# 10th generation Americans claiming they're Irish **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 5, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736 "2003-09-05T15:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/121 "2014-02-20T14:35:44Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Well, I thought I was clear in my post that I find people who claim to be from cities they are not, or from countries that they are not, they are trying to give themselves cachet. “I’m Irish!” really? cuz you seem like just a boring white guy from the burbs. And it should be clear from the following posts that in some cases you’re wrong (with regard to cities, anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/122 "2014-02-20T14:50:00Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Ha, I’ve done that exact thing. It’s because saying, “I’m from Silver Spring” or “I’m from College Park” to some stranger on a plane will get you a blank stare, but “I’m from DC” will get you a look of understanding. They all blend together anyway; who cares? > > On preview: what Odesio said. Exactly! Americans really aren’t the best at geography on a conversational basis, so you have to lead them a little. “I’m from this town.” “Don’t know it.” “its by this small city.” “Don’t know it” “Its _near-by_ this larger city. Know it?” “A little…” “Ok. Visualize in your mind a planet with two oceans. Imagine the thinner ocean has a western shore line… and the bottom looks like a drooping penis. Never mind what looks like dribble… thats Cuba. Now look North… look _way up North_ from the penis…” ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/123 "2014-02-20T14:56:27Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Hipster! :mad: Hehe. Busted. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/124 "2014-02-20T18:37:39Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > And it should be clear from the following posts that in some cases you’re wrong (with regard to cities, anyway). It’s the internet’s first disagreement. Anyway, I clearly touched a nerve, but you can tell when someone’s trying to get some street cred when they actually live in Darbydale Phase II. My bother in law is Mr. Ireland. Irish flag, Irish shirts, and I think he gave money to help the IRA during the fighting (thus prolonging a conflict that he barely understood). He was really let down when he went to Ireland and was repeatedly told that he wasn’t Irish. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/125 "2014-02-20T19:14:07Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I think he gave money to help the IRA during the fighting (thus prolonging a conflict that he barely understood). He was really let down when he went to Ireland and was repeatedly told that he wasn’t Irish. Perhaps he should have kept a receipt. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/126 "2014-02-21T02:22:23Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Your average self-identified Irish American is a person who will flay the unenlightened over the stereotype that the Irish are all drunkards while also insisting that their Irish blood means they can seriously drink you under the table. You, in this case, often being Americans of German descent, go figure. If you add “the average self-identified Irish American _in a fraternity house_” this makes sense. Otherwise, there is something fundamentally wrong with people who have missed a hundred years of affable-drunk stereotyping, and seemingly every good family reunion/wedding/holiday, who think their forebears are known for drinking fortitude and have set out to prove it. They need saving. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/127 "2014-02-21T02:35:09Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > He was really let down when he went to Ireland and was repeatedly told that he wasn’t Irish. I’m shocked that he shared this information with you. I would expect he’d come back boasting about how he was MORE IRISH than all the O’Donnells and Murphys he’d met over there, and how they’d immediately noticed it and complimented him on his echt\* Irishness. “Why, I was sartin you came from the next village over!” \*Obviously not the right word, but you know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/128 "2014-02-21T19:34:27Z")
> [@brainfizz](#): > > What the heck is it with some Americans? I’ve heard it said so often, especially on this board, where some American person will get all high and mighty about how his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was affected by the potato famine. > You’re not Irish-American. You’re not Scottish-American. You’re just bloody American. Live with it! Grrr! 😃 Hey Math Whiz- let’s be conservative and say that people live for an average of 60 years. Fair to say less back then and more now. That’s (roughly) 2.5 generations. On your planet, 150 years may be 10 generations removed from the Old Country. Here on Earth, it’s really not that far back. It’s kind of a queer pitting, this one is. I’m wondering why you didn’t go whole cloth and pit [Indigenous Peoples of The Americas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas). 13,500 years is a respectably long period of time. If you were to pit, say, people in your town who claim to be Manchurian because 13,500 years ago, their “Peeps” strolled across Beringia, I might be right there with you. Thin broth, this one. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/129 "2014-02-22T14:27:21Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Hey Math Whiz- let’s be conservative and say that people live for an average of 60 years. Fair to say less back then and more now. > > That’s (roughly) 2.5 generations. On your planet, 150 years may be 10 generations removed from the Old Country. Here on Earth, it’s really not that far back. You’re both wrong. > **[Generation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation)** > > A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship, generation is a structural term, designating the parent–child relationship. In biology, generation also means biogenesis, reproduction, and procreation. > Generation is also a synonym for birth/age cohort in demographics, ma... > [@](#): > > In developed nations the average familial generation length is in the high 20s and has even reached 30 years in some nations. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/130 "2014-02-23T03:37:58Z")
