Irish people-does this sort of thing make you laugh?

Question

A tourist asked me directions today and I gave them to her but she kept chatting to me so I stopped and chatted with her for awhile.

She was telling me the usual "my great great whoever was from Connemara" and do I know this person and that person.

Then she said how her grandfather told her his father owned a castle in Roscommon and where it might be?

She wanted to stay in it.

She was a grown woman now, and she believed she was "Irish royalty".

I couldn't just laugh at her so I had to keep a straight face and be polite but it was so hard.

That sort of stuff always makes me laugh.

Or questions like this about a "party honouring his families rule in Ireland"

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ash9QE94oZi_bWBK20bL6_wjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20080826165845AAVS8oE

Its all such lies and people believe it.

I don't mean laugh in anasty way but it's just so funny.

Is it just me or does it make you laugh too?

Answer 1

Well, first I'm not Irish and everyone get the same silly question at one time or another. I'm from Canada (All right, all right. I can hear the booing from here) I'm from British Columbia, but originally from Montreal. This country is huge but because I travelled a bit with the Canadian Air Force I get frequently asked if I know Joe Blow from bloody Whitehorse or Plain Jane from Toronto. So, you tell the truth and with a smile look at your watch and say you'll be late for your psychiatric appointment and that your getting treated for a multiple personality disorder, then start scratching your ear like a dog. LOL.

Cheers!

Answer 2

that sort of stuff makes me laugh aswel

Answer 3

I know the type. Just because you come from the country, and it's a small country, they assume you know everyone who ever lived there. Completely ridiculous.

I was abroad and happened to be sitting in a train, and there was an American family nearby, and as soon as the mother realised I was Irish, she was there 'My mother's family are the Kinsellas from Dublin' - and she did the American thing of saying KinSELLa and not KINsella as we do here - 'have you heard of them?' I said 'very nice, but no I haven't.' And to be completely honest, I didn't care either. I mean, what do they think we're like?

I suppose people get all riled up about their pedigree because they come from a country that doesn't have an indiginous culture they're prepared to accept, in a way they are and remain deeply Eurocentric, but in a very twisted way. And then there is the possibility that the woman's family had a legend that they had a castle in Roscommon .... and somehow she got the idea that her grandfather owned it ... all I can say to that is, if her grandfather had owned a castle, why on earth would her father have gone to the US?

I know, Irish royalty. I would have merely laughed in her face .... good for you for controlling yourself.  

Answer 4

it does

Answer 5

Don't worry i think that kind of thing is hilarious too!!!

People can be so naive and they're so convinced.

As long as your not nasty about it which you said you aren't its all in good spirits.

Answer 6

Yes, happens all the time.

Answer 7

Sher aren't Rodge and myself the direct descendants of the ginger love child of Diarmuid and Grainne?

Sher didn't our Great Uncle Fester O' Leprosy write the Toraiocht just so that he could p!ss off every honours Irish leaving cert student for decades........

Answer 8

Hahahha...it happen to us ..i think they are AA (american asso.) Its Hilarious...we went to glendalough (old grave yards) and all the sudden we saw this grown woman starting to cry..and we ask why she said that its probably my great great great ancestor because the stone written was same as of her family name and she starting telling us my family name is such and such...and etc...Looking at the grave yard-Its like the year of St. Patric was born (ancient).

Its not just Irish anybody find it funny...although it is not nice to laugh..sorry AA just cant control it.

Answer 9

hahahaha.yeah it does!is it just me or does every one claim they're half irish these days?

she wanted to stay in it??sure even if the story is true its probably a golf club or in ruins now anyway!

hahahahaha

i was in america recently, and i told someone i was from ireland and he shouted ''no way!my cousin's in sweden!''

honestly!

Answer 10

I'm visiting Ireland soon for the first time, and am really excited about it. It sounds to me like some of you don't like Americans much, which is fine. I would think you'd be proud of your lovely country and it should make you happy that people want to feel like they have some history or connection to it. Are you proud of your heritage?  

