The North Ireland Problem

I think the Irish tend to have naturally high testosterone and blood alcohol contents with seem to work together to produce an easily ignitable and some what caustic personality effect.

I hesitate in bringing this up, as I have no desire to advance the hyper-up-tightness that often arises after qualitative description of an ethnic group are made (in jest or otherwise).

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Very few hackles are raised, and most everyone appreciates or at least accepts the humor, when a joke is made about Irish having high blood alcohol content. In my opinion, that is exactly as it should be. No one has had any trouble with this comment thus far.

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...in contrast, imagine a similar comment were made about Native Americans (or any number of other ethnic groups). It is easy to imagine calls to remove the comment and suggestions of banning the user.

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If accurate, this is quite a disparity in the way we treat one ethnic group over another. Wouldn't it be better if reaction to comments about ethnic groups were modeled after reactions to comments about the Irish?

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P.S. TCMTECH... I just noticed your impressive GA count. Averaging over 10% Good Answers is probably a record for anyone with 100 posts or more. Nice job :-)

I'm partly Irish, and I'm familiar with the stereotype of the drinking/fighting Irishman. I've heard and told many Irish jokes including a few that involve 'the drink'.

And yes, there is a somewhat high per capita consumption of alcohol in Ireland, but it's not at the top of the list; not even in the top 10.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41990305/15_Countries_That_Consume_The_Most_Alcohol

This may be hard to discuss on an engineering forum such as this, in which religion and politics are downplayed, if not suppressed.

Among the interacting forces are longtime religious differences between Catholics and Protestants. These differences are not easily resolvable, partly because "scripture" is a mixed bag of quotations that can be picked-and-chosen to support either side.

Layered on top of that are political problems. To the extent that England exerts power over Ireland, and favors one side over the other, there will be increased resentment from the unfavored side.

I would recommend that everyone convert to atheism, and just go buy each other a bunch of Guinness or Old Bushmills. And get rid of religiously segregated schools.

I fear that few will pay attention to this, though....

As above. This is Engineering, not Sociology or Politics. Sorry.

I'm Irish and I have no problem with Irish jokes.................I even tell them.

You're on the wrong site for this kind of information. Try your local library or a web search on the Northern Ireland conflicts. The topic is also far too lengthy and complicated to be covered here. Good Luck.

This is not the forum for your question but, despite anything you hear, it was not about the religious differences although they did provide the dividing line.

Is this thread even appropriate for this forum? I think not....discussion of this subject is a powder keg.

OP, go to the library of your choice or do a Google Search regarding the history of Northern Ireland.

BTW, I'm only a tiny bit Irish, but both my X and my present wife are 100% Irish; the latter is 1st Gen born here (her mum immigrated from Ireland in the early 50's).