Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[Mr. Kilt]

Wow, this thread has generated a LOT more interest than I'd expected.

Based on his second email to me it sounds like he really has some issues that HE needs to deal with.

I'm quite proud of who I am and what my ancestral background is. I really don't care what he thinks.

Back to your regular programming.

[slohairt]

Yes, it does sound like he has many issues to deal with. My Scottish grandmother would say "he dinnae ken dugs**** frae dirty pudden!"

One will always encounter ignorant hostility like this, and there isn't much one can do except ignore it. Even among the youth of Ireland, whether in the Republic or The North, people like this buffoon represent only a small (but very vocal) fraction of the Irish people.

Traditionally, (when Ireland was a poor country, and not the Celtic Tiger it is today) there was occasionally hostility between Irish expats and those who remained home. It can be summed up in this exchange:

"Why do they hate us so, Da?"
"Because they think we've come home to rub their faces in it, son."

[PiobBear]

I’m a piper. Pipers wear kilts. In Ireland, pipers often wear saffron kilts and play Irish music. I’m quite familiar, perhaps more so than most, with the history of the Irish kilt, and can generally carry on a cogent conversation about Irish history from before Cromwell to the present day without embarrassing myself too badly. I don’t own a plastic green bowler hat, a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” shirt, drink green beer, or affect an Irish accent (as someone once said, it only makes you sound like a retarded Australian). I’ve been told on more than one occasion by both Irish Americans and native-born Irish that my music has brought them a great deal of joy to their celebrations and comfort to their grieving.
A while back I was contracted to pipe for a delightful old woman from Cork. She’d recently been diagnosed as terminal, and had told her son that she’d like a piper at her funeral; he’d hired me to pipe for her while she was still here to enjoy it. I turned out in saffron kilt, brat & caubeen; she knew the words and sang along to all of my tunes, including Amhrán na bhFiann in Irish. Her son told me that outside of her grandchildren, nothing had given her more joy in her last days. I know who I am, where I come from, and what I do; why should I care what the occasional troll says; Irish or otherwise?