To be surprised at how little British people seem to know about Ireland?

[WriterofDreams]

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.

grew up in London, in Oxford for most of the 80s, live in Dublin (so could guide you round all those places, St Leger!) - could navigate my way around Cork, Galway and Belfast, but wouldn't be able to find much more than the obvious landmarks...

drivingmiss our education system is very divided, yes. For example, I didn't study with anyone from "the other side" until I started uni!

The people I spoke about in my earlier example used our school system in their discussion, but also were talking about NI people as being a bit odd in general.

NI people are fairly odd ,especially my MIL.

(I canget around Oxford I think. The coldest night I ever spent was in Divinity Rd).

my coldest night ever was spent in Warwick St (off the Iffley Road). There were several arse-freezingly cold winters in the 80s, which I had actually forgotten about. Bit like now - it is the 80s again, isn't it??

Yes it is! I remember snow in Cambridge in early December 1981, which was still there in January frozen solid. Cambridge was also the first place I saw freezing fog. I don't like the Dickensian Christmas.

stleger all MILs are odd, not just yours cuz she is from NI.

Mines as odd as bedamned! My coal and firewood delivery man (Trevor) is a fellow northerner in Cork, he is also odd. But not odd in the Cork sense, as in falling out with you. I had a conversation with my boss today, explaining that I never use 'langer' as I am never sure how bad it is. Language and society are complex

I was in Crewe in the snow, I think 1980. The Liverpool boat to Belfast had broken down, and we had to get to Stranraer, overnight. My kids don't know they're born...

It astounds me that many English people are not aware that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and is completely separate from the Republic of Ireland.
It's just ignorant.

I think there is very little in the UK press about Ireland. I found it astonishing what a different place it was to England the times I visited (Dublin, Donegal, Galway). The only progress I've noticed in London / UK between say 1980s and 2005 + has been there are more Irish people in England, but that's not the same as knowing through the media what's going on there.

My parents are Scottish of Irish extraction. But I am very happily a Londoner and would call myself English, despite not having a drop of English blood in me.

I say this because I suppose, being born in 1969 I am just embarassed to talk to Irish people and I know about sectarianism. My parents went through it in their small Scottish villages and we want no part in it.

They had a "mixed" marriage and we just don't like the Irish people we come across who detect a Scottish accent in my parents and say "what are you?".

Plastic (London) Paddys are fine.

the obverse is the students (mostly from Protestant backgrounds) that I taught in Oxford in the late 80s/early 90s who were shocked to discover that everyone thought of them as Irish - because this had never occurred to them before.

Everyone does 'assume' that everyone in NI wants to be called Irish, and can speak Irish.

I'm not wanting to get into politics here, but just to say: no, we all don't deem ourselves to be Irish.

Really we're joined by land to ROI, but linked to rest of UK in name. It seems that neither of them want us and we can't agree here on what we want.

I wasn't being political at all - just observing that these students were very taken aback to discover that whilst they thought of themselves as, and had been brought up as, thoroughly British, a lot of other people assumed them to be Irish. This always seemed quite an odd assumption for them to make. For some of them this led to an interesting exploration of both parts of their heritage - political and geographical.

If you live in the republic then the majority of people from NI that you meet do consider themselves to be Irish (although more than happy to avail of things like dental services back home). Questions of identity are seemingly very very complex. Although the notion about speaking Irish seems completely out of touch whichever part of the island you happen to be from.

driving my former colleague said the same thing. He was a Northern Ireland Catholic Nationalist and one of his classmates was a Protestant Unionist. They were at uni in England. The Unionist guy was quite disappointed to find that not only did the English people he encountered not recognise that he was British but didn't make any distinction between people from the North and South of Ireland and lumped them all together under "Irish".

TryLikingClarity I am sorry to hear your experience. I think, sadly there are some people who have a minor obsession with knowing what religion you are and what "side" you are on. Can't speak for everyone but I don't know anyone of my generation who could care less.

