Ah you're a Catholic!

I think this is really offensive and I wonder if you know little about colonial oppression by Britain towards Ireland? Or perhaps you don’t actually understand the concept of generational trauma, otherwise I can’t make sense of your ignorant comment. I don’t feel as a Scottish woman that I have generational trauma and I’d be very interested in the rationale for an English person who claimed that.

OP I think some people are blind to the fact that it’s possible to be racist to Irish people. Not directing that at anyone particular on the thread but from living in Scotland with an Irish DH I know this to be true. I know at school I was taught nothing of Britain’s colonial history and the terrible things that were done to Irish people. I think that there are enduring roots of Britain viewing itself as being the country to ‘civilise’ the Irish, that people don’t even realise they hold as an unconscious bias. My DH has been called ‘stupid Paddy’ more than once when he lived in England. You still see people talk about ‘having a paddy’ sometimes on MN meaning throwing a fit, and people are often shocked when they are called out on it.

Anyone who lived through the troubles in Ireland knows that not everyone is Catholic. Think your friends must be relatively young.

My Grandad thought he'd seen the end of his service in the war after he was involved in the invasion of Sicily but he was allocated a major role in the liberation of France and came ashore at Gold beach on D Day. When the ramp was lowered they had to rush up the beach but of course they were facing heavy machine gun fire from the German defenders. He just lay on the beach for many hours unable to move: War is a terrible thing and it effected my Grandad for the rest of his life. There were many dead soldiers around him but eventually he got off the beach at about 4pm . As a signaller he had to follow the front line and was being fired on from the air and ground. I know that my Grandad was traumatised by the way as he didn't want to collect his medal in Normandy for 75 years following the d day landings as he just wanted to forget about the war as soon as he returned home. We encouraged him to pick up his medal privately from the mayor and took him to France, we visited the Cinema in the Round at Arromanches and that is the first and only time I have we we seen my pretty stoical Grandad cry. He never blamed the conscripted young German men fighting him either.

My family are Irish and we only ever get, “you eat a lot of potatoes then?” (We do actually eat a lot of potatoes)

I don't think this Poster is to blame for the competitive trauma.

I don’t feel traumatised.

I don’t have a seething hatred of German and Japanese people that consumes me night and day.

It’s history. Nobody is to blame for the actions of their forefathers. That’s absurd.

Yes, I know it is quite the shocker!

No- it means you also have generational trauma in your history. No more, no less. It’s not a competition, and it’s impacts and effects are nuanced and not identical

which honestly, seems obvious.

Mark Twain, wasn't he a bit of a racist?

Oh wow but I thought Irish people were never racist, only the nasty English?

Blow me away, it looks like prejudice can be universal 🤯

I see a genuine question about perceptions between two cultures has evolved into a history leasson, as per usual when anything Irish and British is mentioned together on any social media.

These kind of comments, dripping with prejudice, make you sound like you are more at home with the calvacade of right wing tub thumpers than someone who is 'educated' with a degree in Politics! But I suspect you think it is ok for some to be prejudiced just not others towards the Irish- oh the hypocrisy!

Well we lost multiple family members, another committed suicide due to PTSD from the Japanese prisoner camps, my grandparents were separated from their parents for years as evacuees and returned as strangers, and their home cities were levelled, never to return in their original form again.

But yes, the English have ‘no idea what suffering and trauma is’ and should ‘educate themselves about Ireland but clearly the reverse isn’t necessary’ blah blah blah

It happens in Ireland. Im English living on the West Coast and everyone assumes Im Proddy. I'm not.😂
And one of our daughters has a boyfriend who has Indian desent but was brought up Catholic in Mayo. Everyone assumes he isn't Catholic, he is. And a work colleague is from Iraq and is here because the Catholic community was being persecuted. There are exclusive catholic schools in Iraq. Everyone assumes he is muslim despite his wife being Catholic from Tralee. So, as per anything, best not to make assumptions. The Irish Catholic thing is a common assumption. But flawed, as most assumptions can be.

There is generational trauma in the uk from WW2. That’s why we had the silent generation. My step grandmother was traumatised from being abused and evacuated and she brought up my parent with trauma.

this fact doesn’t negate generational traumas the Irish experience though

To quote Mark Twain

‘Don’t argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference’.

Hardly uneducated, for a start you know about Irish History, I'm afraid many Brits don't have the first clue. Equally, double GDP per Capita doesn't suggest uneducated.

So? That doesn’t make your opinion the ultimate one.

My degree is history and politics.

Trust me, you don’t know what you are talking about.

The country has gone through rapid change over the last thirty years but the perception of what it is like has not caught up.

And another thing a lot of people do not realise is that there are plenty of protestant and Church of Ireland (Anglican)folk in the ROI so you could have been Christian and non Catholic.

Yes. I’m not even going to go into why, the facts and damage and recentness speak for themselves. Thankfully British people have zero interest in making a grudge their entire identity.

In Britain during the war worse happened than the forced starvation of a country that led to the loss of 25% of the population. Do you want to run us through that? I mean us Irish are but simple uneducated folk, you should really enlighten us.

’lads’ 😖

Maybe you’re the uneducated one. Believe it or not, worse things have happened in history than what Ireland went through.

Honestly I can't with this thread. You are lying about your experiences, you should just move on, WW2 was worse for British people than British rule was for Irish people and we moved on just fine, what's wrong with you that you can't?

Great bunch of lads.