33 Comments

• darragh S | Dec 18, 2012, 12:40 AM EST

  12 and O Irish. Thanks the Pope, The President and the lads for all the free advertising space and the support Ireland will get from the whole range of the Fighting Irish. I couldn't help but piss my self laughing at some of Will Hamilton's comments but he was a bit British for my liking. I very much doubt he has a clue about guys like John Barry, or Corcorran, or my mate at the CIA Mr Donovan to name but a few of the Irish American Revolutionaries. If he wants to carry on like a twisted limey redcoat then that's his own problem but he should probably avoid most bars in New York and Boston and most of Ireland. If anyone is a plastic paddy, its he.

• Seanmor | Sep 08, 2012, 10:14 AM EDT

  Palmeiras makes a few good points. About 1½ years after I arrived here from Ireland, I joined the marines for 4 years. During my first weeks of baic training in Parris Island, I learned that I had much more in common with the recruits from the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee that with the 2nd and 3rd genration Irish from Boston, New York and Philly. By and large these young marines perceived themselves to be far superior to fellow recruits from the South. And most of all they acted as though I were the most inferion member of the platoon, mostly because they imaguned that my lack of intelligence was on account of where I was raised. I should also mention that I placed 2nd in the written test our platoon of 82 men took on the 3rd week of training, and obtained a sharphsohooter's medal at the rifle range, but the Irish Catholics from the N/E cities were still no the least impressed.

• oTuachair | Sep 07, 2012, 05:54 PM EDT

  Palmeiras - I have to admit pulling for Tipp last year, but I have to think Kilkenny are the favorites over Galway, and bound for the history books this time around. I only wish I had stayed one week longer in Ireland last year to watch the event with my family and friends. BTW, "Fighting" is inserted before many university sports team names, and is meant to imply that the team will be difficult to beat, not as an insult to the namesake of the mascot. Every university also has a "fight" song. Imagine being from my state, where the University of South Carolina mascot is the Fighting Gamecock...!!! They are named after Revolutionary War General Thomas Sumter, which is a source of local pride, not embarrassment. -- Lastly, I respectfully submit that you would probably enjoy Boston more than NY, and any sensible person with a drop of Irish blood in his veins should be a Red Sox fan (who, incidentally, share their ownership group with the Reds of Liverpool)...!!! :) All the best...!!!

• palmeiras | Sep 07, 2012, 04:49 PM EDT

  This article didn't explain the intricate relationship between Ireland and it's diaspora. Nobody likes to be told what to do (as Irish Americans always seem to do with Irish people). Advise yes, but dont tell me what to do. By the way, I lived in the U.S for a number of years and could never relate to Notre Dame. To me they were pretenders (pretending to be Irish that is) and I say this not as an insult but as a genuine feeling I had of them; and the term "fighting Irish" embarrassed me. At the same time I longed for hurling, gaelic football and West Ham United coverage (hard to believe is it? -for the St Patrick's Day one day a year "Irish"). Again, this is how I truly felt and I stand by it. I had more in common with a born and raised Italian, talking about Milan or Sampodoria soccer than with an Irish American talking about the N.Y. Mets. To each his own, right? Lastly, if Irish Americans want more acceptance from Irish people, then they should learn more about the real Ireland (not about the Blarney Stone), like who is playing in this Sunday's All Ireland hurling final, who is favourite and why it is the best sport in the world. Then we might have something in common.

• Mercenary | Sep 07, 2012, 03:57 PM EDT

  I agree with you 100%, Yank. There's absolutely no real respect for the Diaspora, as if the Homeland can afford not to show it!

• Seanmor | Sep 07, 2012, 01:16 PM EDT

  The author of the above article repeatedly hit the nail on the head as he kept hannering home to us the attitude of 'Official Ireland' to the Diaspora in the U.S. who visit the 'homeland'. By 'Official Ireland' Yank means the powers-that-be in the part of Ireland formrly known as the Free State. As a London-born U.S. citizen who is very much part of the N.Y Irish Diaspora, my cherished ambition for 2016 is to see Ireland Reunited and become 'a nation once again'. Incideltally, my wife who is a New England Methodist shares that ambition.