Answer 11

no this sort of stuff is hilarious, most tourists (i.e. Americans) believe you eligable to be irish if

1. they like spuds

2. there grandmother owns a red setter dog

3. they no someone called mr. murphy

4. they no someone called paddy

5. they have a tin whistle from  carrolls

6. they have red hair

7. they have freckles

and many other stupid things they believe is there link to being irish

Answer 12

It seems to be instilled in the Americans though,

I was on Hols with family in Boston and decided to go to the shop one day, as we were walking down and talking two youngfellas aged about stopped when they heard us talking and asked where we were from and of course we said Ireland.

One kids jaw dropped and he said ''Oh my God are you first generation Irish''

All i could could think of was NO i am Fu@@ing Irish.

Answer 13

It's hard not to laugh and also be a little bit horrified at how retarded some people are! I tend to be pretty sarcastic in my response:

"Oh, the [so-and-so's] of [wherever]? Yeah, I know them... Jaysus, yis'd want to keep quiet about being of that stock... after the "big incident"!"

F*** with them a little.

I read that question you posted a link too also... oh my God!! WTF??!!

Answer 14

Kat my love get a life!  Of course the Irish are proud of their country and their origin.

They are also the most patient people on earth putting up with silly questions on the most tenuous of connections.

Its Gods Own Country and there's no where like it on earth nor the people in it.

Answer 15

Believe me it happens to the English as well. Once in California I was asked where I came from."Accrington, a small town about 30 miles north of Manchester" I was then asked if I knew the Smiths from Stockport. Only about 1 million people in between. One thought, why do our cousins over the pond seem to know every town with an airport but no others?  

Answer 16

Well, here's one for you.

My cousin was doing the whole working in Australia thing and ended up on a sheep farm/campsite place about 500 miles from Perth. Her second week working there she got talking to the owner's wife who did the whole "where are you from, oh I know someone from there, do you know him?" and it turns out the person she was talking about was our uncle whom she had worked with for six months in London in the sixties and apparantly had a 'really good time' with! So, it does happen!  

Answer 17

I have a story about running into people asking in you know somebody, simply because theyre from the same country as you.

Back in the 80s, my uncles parents were driving through the australian outback. They pass a petrol station and stop to fill up. They go in and get chatting to the guy who works there.Eventually the conversation leads to their Irish nationality. When asked where theyre from, they answer "Were from Dun laoirigh, its on the coastline in dublin". He says, thats ver interesting. Do you Sile O'Donnel?"

Turns out it was my uncle's mothers old next door neigbours son.

Answer 18

she must have been american makes sense then  

Answer 19

Get a life. I would much rather deal with genuine, if somewhat naive enthusiasm than the faux sophistication and jaded cynicism of this thread.

Yes, a lot of American tourists have unrealistic expectations when they visit here. But why the h**l do you think they come here in the first place if not to find their roots? It's a pilgrimage. They certainly don't come to engage in stimulating conversation with the likes of most of the respondents to this question. Why is that so many Irish people believe our own PR ie. "Everyone loves the Oirish". Reality check, most of the rest of the world hardly even know we exist. Just be thankful the Americans find us charming and interesting, because few enough other nationalities do.

Answer 20

let me guess???? irish????sorry i mean amerian????? no disrespect but i have to say this with out being rasists or anything like that but when the irish left ireland they were all poor. they saved every penny to get on a ship to go and seek a better future for them selves. many died and thoese that made ity rich and lived among the rich did not want the true blloded rich amerians to think bad of them so they told them they were irish royality jussst to fit in and thoese who did not quite make the rich list who life a simple and poor life told their children about the lives in ireland of how they were decended from kings and howe they were royals so that there children would not be sa and grow uo thinking (and now nowing) they too were royals.

several gererations the amerian drcendents really beleve this ceop about BEING decended from royals.

it makes me laugh that they think they are the front runners of earth andthey think they are a SUPER POWER..... but what super power  do youknow has regular power faulurs due to an energy crisis, who had more people with out free medical then a third would,

and to top their greatest BIGGEST goof of all time???? they send out a space capsule i think it was voyager one with all our information on board like our DNA, our Music, Our Details and a map on how to get to us. BUT!!!! if the kind hared alien if indeed they are any did fine the probe and paied us a visit this is what would happen. THEY WOULD BE SHOT DOWN!!!!!

plus come on can you camadore to work on windows vista??/ so how will they get it to work??? LOLOLOLOL