Tom Humphries on identity and Irishness

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Eoinh - that's one of the most ridiculous postings I've ever read on here. How can you slate something someone has written whilst refusing to read it ? Outrageously small-minded.

To save your unsulleyed eyes from reading it (and I've no idea who Humphreys is, so no need/intention of defending him unduly) the article is actually more about the issue of identity than it is football or Glasgow Celtic.

But sure, even if that guy told you the time he'd be wrong....

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Ive read enough of his stuff to not I dont what to read any more. (A bit lime Camus0. The same stuff endlessly repeated. Its just that IMO his football articles are based on a few simple premises. He doesnt seem take much interest in LOI football - fair enough a good many columnists dont.

But neither does he take an interest in football but will write on it.

To me it seems to be based on a limited view he gets on travelling with Ireland, watching football on TV, reading the writings of dunphy and not knowing anything of the football world outside of England. He seems to go to a few club games a year in England and reads a few books on football. Thats it.

Theres only so much you can read, listen to and watch. Why should I waste my time on him. If i need someone to annoy me I read davros' posts and try and decode them.

The best columnists imo are Brian Glanville and Keir Radnedge

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Originally Posted by wws

oh they of course had to be Dublin c**nts didnt they??!



get up the yard they were probably cork whoers - u exiles just cant differentiate the varied accents of the mother land! :D

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They Didn't "have" to be Dubs WWS - they were. A deaf man wearing ear muffs could recognise a Dub accent at 50 paces for feck sake :D A ******land accent is just as easy to recognise.

what are planters davros? peanuts?

SHURELY YOU OF ALL PEOPLE HAVE RESPECT FOR THE MANY STRANDS OF "IRISHNESS"

for shame! lol

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Originally Posted by wws

if they were sporting scottish club replica shirts they got wot they deserved :p

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All 5 of us in Ireland football tops WWS. None of us ever wear anything else to Ireland senior games (obviously alongside troosers, nags, socks and shoes. :) I do tend to wear a Derry top to the U21 games, though).

Keep trying..... :D

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Originally Posted by wws

what are planters davros? peanuts?

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:D :D :D

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Originally Posted by wws

SHURELY YOU OF ALL PEOPLE HAVE RESPECT FOR THE MANY STRANDS OF "IRISHNESS"

for shame! lol

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Come on Dav, let's see you wheedle your way out of this one then...

:D PP

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Originally Posted by davros

Methinks yer taking it a little too literally..........Take the general point,though I would say everyone on this MB has one of those sorts of views on Celtic;from being fundamentally passionate 'pro-' to fundamentally indifferent/'anti-' & then use this relative stance as some form of defining their personal notion of 'Irishness'!

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Sigh :rolleyes:

i have nothing against or for glasgow If a number of people kept going on about how Once Caldes were the rallying call for Irishness and it was constantly being portrayed as such yould be forced to respond. Although no doubt they have three more Irish supporters than they used to have.

This country is getting ridiculous. Over christmas i was on a bus to kerry. The driver had a football ring in show with Bobby Gould going on about British football and what makes us different from the "foreigners". No one batted an eyelid on that show. People ringing in from Mayo describing Chelsea as "us".

The article has basically nothing to do with Celtic. The important bits for me were what he said about people born in England to Irish parents. There is something small-minded and ignorant among a lot of people in Ireland (not all) in the way they treat the generations of people and their children who were forced to leave these shores to look for work.

TH asks us to examine if we treat equally those who grew up in England with an Irish identity and those footballers who desperately dug out their granny's birth cert in their mid-twenties. I don't think it is unfair to say that we should rightly value the former over the latter; we shouldn't ostracise those who keep an Irish identity but live in England.

To give some examples - I think I heard a story about Gary Breen, born and bred in England, but always proud to be Irish, so much so that he wore an Ireland shirt into school the day after Ireland beat England in Stutgart (no doubt into a hostile playground). On the other hand, Cascarino had no connections with Ireland until he fancied having an international career - this attitude to team selection belittles what it means to play for your country, but the Breen and McGeedy cases certainly don't. At the same time, I have no problem with someone like Danny Murphy chosing to play for England, if that is where he feels his identity lies. This is not to prejudice either the issue of dual-identity, where it is possible for someone (like McGeedy) to feel equally patriotic to both the country of his parents and the country where he grew up.

