I Used to Be Irish

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

As a Euro doper, I agree. I have an Irish surname and one of my great grandparents was from Gwynedd and spoke no English, but I’ve never considered myself to be anything other than English. I suspect that there are Americans with similar heritage who would describe themselves as “Irish” or “Welsh”. (BTW, where are all the Welsh-Americans, there must be some? A quick search of the Boards reveals five or six threads about St Patrick’s Day but none about St David’s Day.)

For resons that are too boring to go into, I was reading a Report the other day by The Heritage Council of Ireland on genealogical services.* When they conducted a public consultation exercise on the provision of self-service genealogical services, 44% of respondents were from America, compared with 41% from Ireland, 7% from Australia and 4% from the UK.

Personally, as a European, talk of “ethnicity” which is not based either on nationality, immediate provenance or some other clear, distinguishing factor such as language makes me a little uncomfortable, as does talk of Irish/Polish/German/Jewish/Norwegian “blood”.

[sub]*Towards Policies for Ireland’s Heritage: The Provision of Genealogical Services in Ireland, The Heritage Council, February 2000.[/sub]

22

I stop being Irish around this time of year, if it’s any comfort. Not that I’m more than a quarter to start with (although a quarter of me is a small person :wink: ), but the hoopla around St Pat’s is like an officially sanctioned ethnic slur. Imagine celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday by smoking crack and drinking white port from a bottle in a paper bag. The quarter Irish is what I was taught to call “Lace Curtain Irish,” while the sort of Irishness celebrated on St Pat’s is “Pig Shit Irish.” There are, after all, prejudices WITHIN ethnic groups, too.

As for waking up Jewish, that happened to my mother. She learned when she was fifty that her father was Jewish, not the non-practicing Lutheran she thought. (I had known it for years because he told me when I was six and told a very offensive Jewish joke that I didn’t actually get.) I have to laugh when I think of little Ruth Jewish-Last-Name, who couldn’t even be baptised in the Catholic church with that first name because it was an “Old Testament” name and who was raised the perfect little princess and whose father was in the “rag trade,” never figuring it out on her own.

Shortly after she found out she was watching a program about the Holocaust and asked my father if she should keep it secret in case something like that happened here.

“Naw, the authorities would have told YOU, if you didn’t already know.”

23

No, my “blood” is Irish/Bohemian/German/Jewish/Norwegian. Typical American mutt. And I have to agree, although I think “nationality,” itself, beyond “where I send my taxes,” OVERALL is pretty silly and sometimes dangerous.

Is anybody else confused by the recognizable “races” among the humans on the various “Star Trek” programs? I’d have thought, based on the universalization of the gene pool we are going through, that, by then, humans would have evened out to a medium tan and mostly with black hair.

24

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TomH *
**

In a sense I agree. In fact, when I called my Irish friend to tell him I’d just found out I was Jewish he completely didn’t “get it.” He saw no reason why this was interesting or important.

At the time I understood his point of view. But the sad fact of the matter is that this is how I was raised…to understand that my cultural heritage is a hobby and a way of identifying myself and a point of pride. It may be a silly, solely American phenomenon. But I am a silly, solely American person.

-L

25

OK, while I’m 7/8ths Irish, there was one great-grandmother who was Welch. So I am 1/16th Welsh. Does that count, Tom?

-Swiddles. Pig-shit Irish-American since 1979. Someone get me a whiskey.

26

This might prove helpful. My darling delusional mother, when told “You’re not really Jewish, Ma.” Has responded with the following arguments. [ul] [li]I’ve been persecuted. []They never DID find out where the lost tribe of Israel ended up, did they? I say Ireland. Where else would black hair and the delightful sense of irony come from? []hi, Opal! [/ul][/li]
On the other hand, she was raised in a VERY Irish-American extended family group. They all lived together. And one of my Momisms is “You can’t be Irish without knowing the world will break your heart by the time you turn 30.” A cheerful sentiment, but one that I think reflects the Irish-American experiance fairly well.

