BS: What have the Irish ever done for us

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST,Guest Mad Ma
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 09:41 AM

I would like to distance myself from the "other guest". I agree with Ireland comments (2 above) I started this thread not to begin any arguments. I am Irish, and wanted to find out international opinion of us outside the fighting drunken stupid paddy stereotype.

MadMa

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: mooman
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 09:12 AM

There is hardly a country in this world were an Irish man has not been involved in some kind of construction,music,literature or other enterprise to the betterment of all. To accept our part of good to the world we have to accept our failings and hiding behind half truths only demeans the great achievements and contributions of others.

I can live with this as it isn't a blanket condemnation as implied by some.

mooman

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Ireland
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 09:06 AM

I tried to stay away but Rapaire with respect you are way off wrt the troubles in Ireland. If you confine it to just the North you have an amazing lack of understanding.

Ever heard of Charles Haughey, the former Taoiseach,who got caught up in the arms to the IRA scandal in 1970, just an example for the point I'm trying to make. We all have to accept our fair share of blame for the troubles in N.Ireland from the leaders to the man on the street north and south of the border.

There is hardly a country in this world were an Irish man has not been involved in some kind of construction,music,literature or other enterprise to the betterment of all. To accept our part of good to the world we have to accept our failings and hiding behind half truths only demeans the great achievements and contributions of others.

I just realised have I stuck up for guest,if so sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST,Tom Hamilton
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 08:28 AM

I think that the Irish, are a great people and that Guest who wrote about the murder and many thousnds that died has point, however if guest upsets people then he should go away.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: weerover
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 08:25 AM

Agree with the sensible responses to Guest (and their tone) - we don't need shouting matches here

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 07:44 AM

If the Irish hadn't existed, they would have had to be invented.

Guest, I feel sorry for you. You apparently can't let go of hate anymore than some of Provos and Unionists can. But if you want to look at "30 years of Murder and death," you might also want to look at the 800 preceeding years. I suggest that you look especially hard at the middle of the 17th Century.... Or look up the Penal Laws. Or go to West Cork and visit the Famine pits in the graveyards. Or ask yourself why artillery was used in Dublin in 1916 when tear gas was available. Or look into the Black and Tans.

What I find amazing is that the Irish -- and I have relatives by marriage in Cork, Dingle, and Dublin and have met many more on numerous trips there -- are not more vengeful. These days the bulk of them seem to want to see the Good Friday Accords work.

Guest, you are anonymous, which makes me suspect a certain lack of courage. I suspect, though, that you are from the UK. Without meaning any offense, I must point out that England's government was responsible not only for making a mess of governing Ireland, but for such other events as the Highland Clearances, the removal of the Acadians, giving smallpox-infected blankets to the American Indians, shooting down protesting Indian Indians....

Guest, you also make the mistake of assuming that the troubles in Northern Ireland are the fault of the Irish. They aren't, unless Northern Ireland is no longer part of the United Kingdom....

What have the Irish ever done for us? Others have been eloguent on the subject. As far as I'm concerned -- there's my wife....

As the Aleut story tellers say, "That is all."

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST,Taliesn
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 07:37 AM

I'm glad someone saw fit to remember James Joyce ,but the shoe not dropped would be the Irish contribution to Literature & Poetry.
Seamus Heaney won the Noel Prize for Literature/Poetry in the early 90's.
Then lest we forget master actors of the english word in the likes of now-eparted Richard Harris & Peter O'Toole.

Even more important though was the saving of recorded written knowledge , and thus "civilization" itself , by the Irish monks while the rest of Europe was plunged in destroying one another in a centuries-long orgy of multiple Warlord-militarism during the appropriately named "Dark Ages" where literacy ,forget actual writing skills, wasn't exactly included as a "survival skill".
True the Germans perfected the Euro-version of Chinese printing by sohpisticating its engineering into the mechanical press ,but where would they be without the original templates of knowledge preserved by the dutiful hands of those Irish monks' fineart of calligraphy.
Considering that Thomas Jefferson declared that he preferred a nation with a free press and no gov't than one with gov't but no free press ,the improtance of the written word becomes a wee more apparent and the Irish have most certainly given us a far more enriched literature .

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: mooman
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 07:27 AM

Idiot Anonymous Guest,

You are patently trolling.

For every person of either side (lets just call them callous violent bigots rather than "Irish" please) who has engaged in any act of terrorism or murder there are many thousands of Irish people who have no part or interest in violence whatsoever.

