Are Irish jokes racist?

That's just asking for trouble. So it is.

Not if they are told be real Irishmen ...

of course they are.

I used to change them around (many years ago) to start with 'Did you hear about the Sun reader who......................'. For a time it also seemed the Irish were usurped by blondes or girls from Essex. I also heard a rumour some callous wag started jokes with 'Did you hear about the DSOTM owner who................' though I just think that is downright cruel

All 'cultures' have a butt for their humour of stupidity. The Irish were that for the English - Cork and Kerry does it for the inhabitants of Dublin and I dare say there is one poor sod in Galway who hasn't anyone to look down on.

Some 'Irish' jokes are quite funny: -

An Irish man applies for a job on a construction site. The foreman interviews him and all goes well.

"There's just one last question - what's the difference between a joist and girder?"

"Sure (or whatever) everyone knows that - Joyce wrote 'Ulysses' and Goethe wrote 'Faust'.

Less funny would be:

A stupid Mick walked into a room with superior English people and said something stupid which he'd heard a Pole, Lithuanian, Englishman, Yorkshireman say - and everyone thought - How stupid?

Those tend to amuse less than you might think.

I agree Irish jokes are racist. However the 'jock' jokes about our legendary meanness contains a sufficient grain of truth to make it a joke of exaggeration, not racism. I don't find them insulting at all.

I guess these jokes will disappear now in the wake of the RBS/HBOS debacle...

Ian

My wife's a Jock. She can't get enough of me telling Scotch jokes...

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
My wife's a Jock. She can't get enough of me telling Scotch jokes...

I'm not surprised. Whisky jokes are pretty rare.

Or Whiskey.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
My wife's a Jock. She can't get enough of me telling Scotch jokes...

Haud the phone .... a jokes'a joke but rustlin' oor wimminfolk is anither matter a'thigither!

quote:

Originally posted by Ian G.:


Haud the phone .... a jokes'a joke but rustlin' oor wimminfolk is anither matter a'thigither!

Ah, also guilty as charged!

But I did have to wear a skirt as punishment!





Mark

Mark

Either you are too young to be a member of this forum or the photo is 40 years old....

Cheers

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:
Or Whiskey.

That's Irish (paddy etc.) or the other side of the pond (ham shank, sceptic tank etc.) jokes.

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
Mark

Either you are too young to be a member of this forum or the photo is 40 years old....

Cheers

Jim

17 years actually Jim!

quote:

Originally posted by nap-ster:
That's Irish (paddy etc.)

I think you'll find - mainly Jameson and Bushmills cooking varieties. To my shame I'm not sure I've ever drunk Paddy's other than by mistake.

When did Irish people become a race? Seriously.

quote:

Haud the phone .... a jokes'a joke but rustlin' oor wimminfolk is anither matter a'thigither!

Well you kept nicking our sheep...

No. Because Irish is not a race. It is that simple.

quote:

Originally posted by SigmundEinstein:
No. Because Irish is not a race. It is that simple.

I disagree, I think racism is no longer a term to describe genetics, it's about nationality, race or religion.

I think Irish jokes are racist, and in any case, I wouldn't go telling any in certain areas of west Belfast at the moment.

The 1976 Race Relations Act says race includes:

* colour
* nationality
* ethnic or national origins

From the pen of Eric Bogle, born a Scot, naturalised Aussie and fine songwriter.

I'm a dicky-dye Australian guy and me name is Blooey Schmidt.
I love this sunburned country and I'm bloody proud of it
And I love our simple way of life and the things we all hold dear
Like V.F.L. and Big Ben Pies and foamin' Touhy's beer
I love our open friendliness where a man can make good mates
In fact in all Australia there's just one thing I hate:

I hate Wogs, they live like dogs
Some eat bananas and some eat frogs
Soome wear turbans some wear clogs
All the bloody same to me 'cause I hate Wogs.

