ObieX, yes Irish people gather socially in pubs, but then so do the English and the Germans (two 'races' sometimes not particularly known for their peaceable natures - if history has been anything to go by)
But it is best to try to avoid any kind of stereotyping, people are people wherever they come from and tend to have the same ideas, hopes and aspirations. Just as it would be wrong of me to label Germans as facists, the English as tea sipping colonials, or Americans as dim-witted unworldly consumers, it would also be wrong to label the Irish as peace loving wee folk who, as soon as they've murdered a few English civillians would like nothing more than to skip through the clover and share a few pints of Guinness by the log fire in their friendly local pub.
It's just one of those things that niggles me, the way easy simplified stereotypes are bandied around as if they were real. People are always more complicated than any stereotype can do justice to.
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