• oTuachair | Sep 07, 2012, 12:58 PM EDT

  It is my honor to be an American, and as a student of history, there is no more interesting history than that in which my own family had a part, both in the USA and Ireland. I've found that the key is to behave respectfully when visiting Ireland, and for the record, I've been treated nothing but great in every part of the country I've visited. The connection between Ireland and its diaspora is clearly there, and I believe embracing it is better than spurning it...

• Happyhippo | Sep 07, 2012, 09:01 AM EDT

  I repeat loud and clear,what a nasty and negative man this Hamilton is,there is one thing for sure i will never again read anything you have to say about anything,because your brain is just a cesspool of crap.

• Happyhippo | Sep 07, 2012, 08:46 AM EDT

  What a nasty negative man Hamilton is,there's one thing for sure i will never again read anything you have to say because your bran is just a cesspool of unwanted c p.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 07, 2012, 08:37 AM EDT

  As you can see from IN's last little ramble there has to be a Protestant involved when it comes to pointing out any uncomfortable reality a Plastic Paddie can't handle. He's gone off the bat and invented himself a imaginary ghost.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 07, 2012, 08:15 AM EDT

  The confusion that Irish means Roman Catholic is just another indication of how out of touch Plastic Paddies are. Rome maintains it's grip on Ireland by virtue of the dominant position it occupies not by anything else. It's a foreign religion that came from Italy. Irish people are turning their backs on the child rape ring in droves. It gets even more hilarious to try to paint up an American football game as somehow part of an Irish culture. It's not. It's part of the continued marketing of the most successful cultural invasion of the TV age and it's American. The American football game meant little or nothing to Irish people beyond the amount of money it's claimed it brought in. If a bunch of people want to delude themselves that's OK as long as they spend cash. The terms Plastic Paddie and Septic Tank are much older than Shane McGowan. Maybe all the [Irish] Americans should pool their money and build an island in the middle of the Atlantic where they can construct a green Plastic Paddie Disneyland for all their fantasies. It could have leprechauns and red haired girls with freckles who prance around like they were permanently stuck in Riverdance. Premium membership would get you a ruined ancestral cottage full of your own personal Famine victims. The fast food outlet would serve potatoes and buttermilk. Plastic Paddies kids could be educated by undergoing The Eviction Experience. There would be a big variety show every night called The English Did It. A huge roller coaster would cover the island called "800 Years of Oppression Mavourneen". The golf course would be built on Four Green Fields. There would be no airport. The only way to get there would be by coffin ship and it would be ruled by the Pope. Naturally it would have be called The Emerald Isle. You're not Irish and beyond existing as a segment of the tourist market, Irish people have no interest in you having anything to do with Ireland. Read the article.

• IrelandNorth | Sep 07, 2012, 08:05 AM EDT

  PS Will Hamilton's post (p 1) below speculatively suggests that if those petulant native Irish had remained in God's very own great and glorious United Kingdom (UK) post 1922, all would be red and rosy in the imperial garden. When will these infantile native Irish every accept, (might being right), that Anglo-Saxons are their Darwinian superiors? And that Protestantism is the natural heir apparent of its supersititious (RC) predecessor? And why do I strongly intuit that one or other of our Ulster-Scot guests on line have had a log-in make-over. Hmmm!