So go and take your pointless trolling and stupid generalizations elsewhere. Expect no further response from me

mooman (Irish, citizen of the world, human being, and trying hard not to lose my temper)

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 07:02 AM

Tell that to the thousands who were killed and their families that 30 years of Murder and death is nonsense

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: mooman
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:56 AM

An excuse for Guests to post stupid nonsense.

Apart from that, innumerable positive things.

moo

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:55 AM

Possibly inventing reels(but it might have been the Scots). Definitely not jigs and hornpipes.
Contributing an appreciable input to the rich tapestry of American folk music(but not "much" "most"of it).
Conquering and retaining the majority of Scotland, to this day (not always the downtrodden nation).
Being extremely adept at creating myths about itself.
Holding up the flame for better food, better farming. more civiised company, more wit, more extraordinary road signs, some very close friends, my daughters boy friend, a load of music and musicians that I worship, Guiness Murphys Beamish(but not that awful red stuff)sea food west cork east cork north cork south cork cork city I could write all day but I wont.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:42 AM

30 years of Murder and death on both sides

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:41 AM

The Dubliners and Terrorists, (Both Loyalist and Republican)

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:02 AM

Why has Oscar Wilde's name not appeared on this thread yet? One should also add that Ireland have remained undefeated against England at football for over fourteen years - which is gratifying to Scots and Welshmen. It has also given thousands of tenth generation Americans an absurd excuse to make bogus claims about their nationality!

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: weerover
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 01:20 AM

What Jim McLean said plus Beckett, Joyce and Jameson's

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 10:05 PM

Ireland has given several of my friends a place to go every Summer so they can bore me to tears talking about it for the rest of the friggin' year! Maybe next year they'll get on the wrong plane and wind up in Hull.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Alice
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:24 PM

How The Irish Saved Civilization a very interesting history of the preservation and dissemination of historic written texts.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Just Amy
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 07:09 PM

Did I say Pierce Brosnan?

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Just Amy
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 06:43 PM

The extremely potable and delicious Pierce Brosnan! Yum!

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Bert
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 06:03 PM

Big Mick

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: DougR
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:39 PM

John McCormick
Sean O'Casey
James Joyce
Christopher Lynch
Ernest Ball (I think)
John Ford
Francis Ford
and what The O'Meara said.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:31 PM

Green Beer ???? Hmmmm !!! CLICK 'ERE

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Jim McLean
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:28 PM

G B Shaw, W B Yeats, R B Sheridan, Dean Swift etc, etc, etc.
Jim McLean

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:14 PM

My Daddy came from Belfast, I think that's a plus, you can think what you like. You filthy rotten swine you.

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:12 PM

And don't forget DeForest Kelly! Otherwise known as Doctor "Bones" McCoy. Definitely one of the oddest actors of all time...but, man, could he raise an eyebrow!!!

Also, without the Irish we would never have had Eric Bogle's song "Plastic Paddy", not to mention green beer.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Mur
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 11:34 AM

What have the Irish ever done for us? To find your answer all you need to do is to read the long list of policemen & firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11. A very high percentage of those brave people had Irish names.   No greater love......
Mur

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST,The O'Meara
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 11:21 AM

The Irish have given us:
40 million of our citizens
John Kennedy, Chester Arthur, James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, etc.,
The roots of much of our traditional music,
The workers who built many of our big buildings and all of our railroads,
Guiness, Harp, Bushmill's and Jameson,
Celts,
Boston,
The soldiers in most of our wars,
Barry Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald (well, maybe not...)
The Irish Tenors,
The biggest non-holiday celebration in the world,
Priests, cops, firemen, lawyers; the glue that holds our society together,
Halloween,
The Clancy Brothers, Dennis Day, Carmel Quinn, Tommy Makem, Seamus Kennedy etc,
Dance,
Conversation and literature,
A few million other things,
and me.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: mack/misophist
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 10:19 AM

My mother and my wife will never cease to thank the Irish for one of their inventions, although I tend to think it's a little over-rated....soap. The Romans thought it was dangerous, the Irish thought the Romans were dirty. And that's how it all started.

Subject: RE: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: Declan
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:03 AM

Ask not what the Irish have done for you, ask what you have done for the Irish !

A paraphrase from one of the people (JFK) the Irish have given to US!

We may not have conquered the world (yet!) but for a small island we've managed to have a fair amount of influence in many parts of it.

But not as much as 'ull 9as.

Subject: BS: What have the Irish ever done for us
From: GUEST,Mad Ma
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 07:55 AM

Well does anyone else think they are overrated? A decent beer (G) and a couple of good tunes and songs. Hardly conquering the world is it?

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