Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[arrScott]

Something about this part of your statement makes me uncomfortable. Is culture a numbers game? Is it about geography? Is it about genetics?

My point was that it's not a numbers game, and it's not a geography game. The only "real" culture is what real people actually do. The "Irish" traditions of Irish-Americans are no more or less authentic than the "Irish" traditions of people who live in Ireland. Sure, there's a lot of counterfactual nostalgia in the Irish-American sense of Irish-ness, but there's also a lot of deliberate artificiality in the Irish sense of Irish-ness, too. I mean, the potato is a Peruvian crop brought to Ireland by Spanish sailors. So are all the potato dishes I was served in Ireland not really Irish? Does the shepherd's pie I saw on the menu make the pubs I visited in County Kerry really Peruvian pubs or Spanish pubs, not Irish establishments? Of course not. That's a silly way to think of culture, but it's what the original emailer would have us do.

I'm 1/4 Irish, which, as I understand it, means that I could apply for Irish citizenship currently.

Under Irish law, you need to have at least one grandparent who was born in Ireland or who was an Irish national to be eligible for citizenship. I'm about half Irish by ancestry -- my mom's side -- but since the last direct ancestors to come over did so in the 1870s, I won't be getting that EU passport.

It took me a few days to look it up, but the original email talking about plastic Paddies and whatnot reminded me of an old Hawaiian saying I came across once. When a Hawaiian was embarrassed by or ignorant of traditional Hawaiian culture, he was said to be "he Hawai'i 'uwala Kahiki." Or, in English, "An Irish-potato Hawaiian."

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind being an Irish-potato Hawaiian!