It is all a bit romantic to think that Irish heritage places you firmly in the place of the oppressed underdog with all the Celtic sentimentalism that goes with it. While I can understand your pride Mars in your Irish ancestry, I think Andre's post is a good example of where in a genuine effort to balance the argument the truth becomes a little obscured.

The song posted speaks of coming out and fighting like a man, something people backing the republican cause clearly did not do during the IRA's extended bombing campaign against civilians on British Soil. I can remember public bins being removed in London so extensive and real was the threat. Even reducing the great famine to a Potato famine engineered by the English is an oversimplification of what happened. The Irish landlords and the Catholic Church were also to blame and yet are rarely mentioned.

I live on the border of Cornwall where a few still insist to not be part of England and have more in common with the Irish and Welsh. Needless to say most of these were born in England in places like Swindon and just like the idea of being somehow more authentic and rootsy by claiming they are Celts. The fact is the English came from the same Celtic tribes as the Welsh, Scottish and Irish with equal measures of French Norman, Viking/Scandinavian and Roman ancestry.

My Grandmother on my fathers side was an Irish Romany Gypsy who married my Grandpop a Polish Jew who came to England and joined the RAF to fight in the war. My Other Grandparents were both Westcountry English and my Parents English. I am interested and proud of my ancestry but equally proud of being an Englishman with all that my country has given the world.