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Originally Posted by davros

Yer obviously unfamiliar with the Eng.language........Btw,have played football v.Brian Glanville,more than 10 yrs.ago & he was a senile,pompous old git even then! ;)

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He is a senile pompous old git but hes a good writer. Hes interested in world football and knows his countrys failings and strongpoints in a football sense. Some of his historical stuff is very interesting. The Chelsea casuals is the name of his team isnt it?

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Originally Posted by wws

No it doesnt. Hurling is a stickball game. Get over it. This is typical of the touchy holier than thou attitude to sacred cows that the likes of Humphries peddles. Theres a whole million or so kids in this land who will quite happily never play a game of hurleying in their lives. Deal with it and dont give me some nonsense that we all have to speak in hushed tones and with due reverence for a game of hurling. We dont, I dont. By the way me da played inter county hurling and his da managed an intercounty side, albeit a **** one.

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So because a lot of kids won't play the game, it's just a "stickball" game....:rolleyes:
I have no hushed reverence for the game, it's a great game full stop, enjoyed by many thousands of people and is the highlight of the sporting year in this country, it is distinctly Irish and it is unique.
Interesting to see how you turned a piece in a newspaper about Glasgow Celtic and Ireland into a personal rant about hurling....:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by wws

oh they of course had to be Dublin c**nts didnt they??!
get up the yard they were probably cork whoers - u exiles just cant differentiate the varied accents of the mother land! :D

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Naw they must have been Dublin c*nts all right, presuming that because they are from little England, the North must be little Scotland.....:)

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Originally Posted by patsh

Naw they must have been Dublin c*nts all right, presuming that because they are from little England, the North must be little Scotland.....:)

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... so that makes Dingle little Wales? :confused: ;)

Norway likewise has a lot of ties with its emigrant poulation. They just happen to be in parts of america that the Irish arent in. (The brilliant Coen brothers movie set in the snowy north with the female police office had loads of norwegian americans in it - Damn it, the name of it is gone from me).

And lets not mention the welsh speaking Argentinians. :)

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Originally Posted by eoinh

i actually havent read what you posted because what i have learned from reading Humphreys articles is that he may have an idea about Gaa or even rugby he hasnt a clue about football.

Whatever he has said abou Glasgow Celtic - good, bad or indifferent its wrong.

I would regard Humphreys as the ultimate barstooler. He reguritates skys coverage in his own jaundiced world weary style.

Tried to emulate Dunphy (whos no great shakes himself) and failed.

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Couldn't agree more. The lad is a hyped bum who masks his arogance, ingnorance and narrow minded views with large words etc. :rolleyes: He is no better than Dunphy, actually worse as we expect it to be on RTE not the Irish Times-Ultimate Barstooler is right! :cool: :D

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Originally Posted by eoinh

Norway likewise has a lot of ties with its emigrant poulation. They just happen to be in parts of america that the Irish arent in. (The brilliant Coen brothers movie set in the snowy north with the female police office had loads of norwegian americans in it - Damn it, the name of it is gone from me).

And lets not mention the welsh speaking Argentinians. :)

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Fargo is the name I think you're looking for.

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Originally Posted by eoinh

Norway likewise has a lot of ties with its emigrant poulation. They just happen to be in parts of america that the Irish arent in. (The brilliant Coen brothers movie set in the snowy north with the female police office had loads of norwegian americans in it - Damn it, the name of it is gone from me).

And lets not mention the welsh speaking Argentinians. :)

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Fargo ??

There's plenty of small towns/areas in the US with strong links to certain parts of Europe where large parts of the population initially came from (e.g. the mill towns of New Hampshire; Lancaster County and the other Amish/Dutch counties in Pennsylvania etc etc). But these are usually isolated examples. It wouldn't be correct to say there's a large pan-national ethnic-conscious amongst the American-Dutch people (who actually founded places like New York and gave the US words like Yankee), or any other long-established American ethnic groups bar the Irish and Italian-Americans.

As for Conor74's stat about the reduction in percentage of US residents claiming Irish ancestry - it would be completely wrong to suggest that that in any way shows a reduction in Irish-American consciousness (i.e. that previously self-declared Irish-Americans are turning their back on their ethnic origins). It is in large part due to Americas hugely dynamic demographics. The US population grows by an average 1% per annum - 2.5m new Americans every single year. Thats a 10.5% increase across the last census decade. The majority of this growth comes from amongst the Hispanic and Asians communities, with approx 30% of the total growth due to immigration. Meanwhile, net Irish migration to the US is at its lowest since records began, so the numbers of Irish going to the US is below 'renewal rate' in a rapidly expanding population. Therefore, the actual number of those with/declaring Irish ancestry may not actually be declining in real terms (it might even be increasing !). But expressed as a percentage, Irish-Americans are clearly in decline as an ethnic group. This decline will continue across the 21st Century, with the population of the US predicted to double by 2050.

