Comment by Danny Alexander on January 23, 2014 at 1:04pm

"Fighting Irish" does not mean we start altercations or brawls, it simply means "we never give up" regardless the odds!

Comment by Jim Curley on January 23, 2014 at 1:34pm

Danny, do you think that the kid wearing the leprechaun uniform looks that much different than some of characters in Thomas Nast's cartoons of the Irish in the 19th century? I don't.

Comment by Danny Alexander on January 23, 2014 at 1:44pm

Yes I think he does but the Lep has been a part of Irish Lore long before us. If you have ever attended a ND game at South Bend you will see it is done ina very tasteful way and not allowed to fester into insults or other means of provocation. He is just the Irish mascot! I am not ashamed of the Lep as long as it is represented as it should be.

Comment by Danny Alexander on January 23, 2014 at 1:45pm

Jim, you aren't a Michigan fan are you? LOL

Comment by Jim Curley on January 23, 2014 at 1:54pm

"Fester." Hmmm, interesting choice of words. Fester as in a sore?

Gaeilgeoir Comment by Bernie Joyce on January 23, 2014 at 3:27pm

When I lived in Britain I found that Irish jokes were used by non Irish people as a put down in a passive aggressive way. It was very hard to say anything because if I did the response was "Can'nt you take a joke".But I know when someone is joking for a laugh and when it is to insult.

On the other hand when tensions were high before the peace process and there were frequent bomb scares which resulted in the underground being closed on occasion and the ring of steel created around London. A lot of Britains disliked the Irish and regarded us as stupid. It did not help matters when the Irish took the piss out of themselves. This gave them the excuse to make jokes about us saying " Well you make fun of yourselves so why are you upset when we do it"

Finally as already mentioned the Irish do like a drink but we are no saints. I saw it in London years back and it is happening in Austrailia today. Were they get so drunk at the weekends, fight and are a pain in the ass. Plus I was one of the few that enjoyed learning the culture of the country I was a guest in. Most did'nt and from what I have herd things have'nt change much today. Living in an Irish bubble is'nt good. 

This is a good debate to have but as you can see I have mixed feelings and can not be for or against the argument.

Admin Comment by Joe Gannon on January 23, 2014 at 11:16pm

Bernie, a lot of the ethnic groups who like to make fun of the drinking of the Irish live in glass houses themselves, not the least of which would be the British. I was once on a train going to Canada that had a group of British football fans on it who were all congregated down in the drinking car. They got so drunk and rowdy, just like the stereotypical British football fans, that somewhere around the middle of Vermont they actually had to stop the train and have the state police take them off.

Gaeilgeoir Comment by Bernie Joyce on January 24, 2014 at 9:47am

I agree with what you are saying Joe and I am not saying it is only the Irish who behave badly abroad. It is interesting that there is far more emphasis on us being drunk than the British. We are stuck with a bad image that wo'nt go away until we show the world that there is more to us than that.  

Comment by Tom Pendergast on January 24, 2014 at 4:27pm

It's not that I don't poke fun at others and it's not that I can't take a joke, but seeing the same drunken references year after year after year after year is too much. If it were any other ethnic/religious/political etc. group it would be in the Supreme Court

Comment by Jim Curley on January 24, 2014 at 4:36pm

In the 80s or 90s (I forget which), there was a concerted protest among Irish-American about "drunken" references to the Irish in greeting cards. It was very successful, and you might be pressed to find such a card in the States today.

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