• Help Support The Rugby Forum :

A Belgian and a Vietnamese walk into a bar...

Half Welsh, half English. Dads side of the family are Bristol, Mums side from Cardiff/Newport. Also way back on my dads side, we're talking late early 20th century there's some Irish roots based in Cork. I consider myself fully Welsh though
 
Yep, that was the joke :lol:

And hang on, where'd the Chiefs support come along from a Belgian?

I have Family in Rotorua, did my internship there. So lived there for 8 months and did a 2 month round trip one year later.
My cousin is a good friend of Tom Donnely and Mike Delany and after work we used to head to H-Town or our backgarden to see the Chiefs play
 
My parents are both from Chile, though my dad's family is half french and half english. I was born in France, spent some of my childhood here, then lived many years in Chile, then a few in California. Now back in France.

I'm eligible to play for all those four countries, but I haven't been tied to any (just so you know, PSA)
 
Last edited:
Fully Welsh. If you go back a long way you find English, Irish and Scottish but I'm still fully Welsh:D
 
HTML:
I'm Welsh. My Mom was born in Liverpool, but that's only because that was the closest hospital (she lived in Rhes-y-cae not far from Mold). Her side of the family is French, although a couple of generations ago now (her maiden name is Mercier), and I have zero connections with France. Ultimately I consider myself 100% Welsh, even if that's not strictly true.

One final thing. I'm certainly not British.....
 
New Zealand born and raised, United States resident, half German, quarter Swedish, quarter English.
 
Dull do the Welsh not identify with being of Celtic British origin? to the best of my understanding I always thought British actually referred to the Celtic race Britain Pre and post roman occupation.
 
Dull do the Welsh not identify with being of Celtic British origin? to the best of my understanding I always thought British actually referred to the Celtic race Britain Pre and post roman occupation.

I've always taken British as anyone who would associate themselves with the UK through residency rather than with a specific Home Nations country. I'm 0% English by blood but I'd call myself both British and English as I've lived here all my life.

I find it's the "real" English, Scottish, Welsh folk that dislike the term British...
 
Dull do the Welsh not identify with being of Celtic British origin? to the best of my understanding I always thought British actually referred to the Celtic race Britain Pre and post roman occupation.

Yes*, but the meaning of words change. I would say British is now clearly a term used to identify people who are culturally and politically part of the United Kingdom, although as noted that is not a watertight definition what with the disparate nature of national identity in these islands. Although it amuses me to have seen Welshmen both arguing that they are the only British people (based off of the historical variant) and that they are not British.

*How Celtic Britain was is actually a mildly contentious subject with many studies suggesting that the Celts never formed the ethnic majority, but simply replaced an overlying aristocratic caste of a pre-existing people. And some not. It's hard to say and all the advances in science and history have only mainly succeeded in casting new confusion on the area. You can find studies suggesting that the Anglo-Saxons deliberately bred the Celts out of existence, and studies suggesting that they never really got beyond the east of England and that in fact most Englishmen are ethnically Scandinavian or 'Celtic'. It's not my specialist field, and not particularly relevant, but as I am indulging in rampant pedantry I thought I would bring this up as I find it fascinating.
 
Yep I also find the subject rather fascinating also...

I've read that the Saxons were in fact mostly contained to the eastern side of Britain which would have been referred to at the time as forgive my spelling Llyoger or something meaning "the lost lands" However I don't know how valid the source was.

I would wager however that one of the predominant genes in both Irish and British people would be Danish or Norse..
 
Yep I also find the subject rather fascinating also...

I've read that the Saxons were in fact mostly contained to the eastern side of Britain which would have been referred to at the time as forgive my spelling Llyoger or something meaning "the lost lands" However I don't know how valid the source was.

I would wager however that one of the predominant genes in both Irish and British people would be Danish or Norse..

I think that's a generally accepted view of the Saxons, although there is evidence against it, and I remember one genetic study that found evidence of rampant Saxon settlement. Certainly East Anglia has the highest level of settlement though.

