Talk:Irish people

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It appears there has been quite the edit war regarding image formatting here, with several edit warriors blocked for a short while. I have full-protected this page for a few days so that after those blocks expire the participants can come here and discuss it like adults instead of edit warring. I hope it is now clear to all involved that edit warring is absolutely not tolerated and if it recurs after the protection expires blocks will be significantly harsher. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, bad to have edit wars. But now its frozen as kind of a mess, and no one can help fix it apparently. :( Johundhar (talk) 14:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

You're replying to an over 8 year old comment. If you have some discussion you wish to have, its best to start a new section at the bottom of the page. Canterbury Tail talk 16:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

After all these years, eh Beeblebrox  ;) SN54129 16:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

See, clearly I did not keep this on my watchlist, because I am kind of obsessive about archiving stale discussions exactly so this sort of thing doesn't go on. (worth noting that the page is only semi-protected, so any autoconfirmed user can edit it as of right now) Beeblebrox (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I've now archived the older stale discussions and added one-click archiving to this page. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Black Irish vs Black people who are Irish

@Denisarona and @Canterbury Tail:

We seem to have two separate groups of people to describe in this article. They are:

1. People of European descent, with white skin and dark hair (rather than blonde or red hair), who have traditionally lived in Ireland for at least many centuries, and possibly thousands of years.
2. People descended from the first group plus African people during the 18th and 19th century, who have never traditionally lived in Ireland.

This article about the Irish people has a section called ==Origins and antecedents==. It seems to me that it's not really possible for the older group to have any of its origins and antecedents in the newer group that descended from the older group. The second group logically cannot be not either the origin or an antecedent of the first group.

Consequently, I don't think that the second group should be listed in the section called ==Origins and antecedents==. I've no objection to it being in the article, but it should not be in the section called ==Origins and antecedents==. Do you agree? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Since nobody has objected, I have moved the descendants of the 18th- and 19th-century African slaves and Irish immigrants out of the ==Origins and antecedents== section and into the section about ==Irish diaspora==. People descended from the (pre-existing) Irish people and living in other countries are part of the diaspora. They are not part of the origin of the Irish people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Actually looking at it it needs to be removed. It's sourced to Rootsweb, which is part of Ancestry.com which is a completely unreliable source per WP:RS/P. And the RTE source seems to fail verification as it doesn't appear to be anything more than advertising blurb for an old program. Canterbury Tail talk 20:20, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Irish-language writers & literature in introduction

Hi wiki team - I'm concerned that the introduction, and the list of notable/famous writers, doesn’t reflect 1,500 years of writing and poetry in Irish (both pre- and post-Norman and/or Elizabethan conquest). In the grand scheme of things, a literary culture in English in Ireland has only existed for a few hundred years - which is actually a relatively small period of time, rich as its fruits have been! I wonder what's the best way to address this in the introduction of this particular entry.

Many thanks for your thoughts! IRideBikes25 (talk) 18:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Good question. Category:Irish-language writers includes 360 individual writers, and has subcategories of its own. The article on Early Irish literature, indicates that the earliest surviving Irish inscriptions date to the 4th century. How do we cover 17 centuries in a single article? Dimadick (talk) 05:57, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I think this article should just give a short introduction about with a pointer to a much more in depth article elsewhere. The Banner talk 08:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in, guys. As an Irish speaker myself, I was particularly concerned that the previous list of Irish writers basically only included writers in English from the past 150 years. I feel like my inclusions do a better job now but definitely don't encompass 1700 years of literature on the island. Let's keep trying.

For what it's worth, the mentions of Irish-language literature in the "Irish literature" entry are also not fully flushed out, so that's also worth investigating. IRideBikes25 (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Ann C. Humphrey's piece

@10mmsocket: Hi there. In answer to your question there are a number of issues with that reference. Firstly, as per WP:CITEHOW, you can't cite a whole document to make a specific claim; you have to say where in that particular document supports such a claim. Secondly, I happen to have found Ann C. Humphrey's public linkedin profile, and according to that this particular piece is an undergraduate's dissertation which goes against the guidance as given in WP:SCHOLARSHIP. To quote the guidance directly: "Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources...Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." So if it was a doctorate's thesis we could possibly use it, however it fails the guidance on the basis that it's an undergraduate's piece. Alssa1 (talk) 13:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I can see why that resource is unreliable, thanks for clarifying.. However a quick google of "irish heritage in iceland" reveals a number of reliable sources confirm the assertion that Icelanders have a significant proportion of Irish DNA, e.g. [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/why-people-in-iceland-look-just-like-us-1.1104676 this from 2000] and [https://www.irishpost.com/news/new-dna-study-reveals-fate-irish-women-brought-iceland-slaves-vikings-155729 this from 2018]. The latter cites academic studies. My suggestion, for now, is to remove the suspect source and replace with a citation-needed tag, or for you to further research the topic and add some reliable sources instead. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:37, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added 'citation needed' per your recommendation for the mo. Alssa1 (talk) 13:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Nice one. Thanks. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

There is not five million ethnic Irish people in the Republic of Ireland.

