You're Not Irish

Before continuing, I'll take a moment to define my primary audience. This particular post is addressed to Americans, whose family bloodline has never been near the NY/Boston area. So if you're Southern, Appalachian, Midwestern, this one's for you.

Yeah, today's the day when people suffer from this strange social phenomenon called "I think I'm Irish." While I have a few hypothesis as to why it occurs, I'll first start with the facts.

(For clarification to our international audience, Americans tend to say "I'm this" or "I'm that" in reference to ethnicity, in the sense of race, and not in the sense of nationality or citizenship)

America's beginning consisted of the English settling the coastal areas, from New England (obviously) to Jamestown, and all down further south. Makes sense, as they were the first Europeans to truly settle Vinland/North America, they took the first land available. Now the Anglo-Scots (from Northern England/Southern Scotland, the border area) didn't exactly get along with the Crown, so they too hauled ass, and settled further inland; the Appalachians, deep South, western Pennsylvania. Germans took Pennsylvania and the Midwest. I've already covered most of the US (from that time period) without once mentioning the Irish.

Now, the ACTUAL Irish, who are Catholic and do NOT come from Northern Ireland, settled up around Boston/NY/whatever else, at a later date, after America was already well-established.

Now especially back in the day, there was pretty much a huge cultural wall between that area, and the South and Midwest. We call that the Mason-Dixon line. So there weren't free-traveling people like there are now. So, unless your family actually came from that area, you most likely aren't Irish, even despite your claims of "my family came from Ireland, and I can prove it."

That brings me to my next point: just because you're "from" Ireland, this does not make you ethnic Irish. Should a Korean move to Ireland, does his hair suddenly become red (I'll get to that in a minute), and he starts wearing green and eating potatoes? Does his DNA change and he becomes ethnic Celtic/Gaulic? I say this, because a good portion of the Anglo-Scots who moved here, first temporarily relocated to Protestant Northern Ireland. This is why they're Protestant and not Catholic, this is also why YOU (and/or your family line) is Protestant and not Catholic, and this is also why that area claims to be British, to this day. After living there for a few generations or less, they came here.

This is why you need to strongly question your evidence of being "from" Ireland, now that you know this idea isn't exactly steadfast.

Now, I'll shoot down a few things relating to fake "Irish pride" held by Americans. You having red hair is absolutely meaningless. First, it's a genetic variant of blonde hair. Second, having a slight shade of red when your dominant color is brown or blonde, does not make you "red." Also, only 9% of Ireland is redheaded. They all have dark hair. It's England which has more redheads than anyone else. Other non-Irish places featuring red hair: Netherlands, France, Germany, sometimes even Scandinavia.

Green eyes are, very literally, just blue eyes, with amounts of fatty tissue on the iris (which is yellow in color). This is why someone's green eyes can often shift back and forth between that and blue. This is a biological fact. Green, as a true iris color, does not exist.

Next up, Guinness. The English invented that type of beer, the stout porter ale. While Guinness is used as some huge marketing brand for the whole of Ireland, the type is of English origin.

Finally, I'll leave you with the "Celtic" knot, the one last Irish haven you have left... ...which is of Norse Viking origin. Yep, the people who raped and plundered Ireland, and also established its very capitol (as well as establishing Scotland as a nation and contributing to their gene pool), are the ones who left their knotwork design.

Now that the facts are out of the way, I'll toss up a few minor theories of mine. Just ideas that I don't really take too seriously, I theorize that fake Irish pride stems from the anti-English sentiments from back in the day. Renewed by the more recent Irish immigration, as well as the Irish having moved to larger city areas than the rural South and Midwest, this caused their St Patrick's Day to appear more "loud" and thus more prominent. Perhaps it also stems from unscientific family records including the "from Ireland" factor, as well as America's lack of culture needing to be fulfilled by that of someone else.

While opinionated in tone, I felt the need to write this, because the trend is very wide-spread, and even the actual Irish have been getting irritated by it, so I know that I'm not the only one who sees it. Hopefully education will help, one person at a time.