Posted by Adam Quinan on January 03, 2007 at 12:22:24 from 74.103.34.126 user Adam.
In Reply to: Childers (was Britain; Grammar) posted by Jock on January 03, 2007 at 11:24:21:
Childers was an example of what used to be called the Anglo-Irish. The Anglo-Irish were a social class, not a genetic mix. They were people of a mostly Irish ancestry families (but who also often intermarried with the British). They adopted the accents and customs of the English upper middle classes but acknowledged their Irishness. They were the professional class of Ireland, and had obtained their position because of the earlier penal religious laws against Catholics which only allowed Protestants to become doctors and lawyers etc.
My own family was of that sort, doctors and lawyers mostly with a couple of clergymen, though none of us have lived in Ireland for about a century now.