# O'Bama's visit to Ireland.



## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Is it me, or did he spend the absolute minimum time in Ireland that would gain him the Irish-American vote?
On a less serious note, I'd be interested to know whether he drank the whole pint?


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## Peak and Pine (Sep 12, 2007)

It is not necessary to spend _any _time in Ireland to get the Irish American vote. He has it wrapped. What you just saw over there was The Once and Future President. (And when he strides all the creatures large and small do cheer, if I remember T. H. White correctly.)


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Perhaps I should have said maintained him the Irish vote. I'd still like to know if anybody saw him finish the pint!


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## blue suede shoes (Mar 22, 2010)

Chouan said:


> Perhaps I should have said maintained him the Irish vote. I'd still like to know if anybody saw him finish the pint!


I did not see pictures or video of the event, but it was reported on a major network newscast on the radio here that he drank the whole pint. He said he never had Guiness before.

I sure hope they served it to him COLD, the way it should be served. :icon_smile_wink:


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Why should President O'Bama have spent any more time in Ireland? LOL. If I recall correctly from the movie Blazing Saddles, they wouldn't even allow the Irish to live in Rock Ridge!


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Oh sure.

He's all touchy feely now.

Wait until he comes home and proposes the border be changed to pre-1921!!


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

He finished his pint alright and had another one by all accounts. The First Lady also stepped behind the bar to pull a couple of pints too. One was handed to the local Parish Priest. The other to the American Ambassador to Ireland.










Unfortunately his visit ended a day early as the volcano in Iceland is spewing again and airspace is closing down. Pity. But after the Queen's visit last week, Dublin commuters' patience has worn very thin indeed.










I was really glad to see him here as there are very few - if any - small countries like mine that get the same attention from US Presidents. His speech at a public address in Dublin last evening was attended by thousands and though I felt is was a little twee and rhetorical, it was still a decent occasion none the less. I'd rather have it than not.

https://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0523/media-2963780.html

He seemed to really enjoy himself and it showed. He was relaxed, fun and convivial and the various US media hacks commented that they had never seen this side of him.

I think this was moreso the reason or perhaps a desired outcome for his visit; let the wider American voting public see him as a regular guy who can let his hair down so th speak as well as to underscore his deep-set American roots on his mother side. After all his Great-Great-Great Grandfather emigrated in 1850 - that's before the Civil War.

So, he met with distant cousins and visited his ancestral homestead in the Irish midlands, something quite unbelievable for a chap his greatest detractors say is really Kenyan. Thus giving him the right to claim himself an Irish American. In fact, he's probably got deeper American roots than an awful lot of said detractors.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> So, he met with distant cousins and visited his ancestral homestead in the Irish midlands, something quite unbelievable for a chap his greatest detractors say is really Kenyan. Thus giving him the right to claim himself an Irish American. In fact, he's probably got deeper American roots than an awful lot of said detractors.


I look Irish but have a Polish name.

Like the President, I play up the side that best ingratiates me with my audience!!


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## majorlance (Apr 19, 2011)

The news report I heard stated "and he downed it in only four sips"....


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


> I look Irish but have a Polish name.
> 
> Like the President, I play up the side that best ingratiates me with my audience!!


Interesting. What do Irish people look like, so that I can imagine the look?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

majorlance said:


> The news report I heard stated "and he downed it in only four sips"....


Good for him. An Irish colleague of mine (she's from Cork) suggested that if he *had* finished it, he would have been the first American she'd ever heard of to have done so.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Chouan said:


> Interesting. What do Irish people look like, so that I can imagine the look?


They look just like me and you, of course..... :icon_smile_wink:


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


> Like the President, I play up the side that best ingratiates me with my audience!!


And that, in those few short words one defines the essence of a Politician - one and all.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Chouan said:


> Interesting. What do Irish people look like, so that I can imagine the look?


Since you asked...










My maternal Grandmother was a Feeley.

Paternal; Gulczynski.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


> Since you asked...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I suppose that black people look like this:
https://www.rorylofthouse.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Golden-Shred-Golliwog.jpg


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Chouan said:


> I suppose that black people look like this:


Although Black/Africans generally do have dark complextions and kinky black hair, if you can't tell the difference between a Nigerian, an Ethiopian and an Egyptian, you need help!!


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## mrkleen (Sep 21, 2007)

Chouan said:


> Good for him. An Irish colleague of mine (she's from Cork) suggested that if he *had* finished it, he would have been the first American she'd ever heard of to have done so.


 Wait, what? You dont think Americans drink a lot of Guinness? Clearly you have never been to Boston.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


> Although Black/Africans generally do have dark complextions and kinky black hair, if you can't tell the difference between a Nigerian, an Ethiopian and an Egyptian, you need help!!


Actually, of all those nationalities, their differences are easily identifiable. Though I'm struggling to figure if that's what you meant. Or not.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


>


OMG! Where did you get my picture!? And looking so healthy to boot!


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> Actually, of all those nationalities, their differences are easily identifiable. Though I'm struggling to figure if that's what you meant. Or not.


