Dude. The vast majority of Irish people can't speak a word of Gaelic. 10 years ago when I went to Ireland, the bilingual population was 0.1%!!!!! How many people use Gaelic in their daily life in Ireland? Less than 100 000. Guess the rest of you are just English, pretending to be Irish, eating fish & chips & going to Tesco's...
The only thing I ever heard from Irish people that they hated about being "Irish-American" was the idea that Ireland was a magical pixie world full of leprechauns and gold.
Wow. So I guess that the 60% of Ireland's population that don't speak any Gaelic are't Irish ether. And neither were the 94% that couldn't speak any (beyond "craic" & "uisce") 10 years ago. Please tell your friend that the majority of Ireland's population is English, not Irish. After all, if they were Irish, they'd speak the language, right? And not just in school when they're forced to.
Not to mention that it shows an extreme ignorance of the fact that USA & Canada are not 1000's of years old. Of course people have a tie to ancestors who came here a few generations ago, and brought aspects of their culture with them.
I find that Euros dont really know anything about the USA. Im Canadian and when I travel I routinely shock Europeans by reminding them that the USA is a huge country of over 300 million people. They seem to think its about the size of Britain.
???? I live in Canada and people say this all the time. Always have.
Had a friend growing up from an Italian-German family. Ate schnitzel, watched soccer, corrected us on our pronunciation of 'pasta.' Didn't speak any language other than English and his parents were 2nd generation Canadians, who also spoke nothing but English.
My family came from Ukraine & Ireland 4 & 3 generations ago, respectively. Family gatherings always included halupschi, perogies, and Ukrainian pastries. Never spoke Ukrainian or heard any word of Ukrainian except for the names of the food & of some of my older relatives.
Can easily go on and on about the vast majority of people in Canada.
So I dont think you know what you're talking about.
I dont know why it irks you guys. Canada does this too. It's because, unlike Europe, we haven't been here for thousands of years. My grandfather was from Dublin. He came to Canada and didn't want to go back to Ireland, ever, because he hated religion so much. But he still passed on aspects of Irish culture to us, and not because he wore green on St. Patricks day once.
It's all about the pathetic rationalization we have placed on greed and profit. We can make millions redundant with AI and still have a social safety net that keeps society stable and healthy.
But no, that wouldn't be "fair" to the people who generate millions of net worth every 5 minute.
There is an issue with these folks though. They quite often are hyper-gatekeepers because of their own insecurity about not being "legit." They tend to be over-critical and thus quite tedious (& socially precarious) to talk to.