I have a brilliant Cork dentist, who has to spend a lot of time sorting out my NHS dentistry! My experience as a Prod from the north, working in Cambridge (not in the university) was that people either couldn't tell the difference between accents from any part of Ireland, or the thought I was Scottish, or they thought I must be Catholic because I didn't shout like Big Ian . My current boss can't understand why I support Northern Ireland at soccer - Pat Jennings, George Best, Sammy Mac...

all my nationalist friends (with whom I have some humdingers of arguments over the years over flashpoints of various kinds) without exception go North for their dentistry - it's perhaps not the quality, but the price??

I think English people are not that great at differentiating accents - I've got pretty good at placing them after 15 odd years, but do not have the GPS accuracy of the natives in placing an accent...surely all Prods shout . I've also become a very adept reader of surnames over the years (aided and abetted by a protestant friend of mine who would look down the class lists every year pointing out who was who)

The idea that surnames (or first names) can be proof what 'what sort" person is is quite prejudiced and often wrong.

I have what would be deemed a Prod name - not an Irish first name and an English surname. Fair enough, I am a Prod.

Many many people I know have names that would not give the game away, be overly from 'the other side' to fool people, or picked just because the parents liked the name.

Also, not everyone with a surname starting Mc or O' is a Catholic.

But MissDaisy's point shows our NI obsession with wanting to know what side everyone is from

TryLikingClarity - well of course, family histories are much more complicated than that - and I'm not talking about NI really - more the republic where it's usually fairly obvious (not always of course). I suppose the number of Protestant families in the Republic is now so small that you soon get to see the same names turning up over and over: the more interesting point is perhaps that these turn up in my institution which would traditionally have been the catholic university vs the more famous Protestant one in the city...

TryLiking - I'm sorry, I keep putting things in a really clumsy way, obviously -

There is a country called Ireland? Really? Where is it?

Only messing - the point of British TV being watched a lot over here causing people to know about Britain (I live in Ireland btw) doesn't that say something about RTE? It's a giant pile of pig pants really. I've my license fee warning here (the 10 day warning one) which I just feel like stamping on repeatedly as I resent having to pay it. Oh sorry on a bit of a tangent there!!

Irish people prove their ignorance daily by mixing up Britain and England very frequently. they are also quite good and ignoring the British/English people that do know about Ireland and just noting those that don't (and the chance are those that don't, don't know about other places too). When I encounter this I just ignore it and get on with the rest of my life, it's not that important really is it?

"It astounds me that many English people are not aware that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and is completely separate from the Republic of Ireland"

I come up against this regularly especially when I come back from Northern Ireland with bank notes from Northern Irish banks. Recently I had a Greek Cypriot cab driver berate me for giving him foreign money.

It's got a little better, as the larger supermarkets now have outlets in Northern Ireland and will take Northern Irish banknotes without me having to explain that Northern Ireland is part of Britain and that it clearly states on the notes that it's Sterling, but in smaller shops forget it.

"When DH and I were on holiday in Cyprus 4 years ago we were at a cafe and overheard a group of English people talking about NI, our school systems, segregation etc and what a backward place it was. Both DH and I were and

We got the waiter to tell them that we were from NI and if they wanted to talk about it then to come over to us".

Strange request of a waiter?

Got to say that I don't see how UK and Ireland are related - they are seperate countries. I know lots of things about the world because of my experiences and where I'm from. I have no Irish connections at all so I don't tap into stuff like that - just as I'm sure lots of Irish don't tap into stuff like Malawi, Brazil, Gujarat, Italy etc. No big deal surely?

YANBU, but I have to add I know plenty of people of Irish descent in London who know nothing about Ireland either! Even when they were born there. And as you say, Irish people in Ireland completely familiar with most things British, except possibly multiculturalism...{hope I don't get flamed for that) There's a strong Irish community where I live in London, but everyone is completely used to different ethnic backgrounds. So for example in my school a Maltese parent might be married to an Irish parent, or even more common a Irish origin Catholic married to a English origin Protestant. I think it is different in Ireland, people are welcoming, but essentially there were less people from other countries.
Perhaps things have changed in last 10 years.
I only go there on holiday, to see parents, and I think I know very little about politics anything much...except that things are bad at moment...