Quote Originally Posted by arrScott View Post
Since there are 44 million of us here, and only 6 million people of Irish descent left in Ireland, who is to say which is the "real" Irish culture, if only one can be?
Something about this part of your statement makes me uncomfortable. Is culture a numbers game? Is it about geography? Is it about genetics?

I think part of my problem is that I, personally, am a mutt. My maternal grand-father came from Germany, so I'm a quarter German. My maternal grandmother was Scots / Cherokee / French / Dutch, so I've got splashes of all of those. My paternal grandmother came from Ireland, so I'm a quarter Irish. My paternal grandfather was Danish / English / Dutch / Greek. So what am I? My answer has always been "an American," but it seems like a lot of people don't want to accept that as an answer.

Most of us who are Americans, whose families have been here for more than a generation, can hardly point to one area of the world from which our ancestors came. Most of mine at least came from Europe; I have friends whose ancestors, while as varried as mine, came mostly from Asia, or Africa. What are they, if not American?

Of the 44 million Irish descendants you quoted, how many have more than a thread of Irish in their cultural heritage? I'm 1/4 Irish, which, as I understand it, means that I could apply for Irish citizenship currently. But I would never claim that I have a better understanding of what it means to be Irish than someone who actually lives in Ireland, even if I and my distant cousins here in America out-number the distant cousins who live in Ireland.

I think the best solution is to say, "this is an Irish-influenced part of an American sub-culture," and let it go at that.