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THE TAOISEACH HAS extended an invitation to next year’s St Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland to an American woman who received online abuse in recent days after she posted a video of herself Irish dancing.
The Virginia-based dancer Morgan Bullock posted her Irish dancing routine to TikTok and Instagram at the weekend and it quickly went viral.
m / Twitter
m / Twitter / Twitter
While much of the commentary was positive, Bullock also came up against abusive and racist responses from some.
Yesterday, she posted a statement, telling her followers she is proud to be a competitive Irish dancer.
“If you think that a black girl Irish dancing is some form of cultural appropriation, then you clearly don’t know much about Irish dance and what is became over the years. There are Irish dance schools all over the world, including Mexico, China and Africa.
It has become a very widespread sport in which participants become immersed in the culture, whether or not it is based on ethnicity.
“Irish dance has taken me all over the world. I have been to Ireland multiple times and I was met with so much love and support.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s Liveline earlier today, she said “people are failing to recognise the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation”.
The dancer said most of the racist comments were coming from American people.
This evening, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar shared the video, commending Bullock for “some brilliant moves”.
“Hope you can dance in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day in 2021. We’d love to have you over,” he said.
The Embassy of Ireland to the US also said today that it was fortunate “to have such talent here devoting themselves to Irish dancing”.
“You are better than good at what you do. And you are a credit to both our nation and yours.”
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Good on her rising above the bullies, nice gesture from Leo.
@Tara Murphy: Bullies is the right word. Regressive and prejudiced bullies at that. The fact that this girl understands our culture enough to know that all we want is for it to be celebrated tells me that she defines it, regardless of where she’s from.
@John Considine: Indeed, this young woman represents herself and Ireland with wonderful grace and humility.
@Tara Murphy: There’s a whole different dynamic between cultures/ethnicities in the US than here and much of it is born from the struggle for racial equality. Some within the black community have no trouble pointing out (and misidentifying) cultural appreciation as cultural appropriation and what she received was probably to do with that. It’s the old ”tit for tat”. Even we do it. I’m old enough to remember some of us were not too happy a ”plastic paddy” was representing Ireland in Eurovision 1994. Anyway, she’s a wise young lady. Hope she can make it here for April 2021.
@Mary Morrisey: I agree with what you have written and some earlier comments have added credence to your various points.
Its a very interesting and somewhat contentious issue which is often misunderstood or misapplied.
It would have been interesting to observe the reaction to your comment had you have posted earlier.
Go on girl! Keep dancing. Ignore the bigots.
@Joe Bridgeman: absolute disgrace. Keep dancing and shut these fuc#kers up
@Joe Bridgeman: exactly, plus she should be given a paid trip over for having to endure Liveline. Poor girl had enough punishment before all that.
@ThatLJD: ah, Jayyyyyyysus!
@Fergal_Carlow: The video is 12 seconds long. The tweet probably took him a further 30 seconds to write. I think your anger is a bit misguided.
Well done, see you 2021.
Cultural appreciation
The idea of cultural appropriation is complete nonsense. Glad to see it is being called out, fair play to her.
@Peter Denham
Indeed, otherwise I’d have to shelve my Moon Walk.
@iohanx: Boom! :-)
Just looked it up, she’s really good.. We’ll done Leo..
@Patricia O’Reilly: What has Leo done, not as if he’s paying for her to come over out of his own pocket?
@Fergal_Carlow: So he’s not allowed spend one minute of his day to do a small but nice gesture for someone without the virus?
@Fergal_Carlow: Lay off the Bulmers I’d say Fergal, I’m sure he is well aware of the virus. You also seem to have taken some time out from helping the vulnerable to read a bit of the journal. Sleep tight
Great, another picture of a video. Great Journalism
@backupanytime: Thought it was just me that clicked on the video and didn’t see anything…….why bother putting it up if we can’t see it
Nice gesture Leo
What kind of moron do you have to be to accuse someone of cultural appropriation for doing some Irish dancing? You can bet your bottom dollar this wouldn’t happen if she was white.
