It really drives me mad. When I tell people I went to an irish music festival, or listen and play irish music, they ask me “Are you irish?”. I really don’t get it. Do you need to be australian to appreciate australian wine? Do you need to be japanase to drive a Honda, drink sake or eat sushi? If I wear Nike shoes, does that make me american?
Why do people think you must have irish blood when you do anything related to irish music?
Well if you’re not Irish, what the bleedin’ blue blazes are ya doin’ here on C&F!!??
jus’ kiddin 
I don’t know, but I get the same response…especially if I tell people I’m learning Irish! Heck, I know plenty of opera singers who learn German and Italian, and no one asks them their ethnicity! But even if I mention I’m playing in a session, people will say “Oh, I didn’t know you’re Irish!”
The interesting thing is, I know plenty of non-Irish people who say they LIKE Irish music (or more usually “Celtic” music…which really drives me round the bend, since most of them actually MEAN “Irish”)…it seems to be the act of playing/singing it that people want to associate with “being Irish.” It’s almost as if they think it’s not really authentic if your surname isn’t O’Malley or McLaughlin!
Redwolf
Good point. It’s not just Irish music, I think it’s any folk music. When
I told someone I like playing Klezmer on my Clarinet, he said he didn’t
know I was Jewish (I’m not).
I think I’ll use the Japanese car line next time someone asks me that.
Can anyone explain the term “poetic justice” to me?
I have a sudden curiosity about it.
I don’t know why.
I am not a cat.
Curisosity is only dangerous if you are a cat, Tal, so you should be fine in asking…
Then again, if you’re lying to us, and you really ARE a cat…
well…there’s more than one way to skin ya. 
Since you are as able as anyone else to look this up, I suspect you have an alterior motive to your question. What might that be? 
djm
Now why would a Morris be wanting to skin a cat?
Tyler! There are no bells on that cat.
Not your true blue Morris Dancer!
be careful on the “Japanese car” comment -
Hondas are made in St. Mary’s, Ohio and Toyotas are made in Georgetown, KY…
Well, I see it as another reason to be able to play irish music without being irish, you can even make japanese cars without being japanese.
Yeah, I get that from Irish people, too, not just Americans. Some of them also seem surprised that I am visiting Ireland if I have no Irish “connections.”
J.
I have heard of this reaction, as well. I guess the Irish are so inundated by the off-spring of the diaspora coming back searching for their roots that the locals find it hard to believe foreigners could be there for any other reason. 
This reminds me a bit of a short story I once read by Roddy Doyle, where an Irish guy is trying to relive his youth by having a bit of a fling in Dublin. Everything falls apart as he is unable to pull the old crowd of revellers back together (they’ve all grown old) and the town has changed, its not his any more. So anyways, at the end, he finds himself back in his hotel setting the American tourists up, asking them questions about his relatives in the US, do they know them?, as he wants to explore his roots. Great fun.
djm
Well in Bangkok (about 20 years ago) the airport official asked me if I was Apache!
Not long after, in London, at the Indian Embassy, when I was applying for a visa to visit India, the female bureaucrat asked me if I was “Red Indian”
and she could even see my name on the passport! BTW, my legal name isn’t Nino Cochise and suchlike but pretty clearly South Asian origin.
When I worked in a large corporation here some years ago a guy from New York joined our team and asked me if I was Amerindian background.
What was the trigger for this? I have high cheekbones (from the Nepalese side of my ancestry) and, in those heady days I would often wear my hair in two long pleats. (it was a good way of avoiding questions about tandoori recipes and the intricacies of tuning a sitar and the secrets of levitating. Nobody wants to know about how to skin a deer).
And so it goes Kiddies, believe me …
And so it goes
I have heard of this reaction, as well. I guess the Irish are so inundated by the off-spring of the diaspora coming back searching for their roots that the locals find it hard to believe foreigners could be there for any other reason.
This is far more true than you could possibly know. Although the music is not the reserve of the Irish any longer, in much the same way as blues.
I love it!
Means more people to play with
Sounds like bush music to me …
Do you mean, making music with the little people?
djm
True story . . . happened just the other evening.
Him: I can tell you’re Irish. (Mind you, he’s looking at my nametag, which reads “Cotelette d’Agneau.” Perhaps the missing circumflex has confused him.)
Me: Mmm. (Trying not to be offensively dismissive.)
Him: So am I.
Me: Urg. (Thinking I need to be offensively dismissive.)
Him: Yeah, all that red in your hair. I’ve got a lot of red in mine, too. (He fluffs it at me . . . ugh.)
Me (leaning farther away and really pointedly not making eye contact): Yeah, well mine is from a bottle.
There was the slightest pause while he evaluated this New Fact.
Him: Man! I never would have thought that! You just don’t look the type. Well, that’s OK! You can probably handle it. Me, I haven’t had a drink in 6 years. Can you believe that?