I'm from Ireland and I've lived in England for a total of two years. In Ireland we watch all the British channels and get all the British newspapers so most Irish people are pretty up to date on everything that's going on in Britain. Also, the Irish news tends to mention Britain a lot, so even if you only watch Irish tv or read Irish newspapers you'll still get a lot of information on current affairs in Britain.
When the whole thing with Ireland going down the pan financially came up on Channel 4 my mum rang me to say "Ireland's on the British news!" and we knew then it must be bad, simply because Ireland is so rarely mentioned over here. Now I know it's a tiny country but it's a close neighbour of Britain and a large population of Irish people live in Britain, so I would have thought it was reasonable that there would be a fair amount of mention of Ireland in schools and in newspapers and on the tv. But that's not the case.
Since living here it has struck me that so many people don't seem to know basic facts about Ireland, such as who the President is, who the Taoiseach is, what the native language is called, what the native sports are and so on. I've noticed in primary schools (not sure about secondary) that Ireland is rarely mentioned as part of history or geography despite the long and complicated historical links between the two countries.
Would it be fair to say that there isn't much mention of Ireland in Britain? Do you feel you know much about Ireland? Not saying we're special or owt, just curious.
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To be surprised at how little British people seem to know about Ireland?
303 replies
WriterofDreams · 01/12/2010 22:53
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