Ireland IS Europe!

[Gadjodilo]

Do you ever get fed up with people referring to Ireland as if it was in some other continent that's not Europe? There's a shop on the North Circular Road in Dublin just before Doyle's Corner advertising a service with which you can "send money to Europe". How can you send something to a place when you're already there?

Okay, I know they mean the continent by why can't they say that?

Also, so many people talk about "Europeans" as if they were some separate group. What do they think we are? Africans? Asians?

I've a good mind to set up a travel company promising these people a magical mystery trip "to Europe" for oooohhh say..... €50. Get them on the bus and then drop them down at the corner of the street. Sorry, folks. This IS Europe.

[Bom]

It must be admitted, of course that we are legally associated with 'Europe' and that technically we form part of that geographic area which is accepted as part of the 'continent of Europe'. But when you understand that these are purely subjective understandings based on somewhat arbitrary lines-on-maps, conventionalised through their acceptance by a mass of adherents...then you realise its no big deal as it has no reality beyond its conventionalised acceptance. If you choose to share in that acceptance, good for you.

Personally, I dont conceive of myself as 'being European' in any real sense, anymore than I might consider myself a 'Western European Capitalist' just because I happen to live in what most people consider to be a capitalist nation state in western 'Europe'. If I was walking down the street of an isolated Chinese village (or what is conventionally referred to as 'China'), I might be taken for such, at first glance, by the inhabitants....but for all that, what truth would they have discerned?

Signs on shops dont bother me very often, unless they say something really nasty - not a thing that has happened in my experience.

[R Paul]

anymore than I might consider myself a 'Western European Capitalist' just because I happen to live in what most people consider to be a capitalist nation state in western 'Europe'.

Switzerland, right?

[Bom]

anymore than I might consider myself a 'Western European Capitalist' just because I happen to live in what most people consider to be a capitalist nation state in western 'Europe'.

Switzerland, right?

Sorry, I dont follow you. If you mean to ask if I am from that nation state commonly referred to as 'Switzerland', the answer is no.

[Twin Towers]

I don't feel the least bit European. Must I?

[Inverness]

I am 100% Dubliner. I am 100% Irish. I am 100% European.

[White Horse]

I know what you mean. Does it also bug you when people refer to "the British", when is fact they means just the occupants of the eastern island.

Drive you mad, eh

[CJH]

Do you ever get fed up with people referring to Ireland as if it was in some other continent that's not Europe?

No.

[Twin Towers]

I am 100% Dubliner. I am 100% Irish. I am 100% European.

I guess you're 100% earthling too.

[Bom]

"Continent" is a conventional description and can vary depending on where it is used. It is not a strict geographical term.

Accepted. I did point to the conditional conventionalised nature of its acceptance, however....as the 'continent of Europe'.