• IrelandNorth | Sep 07, 2012, 06:45 AM EDT

  Too true, Poncánanch (Gael n Yankee m)! So here's just one response from an unofficial Irelander. As you've probably learned from your travels around the auld sod, we have a term "cute hoor" over here. "Cute" (as in cunning/sly/sneaky). And "hoor" (as in non-sexual or non-corporeal whore) - ie smart alec/wise guy/shifty operator/shyster, a species not entirely extinct in the Irish body politic? One thing such a fine specimen of humanity(?) disdains is having their often questionable competency exposed by 'swanky yankees', even to the material detriment of their hinterland constituencies/-ents. Not the first time naked self-interest administratively subverted social advancement in Ireland or elsewhere. Unfortunately, probably not the last either. A US navy warship did heavy life for both teams. Perhaps next time they'll come in greater numbers and do an ideological feather light lift of the Irish parochial political caste to the Caymen Islands and beyond. I doubt if such a manoeuvre would meet with much resistance, not least under a Democratic administration. PS Shane McGowan, lead singer of the 1980s Celtic punk rock group 'The Pogues,' is reputed to have coined the term "plastic paddy" to describe people such as himself who were born in England of Irish parentage (ie 1st generation Irish-English?)

• WoundedKnee | Sep 07, 2012, 02:05 AM EDT

  Cheer Up, Hamilton (aka caradexy?). If you're under 50 you'll probably live to see an Ireland in which the Irish are a minority. With the accelerating rate of immigration the ethnic links between Ireland and Irish America cannot survive. Just last week we saw a Mass Naturalization ceremony in Dublin at which Irish citizenship was handed out to 4000 foreigners at one sitting. That's the equivalent of a quarter million people getting US citizenship in one day. These Poles, Pakistanis, Pilipinos etc will undoubtedly be more to your liking. After all, unlike many Irish Americans, they know nothing of Ireland's history, language or traditions. And lots of them, such as Pakistanis, Malays, Chinese etc aren't even Christians, never mind Catholics. At last, the prospect of real progress, a Muslim Ireland!

• tievemore | Sep 06, 2012, 09:20 PM EDT

  Good article Yank. I agree with the sentiments and also find myself nodding in agreement with el rubio's comments. As a Yank who has lived in Ireland, I am constantly amazed at the incredibly warm individual reception I receive in Ireland. Yet, overall, I am equally amazed at how dismissive Irish folks are of "Yanks" or, nowadays "Plastic Paddies". It's mind-boggling to me and I've always attributed it to Ireland's "culture of begrudgery". I suppose the "culture of begrudgery" is a result of years of subjugation by the English. I'm not sure. But it's on the Irish to change it. The "Yanks" and "Plastic Paddies" are going to keep coming, as evidenced by this weekend's turnout. The Irish would be wise, at some point, to return their cousin's embrace.

• misneac | Sep 06, 2012, 07:31 PM EDT

  That Will Hamilton is some bigoted gobshite ! I would like to know his origins and environment he grew up in .His knowledge of Irish history and traditions bigoted ,and the height of most Irish people not limited to travel to England to support soccer teams made up of combinations of international mercenaries . It might be a good exercise to examine the real Irish institutions ,and the contributons of great Irish Americans to the good of Ireland and its people .I doubt however if his ill informed bigotry will allow him to do this !

• JimmyJK | Sep 06, 2012, 07:17 PM EDT

  It's mind boggling that a lot of Irish people do not think of the Irish diaspora as anything but an invisible sea of people they have not connection to. this is despite the fact that the DNA of the Irish and the diaspora in most cases is identical, a DNA family history that goes back literally thousands of years and one that contains ingrained similarities wether you like it or not, it's science. As long as those on one end of the receiver is still trying to communicate there will be great possibilities of connecting our disparate communities but there is also a possible scenario to consider albeit a crazy one.... What if the Diaspora would come back to Ireland to live and to be themselves they would become advocates for the diaspora.... Ireland needs to be more of a two way street instead of a one way exit....

• manhattan | Sep 06, 2012, 07:15 PM EDT

  Will Hamilton, read the responses to your insulting comments by El Rubio and you may learn something. Then again as someone with s--t for brains (Old Irish Saying begorrah) it would be way over your head.

