Try going to the laughter lounge or international comedy club in Dublin of a night and see if one of the Irish comedians doesn't bring up 800 years of oppression!
I agree that I wouldn't be personally offended by non malicious type jokes like this - I heard them for the first time in Australia actually. Australians are just great for this kind of joke - they make em about everyone from Pakis to Italians to Irish - they can't take it about themselves but that's a different topic.
Personally speaking, as someone who lived in England for 10 years, I got a fair few Irish jokes thrown my way, mostly by people who I knew quite well. However I rarely detected any malice in those jokes. This was at the height of the troubles and I remember one guy I worked with in his 50s warning people to be careful with me cause I might bomb them, my response was usually something like telling him to make sure he checked under his cars for a bomb before he went home, or telling him that he was alright, he wasn't worth a bomb. I only ever remember one person making a derogatory remark with some malice and that guy who worked with me was the one who jumped straight up, took the head off the fellow who made the remark and then dropped a large and heavy box on his foot before booting him out the door.
In a nutshell, it was banter and anyone who ever told me an Irish joke usually expected (and got) an English one back.
Maybe not the exact thread for me to get overly sensitive on, but could you not have found a better way of terming that one?
On to the jokes, the jokes are old and as others have indicated, the butt of the joke has evolved over the years to various ethinic groups. In some circles it still remains the Irish, but I see the same jokes recycled these days except it is the "blonde" who is the protagonist of the tale.
One comeback that will stop all jokes about bombings is to respond along the following lines and be deadpan serious as you do it - works every time. Saw it used to great effect by a friend who while illegally parking a Dublin registered car in the UK was approached by a police officer who made a joke that it wouldnt be good to illegally park an Irish registered car due to bomb scares etc. [I am not expressing any politican views, so do take anything from the below - just a great way of stopping a joker in his tracks].
...dont get the joke.....dont see the connection between bombs and Ireland?.....sure we're a neutral country who's never fought in any wars...
Joker usually responds with a reference to the troubles.
....what have the troubles got to do with Ireland?....isnt Northern Ireland part of the UK?......one bunch of British citizens bombing another bunch of British citizens...whats that got to do with me, I'm from Dublin [insert other locations as appropriate]...we're not into this bombing our fellow citizens stuff... shame you Brits cant get along with one another.....
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