Do orangemen consider themselves Irish?
There are none in Eire are there?
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:24, 1 reply, 15 years ago)

Orangemen consider themselves British
you don't get any in the Republic. Anybody wearing orange on St Patricks is really weirdly deficient in any knowledge of Irish history as opposed to Northern Irish
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:25, Reply)

Loon?
Want to make a claim on being British?
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:26, Reply)

As I recall
I do have some ancestors who came from England, Scotland and Wales, but that was about eight generations or more back. My maternal grandmother has traced her ancestry back to the Mayflower.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:29, Reply)

But if you are of a religious 'bent' (rather than bender! :) )
You could go back to Adam and Eve and then lay claim to global ancestry.

There has got to be more to it than being proud of your ancestry, as this strange trait seems to be linked mostly with Americans. Whilst I agree your country is a melting post of different backgrounds, the same could be said of any continent, things are pretty diverse in Britain.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:36, Reply)

True enough that you're a diverse lot
but your country has been around a lot longer than this one has.

Consider: when people immigrate, it tends to be human nature to congregate with others from your homeland, right? So you have areas of your towns that have a higher percentage of Polish or Pakistanis than people whose great ancestors all lived in that area. I would guess that if you asked people who were second or third generation from Pakistan, they'd probably identify in some way with being of Pakistani origin.

Now look at America. The Europeans pretty much laid the Native Americans to waste and started filling up the country. People poured into here over the past couple hundred years, and tended to keep to their own. Ethnic groups tend to not mix very much, as I'm sure you've noticed. Over here they considered themselves as different from the people who had already been here for a few generations, descended from Western Europe and Britain, so they started identifying themselves by their ancestral origins. I would say that it's a trait that's about as old as this country itself. For a fact it's the way of most people over here.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:47, Reply)

To a point yes.
But Britain would fit within the landmass of California, by some margin, so it isn't a fair comparison.

We are also an island race.

Fair enough if we agree that American was founded in 1776? But surely that is long enough to establish your own identity?
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 1:00, Reply)

We do have an identity.
And that's as a cultural melting pot. *laugh*

Seriously, though, there are parts of this country that show pretty strong influences by various ethnic groups. Another example is the northern Midwest- Minnesota and the Dakotas. Ever seen the movie "Fargo"? Did you note their rather Norwegian-sounding accents? They really do talk like that there. And lutefisk is actually pretty common out there as well. Garrison Keillor exaggerates it a bit at times, but not by that much.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 22 Mar 2011, 1:09, Reply)

I thought so...
Ta.
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 0:27, Reply)

You do!
There are some lodges in forrin parts like Donegal (so still Ulster). They have a wee walk around with a band on the twelfth and nobody really minds. Pretty much how it goes in my parents' neck of the woods too.

Orange on St. Patrick's day is insane though.

Edit: Rossnowlagh, I think.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 22 Mar 2011, 10:45, Reply)