Irish Pride

The Irish are well known, as a people, to be especially proud of their heritage.  Tom, being the son of 2 Irish parents, and I, being the daughter of an Irish mother who would dress herself in head to toe green every St. Patrick's Day with a rather large "Kiss Me I'm Irish" pin adorning her sweater and a funny looking hat to match, are quite familiar with this pride.  Danny, James and Katie would often have lengthy discussions about being Irish.  Whenever they would ask me about my heritage , I would tell them that my mother's parents emigrated from Ireland and my father's parents emigrated from Austria.  They would almost always refer to me as  Australian, and  Tom would explain to them that Austria is a country with Germanic people, and although my grandparents came from Austria, they were German.  One of the kids would then inevitably say, "I didn't know Australians were German" or "Why didn't you just say you were German?" .   They would occasionally bring up this topic and the same question would be asked and answered repeatedly.
     One day I overheard the tail end of one of their "being Irish" discussions.  Danny was in mid sentence when I heard him say, "...but Mom is only half  Irish."  James then asked, "What else is she, again?"  Danny replied, "German or something...I just know that she isn't as Irish as the rest of us."  I'm not sure what was said in the first part of the conversation, but I am pretty sure I should feel insulted.