I’ll be honest, it’s super easy to make fun of us Americans. But at the same time I wish people understood more of the context behind it and empathize with people trying to remember their heritage. I know we have some absolute shit tourists and people on social media, I really and truly get it. I’d like to ask to give most of us a pass but please make fun of the idiots.

When we were in Ireland in April, we never mentioned any heritage at all to anyone while we were there, because it wasn’t the point of our journey. At the same time, I honestly don’t think I met a group of people who were as welcome as the Irish while we were there. Everyone was so hospitable, kind and caring. The EPIC museum on Irish emigration even had an exhibit about how they appreciated all the Irish who left but still felt a calling back to Ireland, even across generations.

It feels weird seeing these things upvoted here, because most people were so friendly and happy to see people connecting back to generations who had to leave Ireland for various reasons.

I understand how it’s weird how Americans feel attached to very separate nationalities. You don’t realize that is can be because a small town Irish girl from Imogene Iowa married and small town German boy from Bessie Oklahoma, and now their descendants have some weird fucking genealogy that can’t be rectified in near history or modern politics. Now, I get how that’s weird to anyone outside of the US, but that’s hardly uncommon here. Maybe we’ll see that die out as people start identifying as more American (US), but we really appreciate the struggles and the hardship that a fair amount of our ancestors had to go through to get us here. And frankly, you Irish are cool.

Regardless, I loved Ireland and everything about it. And if you run into a tour guide with the surname Foley who has a Cork accent even those he’s a Kerry man, tell him hi from his admiring small tour group. We love him.