Page "Irish diaspora" Paragraph 20

Mary J. Hickman writes that " plastic Paddy " was a term used to " deny and denigrate the second-generation Irish in Britain " in the 1980s, and was " frequently articulated by the new middle class Irish immigrants in Britain, for whom it was a means of distancing themselves from established Irish communities.

" According to Bronwen Walter, professor of Irish Diaspora Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, " the adoption of a hyphenated identity has been much more problematic for the second generation Irish in Britain.

The Irish-born have frequently denied the authenticity of their Irish identity, using the derogatory term plastic paddy, and the English regards them as " assimilated " and simply " English.