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The pro’s and con’s of the Irish
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Well I’m Dutch. living here for a while. And to stay polite I won’t comment on the Irish, except to say that i think your a lovelovely bunch. But what do the Irish think of themselves (themselfs?)
So can you name a FOR YOU very significant positive aspect and a FOR YOU very significant negative aspect of the Irish psyche. This allows me to get to know the Irish better and for everybody else to get to know YOU betterSignificant positive aspect
GuinnessSignificant negative aspect
GuinnessPodge wrote:
Significant positive aspect
GuinnessSignificant negative aspect
GuinnessWell we surely get to know you better
50 people took a look at this and 1 person responded by writing down Guinness twice. I think we have the Irish psyche sussed
Significant positive aspect
How the Irish will remain Irish despite where they reside and how many generations ago it wasSignificant negative aspect
How some went about maintaining itPodge wrote:
Significant positive aspect
GuinnessSignificant negative aspect
GuinnessThats just adding to the stereo type.
Significant positive aspect
For a small nation I think we’ve achieved a hell of a lot in a lot of disciplines, I guess I’d put that down to mental toughness and creative thinking.Significant negative aspect
Anyone who’s even moderately successful will be probably targeted for begrudgery by armchair experts.Well strangely I think Podge’s answer is probably the most honest, considering the question. With any question that tries to tie down a whole race of people to single factors you can’t have anything BUT stereotypes imo.
It’s a bit like me saying all Dutch people smoke hash or are football crazy which i know is not true, as the few Dutch people I know are guilty of neither.
I think what the last 20 or so years have done is make the task of defining what makes an Irish person Irish, even more difficult.
These days an Irish person can be black, white, christian, Jewish, muslim, pagan, atheist, gay, homophobic, right wing, left wing, apolitical, rude, friendly, rich, poor etc etc.
The point being, I guess, is that we are pretty much the same as most other western civilisations these days, a pick and mix of race, creed and cultures.
There is the tourist board version of the friendly Irish and there is the commonly held stereotypical view of the Irish as a craic loving alcohol loving race of friendly, slightly comic, types. As ever a visitor here is just as likely to be robbed and beaten up as offered a cup of tea and a friendly welcome. Both can and do happen here.
I may be wrong on this, but I think if you took most Irish people and transplanted them pretty much anywhere esle in the western world and changed just their accent to the local one, you’d be hard pushed to tell them apart :D
Whether or not that is a good or bad thing I’ll leave to the socio philosophers :wink:
8)
Significant positive aspect
Our self regulating ability to take the piss out of each other^^^I agree. In fact I think this is the true mark of a mature civilisation which is secure in it’s skin.
Negative: litter! Ye’re a messy lot! :wink:
Peter, a positive aspect is that we are a creative race of people, we like words and have excelled
in the literary. Poetry, plays etc. We love argument and debate as you have seen on this site.In the negative, we are insular and are in the infancy of considering ourselves part of the European Continent.
This is perhaps because we are an island nation.
I still refer to mainland Europe as ‘The Continent’, I probably always will.Nollaig
Expresbro wrote:
Well strangely I think Podge’s answer is probably the most honest, considering the question. With any question that tries to tie down a whole race of people to single factors you can’t have anything BUT stereotypes imo.
It’s a bit like me saying all Dutch people smoke hash or are football crazy which i know is not true, as the few Dutch people I know are guilty of neither.
I think what the last 20 or so years have done is make the task of defining what makes an Irish person Irish, even more difficult.
These days an Irish person can be black, white, christian, Jewish, muslim, pagan, atheist, gay, homophobic, right wing, left wing, apolitical, rude, friendly, rich, poor etc etc.
The point being, I guess, is that we are pretty much the same as most other western civilisations these days, a pick and mix of race, creed and cultures.
There is the tourist board version of the friendly Irish and there is the commonly held stereotypical view of the Irish as a craic loving alcohol loving race of friendly, slightly comic, types. As ever a visitor here is just as likely to be robbed and beaten up as offered a cup of tea and a friendly welcome. Both can and do happen here.
I may be wrong on this, but I think if you took most Irish people and transplanted them pretty much anywhere esle in the western world and changed just their accent to the local one, you’d be hard pushed to tell them apart :D
Whether or not that is a good or bad thing I’ll leave to the socio philosophers :wink:
I don’t completely agree with you. As a nation and especially a nation that lived a bit isolated on a island (I know we have Ryan air now) You have a collected history. For instance Ireland was a colony (Sorry) Holland was a country that colonized. You get a different state of mind out of that. Those things don’t dissapear in one or two generations. I do think that country from country you get a different mindset. And that is a good thing. It doesn’t mean that one is better then the other, only different.
But I tell you what I admire the most in the Irish.
Their abillity to debate.
And that is also the thing I hate the most about the IrishAnd about the dutch.
positive we are very liberal (hence the drugs which is a bigger problem in Ireland then in holland)negative. We are loud and we think that everything is better in Holland
8)
My mom was all Irish~~
My dad was all Dutch~~~
It’s a good combination :wink:
Well, I think as an island race we are generally known to be really friendly and welcoming to visitors. (Lets just not go there, with the internal politics!)
My own opinion is that, again, generally speaking, we don’t instill our children with enough positivity and ‘you CAN do it’ kind of attitude. Too much hiding lights under bushels. :lol: (Hope that translates for a Dutchman!)Peter,
I’d agree about the political aspect..that a history of colonialism does probably give a race a different world view than countries that have BEEN colonised.
Although I’m not totally convinced…the British and the Dutch were both Colonial powers..but I don’t think it is exhibited in the same way.
Anyway, I like to think that in a way, the Irish are probably the ultimate colonisers, just that we do it in a much more surreptitious manner ;-)
We enticed bigger more powerful countries to invade us..then we slowly took them over from the inside..hehe!!
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