You're certainly correct about the proliferation of Scandinavian genes, particularly in the north - the west of the Pennines more than the east if I recall right. I don't know too much about studies of Scandinavian genes in Ireland, although I'd have thought Dublin and Cork/Wexford/around the Shannon would be the obvious areas. I think the most Scandinavian areas though are the north of Scotland/the Isles. I have read one study suggesting that red hair in the Celtic race is actually a sign of Norse heritage - and Scotland has more of it than anywhere else, and Ulster is the area of Ireland with most of it (Scots descent and all that). You can certainly imagine O'Connell leaving a longship looking for a church or two to burn... although you'd then imagine that Scandinavia would have more redheads than Scotland/Ireland, which it doesn't, so take that one with a pinch of salt obviously. Plus all the historical evidence towards redheads amongst the Celts anyway.

But you get signs of descent from everywhere... there's a family in Yorkshire who've been there for hundreds of years where all the men have a genetic expression normally only found in North Africa.
 
Dull do the Welsh not identify with being of Celtic British origin? to the best of my understanding I always thought British actually referred to the Celtic race Britain Pre and post roman occupation.

I think it's purely due to the fact Britain now stands for something very different than the Celtic race it once represented. The fact that many people across the world believe that the words Britain and England are interchangable certainly doesn't help matters. Nor does the fact that Wales isn't represented on the Union Jack. Ultimately I and many other people would prefer not to be bundled with England if helped, and this is true of many Scottish people I've spoken to aswell. This has nothing to do with 'hating the English', as I certainly don't have that attitude (apart from a little rugby banter). It has more to do with the repression Wales has endured over countless centuries and the want to be seen as something seperate and unique.

It may all be a little petty, and I of course understand that I am in fact British, as well as being Welsh, but unlike some English people I've spoken to about this, I'll always tell people that I'm Welsh, not British.
 
I think that's a generally accepted view of the Saxons, although there is evidence against it, and I remember one genetic study that found evidence of rampant Saxon settlement. Certainly East Anglia has the highest level of settlement though.

You're certainly correct about the proliferation of Scandinavian genes, particularly in the north - the west of the Pennines more than the east if I recall right. I don't know too much about studies of Scandinavian genes in Ireland, although I'd have thought Dublin and Cork/Wexford/around the Shannon would be the obvious areas. I think the most Scandinavian areas though are the north of Scotland/the Isles. I have read one study suggesting that red hair in the Celtic race is actually a sign of Norse heritage - and Scotland has more of it than anywhere else, and Ulster is the area of Ireland with most of it (Scots descent and all that). You can certainly imagine O'Connell leaving a longship looking for a church or two to burn... although you'd then imagine that Scandinavia would have more redheads than Scotland/Ireland, which it doesn't, so take that one with a pinch of salt obviously. Plus all the historical evidence towards redheads amongst the Celts anyway.

But you get signs of descent from everywhere... there's a family in Yorkshire who've been there for hundreds of years where all the men have a genetic expression normally only found in North Africa.

Funny that because I have heard stories of red haired young kids running around north Africa in particular Algieria ...some evidence to suggest they were the descendants of Irish people from the sack of Baltimore..where Barbary Pirates basically swept a village away in the dead of night where they were sold into slavery on the north African coast...indeed the Claddagh ring was developed by one of them in captivity.
 
I think it's purely due to the fact Britain now stands for something very different than the Celtic race it once represented. The fact that many people across the world believe that the words Britain and England are interchangable certainly doesn't help matters. Nor does the fact that Wales isn't represented on the Union Jack. Ultimately I and many other people would prefer not to be bundled with England if helped, and this is true of many Scottish people I've spoken to aswell. This has nothing to do with 'hating the English', as I certainly don't have that attitude (apart from a little rugby banter). It has more to do with the repression Wales has endured over countless centuries and the want to be seen as something seperate and unique.



It may all be a little petty, and I of course understand that I am in fact British, as well as being Welsh, but unlike some English people I've spoken to about this, I'll always tell people that I'm Welsh, not British.
That's a very fair point...indeed the word British does often have connotations towards oppression of the Celtic nations.
 
Funny that because I have heard stories of red haired young kids running around north Africa in particular Algieria ...some evidence to suggest they were the descendants of Irish people from the sack of Baltimore..where Barbary Pirates basically swept a village away in the dead of night where they were sold into slavery on the north African coast...indeed the Claddagh ring was developed by one of them in captivity.

Interesting, I'd never heard of that, although I do believe there's some villages in China where redheaded men are common due to an Irish shipwreck there. Wouldn't sweat to that though.
 

Latest posts

Top