Sense of Heritage
Many people of Irish descent retain a sense of their Irish heritage. Article 2 of the Constitution of Ireland formally recognizes and embraces this fact:
| “ | …the Irish Nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity
and heritage. |
” |
A sense of exile, diaspora, and (in the case of songs) even nostalgia is a common theme. The modern term "Plastic Paddy" generally refers to someone who was not born in Ireland, is separated from his closest Irish-born ancestor by several generations, but still considers themselves "Irish." It is occasionally used in a derogatory fashion towards Irish Americans, in an attempt to undermine the "Irishness" of the Irish diaspora based on nationality and (citizenship) rather than ethnicity. The term is freely applied to relevant people of all nationalities, not solely Irish Americans. One member of an Irish government expressed his opinion of Irish ethnicity as follows:
| “ | I do not think this country will afford sufficient allurements to the citizens of other States ... The children of Irish parents born abroad are sometimes more Irish than the Irish themselves, and they would come with added experience and knowledge to our country.... | ” |
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—Sen. Patrick Kenny, Seanad Éireann 1924, |
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Some Irish Americans were enthusiastic supporters of Irish independence; the Fenian Brotherhood movement was based in the United States and in the late 1860s launched several unsuccessful attacks on British-controlled Canada known as the "Fenian Raids". The Provisional IRA received significant funding for its paramilitary activities from Irish expatriates and Irish American supporters—in 1984, the US Department of Justice won a court case forcing the Irish American fund raising organization NORAID to acknowledge the Provisional IRA as its "foreign principal".
Read more about this topic: Irish American
Famous quotes containing the words sense of, sense and/or heritage:
“Our sense of worth, of well-being, even our sanity depends upon our remembering. But, alas, our sense of worth, our well-being, our sanity also depend upon our forgetting.”
—Joyce Appleby (b. 1929)
“Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are ignorant,
Or seem so, craftily; and that’s not good.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into the heritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony—unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe’s declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)