It is.

Some people imply that simply acknowleging differences, likenesses or tendencies among races and nationalities is akin to racism.

Obviously it is not.

So, you have a face like the map of Ireland too??


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

mrkleen said:


> Wait, what? You dont think Americans drink a lot of Guinness? Clearly you have never been to Boston.


I have. On the other hand, she might not have. On the other, other hand, most Americans that I've seen ordering a Guinness, even in Boston, seem to do it out of some kind of cultural imperative. They seem to follow a kind of ritual. They order one, watch it being poured, drink a couple of mouthfulls, then order something else. Most Americans that I've seen in my part of Ireland seem to follow the same pattern of behaviour. I have, absolutely in all honesty, never seen an American finish a pint.
Mind you, the Queen and Prince Phillip never even touched theirs!


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

WouldaShoulda said:


> It is.
> 
> Some people imply that simply acknowleging differences, likenesses or tendencies among races and nationalities is akin to racism.
> 
> ...


Given that I spend a lot of time working in the developing world, I have to agree with you on all counts... well, by my face but more on that in a bit  ...It's not just nationalities, but it works on a tribal level too.... For example, I have a Kenyan guy working for me and he's based in Kampala. He's from a minority tribe from a province just outside a province on the Kenyan/Somali border and that is one region he cannot travel to. He'd be a dead man if he did. The Somali appearance is quite distinctive. Internal racism or tribalism in Africa (well everywhere really) - if that's the right way to express it - is rife.

So, my face - it's one for radio, I survive on my ability for witty banter and my boyish charm. Actually, I look Nordic - I'm 6'2", fair skinned with blond hair, green eyes and have a thing for scratchy knitwear, silly hats and cowbells. Or is that Swiss?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> Internal racism or tribalism in Africa (well everywhere really) - if that's the right way to express it - is rife.


Quite. I always find it curious that so many people assume that racism is white on black. Some people recognise that it is also black on white. Even fewer realise that it is black on black and white on white as well.


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## Malagueno (May 25, 2011)

VictorRomeo said:


> OMG! Where did you get my picture!? And looking so healthy to boot!


Although decidedly not Irish, I think I started looking more and more like this the moment I stepped onto campus for the first time at Notre Dame.


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## mrkleen (Sep 21, 2007)

Chouan said:


> I have. On the other hand, she might not have. On the other, other hand, most Americans that I've seen ordering a Guinness, even in Boston, seem to do it out of some kind of cultural imperative. They seem to follow a kind of ritual. They order one, watch it being poured, drink a couple of mouthfulls, then order something else. Most Americans that I've seen in my part of Ireland seem to follow the same pattern of behaviour. I have, absolutely in all honesty, never seen an American finish a pint.
> Mind you, the Queen and Prince Phillip never even touched theirs!


 Again, you havent spent much time in Boston. There are more Irish in Boston than anywhere on the planet outside of Ireland.....and Guinness is served in massive quantities. Nearly a million pints of Guinness are consumed a year in the USA....but yeah, none of them are ever finished


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

mrkleen said:


> Again, you havent spent much time in Boston. There are more Irish in Boston than anywhere on the planet outside of Ireland.....and Guinness is served in massive quantities. Nearly a million pints of Guinness are consumed a year in the USA....but yeah, none of them are ever finished


I'd suggest that there are more in London, or Liverpool, and also in terms of Irishness, Middlesbrough, which has about the highest proportion of Catholics and people of Irish descent in England, with proportionately more people of Irish heritage than any town outside of Ireland.
Although emigration from Ireland to the US and Australia was common, more Irish people came to the UK.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Jeez, Chaps.... easy.... there are plenty of us for all of you......


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

I'm one, although in my case in my infancy, and Ireland's economic problems suggest that there'll soon be many more.


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## Saltydog (Nov 3, 2007)

Late to this game and somewhat confused. I'm an American...live far from Boston...and have downed many a pint of Guiness. Sometimes with a Bailey's sidecar. Both are pure necter and I can't imagine why one would _not_ finish a pint--regardless of nationality. Not that it is relevant, but my lineage is mainly Scots-Irish like many native Southerners. Btw, I do prefer bourbon to scotch--though both have their merits.


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## mrkleen (Sep 21, 2007)

Saltydog said:


> Late to this game and somewhat confused. I'm an American...live far from Boston...and have downed many a pint of Guiness. Sometimes with a Bailey's sidecar. Both are pure necter and I can't imagine why one would _not_ finish a pint--regardless of nationality. Not that it is relevant, but my lineage is mainly Scots-Irish like many native Southerners. Btw, I do prefer bourbon to scotch--though both have their merits.


 Dont be confused Salty - Chouan is completely misinformed and incorrect. LOTS of people in Irish pubs all over the USA (especially in Boston) start AND FINISH lots of pints of Guinness every day.


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## The Rambler (Feb 18, 2010)

I wish the American version was as tasty as the Irish.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Guinness, the draught version, is good throughout the UK, but is vastly superior in Ireland. It used to be very good in Liverpool as well, until they sold their tankers.


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