NO! You are STILL NOT Irish!
NO! You are STILL NOT Irish! Thousands of you have commented on our original video telling us your stories trying to prove that you are Irish, and many of you have made some very valid points. A while ago we made our video entitled “NO! You are NOT Irish! History of a big myth in genealogy”. That video took off and had mixed results of support, and people wanting to prove that they were Irish. It was aimed at the likely millions of Americans that believe that they are part Irish and the reasons why that myth is so prevalent, especially in Appalachia. The main point of that video was to explain to folks that many of them are actually Scots-Irish, and not Irish-Irish. Many folks commented on the video about subjects and went on tangents that didn’t pertain to the videos actual subject. We learned quite a bit from the thousands of comments, and we wanted to address those subjects in this separate video.
Those subjects were:
One- You’re not Irish, you are an American! Ethnicity & Heritage vs. Nationality
Two- Plastic Paddies
Three- I’m not Irish, I’m an American
Four- There is no such thing as Scots-Irish
Five- The Scots-Irish didn’t mix with the native Irish
Six- The Scots-Irish where originally Irish before they were Scottish
Seven- The potato famine was an intended genocide
This video isn’t a substitute for the original, it’s more like part two, so if you haven’t seen the original, you will certainly want to go back and watch it at the link below:
Hey everybody this is Colonel Carson with Family Tree Nuts, and I’m a professional genealogist and a historian. At Family Tree Nuts, we build family trees for clients that either don’t know how, don’t have the time, or don’t want to pay those expensive membership fees. We’d love to honor your ancestors for you. We also make history videos all over the United States, and a few countries, so if you like videos like these, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Oh! And don’t forget to check out our large playlist of history videos from Ireland as well.
I will now address the subjects of this article. Keep in mind that this is a brief description and explanation, and each topic could be its own full-length article. One common theme in each topic is the definition of being Irish is different depending on who you are and where you are from.
One- You’re not Irish, you are an American! Ethnicity & Heritage vs. Nationality. Thousands of Irish natives have commented saying this and it’s obvious that they are super annoyed at so many Americans “hijacking” their country and claiming attachment to it. Many of them consider it “cultural appropriation” when we don the green and sing songs about our beloved motherland Ireland. To make it worse, about the time that we released our first video, U.S. President Joe Biden had recently visited Ireland and made a speech mentioning how he was Irish. That really ticked them off!
I think the root of the problem is the difference of interpretation of one calling themselves “Irish”. The Irish nationals believe if you were born in Ireland, you are Irish. Period. Nothing else to add, no hyphens, nothing. Born in Ireland equals Irish. They believe that if a man and woman are born in Ireland but move to England and have children, the children are not Irish, they are English. They would accept saying that the children were English, born to Irish parents, but the kids are not Irish. They also believe if a couple was born in Nigeria, move to Ireland and have children, those children are Irish, even though they likely have zero Irish DNA.
In America, it’s completely different. The United States has been settled by immigrants from all over the world, and usually those immigrants at least in the beginning lived in communities with others from their original country. In those communities traditions such as certain foods were embedded into the generations. Since Americans were from all over, many of us began to take pride in our identity of being from our countries of origin. This is similar to cheering for your local sports teams. We considered ourselves American of course, but we also consider ourselves to be Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh, German, Italian, French, Scandinavian, etc., etc.
The Irish nationals consider being Irish their nationality. Irish-Americans consider being Irish our Ethnicity and/or Heritage. Until fairly modern times, Ireland didn’t have very many immigrants from all over so, most everyone around them came from the same background. Americans proudly speak of our origins. Maybe if the Irish nationals can realize why so many Americans call themselves Irish, they would quit getting so upset about it. The way I see it, most Irish citizens, and Irish-Americans have the same exact ancestors, we come from the same roots, and our DNA is the same. The piece of dirt that we were born on really shouldn’t define what we are.
Two- Plastic Paddies. This is a derogatory term and used as a slur to describe folks that claim to be Irish but weren’t born in Ireland and do not know a thing about Irish culture and history. The native Irish get tired of folks from elsewhere representing what they think the Irish are. They are often disgusted with the negative stereotypes that are used to describe them and are offended when Americans tell them that they are Irish. I’ve witnessed it first hand when my clan and I attended the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cork, Ireland, the home of my direct male ancestors. There was nary a shamrock, leprechaun, or pot or gold, and we didn’t even see St. Patrick!
What many Americans consider to be Irish, some of the native Irish consider offensive. They think that Americans are clowning them, liking it to the same thing as European-Americans dressing up as Native Americans. A way to understand their way of thinking is how many folks in Appalachia get offended by the hillbilly stereotype, or how true Native Americans feel when every pale face they meet tells them that they are Cherokee.
I should probably mention that not every native Irish person gets upset with Plastic Paddies, some appreciate folks wanting to be like them. And of course, they sure do love the income from American tourism.