• el rubio | Sep 06, 2012, 06:54 PM EDT

  Will Hamilton, I do not intend to discuss the attitudes of the hip New Irelnd (yes I will continue to use that term) towards the Catholic Church of yesteryear with someone whose personal bigotry towards a particular faith blinds him to real persecution which has gone on in the world throughout history and continues to go on in certan countries. Ultimately, it is ignorane of history that is the crux of the prejudice and stereotyping of Irish-Americans by those denizens of contemporary Ireland. Notre Dame football is a tradition which sprung from a unique Irish-American culture that was heavily rooted in Catholic Institutions in the United States; a Catholicism which helped to raise the offspring of immigrants out of the slums and gave them both an education and a personal dignity which they would never attain through any secular welfare state. The transposing of Irish-American culture back to Ireland is no different than the dominance of English football games in the salons of Sandymount and Ballsbridge. As I recall, a young Michael Collins was outspoken concerning association football's popularity vis a vis Gaelic football, saying that there should be "no soccer for the Gaels." What I'm curious about is your hostility to one sport of foreign origin while embracing another? Perhaps you are just hostile to Americans in general and Irish-Americans in particular, but that doesn't surprise me. By the way, rubio is a physical description. Learning some Spanish might come in handy the next time you're living it up in Ibiza with all those boozed up Brits in their ManU and Liverpool replica tops.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 06, 2012, 06:21 PM EDT

  You are some kind of poor unfortunate ball of confused cultural problems to be spouting ill informed religiously deluded bruscar about Ireland (where you were never born and never will be) and doing it with a Spanish handle. I referred to the gulag of industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and local schools that Irish people have had to pay for and the crimes committed within, up to the present day. You tripped up and transposed the term into a reference not made which you presumed was. But your're doing that your whole life with a whole country so the problem is habitual in your case. You are a perfect example of the kind of confused schizophrenic that scars Ireland within and without. Roman Catholicism is the religious tool of a foreign state in Rome. It's not Irish. You're also welded to this imaginary "hip new Ireland" which just goes to show how ignorant of Ireland you are. You melt into a complete mess when you can't tell the difference between Irish people volunteering to spent their time travelling from and to English soccer games/holidays in Spain/work in Deutschland and American football travelling into Ireland. No wonder you spout all this Plastic Paddie Irish but use a Spanish name. That's why Irish people don't like Americans like you.

• el rubio | Sep 06, 2012, 06:02 PM EDT

  From Wikipedia: Mary J. Hickman writes that "plastic Paddy" was a term used to "deny and denigrate the second-generation Irish in Britain" in the 1980s, and was "frequently articulated by the new middle-class Irish immigrants in Britain, for whom it was a means of distancing themselves from established Irish communities The term came into common use in the 1980s when it was frequently employed as a term of abuse by recently-arrived middle-class Irish migrants to London. Hickman (2002) states; it ‘became a means of distancing themselves from established Irish communities.’ And the use was a part of the process by which the second-generation Irish are positioned as inauthentic within the two identities, of Englishness and Irishness Ironically, both English hostility when faced with the spectre of Irish identities, and Irish denials of authenticity of those same identities, utilizes the pejorative term ‘plastic paddy’ to stereotype and undermine processes ‘of becoming’ of Irish identities of second-generation Irish people. The message from each is that second-generation Irish are ‘really English’ and many of the second-generation resist this.Hickman (2002) Irish Journal of Sociology

• el rubio | Sep 06, 2012, 05:40 PM EDT

  Will Hamilton, to refer to Catholic Ireland as a gulag is a manifestation of a profoundly purile ignorance of history when considering the millions who perished in actual communist gulags. Suffice it to say, though the Irish liberal establishment will never admit it, the Catholic Church did far more good than harm both in Ireland and among the Irish Diaspora, with respect to the educational, charitable and health care institutions enacted by the Church. Indeed I believe that the decline in Catholicism is a big part of the reason why relations between Irish-Americans and the hip New Ireland are strained as they are. In the past, Catholic culture was something the Irish nation on both sides of the Atlantic had in common; now that is largely gone. With respect to American culture inundating Ireland, it is British culture which has probably had a bigger impact on modern Ireland. D4 liberal sophisticates may complain about Notre Dame/Navy and the prevelance of baseball caps, though they say nary a word about the ubiquitous ManU and Liverpool jerseys about the place.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 06, 2012, 04:41 PM EDT

