John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:
> Declan Murphy wrote:
> 
>>Which part of Hearn was "ethnically British"? The Greek mother or the
>>Irish father?
>  
> The Irish father, I would imagine. Hearn's father was Protestant Irish,
> meaning he almost certainly had "British ethnicity" (insofar as that term
> makes any sense), since the Irish Protestants almost all came either from
> Scotland or England.

Emphasis there though should be "insofar as that term makes any sense".
The movement of migrants from (mostly) Scotland had dried up nearly 150 
years before Hearn's birth. Yes Hearn's father's background was 
ascendancy, but I don't think many people, even from Ulster could work 
out what "ethnically British" could possibly mean. Nationality sure, 
identity certainly, but ethnically? Even that oaf Paisley would be 
scratching his head. Kippers or no kippers.

> In other words, you are right, but Hearn himself stressed the
> English/British side of his background, and doesn't, in the above, mention
> Ireland at all!

Why would he? From 1801 it had ceased to all intents and purposes to 
exist. He was a child of empire, and the Dublin he was raised in by his 
great aunt and long ceased to be the second city of that Empire.




-- 
"All FDR undid was the value of the dollar"

                        Kevin Gowen (really)