Suspect US Irish Ancestry

[Terryb12345]

Why do so many Americans pretend to have Irish ancestry? Is it not a bit disrespectful to your true ancestors to conveniently change your family history so you can jump on a heritage bandwagon? What are the benefits of doing this? I've noticed some Australians have started doing it too.

[don1]

Terryb what makes you think they are pretending?

[dot.hawkes]

Well the Americans seemed to be alot more interested in their Irish ancestry since the first Kennedy rose to priminence, it may have been the charisma of the Kennedy clan that prompted the increase.

[Clanad]

I'd echo don1's question. At the time of the Famine and for many years afterwards, the Irish constituted the largest ethnic migration to the U.S. Literally millions of Irish chose the U.S. as a place of refuge. Their descendants would make up a significant part of our population today. I do quite a lot of genealogical work, not only for my family, but for others and Irish ancestery is quite common...

[NikkiB]

I don't know if any Americans actually pretend to have Irish ancestry but I do think there is a small community of Americans of Irish descent who think the best way to hark back to their origins is to be hateful and suspicious of British people. They seem to think its all part of the Irish Experience. For instance, I had a couple of friends who went backpacking in Europe. At one Irish bar the American-accented landlord refused to serve them because they are English. Yet ironically enough, they were served without problem in bars in both Dublin and Belfast. I doubt very much that the problem was widespread but lets not forget that Noraid used to ammass lots of funds from certain Americans who had some dewy-eyed, romantic freedom fighter image of the IRA.

Another observation is that my father, whose grandparents were from Ireland, has never been called anything other than English or British, despite his surname. Yet in the US, rightly or wrongly, a person more than 3 generations out of his ancestral home will still get called "the Irish kid" or the "The Italian kid" etc. A lot of play was made of Senator John Kerry's Irish heritage when in fact he is three quarters Jewish. With that thick patrician head, I would swear he was 100 per cent Emerald Isle!

[Pippa68]

You all took the word right out of my mouth. Given that there was mass immigration I don't see why they should be pretending.

The same thing can be said about Italians, Scots, English....etc etc etc. It is the 'New World' after all.

[joko]

put very simply, the only 'real' americans are native american, so therefore anyone in america who isn't an native american, must have come from somewhere else origially - mostly europe - and with the famine, ireland in particular, so i doubt they are lying.

the same thing goes for australia - the only 'real' aussies are the aboriginals - the rest are european criminals banished many years ago.

perhaps do a bit of history research before making daft statements.

[noxlumos]

Very true remarks by everyone. I will add however that there is some financial gain to be made potentially by having Irish ancestors as many Americans are buying up propety in Ireland which has rocketed and are trying to gain Irish passports by virtue of their decent for financial reasons.Quite hard to do if your ancestors aren't Irish however.

[dot.hawkes]

Maureen O'Hara had to go before a committee in the US when she applied for American Citizenship to demand that she be declared Irish not British before her papers were completed, up until then, Irish was not an official nationality in the U.S. It is in her book and makes fascinating and emotional reading, she stood up before a judge and declared 'I cannot forswear an allegiance I do not have. I am Irish and my allegiance is to Ireland." On every page of her lengthy application for US citizenship, where she had filled in Irish the US authorities had crossed it out and put English. The judge sent to Washington DC to ask what nationality Miss O'hara was officially considered to be and the reply came back that she was British. O'hara was about to leave the court but turned back to the judge and said, "Have you thought for one moment about what you are trying to force upon and take away from my child and my unborn children and grandchildren? You are trying to take away from them their right to boast and brag about their wonderful and famous Irish mother and grandmother, I just can't accept that". When her papers were finally sworn, where the clerk had written English, it had beeen crossed out and replaced with Irish. This was the first time in the history of the USA that an Irish person had been recognized as Irish by the American government. Months later Taoisearch Eamon De Valera backed her and agreed that she was right when she asserted she had no allegiance to Britain and none therefore that she could renounce.

[joko]

pasports are given based on your place of birth and where your parents live and nationality, giving you a dual passport if they aren't same.

It has nothing to do with where your great great great great gramdma came from.

you may have a case if you still have close living relatives in that country but not 100s of years ago

if that was the case i could have 5 passports - that i know of - theres probably more!

or is america/ireland more free with there passports?

[noxlumos]

If you are Irish to the third generation then you are entitled to an Irish passport and residence under certain circumstances.

[jno]

quite a few Australians have Irish ancestry too; dinkum 'Australian' words like sheila are Irish. No reason to suppose they're lying.

[boderectium]

The Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish) arrived in America about 150 years before the Catholic Irish and greatly outnumber them. It is estimated that there are over 27 million of Ulster-Scots ancestry and 17 million of Irish ancestry.

The Ulster-Scots became the pioneers of America, (I'm sure you have heard of Davy Crocket) and also gave America many presidents along with 25 generals in the army.

The Ulster Scots spread right across the frontier however most of the Catholic Irish stayed in cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York.

The Ulster-Scots blended into American culture and became "American" however the Catholic Irish could not drop their identity.

Most Americans of "Irish" decent wrongly identify themselves as Irish Americans and have bought into this ancient Celtic Irish culture which is simply a modern Victorian invention and a lie!