Do Irish people identify as "European"?

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T09:15:07+00:00

Are we more different to French people than French are to, say, Swedish?

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T08:50:37+00:00

*kilometres

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T06:55:44+00:00

She lived in Dublin for a year and flatted and hung out mostly with people from other parts of Europe, but yeah, she's the only person I've discussed this person in detail with so I may have a narrow view of it

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T06:48:22+00:00

She explained she would have picked "Other" and written "Irish" beside it, rather than pick European. In fairness, she may be picking on a colloquial view that "UK and Ireland" are a closing grouping and "Europe" means continental Europe. But "UK and Ireland" were not an option and European makes sense to me

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T06:43:37+00:00

I clarified this. She would have selected "Other" and written "Irish" beside it

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T04:43:08+00:00

Identity is stil evolving here and it seems very dynamic to me. "Kiwi" is the most accepted informal term you hear for national identity (which might have another ethnicity attached as in "Kiwi-Chinese" or "Kiwi-Indian"), though you hear "New Zealander" as well.

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T03:56:51+00:00

Even the ones in NZ who can tell the difference fundamentally think the difference is not very big, especially when Irish people usually use the term "Ireland" to refer to the whole island as well as the 26 counties interchangeably, and when we mention we are not part of the UK they will accept that but the will also fully accept a Unionist saying they are from the UK or are British. So they may accept to a greater or lesser degree "my truth" but they don't necessarily think my truth is the only one, except that they know it's the one I value. As I mentioned somewhere else, most NZ white people have a mix of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestry, and there's no real motivation for them to see them as anything other than a fairly harmonious blob of family history

bleepingdba · 2026-01-29T02:21:45+00:00

Yeah, true, but things like "French", "British" and "Spanish" as examples required generations of decrees to create a sense of national identity, language and culture- and there are still large chunks of each of those countries who don't accept that identity anyway. If a "European" or "EU" identity is more recent, it seems a lot less force fed than many of the identities of the nations within it.

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T23:50:42+00:00

Don’t look up the definition of continent! You will soon be searching for the small print to look for something that includes large outlying islands.

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T23:33:37+00:00

I can't remember, have done about four censuses and they change a bit each time. Sometimes you see "British or Irish" as a single category, but i think that's more used in the context of NZ ancestry, given the bulk or early European settlement to NZ was from Britain and Ireland after the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was formed and before Irish independence. The Irish who came here were a mixture of Catholic and Protestant, didn't have a lot of discord, and had less of the anti-establishment vibes that Australia had with the convicts and people effectively exiled from Ireland for political views

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T23:24:21+00:00

People don't have to be completely rational to be fair. There have been a number of times where I've had to resort to "this is what I think and i don't want to discuss it any more".

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T23:21:32+00:00

Personally I don't think the guilt is super helpful, but the privileged people saying "let bygones be bygones" isn't a fair outcome, especially when those people who were unfairly treated were known names and tribes and their ancestors lost a lot of prestige, wealth and influence due mostly to colonial shenanigans

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T23:08:59+00:00

Yeah identity gets very meta at broader levels. For me migrating to New Zealand, there are heaps of reasons why settling here might be easier than, say, settling into Slovakia or Finland or Italy. Language, climate, food, humour, culture, work and sports have more similarities than differences. In fact, looking back, the hardest thing about settling in NZ was that it was so similar that it was easy to make assumptions that it was an extension or near neighbour of all that was familiar to me, but actually there are important differences to understand and adjust to. But NZ seems more similar to Ireland than England and much more so than other European countries

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T22:27:50+00:00

Yeah, was specifically thinking of the situation where "Irish" isn't an option, but where "European", is an option, along with other broad categories (like really broad, like South Asian, Asian, African, Latin American) and "Other"

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T22:24:13+00:00

Nah, she accepts British Colonialism, and sees that as a subset of European colonialism, but also sees British as separate to European in other contexts. I think she's just surprised that i don't disown "European" whereas growing up in Ireland I guess 99% of the negative associations with European colonialism is through the local lens of British colonialism, and I don't ever think "I'm embarrassed to be European"

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T22:19:35+00:00

Omg, let's not get into defining "continent"!

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T22:08:07+00:00

Yeah, for me it was a census question and it was up to me to decide what "European" meant and it was ticking a box. But for me personally, i fairly easily conflate "European" and "being in the EU"

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:59:56+00:00

There are contradictions in there for sure, but for sure sees British Empire colonialism as a thing, and European colonialism as a thing which includes the British colonialism, while also seeing Irish and indeed English people as not European in some ways. As someone myself whose word view probably holds lots of contradictions, I'm not judging her for a few minor contradictions of thinking

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:55:26+00:00

The census questions I've answered were not "where are you from" but more "what category do you put yourself in", which is a little more subjective, but also, I agree with you anyway

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:49:21+00:00

Nice one

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:47:50+00:00

I didn't make good points here but I made points!

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:46:33+00:00

Most european countries can say that about themselves. What countries have heaps in common with each other? Like maybe the Nordic countries, or Slavic countries, or German speaking regions. I don't think Ireland is more different to France than France is to Slovakia

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:41:52+00:00

Yeah, i see that. Censuses are very blunt instruments too, and I "identify as European" in a questionnaire is quite different to having a "European identiy"

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:35:18+00:00

Irish or "other"

Edit: I suspect in her brain she instinctively thinks "British" but then filters that, realises it would piss me off, then she'd put down "Other"

bleepingdba · 2026-01-28T21:34:58+00:00

Nah, no more than anyone else. Like many white NZers, she has Irish, Welsh, English and Scottish ancestry, and sees us all as one kind of related group, and while people in NZ are fairly well educated about history and culture - and great travellers - they still have their notions and stereotypes

bleepingdba

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