I realise this entire thread is a farce, but I find it amusing and
entertaining so I'm going to roll with it... :-D
It's nice you do not bear malice to these people that people come in
to take jobs locals do not want. Or cannot do. Or do not want to do
because *it's a family tradition, ie the family tradition of a lot of
people who live in say, Ballymun or someplace like that (4-5th gen
*unemployed), living off my tax euro.
My local video store has a few Polish people working there. Before I
started my own business recently I wanted to do some part-time work
just to keep me going. But alas, the jobs were taken by foreigners.
Ireland's in the EU now. The EU is multicultural and multiracial.
Tough, but you'll get used to it as others have.
It's all about the ratio. At the moment in Ireland, more than 1 in 10
people is Polish. Now I've nothing against the Polish, but I think
we've been more than generous by allowing our own native population to
drop to 90%. We have enough foreigners here.
I wonder what Tom would say about our local 'gypsies' the tinkers.
They like to be called "Travellers ". Ten years ago, I despised them,
but in recent years they've come along nicely. They're sending their
kids to school now and they're actually finishing school and going on
to get apprenticeships . Unfortunately though, the travellers in the
countryside are still living their career criminal lives.
If the Roma gypsies stop abusing their kids and actually start sending
them to school, my opinion of them will change.
That's real funny, I would have thought Stephen McAteer would have
been
clearly an Irish name.
Sort of. It's clearly a pure-bred Irish name that was Anglisiced, but
still if it were 100% Irish it would be Stiofán Mac an tSaoir (which
by the way is a surname you can actually take meaning from).
Tell me, were you born with your gailge spelling or did you just
change
your name?
My birthcert has an English name on it. I changed it to Irish a few
years ago. Now I've got everything in Irish, including my passport.
A lot of these people would have the names they were born with
I am.
In all likelihood you probably were as well. I am guessing. I
could be wrong, you may have been so unhappy you changed your
name. Fair enuf.
I wasn't so much unhappy, more like I felt misrepresented by an
English name. I'm fluent in Irish, I'm proud to be Irish... yet I had
this English name. Just didn't fit.
I am Irish, I do not speak Irish. I am patriotic enough that I do
want what's best for Ireland on the whole. Good job on the Lisbon
treaty.
I didn't even vote for the simple reason that I didn't know anything
about it. I heard something about more taxes and losing neutrality in
war... but that's all. I heard the treaty's a couple of hundred pages
long so I just gave up on it.
But my xenophobia only extends so far.
I welcome a multicultural Ireland, not grudgingly accept it, as
one may construe from your post.
Again, it's about the ratio. I don't want to see an Ireland that's 80%
Irish. I was in a pub in Cork city recently and there were more Polish
than Irish in the place (and this was a pretty big pub).
