text

E-mail

46 Comments

Ballinskelligs Bay, County Kerry

A leading Irish American commentator claims that Irish Americans will like the new Ireland much more than the Celtic Tiger one.

Gabriel O’Malley, in an op/ed for the Boston Globe, writes that many Irish Americans have a tendency to “romanticize the Irish experience.”

He quotes a 1972 article from The New York Times, in which the journalist stops into a Boston pub where a group of Irishmen are complaining about Irish-Americans. One of them says, “The worst race of people you’d ever want to meet,’’ one comments after a sip of Guinness. “Ah, they ruin the Irish image. On St. Patrick’s Day they all dress in green, and as soon as it’s over they go off drinking Scotch. They don’t even know where Cork is.”

O’Malley says that “the Irish have never been exactly what Irish-Americans have expected them to be,” especially over the last 20 years, when Ireland experienced the most drastic changes, including an economic boom, an influx of eastern European immigrants, the Catholic Church scandals and the peace process in the North.

He goes on to say, “At some point, the Irish experience became so removed from that which Irish Americans had romanticized that some began to look to the Irish less as a source of nostalgic reflection and more as a point of aspiration.”

But now, after the economic bubble has burst, and Irish are once again emigrating in droves, the country has, in many ways, reverted to its former self. He credit Ireland’s downfall to “rampant consumerism” and becoming “increasingly American.”

He concludes that “the Irish are about to become more “Irish’’ — and Irish Americans may soon see a familiar sight across the Atlantic: a small island that inspires memories of a place gone by, where their past was born; a place of pain, hardship, and indomitable human spirit, filled with poets and paupers, that has at once grounded and inspired them in their new land, and which may only have ever existed in the reaches of the mind.”

Nster.com

E-mail

46 Comments

15 - 46 | See all comments

WoundedKnee | Dec 28, 2010, 02:12 PM EST

seamusmoore has threatened me with being murdered by the IRA in South Armagh. I have reported seamusmoore's death threat made against me. I don't expect Irish central to do much about it, because they allow this kind of abuse to fester unchecked until it goes to its logical extreme--a death threat by seamusmoore. However, regardless of Irish central's failure to police this site, all posters should be aware of this death threat by seamus moore.

Report abuse

WoundedKnee | Dec 22, 2010, 05:19 AM EST

Good Post, kurtjohnson. I have never heard a good justification for Mass Immigration to Ireland, but Dr Trelawney's, that Mass Immigration of Africans (most of them illegally, but he doesn't think that relevant) has served to make it easier to buy plantains in Dublin, well that's the most inane thing I have ever heard. Why didn't the Irish just import the plantains, rather than the Africans? The plantains won't go on welfare, the plantains won't clog Irish schools and bring down education standards. I just read in an Irish newspaper this week that fully 25% of births in Irish hospitals are to mothers who are not Irish. At this rate the prediction that the Irish would be an ethnic minority in their own country by the mid 21st century seems inaccurate--it'll happen before then.

Report abuse

kurtjohnson | Dec 21, 2010, 10:29 PM EST

I'm sure Dr. Trollawney would like to see the Irish ethnicity eradicated from existence. Immigration in reasonable numbers can be culturally enriching when assimilated with the indigenous population. However, mass immigration with no intention of assimilation has historically led to instability (and worse) irrespective of the merits of either the host or incoming culture. The D4 crowd favor immigration for the dual purpose of cheap labor and breeding out indigenous Irish people rather than any real cultural effect (other than the importation of more anglo materialist industrial estate degeneracy).

Report abuse

MarkMary73 | Dec 21, 2010, 05:11 PM EST

My wife and I have been going to Ireland since 1970, have been there several times each decade since, and lived in Galway in 2004-05. We spent three weeks there this April (we were "forced" (loved every minute of it) to stay an extra week because of the volcano). I give this history to underscore our opinions that Ireland was at its best (excesses notwithstanding)when the Celtic Tiger was running free. Finally free from the economic domination of the Royal Hand, wisely adept to the hypocrisy and decadence of the Church, and having captured history in a bottle with the Good Friday Accords ("sure and aren't we all Irish anyway?")the Irish were prosperous and the envy of the world, with a quality of education second to none and keeping its greatest treasure--its people--at home. Having come so far and so fast, given its centuries of subjugation, I have no doubt that it will recapture its Celtic Tiger spirit and that the reality of Ireland will once again far outshine the treasured, but flawed, romantic impression of its past.

Report abuse

irishgenebuf | Dec 21, 2010, 10:06 AM EST

A rather silly article inspires mostly silly self-centered comments. Just go, enjoy the scenery, enjoy the people whoever and however they are, and don't over-think it.

Report abuse

GeorgeDillon | Dec 21, 2010, 09:36 AM EST

Does Seamus Moore not consider Dubliners to be Irish? That would be news to Wolfe Tone and Patrick Pearse. And James Joyce...