27

Wow. I went through my irish to jewish switch about 10 years ago. It is weirdly like having the rug ripped out from under you, nothing really changes in your life, but there’s something completely different about your history. It still feels weird to me and my sister, but we mostly laugh about it now.

My last name is Barry. My paternal grandfather never talked about his history. When my little sister turned 18 our father decided to tell us the truth about our heritage. My grandfather was conceived in Romania and born in Chicago. His name was Barney Weintraub. His father abandoned them in Chicago and went on to marry and abandon at least 2 other women and their children on his way to Los Angeles. My grandfather moved to Los Angeles in the '20s. In 1933 he married my grandmother and my uncle and father were born in '36 and '41.

In '43 my grandfather was manager of a heating and furnace factory, and the next step was promotion into the executive offices. After being bypassed several times he asked his boss what was happening and was informed that he would never be promoted because he was jewish.

At the time he also owned a small manufacturing company called “Barrymoore Enterprises” with a guy who’s last name was Moore. I don’t know where the company name originally came from, but he decided he might as well be John Barry. My father and uncle were so young at the time that they were not really aware of the switch, although because of the changes, family called my grandparents Barney and Anna, while friends they’ve met since the 40s call them John and Joan. The kids were never told about it. My dad found out in the '60s when he tried to get an internship at an aerospace company and couldn’t pass the security clearance, they said that he lied about his name. He went and checked his birth certificate and discovered that he was born a Weintraub.

My grandfather didn’t want anybody to know about it, so they kept it quiet for a long time. My dad decided that we should know, but didn’t tell us until we were adults because he wanted us to see anti-semitism for what it is, before understanding that it applied to us.

We were both in shock, and spent the rest of the day calling each other “Ms. Weintraub” - it still sounds weird. We’ve both been very curious about the traditions of judaism, so we’ve started attending services occasionally and have adopted a few bits of the culture. It just makes me so sad that there’s this huge part of my grandfather’s life that goes completely unacknowledged.

He died a couple of weeks ago and at his funeral my dad and his brother spoke about his life, but had to tapdance around this huge portion of it, because most of the people attending had no idea, and grandpa wanted it that way.

28

Wow slackergirl! What a story! By my best guess, you know EXACTLY how I feel. Neat. :slight_smile:

I didn’t want to get into the whole thing about my mother’s ethnicity being hidden from her parents and why. Just because it makes me all angry and emotional. Both regarding the adoption issue AND the anti-semitism issue.

In any case…L’chaim! (I think I spelled that right.) Glad you found your roots and are celebrating them too!

-L

29

HA! I’ve been theorizing about that for YEARS! What you said, plus:

  1. Corned Beef–nobody else eats it.

  2. Last names like Gold/Gould, Blum/Bloom.

  3. The raising of depression and guilt to an art form.

  4. The inability to hold one’s liquor. The tribes that get weepy moved to Ireland, a weepier place, and the ones who giggle and pass out stayed.

30

I found out a few years ago that the man that my great grandmother married was not my paternal grandfather’s father. We don’t know who his genes came from. So, my sister and I change our heritage to suit our mood. In March, he was probably an Irish man. :wink:

31

::: sputter…choke…cough :::

OMG, Swiddles! That was too funny! Actually made me choke on my diet Coke.
::: taking off clothes to go see how that monochromatic money feels :::

32

I could be part Irish, it’s hard to tell with all the branches in my family tree. One of my sisters traced parts of our family back to late 19th Century Scandinavia. Three of my Greatgrandparents came from Norway, one from Sweden. Another was a full-blood Native American, Flathead (Pacific NW) tribe. As for the rest, I have no idea. We don’t even know who Mom’s father was.

33

Something interesting happened to me as well with lineage. I had always been raised with the understanding that I was 3/4 Scots and 1/4 French. Found out that was not true, when I built my paternal grandmother a PC, and showed up unanounced at her house with it. I had prepaid a years worth of Internet dialup to go along with it, and showed her how to log in to the Net, email, etc. etc… She was just confused and lost.