  Plastic Paddies was never used to describe Irish people in Britain.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 06, 2012, 04:39 PM EDT

  Good observation ancavker. Since the late forties Ireland has become slowly but surely swamped in American culture along with the rest of the world. In Ireland it finds fertile ground because there is very little native considered to be any of better value. The Notre Dame game is just another part of the process. At events in Ireland supposed to be celebrating Irish culture you'll even have the Dublin Gospel choir. How ironic is that. There are even majorette bands. People who have never seen a baseball game wear baseball hats. So contrast that with [Irish] Americans going on about the "home country" and the "Emerald Isle". They are dreaming of a place that does not exist. Any connection people have with the land of their birth" (which they weren't actually born in) are suffering from a serious delusion. Why only go back through your genetic line for a measly 5 or 6 generations. Why not go all the way back to the rift valley and spend your holidays in Africa.

• ancavker | Sep 06, 2012, 04:13 PM EDT

  Will: You are some piece of work. That being said, Plastic Paddy originally was for the Irish in Britain who claimed Irish descent. It may now have expanded to Irish-Americans as I noted.Ironically though I see so many Irish in Ireland acting like they are Americans; I wonder why that is OK?

• Will Hamilton | Sep 06, 2012, 04:06 PM EDT

  The term Plastic Paddie is almost exclusively used in Ireland for Americans who imagine they're Irish. To the Irish (who don't work in the tourist trade) they are the most aggravating, irritating ill informed people in the world when the start talking about "Oireland". It's hilarious to hear people who celebrate the continual flooding of Ireland with American culture, the latest example being the Navy v Notre Dame game, and then go on about "Celtic" culture. Mr. Barrett's offer was not ignored because he happens to be an American. That's just childish paranoia driven by the Plastic Paddie cultural schizophrenia. The village fools who run Ireland don't listen to outsiders because they'e in politics to rob their own country. That goes the same for Chinese businessmen, Korean businessmen or German businessmen. The difference is they'd not be whining like some rejected child whose mammy wouldn't let him back into the house. Independence for Ireland has only proven that Ireland is a country of small minded little Roman Catholics who can't run their own country. That's why it's bankrupt. It makes people who are not Irish pining to be included based on the illusion of the "Emerald Isle" they've created for themselves look all the more foolish. When the British marched out the Vatican crawled in to copper fasten an even more insidious occupation than had ever gone before. Decades of women and children have had to pay for it in the Roman Catholic Gulag.

• ancavker | Sep 06, 2012, 04:03 PM EDT

  Much of it is pure jealously on the part of some Irish in Ireland. The thought of Irish-Americans telling them what to do, and how to do it is abhorent to them. We the Irish in America do not have the old inferiority complex that even today the new hip Irish have. And yes for us Irish Americans we will always have a connection with the land of our birth or ancestry, whether one generation removed or 5 or 6. I find it ironic now that some of my friends Irish born who came to NYC in te 1980's are now themselves being refered to as dumb yanks, and plastic paddies. They were calling us that 20 years ago! Now they are getting the same abuse!! Too funny! Really! And just as an aside Plastic Paddies used to be reserved for those Irish in Britain, and dumb yanks was for Irish Americans, now they appear to be used interchangeably.

