We still celebrate the Easter Rising over here, too. National holidays will naturaly get a large amount of patriotism up.Rochey - I can't make a comparison, having not yet had the chance to travel the world yet. However, the French do celebrate Bastille Day; I have personally taken part in celebrations of both Israel's and Uklraine's Independence Days, as well as being in Times Square when the parade began celebrating Kosovo's declaration of independence. All of these involve flags and other national symbols. My wife wears a pendant in the shape of a tryzub to celebrate her Ukrainian heritage. Why does this spirit seem to move Americans more than others? Who knows - there are of course a percentage of morons who only noticed the American flag after 9/11/01, as if suddenly spouting patriotic rhetoric would somehow go back in time and prevent what happened.
What I'm talking about is an average day, where you still see flags all over the place. No country I've ever been to other than the US has the same sort of "we must have flags everywhere" mentality that seems to be all over the US.
I see what you mean.For the rest of us, I can theorize for me and extrapolate for many others the following: because of the nature of America, many of us have families that were actually in America for far shorter times than your family has been in Ireland (for example - you might have immigrated there two generations ago for all I know, but you get the idea.) My family on both sides for example were here as individuals in the early 1930's at the earliest. Given that, it is FAR easier for a familial memory to still be retained as to what a differenence was made in someone's life by immigrating, and thus a pro-American spirit.