Other factors may also have some influence on how and why people express their ethnicity in the US census. As the US becomes more and more diverse, and the number of incoming Irish dwindles, American individual's connection to their Irish past becomes more and more distant with generations - in particular if you have a non-Irish name (which is an individual's most obvious and often strongest link to their past). If the last 3 generations of your family were all called Martinez and you all speak Spanish, but beyond that your family was primarily Irish, are you likely to feel more Latino or Irish ?

Anyways - the census returns can not in themselves be used to suggest that Irish-Americans are consciously rejecting their ancestry.

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

As a born and bred Irishman slowly approaching the point in time from which more than half his life will have been spent living OUTSIDE of Ireland, this whole issue of 2nd generation identity is becoming increasingly poignant to me.

There's a high chance I'll end up having kids in England. The thought of one of them bounding home from the shops one day wearing an England football or rugby top fills me with fear. I hope/intend to bring-up any kids I may have outside of Ireland with a very strong sense of their Irishness - even if it is masked behind an English/American/French accent...

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Does that mean you intend to force your Irishness onto them? Surely children born to parents of any nationality in a 'foreign' country have the right to adopt the identity/nationality of their own choosing, be it the nationality of the country they were born in or the nationality of their parent(s).

It a bit like the Catholic religion. How many Irish people have turned away from Catholicism because they had it shoved down their throat when they were young?

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Originally Posted by Superhoops

How many Irish people have turned away from Catholicism because they had it shoved down their throat when they were young?

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Presented without comment.

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Originally Posted by Superhoops

Does that mean you intend to force your Irishness onto them? Surely children born to parents of any nationality in a 'foreign' country have the right to adopt the identity/nationality of their own choosing, be it the nationality of the country they were born in or the nationality of their parent(s).

It a bit like the Catholic religion. How many Irish people have turned away from Catholicism because they had it shoved down their throat when they were young?

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I won't 'force' their Irish identity upon them any more than all parents essentially 'force'/imprint a large chunk of their children's character anyways (e.g. manners, broad political beliefs, religion, football team to support etc etc). My enforcement wouldn't involve dragging them to a church that they don't believe in, however, and there's much more to Irishness than religion.

Regular trips 'back home' to stay with the grandparents/see the country, watching a lot of Irish TV with me, stories from Irish folklore/history, travelling to watch Ireland football games. Like I said, I'd like them to be strongly aware of their Irish identity - to be very clear that there is a place called Ireland that is more than 'just another country' to their family, that they should have an understanding of that country, that they are legally entitled to citizernship of it, and that they should be informed and proud of that part of their own and their family's heritage - alongside whatever identity they may or may not naturally develop in the land where they live (coincidentally, I'd also like my kids to be multilingual. But sure that'd only be brainwashing them...)..

If you take/took your kids to Rovers games week-in week-out from a very young age, is that not effectively brain-washing ? (or at least child cruelty... ;) ) Is that not the same essentially as taking them to mass every week ? Would you rather just leave them in a corner and see if they support any football team of their own accord... (God forbid - maybe even Bohs !) ? The hell you would..... :)

This is top stuff, PP. I'm just sooooooo sad that this is past my bed time now to join the fracas. But before I go: Fargo had Swedes in it. Brian Glanville had well and truly lost his marbles when I saw him at Lansdowne Road in 1993 (the person who claimed he was a great writer also thought Hans Christian Andersen's King was fully clothed). Eoin, I nearly had a few words with Humph in Basel in 93 over his role in Saipan but I read this latest. Hit the nail on the head in a lot of ways, but you can always argue he was preaching to the converted. WWS: Tut, tut: Yet another of the Irish schooling population to have been sick the week the 'e' word was discussed in history. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

I won't 'force' their Irish identity upon them.....

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I was only posing a question not suggesting that you were going to do so.

Without wishing to sound patronising, your approach seems to be well balanced. I am sure that we both are aware of situations where the approach has not been so enlightened!

There is nothing that alienates people, particularly children, more than 'force-feeding' whether it involves nationality, religion, food, politics or following a football team. I was brought up on a diet of Fianna Fail and Shamrock Rovers and both stuck in my craw from an early age. Not sure if I have moved on by voting Labour and following Bray Wanderers, but at least I chose them for myself!

Finally, bonne chance avec enseigner vos enfants à être bilingues!