Italians and Irish

[buddyrydell]

Anyone else ever notice this? I'm sure you have, since Italian-Irish mixes seem to be everywhere. I suppose it's the Catholic faith that has united many ethnic whites in intermarriage here in the U.S. I know of far more Italian-Irish or Italian-Polish mixes than, say Italian-WASP.

But seriously, Italian-Irish people could probably establish their own country since there must be enough of them! I find this particular mix especially interesting because I've personally noticed a little bit of rivalry (sometimes bitter) between both groups that has persisted somewhat to the present-day, yet at the same time, both groups have largely blended together through intermarriage. I personally think that this is due to the fact that Italians and Irish are both really quite similar (Catholicism, strong family ties, party people lol). I'd especially like to hear from the Italians and Irish on this forum of course.

[Josh]

Your theory makes sense. Interestingly, my dad is half Irish and my mom is half Italian.

[nockwasright]

In "Ethnic America" Thomas Sowell underlines many differences, relationship and also points of friction between Irish Americans and Italian Americans.
I don't have the book at hand now but I remember he says that Irish Americans were very well organised politically when immigrants from Italy started arriving and that Italians were involved in Irish Americans unions/chatolic schools/politics machine, but never gaining any share of control of it.
On the other and, while Irish Americans were more prone to drinking, brawling, but partecipating the social life of the country, Italian American proved to be extremely family oriented, alien to the rest of the country, sober, and inclined to use violence as a mean more than an end in itself. Thus they were extremely succesful in organised crime.
The above is really a poor abstract, if you are interested in the subject I strongly suggest to read the book.

[Tautamo]

nockwasright said:

I don't have the book at hand now but I remember he says that Irish Americans were very well organised politically when immigrants from Italy started arriving and that Italians were involved in Irish Americans unions/chatolic schools/politics machine, but never gaining any share of control of it.
On the other and, while Irish Americans were more prone to drinking, brawling, but partecipating the social life of the country, Italian American proved to be extremely family oriented, alien to the rest of the country, sober, and inclined to use violence as a mean more than an end in itself. Thus they were extremely succesful in organised crime.
The above is really a poor abstract, if you are interested in the subject I strongly suggest to read the book.

The irish had advantages which the Italians didnt

A) Irish speak english

B)Irish are almost 100% same phenotype as the Anglos


(Italians had it harder because they didnt speak english and italians where Meds (yes they where darker)

[jojoscircus]

Yes, I think that the Irish and Italians paired up for the reasons mentioned and also because of the law of 'opposites attract.' Meds in the US seem to have little attraction to other meds when it comes to mate selection. I know on my Italian side they seem to have this high admiration for tall lanky blonde types. I think this might have something to do with assimilation. One would be much more marginalized if one were to pair up with another 'foreign' type.

Also, of course, both groups were recent Catholic immigrants at the same time (turn of the century) and so were in the same socio economic bracket. This would cause them to live in the same part of the city and so they would be intermixing in the schools and so forth. Maybe both groups are somewhat blue collar oriented and not as intellectually inclined.

[Crimson Guard]

Italians and Irish share many things in common but they where also rivals at times.

Many stuck toegether cause they where immigrants,they lived in the same neigborhoods and grew up together,yes they mostly Catholic.

Irish people when they first arrived after the Potatoe famine where treated very badly and where called the Negro's of the White race by the already established WASP's living in AMerica.I think even in Britain their was Anti-Irish propaganda comparing the Negro's with the Irish. They English and Irish hated eachother this was still evident in the USA whne the irish immigrants arrived.Immigrants, are always shown hostilty.

Many of the already better established or americanized Irish did hold predjudices against the arriving italians,much the same way how their grandparents where shown.The Irish did face many of the exact same predjudices the Italians would face.

Italians are not at all that dark from an Irishmen,unless you go by stereotypes and misinformation.Many of the Irish or even English are in fact brunettes.So that agrument bears no bearing on the issue.

Even the Germans werent exempt in America:

During WW2 many thousands of Italians and Germans where thrown in Concentration Camps here in the USA,not just the japanese which is always populay believed.italians also made up the largest ehnitc group in the US Military during WW2,they made sure we where in the front lines getting killed.I guess what happened to the Italians and Germans can't be considered a race Crime cause their white.

Check this:

<By 1990 Italian-Americans earned income 17 percent above the national average and were 50 percent more likely to have college degrees.

...during the Al Capone era in Chicago, only 30 percent of those in organized crime were Italian-Americans, while 29 percent were Irish-Americans and 20 percent were Jewish. >>

racialreality.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_racialreality_archive.html

[Tautamo]

Italians are not at all that dark from an Irishmen,unless you go by stereotypes and misinformation.Many of the Irish or even English are in fact brunettes.So that agrument bears no bearing on the issue.

dude why do you deny your latin med darkskin?

Yes Italians by in large are DARKER THAN IRISH!

