Irish in Isla Vista

Let the Irish come in droves...Their wit, charm, character and willingness for fun with a smile, wink and nod make them a pleasure to have around....Just mind the trappings of freedom that many 18-20 year olds fall into.

Sláinte!

As a recently repatriated Irish resident of isla vista I read your article with disappointment but not unfortunately, shock. The " antiquated stereotyping" you speak of is a comfortable american euphemism for racism. For example, since we are clumsily using pieces anecdotal evidence to tar and feather an entire race(... ipods, rape) you may be delighted to hear that your justice system fully supports your set of values. Being told "you irish are not welcome here" in open court was an american experience i didn't think I would have in 2008(by the way, my mortal sin was an open container, the american girl who went before me with the same offence had a previous conviction and got half my fine.)

I hasten to add that most of the wild parties i saw were american house parties in which there was a huge and open drug culture, the police seem to look the other way towards irish people and the demon drink. Could it be possible that your statistics on arrests are skewed by the "stereotyping" (lovely word) you admit exists?? (american police racist?never!)

If you deny the explicit racism of this poorly written article I sugggest that you rewrite your article and replace the word irish with black.

Is mise, sadhbh.

completely agree with everything sadhbh wrote above this. One of the most poorly researched pieces of gutter journalism i've ever seen. for a supposedly respected newspaper to publish blatant ridiculous unsubstantiated allegations of theft and rape is unbelievable. every irish person who was there for the summer completely loved the place, but to suggest everyone wrecks their apartments etc is a joke. As the response above states americans seem to have little problems turning a blind eye to the rampant drug culture, drink driving, abuse of the homeless etc by american college students that is so widespread out there and writes about 19 & 20 year old irish kids enjoying themselves and pumping tens of thousands of dollars into your community for a couple of months. why don't you write an article about something like that?

I'm not sure how much to read into this article. I'm not sure if the writer simply doesn't have the necessary language capabilities to express her feelings or if there is something more sinister at play here. California, the home of my hero, the great John Steinbeck, a place of so many possiblities in art, literature and expression and yet articles such as this are still being published? After all that the Californian people have had to endure, from the great depression, peace and love and all the dreams that came with it through to the present and what do we find...lazy, unsubstantiated, unconsciously racist journalism. It's not that the fact that the journalist is lazy or racist it's just that she doesn't realise that the written word can be interpreted in so many ways and that it doesn't take much for a reader to..."read between the lines". I found it odd how someone needed to tell us that they were studying Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and then proceed to produce an article with the following line "Another friend claimed he knew someone who was raped by an Irish person last summer". Now am I reading this right? Whether or not this was true we are never told? Why allow conjecture and speculation enter into an article without proving or disproving it. The journalist in many ways seems to want to disprove this and other rumours yet in no way is the rumour given any validation or answer?? Now I'm not saying Irish kids who go away for the Summer are perfect, we aren't but I do know that we come from a small country. If someone was accused or rape in Santa Barbara while on a J1 visa our country would be up in arms because our media is very quick to jump on issues such as this. Also can I say that I spent a Summer as an Irish student in BDC rented frat house in Isla Vista. I can only speak from my own experiences but it wasn't myself or any of the Irish people in the house that actually phsically pulled down walls, cked in doors and dropped large burning plastic thrash cans off the top floor to the ground floor, no that was the rich frat brothers who engaged in that activity and you know something BDC knows this. This is not to say that an Irish group didn't engage in the same type of activity(it wouldn't surprise me), but lets create a level playing field here and set the bar correctly. Frat guys engage in this activity daily throughout the Summer, if an Irish group do the same then judge them within that context because they also rent and pay money to BDC. While I lived in Santa Barbara I held down a full time job and worked a second job at the weekends. I loved the whole experience in SB. I wouldn't let an article like this dissuade me from returning. I understand the journalist in what she is trying to say but she needs to be careful with the language she is using. This isn't some PC rant but a call for fairness and substantiation in journalistic writing.

I think that this article does have unfair overtones. It is not alright to judge a whole group of people for the actions of a few bad apples. This being said, I had an incident just last evening in which an Irish young man walked into my house on Del Playa, grabbed a tapestry off the wall and took off running. It is incidents like this that make the community less inclined to having these groups visit. This is a shame because it should be an opportunity to be around a different culture and people with a different world view. In the end while I did lose my property, I will not allow the actions of one person to make me also lose my dignity and openness to the outside world. For as Bob Marley(who was depicted upon the stolen tapestry) stated, "If you get down and quarrel everyday, you're saying prayers to the devil, I say."

The Irish are quick to defend themselves and get all self-righteous, but the fact is that many Irish students come to the states on a lark, with no respect for local traditions, and they drink way too much, and they get out of control, every night of the week. Many of them think nothing of vandalism, stealing, overcrowding in apartments, and skipping out on rent.

By the way, I'm not even talking about Isla Vista, but rather Cape Cod, where Irish students have been coming for decades and were always well received. But the recent influx of "Celtic Tiger" students are fast wearing out their welcome for being snide, irresponsible and over the top.

Just google the amount of times an Irish student has died on holiday from being too drunk - including here on the Cape a few years ago, when a poor girl fell overboard on a booze cruise.

Irish students are disliked because they are behaving badly, and it has noting to do with any anti-Irish discrimination, which happened in the 19th century!