Interesting email from an Irish fellow about Irish kilts.

[kallen]

Your son's genealogy breaks down in thirds? How the heck did you conceive him in the first place?

I carried the one!!!

[ccga3359]

I carried the one!!!

I think it be fairer to say that your wife is carrying the one!

[macsim]

So....does Bono have to give back his cowboy hat now?

[Archangel]

So....does Bono have to give back his cowboy hat now?

Now, that wasn't nice. It was clever but it wasn't nice. Next, his sunglasses will have to go, and his gretsch...

[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?

[Perldog007]

I am sure that the guy who wrote the OP complaining about the plastic paddies was sincere in his convictions. When he, like PDCORILS realizes the irony of working in an Irish American Pub and hating on the plastic paddies, I am sure he will give all his wages and tips to charity and head back to Eire to be with real Irishmen.

Count on it.

Don't know what really makes this kind tick, but I have suffered similiar moments of bias. Had a recent arrival from Haiti, naturalized type, complain about working on independence day. His complaint angered me because my son was that day in battle. Took me a while to realize how ridiculous my anger was.

I will have to cut this cat some slack, but not too much. Back to the olde country with him if those of us who "eat that sh*t up" offend him so badly. They need bartenders there too.

P.S. If he was within driving distance I would have to resist the urge to don my SWK Saffron and go terminal plastic paddy on him.

[slohairt]

I am sure that the guy who wrote the OP complaining about the plastic paddies was sincere in his convictions. When he, like PDCORILS realizes the irony of working in an Irish American Pub and hating on the plastic paddies, I am sure he will give all his wages and tips to charity and head back to Eire to be with real Irishmen.

Count on it.

Don't know what really makes this kind tick, but I have suffered similiar moments of bias. Had a recent arrival from Haiti, naturalized type, complain about working on independence day. His complaint angered me because my son was that day in battle. Took me a while to realize how ridiculous my anger was.

I will have to cut this cat some slack, but not too much. Back to the olde country with him if those of us who "eat that sh*t up" offend him so badly. They need bartenders there too.

P.S. If he was within driving distance I would have to resist the urge to don my SWK Saffron and go terminal plastic paddy on him.

True, true. But remember he is not from Éire, he is from Northern Ireland.

[Sean_the_Kilted]

Here is my 2 cents on things. First of all as mentioned in a different thread, practices (such as kilt wearing in ireland) don't have to be hundreds of years old to be considered traditional. Traditions can spring up in a generation or two. Next, there are lots of tartans for places and cultures that have no history of kilt wearing, germany, and the netherlands, US States, Antarctica, etc... Does that mean if I'm wearing a German Hertiage Kilt that I'm not celebrating my german hertiage just cause Germans don't wear kilts? Of course not! The german hertiage tartan was designed to represent those of german ancestry and in wearing it you are honoring your german roots. Irish tartans are the same way. They were designed specifically to honor a county or surname in ireland and by wearing them you honor your Celtic/irish heritage, regardless if any of the people that actually live there wear it or how old it is. Clothing doesn't have to be approved by a particular group of people to make it more or less meaningful for you the wearer. I could goto New York City and buy and wear a I love NY t-shirt and I would be honoring New York, though the majority of the NYC citizens would never wear a I love NY t-shirt