There are an estimated 600k plus thousand foreign nationals in Ireland adding to the population and thousands more children of those foreign nationals with Irish citizenship. So if we're going by ethnic Irish as this article details, the real number is around 4 million. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:BB6:6807:4600:F547:CF92:F007:16A4 (talk) 15:20, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

As described at the start of the article Irish aren't just an ethnic group, but also a nation. No one is trying to claim an immigrant from say Poland is ethnically Irish. The numbers represent the nation as well as ethnic group. Canterbury Tail talk 20:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't these be separate articles then? I think you would be more genuine discussing the Irish population of foreign origin/citizenship in the Demographics of the Republic of Ireland article, and keeping the Irish people article about the 'ethnic Irish' (whoever exactly they're defined to be by this point, I'd personally love to know the answer to that one myself).

Who are Irish people exactly? Are they only people in Ireland descended from Gaels (and does it need to be fully, partially, what?) Is it only people who speak Gaelic? Is it only people with Irish names? Is it anyone who calls themselves Irish? Is it people who carry Irish passports?

What is the Irish identity? 88.110.96.131 (talk) 00:49, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Evidence? The Banner talk 20:12, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

This whole article needs to be rewritten and updated to portray Irish people are the multi-racial non-homogenous modern ethnic group they are.

Irish people aren't just white and 'nation' doesn't suffice. It is widely accepted that modern Irish people are multi-racial, there are white, black, asian, south american and so forth. The entire article needs to be rewritten as it only focuses on the now outdated previously predominate long term white Irish group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:BB6:6807:4600:464:3E57:9414:9C60 (talk) 09:42, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

No, not really. There is a difference between the ethnic group "Irish people" and the much wider and diverse group of "People living in Ireland". See: Demographics of the Republic of Ireland. The Banner talk 10:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

The Irish people of today seem to be neither a nation nor an ethnic group under any of the traditional parameters. All Irishness seems to boil down to today is 'people calling themselves Irish', for whatever that's worth.

Like you allude to, the modern Irish people are of vastly different ancestral origins, but we cannot say they are bound together by a common Irish language, that they have all assimilated into Irishness, for almost everyone in Ireland today speaks English as their main (and often only) language.

Ireland is a political state, but to call any of the inhabitants of that political state Irish in an ethnic sense... is a very dubious thing to do and raises a bunch of serious, ugly questions about who in Ireland actually qualifies as 'ethnically Irish' by this point, and more importantly WHY they qualify as 'ethnically Irish'. 88.110.96.131 (talk) 00:45, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

People with an Irish ancestor are not Actually Irish people

We cannot consider People with an irish ancestor was actually being Irish, this is not how nation works, the Irish nation is compromised of people from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Those are the Irish people, and at most people with one parent being irish can be included, This article should reflect the reality of the Irish nation, not the fantasy of people with Irish ancestors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.221.62.126 (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This article includes actual ethnic Irish people and nationals. An American or South American etc with Irish ancestry is still an Ethnic Irish person, your genes don't magically change because you're not born in a certain place, Irish people born to Yoruba parents for example are still counted as Nigerian Yorubans too. That's how actual ethnicity works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:BB6:6807:4600:1DE4:BF42:1A62:EBB8 (talk) 10:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Without response to any other aspect of the above thread, genetic ancestry and ethnicity are not at all the same thing. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:29, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Well hold on, are all those Irish people with English or Norse or Norman or other types of foreign ancestry not Irish then? Is Michael Fassbender not Irish? Is Eamonn De Valera not Irish?

Like you say yourself, doesn't matter where they're born or what they call themselves, their DNA doesn't change. Their DNA is still 'not Irish'.

That's weird, if it's ancestry the defines someones' ethnicity... then aren't huge percentages of the Irish diaspora also likely descended from ancestors in Ireland who were themselves descended from foreign groups in the past, and not Gaels?

Where does it end? Are we going to require DNA testing to prove people's Irishness now? How deep down the purityspiralling rabbithole do you want to go exactly? 88.110.96.131 (talk) 00:39, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Since when is someone like me, who has one Irish great-grandfather, considered to be “Irish”? I am not Irish, not even in the slightest. The Only Irish have no interest in claiming me. Americans of Irish descent often refuse to believe someone from England such as myself could be of Irish descent “like them”.

No Irish culture was passed down to me. There are no official documents or lists listing me as Irish and I have zero right to claim Irishness. Who is rallying the figures in this article? How important are they? Do they have any scholarly or cultural merit? 86.159.213.108 (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

1.9 Million 'Irish' in Northern Ireland

Sorry, what is this based on? Are we defining other people's identity for them now and attributing Irishness to people who don't want anything to do with such an identity now? The article isn't about geography, huge percentages of Northern Ireland's population abjectly do NOT consider themselves Irish (and that's not just the British people of Northern Ireland, but does include them) and this is well known. 1.9 million Irish people in Northern Ireland is an absolute nonsense, and recklessly inflammatory, claim to make and you all damn well know it. I'm not even going to get into the other claims (such as 14 million UK citizens being 'Irish' because they have a single recorded ancestor from Ireland somewhere in history), that claim about Northern Ireland is particularly egregious and it doesn't even need to be explained why. Which leads me to believe it is intentional and motivated, and the fact that it still hasn't been removed further sheds intense scrutiny on and discredibility towards Wikipedia as a place for learning and objective fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.123.130 (talk) 17:30, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

It's a blatant irredentist claim and you know it, remove it. 88.110.123.130 (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2022 (UTC)