Three months later, she is emailing me dirty jokes, visiting most major websites and doing geneology research online. She found that her (However many Greats) grandmother was Mary Tudor. Ummm, yeah. THAT Mary Tudor. Sister to Henry the Eighth, married to James IV of Scotland, and mother to James IV of Scotland. Imagine my shock. Me being a medeival reenactor, I absolutely loved this! It means I can wear the royal arms of England and Scotland within Society. That would make Henry my, let’s see, Great Uncle. And Elizabeth would be what? No idea.

O

Vidi Vici Veni!

34

Make that mother of James V.

O

35

SexyWriter and slackergirl, that’s a bit of stuff to deal with alright.

Let me foist velcome bot of you to de trribe! Nice to hev you!

Please allow me to familiarize you vit a few customs:

Foist, please remembe to buy it on sale! Neve pay retail! That’s fershtinka.

Secnd, try to answer kvesionz vit othe kvesionz, see?
If asked “vy”, de prope anse is “vy not”?

And toid, take de time to tell de neighber about your troubles - he vil tank you for de effert.
Seriously, I think there is little point in changing your whole life, after all the way you were brought up is what made you who you are. But it could be exciting to find out about additional things in your past.

36

I am such a mutt I wouldn’t be surprised to find Martian in my family tree.

My maternal grandmother was shipped to Puerto Rico when she was three from Spain. Her first husband (my biological grandfather) was “un buen puerco” according to my Abuela. So I’ve got pig in there --O.K., he was a redheaded European, but that was all my grandmother would say about him.

My paternal grandmother’s parents were Blackfoot and son of slave. My paternal grandfather was a “woodpile” baby.

I can claim with certainty that I’m American. I’ve got just about everything thrown in there somewhere.

37

For years, I though my ancestors were German. But a couple of years ago I got an e-mail from someone doing Genealogical research. From what they said, and how it jibed with what I knew, it was pretty clear that my ancestors came from Switzerland. I didn’t even know anything about Switzerland. I’d been looking into German culture all my life.

Ultimately, it didn’t make a bit of difference. I was still the same person. So, I don’t put any stock in ancestry. It doesn’t tell you that much about who you are.

38

Well Sexy look on the bright side.

One you get some more holidays.

Two you get out of seeing Riverdance.
I was raised in Oklahoma and now live in NYC. It took me two years in NYC to realize just why the networks always showed ‘The Ten Comandments’ at Easter time. Befor I just figured that it was the best religious movie and thats why they showed it then.
When anyone asks me what I am I tell them I’m an American.
This allows me to get drunk at any occasion. St. Paddies? Sure! Cico de Mayo? I’m there dude.

39

I went through something a bit similar when I was 18. I had just started in college and went to visit my (widowed)
Gramma. On day, as she absently flipped through some snapshots she found in the bottom of a drawer:

“Oh, look! Here’s one of Carroll [Grampa] when he was little. And with his mother!”
“His mother? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of her.”
“Well, adoptive mother…”
Pause
“Adoptive mother?”
“Well, grandmother, really…”
Pause…

So out it came. Grampa was a bastard, in the original sense of the term (my father and I both loved him to death).

Grampa’s mother was 15 when she was knocked up by Man Unknown. Her parents raised him as if he were their child, a feat made easier since they in fact had another baby about three years later.

Grampa had no idea of anything - as far as he knew, he was the seventh of eight children. In fact, his “brothers and sisters” -even his little brother - were his aunts and uncles.

He only found out the truth after his “mother” and “father” were both dead (the former when he was 12, the latter when he was 14). At that point he went to live with his “older sister” (actually his aunt) Irene, who by that point was married. She raised the three boys who were still school age, until they graduated from high school. Somewhere during this time, Grampa learned that his “sister” Alice was, in fact, his mother, a terrible humiliation for a young person in the 20s.

(Alice, in fact, did virtually nothing to raise my grandfather, leaving the burden entirely to her sister.)

He successfully kept the secret from my grandmother as well, at least until six years after they married. By then, gramma was was pregnant with my father (their only child), and “Aunt Alice” suddenly informed her that she was the child’s grandmother. Gramma was shocked, needless to say, and affronted when Alice turned into the mother-in-law from hell, after having done nothing to earn the position! I think Gramma was a little peeved with grampa, only because he didn’t tell her - but I’m sure she understood the shame he felt.

