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apologies to anyone i offended posting this............including you Brian....... 😀
it was not posted as a troll.
They are a bit thick. Look at what they've done to their economy, they should have taken a lesson from us brits in economics.
Oh, hang on a minute...
[i]Any country that's spent so long fighting their own countymen over 2 sides of the same religion and weather to be united or divided has to be a bit stupid.
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I asked Ton's question to my parents back when I was a young nipper. We used to watch "The Comedians" on ITV.
The answer sort of made sense to me (well it must've done, because it's stuck with me to this day) and it's what PP says.
Maybe it shows my parent's ignorance or not, I don't know (my mum was brought up in South Africa and is quite racist (if you can be "quite" racist!)), but warring over religion is seemed stupid to me when I was a kid. Doesn't seem any cleverer now to be honest.
Fairly standard colonial trait of dehumanising/degrading your subjects in order to justify the colonisation - 'civilising' the savages etc. That and many people's only experience of Irish people was badly educated itinerant workers.
What we have now is the tail-end of that legacy IMO.
I used to work for an Irish guy, a builder, believe it or not, and his usual response to Irish jokes was "If the Irish are so thick, how come I can come over here and have 20 of you English funkers working for me ?"
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It's interesting when you know people from different countries that they all have similar jokes about their neighbours - someone already mentioned the Dutch/Belgian rivalry, but I've also heard 'Irish' style jokes from Indians about ****stanis, Newzealanders about Aussies, Swedes about the Finnish, etc.
Think it could relate to the way some of the original labourers that came over here to build most of our infrastructure were not highly educated.
An Irishman goes for a job on a building site and the gaffer says "Paddy as you micks are all a bit thick I'll have to test you before you can have the job. What's the difference between a joist and a girder?"
The Irishman thinks for a second and replies " Sure that's easy joist wrote Ulysses and girder wrote Faust."
I'll get my coat
Prejudice and stereotyping are the reasons that Irish people are usually portrayed as being thick. Hope that helps answer your question.
Prejudice and stereotyping are the reasons that Irish people are usually portrayed as being thick
..and 'cos they're fat and they stink
Dunno if it has been said, but a lot of the British "intervention" in Ireland was justified by suggesting the Irish were savages, think the Highland Clearances of the sullen,benighted,backward Scots on a far greater,harsher scale.I would suggest this is why we have a lingering series of jokes about the Irish. Made it easier to explain the treatment of them for 200 years.
one word answer the the OP's question:
Jedward.
Jebward are having the biggest laugh though as they are earning buckets of cash.
I do like the Irish builders joke