Man Who's 1/16th Irish Proud of His Irish Heritage

This article had me literally laughing out loud. It talks about a man who is "fiercely proud" of his Irish heritage despite being only 1/16th Irish. What makes this article so hilarious to me is the fact that I have actually known people like this in real life. People will do like 15 minutes of genealogy research on their relatives and find out which country they are from and what percentage of each nationality they are. They will then get an immediate surge of pride in finding out they are from Ireland, Germany or insert some other random country.
I don't really know what it is that compels people to attach themselves to a country like that. A good example of this false patriotism for a country is in one of my best friends. He is like 1/8th Irish and is so crazy about his heritage that he wants to get a tattoo of the Irish flag on his arm. However, if I were to ask him what the capital of Ireland was he probably couldn't even tell me. I also know another kid fairly well who is part Italian. He watched too many Rocky movies or something and loves playing it up that he is the Italian Stallion. This kid probably couldn't locate Italy on a map. People won't know the first thing about their nationalities' culture, but they will fake it anyway.
My best guess as to why people attach themselves to a nationality like that is to seem unique and be a part of something bigger, but for the most part, it's hilarious because most people have false patriotism anyway and they end up looking plain ridiculous.