Report abuse

seamusmoore | Dec 21, 2010, 08:22 AM EST

georgedillon Perhaps you should stop going to Dublin and its'commuter suburbs. Venture out to Kerry, Clare, Galway and Mayo and you will find what you seek: REAL Irish people, not the West Brits of D4. pilib04 Your aunt certainly is not original, if not a Joe Biden-like plagarist, but at least she is well read. That "stable" quote is from Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington) who was born in Dublin yet claimed he wasn't Irish.

Report abuse

DrTrelawney | Dec 21, 2010, 06:52 AM EST

"or worse yet, english, "just because you were born in a stable does not make you a horse." Well, she sounds like a bigot.

Report abuse

GeorgeDillon | Dec 21, 2010, 02:29 AM EST

macusheen: "Last time I went all I met were Lithuanians, Serbs, Slovanians and so on and so on." I've had the same experience. It's utterly weird to go to a country and find that everyone you meet is a foreigner. If I went to Lithuania I wouldn't expect or want to meet Americans (or Irish). If I go to Ireland I want to meet with IOrish people. Why don't the posters here (Dr Trelawney etc.) get it?

Report abuse

macausheen | Dec 21, 2010, 12:15 AM EST

I can't stop commenting. That pub in Boston with the Irishmen complaining about Irish Americans. Yeah, I know those so called Irish Americans, just because their name starts with a MC, though they have no idea who or when or where the MC came from. It is like a perfectly white blond person who steps up to me and calls himself an Indian because his great-grandfather married one. Did you know President Obama is being called Irish? Irish American should only go back so many generations or be a part of your identity. The Irish government is considering offering special status to everyone born of the Diaspora no matter how long ago. I think that is a mistake. And by the way, I know where Cork is. And to be truthful I usually call myself German-Irish American. My German ancestors go back a little further than the Irish, but even they were not here for the Revolution and probably not the Civil war either. So what is my heritage, where I was born or what is in my blood? Only when you can't remember any ancestry than being American are you truly one.

Report abuse

macausheen | Dec 20, 2010, 11:15 PM EST

I think it is time to step up and admit it. This article speaks the truth. It is not that I really expect to step off the plane in Ireland and find the Quiet Man, but I day dream that I will. Ireland is somewhere special, somewhere different, the place where my grand parents came from. I don't want to go there and find it to be just like America. I go to meet the people and talk a little of the blarney. Last time I went all I met were Lithuanians, Serbs, Slovanians and so on and so on. I was proud of the Celtic Tiger and glad the Irish people getting what they never had, but not at the price they were paying. The loss of their own hard won heritage. The old adage is true though, no one appreciates their old home town.

Report abuse

pilib04 | Dec 20, 2010, 10:16 PM EST

it sounds as if seamusmoore and woundedknee have a history. it would be helpful to the rest of us if you would refrain from namecalling. i assume that when someone reverts to namecalling, they lack a logical argument. now, as for the comment about irish-americans, i've found that irish tend to refer to irish-americans as american-irish. as for only first generation irish in america being irish american, that's the first time i have ever heard such a statement. seamusmoore, who told you that one? heck, my family came by way of england and were out of ireland 100 years (exactly) before i was born. but we maintained our irish culture and religion in all of its forms. my aunt who was born 104 years ago use to say when someone would tell her she was american or worse yet, english, "just because you were born in a stable does not make you a horse." saoirse

Report abuse

ciarrai | Dec 20, 2010, 09:50 PM EST

There's nothing like a crumbling economy and people out of work to make ya love Ireland that little extra. Don't put to much stock in what that yo-yo says.

Report abuse

Ajreaper | Dec 20, 2010, 08:28 PM EST

Good Lord- some of you must wake up in the morning looking for something to argue about. Why would any rational and intelligent human being think a country in economic crisis is some how more to their liking? Its an absurd notion by any stabdard you choose to apply.

Report abuse

seamusmoore | Dec 20, 2010, 05:05 PM EST

wounded knee you are not Irish-American, but American of Irish descent. Speaking the Irish language while admirable does not make one Irish. The Irish Studies program at my alma mater has many non-Irish people who are fluent in the language. More importantly, is the Irish culture, which the GAA is a large part of. Your Pele reference speaks volumes about you as soccer is an English sport, whereas gaelic football and hurling are Irish sports. Your obsession with the Irish language reminds me of Dev's grandson, Eamonn O'Cuiv, renaming Dingle (a worldwide brand name in tourism) as An Daingean. Clearly, you don't have an Irish passport because you are not eligible; guess what, I do because I am. You can try to be Irish but at the end of the day you are an American of Irish descent. I don't have try to be Irish, my immigrant parents make me Irish American. As for your sophmoric name calling (idiot, ignorant), I graduated from Notre Dame, have a CPA, a half dozen securities licenses and two insurance licenses. What are your academic and professional qualifications?

Report abuse