Now, I know that “Aunt Alice” was of scandinavian descent, and although we know nothing of the father it’s a safe bet (this was Minnesota) that he was, too. Gramma was German-from-Russia, Odessa to be exact, and grew up in North Dakota speaking German and English.

On the other side - well, that’s Southern. That means mixed English/Scottish/Welsh, along with Cherokee. Unlike other posters here, my family’s always been very proud of the fact that my great-great-great-great-grandmother (I think that’s the right number of greats) was Cherokee. Usually it’s mentioned in the same breath as my great-great-great-grandfather, who (not-very-voluntarily) fought for the Confederacy at Glorieta Pass, New Mexico and, when defeated, walked some eight hundred miles home to East Texas.

(Tom - I think the answer to your “where are the Welsh?” question is that not as many of them came, and those who did generally arrived several generations earlier than the Irish and so intermarried out of identity).

Culturally, I identify with the German-from-Russia more than anything else. Gramma taught me a few phrases of dialectic German, and much of the foods that I grew up with are from this community. To me that’s really what’s important - what did you know when you were a child?

40

I went through something a bit similar when I was 18. I had just started in college and went to visit my (widowed)
Gramma. On day, as she absently flipped through some snapshots she found in the bottom of a drawer:

“Oh, look! Here’s one of Carroll [Grampa] when he was little. And with his mother!”
“His mother? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of her.”
“Well, adoptive mother…”
Pause
“Adoptive mother?”
“Well, grandmother, really…”
Pause…

So out it came. Grampa was a bastard, in the original sense of the term (my father and I both loved him to death).

Grampa’s mother was 15 when she was knocked up by Man Unknown. Her parents raised him as if he were their child, a feat made easier since they in fact had another baby about three years later.

Grampa had no idea of anything - as far as he knew, he was the seventh of eight children. In fact, his “brothers and sisters” -even his little brother - were his aunts and uncles.

He only found out the truth after his “mother” and “father” were both dead (the former when he was 12, the latter when he was 14). At that point he went to live with his “older sister” (actually his aunt) Irene, who by that point was married. She raised the three boys who were still school age, until they graduated from high school. Somewhere during this time, Grampa learned that his “sister” Alice was, in fact, his mother, a terrible humiliation for a young person in the 20s.

(Alice, in fact, did virtually nothing to raise my grandfather, leaving the burden entirely to her sister.)

He successfully kept the secret from my grandmother as well, at least until six years after they married. By then, gramma was was pregnant with my father (their only child), and “Aunt Alice” suddenly informed her that she was the child’s grandmother. Gramma was shocked, needless to say, and affronted when Alice turned into the mother-in-law from hell, after having done nothing to earn the position! I think Gramma was a little peeved with grampa, only because he didn’t tell her - but I’m sure she understood the shame he felt.

Now, I know that “Aunt Alice” was of scandinavian descent, and although we know nothing of the father it’s a safe bet (this was Minnesota) that he was, too. Gramma was German-from-Russia, Odessa to be exact, and grew up in North Dakota speaking German and English.

On the other side - well, that’s Southern. That means mixed English/Scottish/Welsh, along with Cherokee. Unlike other posters here, my family’s always been very proud of the fact that my great-great-great-great-grandmother (I think that’s the right number of greats) was Cherokee. Usually it’s mentioned in the same breath as my great-great-great-grandfather, who (not-very-voluntarily) fought for the Confederacy at Glorieta Pass, New Mexico and, when defeated, walked some eight hundred miles home to East Texas.

(Tom - I think the answer to your “where are the Welsh?” question is that not as many of them came, and those who did generally arrived several generations earlier than the Irish and so intermarried out of identity).

Culturally, I identify with the German-from-Russia more than anything else. Gramma taught me a few phrases of dialectic German, and much of the foods that I grew up with are from this community. To me that’s really what’s important - what did you know when you were a child?