• Happyhippo | Sep 06, 2012, 02:59 PM EDT

  @oTuachair,The term plastic paddy is used by some negative self appointed people to anyone of Irish origin who is not 100% Irish,but the millions of Irish all over the world and especially the USA who took in countless numbers of Irish for hundreds of years because they could not survive in their own country deserve better than to be described in those terms,one of the problems for so long was there was no platform for Irish America to be heard but that is changing now with Ireland being forced to reach out to its long lost diaspora for assistance in helping the country recover from the recession,hopefully after the spectacular Notre DamevNavy weekend in Dublin things will only get better.

• el rubio | Sep 06, 2012, 02:40 PM EDT

  Will Hamilton, didn't you read the article above by John Fay aka the Yank? He is correct in discerning the strained attitude which is stunting the development of the country due to its attitude towards its own Diaspora. The example he relates of Mr. Barrett is telling and one gets the impression that if Barrett were a British Banker or Russian oligarch or a Chinese businessmen, or anything other than a "plastic paddy" Irish American (to use the vernacular of the hip New Ireland) his offer would have been received quite differently. The attitude taken by this New Ireland to Irish-Americans and others of the Diaspora, such as that which you have expressed in your comment below are perfect indicators of the schizophrenia which you accuse Irish-Americans of promulgating. As to your insinuation that Ireland "went downhill" post 1922, the centuries of dominance by a foreign power surely stunted that nations ability to develop industry, urbanize, organize a proper democratic form of governance and retain its most valuable human resources, which it lost to emigration.

• Will Hamilton | Sep 06, 2012, 02:18 PM EDT

  Irish people for the most part, unless involved in the tourist trade, have no time for [Irish] Americans. You only have to hear guff like "my celtic heart" or "the land of our birth". But why? To some extent it's because [Irish] Americans are foreigners like anyone else except with the curious aberration of thinking they're natives. It's like a bunch of people who suffer from cultural schizophrenia. But the distaste Irish people have for Plastic Paddies is not entirely down to [Irish] Americans themselves. The reality is that for the majority of people who live in Ireland they've realised long ago that in 1922 Ireland started going downhill. In short as a country to live in it's a kip. When a green plaid draped son of the sod wombles in and starts spouting about the "Emerald Isle" and his "Celtic heart" it's more than weird. It's an insult. These people are referred to as Plastic Paddies sometimes but the more often used expression is "Septic Tanks" (it rhymes with Yanks). You have a country. For all it's faults it's a far better country than Ireland. Of course just about any other country in the developed world is. You were born in America. You're American. So stop pining for a small minded, backward, incestuous little village that exports it's own people and allows Rome to rule what's left. It just makes you look silly in the eyes of the natives who have to put up with the place.

• el rubio | Sep 06, 2012, 01:55 PM EDT

  oTuachair and manhattan, as an Irish American Catholic with Famine ancestry, I can certainly share both of your sentiments. With both Gaelic culture and Catholicism rapidly being expunged in Ireland by the liberal establishment there, it would seem that in the New Ireland the only thing Irish-Americans (and others of the Diaspora) are good for is our money. However, rather than being turned off by the money-grubbing, ultra-hip, anti-American New Ireland and forsaking our own history and culture as a consequence, the answer lies in striving to preserve that heritage abroad. Perhaps by strengthening the Irish community globally, we can serve as examples to our begrudging ingrate cousins.

• manhattan | Sep 06, 2012, 01:38 PM EDT

  Years ago I would have supported any help for Ireland. But the insults about us "plastic Paddy's" etc. has turned me off. The older Irish are still our friends but the younger generation are not. We seem to annoy them so much if we call ourselves Irish Americans, maybe we shouldn't anymore and just ignore the whole Island and forget the heritage we grew up with My grandparents would be turning in there graves if they read the anti american comments here about the adoted land that gave them everything.

• oTuachair | Sep 06, 2012, 11:31 AM EDT

  There are many of us who are as American as we can be, but with Celtic hearts. In other words, we're not Irish by nationality, but we are by ancestry. We love and respect your country, and identify with its place in our own heritage. If we are respectful, and act like guests when we visit, please stop calling us "plastic paddys" and let us help your economy recover...