You have to love Irish America… VIA @NoreenBowden (which is twitter for Noreen Bowden of Globalirish.ie) we came across MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS’ – “Irish Celebration”. Despite the slightly errant and jumbled narrative, and the fact that it’s an obviously Irish American interpretation of being Irish, some people over on Newswhip.ie don’t seem to have much patience with these Seattle based Hip-Hop outfit. Lads – Give them a break. As Noreen comments in reply on Newswhip; ‘And one thing that Irish people who live in Ireland don’t get about the Irish people who live in the rest of the world is that Irish people in other places don’t necessarily look to Ireland as the zenith of their cultural expression. This guy is talking about being Irish (a global phenomenon, whether we want to admit it or not) from his own point of view. The notion that he has to check his vision against some kind of “modern-Ireland approved” one is kind of retrograde.’
I think that Noreen has a very important point to make in the context of the quickly emptying Country that is Ireland 2011. These guys are the children of the earlier phases of emigration and even if their interpretation of Irishness differs from us the indigenous Irish, they have as much a right to be proud of their Irishness as we do.
By the way, Noreens work at Globalirish.ie is well worth a read.
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