The old country has no problem adopting `new` traditions such as St Patricks Day parades and the drinking (on that day) which go with it.
An entirely North American diaspora tradition which was adopted by the `home` Irish in the late 1990s if not later.A `real` traditional St Patricks Day in Ireland was (when I grew up there) a day you abstained,went to mass and all pubs were closed.
Its a two way street-the stay at homes adopt the new traditions of the diaspora and soon believe that it was their tradition all along.The same applies to Scotland and everywhere else in the old world for that matter.




QUOTE=MacSpadger;1072130]Yes, point taken very clearly, the "re-imagining of communities" in particular.

I am very much aware from previous experience that the Irish diaspora have sometimes great passion around this subject, so I have been tiptoing quite carefully. It's really only just starting to dawn on me that for some the wearing of a kilt overseas is not laying claim to an ancestral identity, but creating a new cultural identity based on newly invented or very much altered traditions adapted to the land in which they currently live, hence the wearing of items that would never be seen in the Old Country. (I have once seen a group of men in Dublin wearing kilts, but they turned out to be a Stag Night party over from Edinburgh for the weekend).

It's just an unfortunate effect that re-imaging a community seems to further create a cultural divide between the diaspora and the native inhabitants. Confusion abounds for those of us whose families remained here. That goes for Scots as well as Irish, the "Kirking of the Tartans" springs to mind. As I have said previously, I don't often post here because, quite simply, I often don't know what people are talking about or why they are discussing it. Thanks for keeping it friendly and informative.[/QUOTE]