I’m tired of feeling like I’m supposed to genuflect any time someone mentions their ancestry. No one gives a shit who your relatives were. And if they do, they’re probably bigots. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/131 "2014-05-11T14:10:13Z")
> [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](#): > > I’m tired of feeling like I’m supposed to genuflect any time someone mentions their ancestry. > > No one gives a shit who your relatives were. And if they do, they’re probably bigots. You think you have it bad? I’ve got some Aryan looking friend who has some “Creole” blood. Probably 1/1264th. To make it worse, he married an Asian woman. You can imagine the fine lectures that everybody gets everytime some black person gets beaten up, of his own ‘mixed’ ancestry. Then, he brings up his wonderful wife, and we get the story of how ‘mixed marriages’ offend so many, and they persecute him blah, blah, blah…to the point of my wishing for death. His, his wife’s, mine, doesn’t matter, just somebody, please, give me a moments peace from this! ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/132 "2014-05-12T20:41:11Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Then they’re lazy. I’m from a small town outside of Coventry. I am not from Coventry. Coventry is in a different county to where I am from, it just happens that the county I am from has no cities and Coventry is the closest large settlement. > > So I always say something a long the line of “a small town just outside of Coventry, you won’t have heard of it”. I used to be friends with someone who lived in Crete, IL who I caught telling people on the internet he was “From Chicago” with no qualifiers. I would roll my eyes now, but was much younger at the time and from a crappy neighborhood on the south side, so I took genuine offense. Me: “You’re not from Chicago. Stop telling people you are.” Him: “It’s part of GREATER Chicago land, same thing” This went on and on for an absurdly long time. Suffice to say, I genuinely believe the majority of people who do this are trying to do it for improved social cache because they find where they are from, very boring. It isn’t that much more work to say “(small town) which is near (big city they would’ve heard of”. My cite is that I now live in a suburb, and don’t pretend I live in the nearest main city. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/133 "2014-05-12T20:51:26Z")
> [@Bruce\_Daddy](#): > > My full name is Lee Duncan Bruce. Wanna guess my ancestry? I’m descended from a very famous Scotsman and for some odd reason I’m very proud of all of this. I’m also proud to be an [American!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=209244) > > Your Scottish-American friend, > **Bruce\_Daddy** Are you descended from Robert The Bruce of the Clan The Bruce? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/134 "2014-05-12T21:30:12Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > Suffice to say, I genuinely believe the majority of people who do this are trying to do it for improved social cachet because they find where they are from, very boring. It isn’t that much more work to say “(small town) which is near (big city they would’ve heard of”. Nobody would ever claim either of the larger cities near my town for “added cachet.” But if you say “Greater LA” everybody on the planet has a general idea. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/135 "2014-05-12T22:40:30Z")
What if you’re from Zombieland? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/136 "2014-05-12T23:35:15Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > What if you’re from Zombieland? I’m descended from dead people. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/137 "2014-05-13T00:16:34Z")
I list my location as Cleveland, not because I think it’s more prestigious or anything, but because most people here probably have no idea where Lakewood, OH is. Being a block off target is a lot more informative than “Huh? I thought that was in Colorado?”. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/138 "2014-05-13T00:24:45Z")
Ah Lakewood, Ohio, with its lovely lakefront park that has a beautiful view of the Cleveland skyline. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/139 "2014-05-13T01:40:05Z")
Most normal people consider the suburbs part of the city. Or at least get the general idea. Because they’re not so fucking anal. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736/140 "2014-05-13T03:26:57Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Most normal people consider the suburbs part of the city. Or at least get the general idea. Because they’re not so fucking anal. I’ve noted that in New York and Chicago, at least, there’s a clear city vs suburbs divide in the minds of city dwellers. (And God forbid, even on these boards I once mentioned visiting my New York friend in Hoboken, I was immediately chastised and informed that Hoboken is not NYC, which, well, duh, I think I realized that when I had to take the PATH over to Jersey. I just think of it as general NYC, and, besides, my friend was born-and-raised in Queens, so I think of visiting him as visiting New York, since we spend most our time across the river.) However, they probably don’t fit under the designation of “most normal people.” That said, I’ve participated in the playful snottiness myself, especially when somebody asks me “Where are you from?” and I say “Chicago” and they say “what suburb?” And I say, “I _said_ Chicago.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10th-generation-americans-claiming-theyre-irish/199736.md?page=8)