@Pete Gilmartin: The whole idea of cultural appropriation makes zero sense in the first place tbh.
@josephsample: Yep. Happy to see the idea cultural appropriation being shown to the divisive garbage that it is.
@Peter Denham: Oh I don’t know. What about the Irish regiments in the British military playing Irish folk songs?
@Teresa Ryan: The Nazi’s could’ve been singing ‘She moved through the fair’ on the battlefields during world war 2 and I wouldn’t have cared. What difference does it make?
@Pete Gilmartin: what about the white kids that dressed up as native Indian and black characters and got abused all because they had the wrong sink color , lot of poo the whole lot of it , identity politics is just making us all separate even more load a bollocks for ALL people
@josephsample: If you can’t see it, then you’ll never understand.
I saw her video on Tick Tock & thought she was fantastic! I wish i could dance like her! Irish dancing is worldwide with different cultures partaking.. why would you care about color of someones skin? Some really racist uneducated people in the world surely
@Fergal_Carlow: did you just describe yourself?
@Fergal_Carlow: do you want to weigh up the time he has spent dealing with coronavirus against the time he spent on that tweet? You’re being ridiculous.
Why give so much attention to any negative racist comments? Which apprantly came from Americans, not Irish people, and were out numbered substantially by wonderful comments on some fabulous Irish dancing, ignore the bigots, they feed off publicity. Fantastic dancer, amazing to watch.
@Fergal_Carlow: by a long way the most ridiculous comment I have seen on here in a while and believe me there are some beauties
I just watched it six times in a row and I want to see more. Flawless footwork. Can’t wait til Paddy’s day 2021 !
@Fergal_Carlow: I think the consensus is that you are a bit of a numty Fergal. Sorry bc
It looks like getting abused in this day and age can work out quite well..
Abuse? Front what I seen it was praise.
Fair play to this girl. But Leo is at his PR game again. That’s all this is.
My god! I’m the biggest a..hole I know. But I never thought that that was anything, but brilliant. How can people be like that?
@Fergal_Carlow: oh shut up, just be thankful everyone listened to him, you probably wouldn’t be able to make this ridiculous comment if they didnt.
@Fergal_Carlow: rubbish
Let’s bury f.f and the greens well done leo
@Fergal_Carlow: exactly. A little posh boy who writes letters to kylie monogue and who’s hero is Churchill. The mind boggles to how far removed he is from Irish society.
Respect…
I got the crap beat out of me on a regular basis for doing irish dancing.
@Logan Shepherd: ah, I’m sure you weren’t that bad.
@Logan Shepherd: my dancing teacher was just as strict as yours!
@Fergal_Carlow: @The Shape: Love it :-)
@Logan Shepherd: Wearing a skirt didn’t help Logan. Must have been so disappointed.
@Geraldine Glynn: Haha, good burn. Nice one David. Luckily I only had to wear it once :-)
So we are have a paddy’s day next year
@european liberal: jackpot!!
@european liberal: Not if ‘Corona’ can help it.!!
This is the real problem with the internet – the fact that it gave a bunch of trolls an outlet to abuse this girl for no reason.
Love her reply on the difference between cultural approbation and cultural appreciation. Keep on dancing girl and ignore the bigots.
@r-k: every person in Ireland is an element of Irish society. It’s weird that you think everyone has to be the exact same all the time otherwise you’ll ostracise them. It’s funny how you’ve come to an article about a girl being harassed for liking something and used it to do the same to someone else.
Fair f*cks to both of them!
@Fergal_Carlow: down with this sort of thing!!!
Delighted to hear it, she’s an awesome dancer!
Well done Morgan
She’s a great inspiration, but seriously, she could get an eye from all that dancing!
Good man Leo, let’s hope incoming Taoiseach will also extent an invitation.
Who will pay for this trip
@Fergal_Carlow: Sounds like you are the angry man in his underpants….
Jbanaansnms
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