Three- I’m not Irish, I’m an American. While this is related to and the opposite of our first topic, it does have some additions to it. A growing number of Americans are not considering themselves as the ethnicity of their ancestors and now embracing their American nativeness. This could be due to amount of years and generations that have passed since their ancestors immigrated and the blending together of so many ethnicities into what has become American culture. For much of the United States’ history, it’s citizens referred to themselves as Virginians, Ohioans, Kentuckians, and the term American wasn’t an overly popular used term until around the time following the Civil War. A wave of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe came to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s and many of them continued to call themselves Italian, Polish, Russian, etc. Perhaps the fact that it has been at least three to five, or even more generations since a mass immigration, that has caused more of us to refer to ourselves as simply, American.
Four- There is no such thing as Scots-Irish. Believe it or not, this is a comment that we have often received. Once again, as with our first topic, this is another example of terminology being different, in different places. As I stated in our first video, the term Scots-Irish was not used in the United States until the mid 1800s, after the wave of Irish immigration due to the potato famine. The term was used to differentiate the mostly protestant immigrants who came from Northern Ireland about a century earlier and the new wave of catholic Irish. Before this time the immigrants from Northern Ireland had referred to themselves simply as Irish, and that is one of the main reasons that so many of us today have heard from our families that they are Irish, when in fact they are Scots-Irish.
Scots-Irish is an American term that is somewhat unknown in Europe. The people that Americans refer to as Scots-Irish, Europeans refer to as Ulster-Scots, or Ulstermen. To many native Irish, there is nothing Irish about the Ulster-Scots, and giving them any possession of the term Irish is sometimes offensive.
Five- The Scots-Irish didn’t mix with the native Irish. This is a comment that many folks have aggressively made. The native Irish were almost entirely Catholic, while the Scots-Irish, or Ulster Scots were almost entirely Protestant, mostly Presbyterian. If you know the history of Northern Ireland, often referred to as the Ulster Plantation, you are aware of the generations of constant fighting and disagreements between the two groups. The situation was and still is similar to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
In our first video, I made this exact quote: “The two groups constantly fought each other but they also intermixed and married each other. Over a few generations, they became a new group of people that we refer to today as the Scots-Irish.” Many commentors are adamant that the two groups of people WOULD NOT have intermixed and most definitely would not have intermarried. My reply to them is when in human history have two groups of people living among one another not intermixed? While in both communities it may have been scandalous to do so, I’m reminded of the stories of Romeo and Juliette, and the Hatfields and McCoys. Feuds and fighting can’t stop love. It may not have been very common, but to say that it didn’t happen is pretty ridiculous.
Six- The Scots-Irish where originally Irish before they were Scottish. Many folks wanted to rebut our first video by making this statement. Yes, I’ll certainly agree that about one and a half millennia ago, in the 400s and 500s the Celtic Tribe known as the Scotti, moved from what would become Ireland to what would become Scotland. Over a thousand years later, the Scots moved to Ulster in Northern Ireland. The argument made was that since the Scottish were originally from Ireland, then the Scots-Irish were technically Irish themselves because they come from the same people. While this is technically true, this fact wasn’t what the original video was about, it was about how many Americans that think that they are Irish are actually Scots-Irish. The video wasn’t about the entire history of Ireland and if we want to use this same ideology, where did the Scotti come from before they lived in Ireland? Where did they live before that? At what point does every ethnicity come from the same ethnicity and everyone is everything? I’m not making light of the comments that were made, I’m simply stating that in order to not over complicate the videos, I must try to stay on topic as best that I can.
Seven- The potato famine was an intended genocide. This is a mega topic and one that we plan to do a series of videos about in the near future, so make sure you subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss them. I must say that the potato famine and the thoughts that it was a genocide has little to do with someone thinking they were Irish or not, but rarely does the topic come up without folks, maybe rightfully so, going on this tangent. This is a complicated subject that gets into politics and personal biases.
If you are unaware of the potato famine, I’ll sum it up in two sentences. In the 1840s much of Ireland’s potato crop was destroyed by a fungus causing a food shortage, and the British government actually exported much of the food produced by Ireland, which caused a terrible famine. The result of this famine was about of quarter of the Irish population immigrated to the United States or other countries, and to this day, the population has not surpassed what it was before the famine.
Today, many aggressively claim that the starvation of Ireland was intentional by the British government, to wipe many of them out and seize their farms. It was a terrible time that many of our ancestors suffered, including one branch of my own.
This concludes our main topics of discussion but before I end this video, I need to go on record that yes, obviously some of you actually are Irish, and if you want to get technical, even you folks that are Scots-Irish are Irish. So many folks have been offended by me making the blanket statement that you aren’t Irish, but in the original video, I clearly make this point as well. Yes, a few of the millions that claim it, are Irish, but for most of you, the bottom line is, it’s only a speck of who you are. We should all be proud of your true ancestors and who we really are.
So now we know why I said that you’re STILL not Irish. What do you think? Do you know people who claim to be Irish that probably aren’t? What are your thoughts about those that do? We’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments below. Make sure that you subscribe, and don’t forget to see our original video that is jammed packed full of facts about this subject! You will also likely want to watch our videos entitled “NO! You’re NOT Cherokee” and “NO! You’re STILL NOT Cherokee!”. We are proud to share this information with all of you, and be sure to see our video about this subject at the link below. And remember, Family Tree Nuts, let out nuts find the nuts in your family tree.
-Colonel Russ Carson, Jr., Founder, Family Tree Nuts