They can't speak proper English and they never seem to learn
And the awful guff that they call food would make your stomach turn
It's always dipped in garlic sauce or fried in olive oil
I've never tasted any meself, but I bet it all tastes vile!
What's wrong with good Australian food, you Slovaks and you Poles?
Good healthy stuff like pie and sauce and chips and chigger rolls

chorus

And the local chip shop down the street is run by a bloody Greek
He's open sixteen hours a day and seven days a week
And every cent that you spend there on a pie or on dumsim
Helps to send back home to Greece for a bastard just like him!
Oh, I never eat there meself 'cause I couldn't touch Wog meat
I usually eat at the Chinese caf' that's just across the street!

chorus

I was queueing down at the Registry, a-pickin' up me dole
In front of me was a Yugoslav, in front of him a Pole
Behind me was a Eyetalian, behind him was a Turk
Those lazy migrant bastards do, they never bloody work!
But in spite of what the papers say, there's work for those who want to
The wife and twenty-seven kids is all the work I'm going to!

chorus

So send the bastards home to Spain, and Italy and Greece
And maybe when they've all gone home, we'll get some bloody peace
To sit in the shade of the killabar tree and drink beer all day long
And run amok with a flat-bed truck, down by the billabong
And every night at twelve o'clock to show that we're not slaggards
We'll stand and sing our national song, "Advance Australia", backwards!

Interesting. Thanks for the responses. I asked (before the recent ghastly murders in Northern Ireland, and - of course - unrelated) because I posted a joke on another forum. This joke I had posted here 'sans issue' months ago, and whose only offence it seemed to me was in its venerable age.
It was, even as 'Irish' jokes go, decidedly innocuous. Or at least I thought so.
However I ended up having to apologise, and will think seriously about posting on that forum again for fear of inadvertently causing offence again.

I can't help thinking the person who took offence probably needs to acquire a thicker skin and may be the kind of person who phoned up the BBC after the Ross/Brand incident without having heard it. But you never know on the internet.

(By the way, not that it actually makes any tangible difference, but I am of Irish decent, and the joke was told to me by an Irish relative. As Adam points out, we have Ireland/Essex/Blond whatever, they have Cork and so on)

David - POM, I was led to believe is/was shorthand for 'Prisoner of Her Majesty', and it is therefore actually a pejorative term for Australians, if you're so inclined, of course.

Personally I found the Australian accusations of English lack of personal hygiene to me more, er, upsetting.

I fear the indigenous populations of the Caribbean - the Arawaks - were wiped out, finally, by their new 'friends' from Europe. Although it is a lot more complicated than that (they were probably 'on their way out' as a people anyway).

Well it just goes to show, that whatever you might think of Irish jokes, or indeed any that play on national stereotypes, to repeat them in public forums with an unknown audience, runs the potential to cause offence.

However I must say people seem to be more willing to get offended these days, almost to the point of masochism, and often somehow 'on behalf of others'. Isn't that a bit weird?

Still my lesson learned, and if anyone here was offended by the joke, I apologise.

Rod

quote:

Originally posted by Derry:
From the pen of Eric Bogle, born a Scot, naturalised Aussie and fine songwriter.

Derry, LOL, but I won't be cuttin'n'pasting that one...

quote:

Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Personally I found the Australian accusations of English lack of personal hygiene to me more, er, upsetting.

That's just the Aussie sense of humour Rod mate, dry as a pommies towel.

quote:

The Irish are of the Celtic Race

No such thing. The notion of a 'Celtic' race is a Victorian invention, romanticising the idea of these old 'Britons'. There was never a Celtic tribe and certainly the Hibernians (if you will) never called themselves Celts.

In fact the residents of what are now called Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England have been busy pillaging, raping, enslaving and slaughtering each other for many, many centuries now (many people forget that before organised attempts at the destruction of the Irish by various English (and Scottish) folk, the Irish had been busy raiding the Western side of the mainland for close on a couple of thousand years or so) and only the arrival of the various Viking hordes (including 'The Normans') gave the various Britons a common enemy.

The 'English' of course are largely Vikings/Angles/Saxons, call them what you will and the Scots have a huge amount of Viking DNA about them too.

Even then over the centuries there were various 'partnerships' and unions formed and lost between different tribes and peoples. Since then, these nations have become home to all sorts of disparate peoples from across the globe so I figure it's hard to be 'rascist' about nationalities in any real, direct sense. Nationalist perhaps?

So there.

Removed because, as always seems to be the case, a few people used it to make robust comments on their right to be obnoxious.

The fact that I am Irish, Jewish, a woman and black had nothing to do with my decision.