[Tautamo]

Italians where discrimnated in America becuase they where dark and spoke nonenglish that is a fact you are going to have to deal with.

by me saying they where dark doesnt mean they are not white which means EUROPEAN which they are! dude dont rewrite history.

[nockwasright]

CrimsonGuard: Italians, expecially from the South, as most immigrants were, are MUCH darker and shorter than average Irishmen. I don't have charts to show, but please spare us the pain to prove something that is obvious.

I knew Jews engaged in organised crime as Italians, only Italians were more succesful at it and took over the business.

[murphee]

Years ago, I lived in an area of the East Coast that had many Italian and Irish people. They did interact freely and there are many Irish/Italian Americans. I think the fact that both groups were Catholic helped facilitate the mixing, as well as the fact they they lived together in the same neighborhoods. To a lesser extent, Jews mingled with these groups.

[Faelcind]

I find that gaelic Irish tend to be fairly dinstuishable from Wasp type americans, though there is lots of exceptions. My best freind is half irish half italian but in genereal there are aren't enough italians in the area to really see a trend like that I think its mostly an east coast thing, white ethnicities in genereal are less important in the west.

[jojoscircus]

Tautamo said:

dude why do you deny your latin med darkskin?

Yes Italians by in large are DARKER THAN IRISH!

Thank you Tautamo for saying what I wanted to say when I read that post

[buddyrydell]

jojoscircus said:

Yes, I think that the Irish and Italians paired up for the reasons mentioned and also because of the law of 'opposites attract.' Meds in the US seem to have little attraction to other meds when it comes to mate selection. I know on my Italian side they seem to have this high admiration for tall lanky blonde types. I think this might have something to do with assimilation. One would be much more marginalized if one were to pair up with another 'foreign' type.

Also, of course, both groups were recent Catholic immigrants at the same time (turn of the century) and so were in the same socio economic bracket. This would cause them to live in the same part of the city and so they would be intermixing in the schools and so forth. Maybe both groups are somewhat blue collar oriented and not as intellectually inclined.

Jojo you have an interesting viewpoint on the "opposites attract" theory. I think assimilation has definitely watered down the preferences for marriage partners among white Americans, and I would agree that it's not that common for, say, a Med to actively seek out another Med partner for marriage. With white Americans of northern European descent, I think it's a bit different for them just because there are more of them, and also because they are the ones to whom other groups have had to measure themselves against in order to assimilate.

I can also say that on my Italian side, only a few out of my dad's 50 or so cousins married other Italians. The rest married Irish, Polish, German, etc. What's interesting though, is that nearly all of my dad's cousins' spouses were also from Catholic upbringings (my mom as well), which again ties into what I've been saying about the Catholic church uniting such groups as Italians and Irish.

[MRuffalo715]

I am what you could call an Irishman's worst nightmare. My father is an Italian and my mother is British. However, I do agree that Irish-Italian marriages are much more prevalent than British-Italian marriages. Perhaps it has to do with both groups being Catholics. Most Italians that marry Brits are Protestants from Northern Italy. The North has a large and growing Protestant population. That wasn't so in my case, however. My father is a Catholic from the south (Calabrese and Abruzzese) and he married my mother, a Protestant of British descent. In the case of the Irish-Italian marriages, I believe it is solely based on religion, not culture. I'm not sure that Irish culture is that much closer to Italian culture than British culture.

[buddyrydell]

MRuffalo715 said:

I am what you could call an Irishman's worst nightmare. My father is an Italian and my mother is British. However, I do agree that Irish-Italian marriages are much more prevalent than British-Italian marriages. Perhaps it has to do with both groups being Catholics. Most Italians that marry Brits are Protestants from Northern Italy. The North has a large and growing Protestant population. That wasn't so in my case, however. My father is a Catholic from the south (Calabrese and Abruzzese) and he married my mother, a Protestant of British descent. In the case of the Irish-Italian marriages, I believe it is solely based on religion, not culture. I'm not sure that Irish culture is that much closer to Italian culture than British culture.

I guess I could call myself just an Italian-northern European mix. My dad's full-blooded Italian (Sicilian) and my mother's a mix of several European ethnicities, mostly northern Euro but she's also 1/4 northern Italian. The rest is Irish, British, German, and French. In any case, my parents were both raised Catholic so I definitely say the church has been very instrumental in promoting intermarriages between different Euro-American ethnics, but Italian-Irish seems to be the big one for me.

The one area that I disagree with you on is that religion is still a large part of culture, and that being said, I personally believe that Italians and Irish are more similar than many realize, certainly more similar to one another than either is to Brits. Not to sound stereotypical, but Brits are generally more reserved and the "Protestant work ethic" is a big part of traditional WASP culture. Italians and Irish are largely more relaxed, more festive, outgoing, and again there's the Catholic influence. Don't get me wrong of course there are exceptions, though I believe that generally speaking, Italians and Irish are overall more alike than either group is to Brits.