Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[Kid Cossack]

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

Maybe culture is about how you feel?

I think part of my problem is that I, personally, am a mutt.

That's not a problem! That's a blessing. We mutts are blessed with hybrid vigor. Neat stuff!

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.

If they don't want to accept "I'm an American" (or "I'm a Canadian" or "An Aussie, mate, right down to the marrow") then that's THEIR problem.

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.