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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Loyalists in Belfast missing a trick.?

240 replies

Stoneinwelly · 09/01/2013 20:21

Watching the news on the rioting in N.I. Aibu in thinking the loyalists could turn the whole flag raising and lowering business to their advantage?

Nobody really notices a flag up everyday iykwim but one hoisted for special occasions would get more attention. They could get the bugle out ,like Ypres,
and have a cake and pictures for really special days like Earl of Essex' B.D.

OP posts:
bigheartedwoman · 10/01/2013 23:34

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

TheCraicDealer · 10/01/2013 23:38

Ok Weegie, maybe we've been a bit harsh, but you have to look at it from our point of view. This is our home. Yeah, things are a bit shit right now, but we'd been doing grand up until recently. Then you come along and make vastly overblown statements about not wanting your kids to see burning tyre barricades whilst visiting their granny. The only time that's ever happened to me was around the time of bloody Drumcree and I don't live in the most salubrious of areas!

Everyone just chill ti' fuck [passes around buckfast]. Fwiw I went to BRA. Those ankle length skirts were much classier than those shows from Methody.

scarlettsmummy2 · 10/01/2013 23:39

When exactly did I say anything negative about your husband? But why exactly it is even relevant what you or he does to the problems in NI? No one else has felt the need to ask for a pat on the back because they do worthy jobs! You have no idea what I do, it could be considered 'worthy' and I have a law degree from queens, but I am not arrogant enough to believe the population of NI are missing out by me living in Edinburgh. God love them.....

weegiemum · 10/01/2013 23:40

Ok bighearted, how do you I'm not a professional? I'm a very senior professional teacher, but maybe you don't rate that?

I've travelled round the world, worked abroad as has dh. We came "home" to a city neither of us came from (though I'm Scottish).

Some people are very offended that dh chose to study in Sctland rather than NI and make his home here. Including his mother and family friends. You probably agree I'm the evil foreign woman kerping him away. Believe me, that's not true.

apostropheuse · 10/01/2013 23:40

thecraicdealer

Didn't you know you can only drink buckfast as a recreational drink in Scotland?

Wink
TheCraicDealer · 10/01/2013 23:42

No! They get our graduates, we get their Bucky. 'Tis only fair.

scarlettsmummy2 · 10/01/2013 23:42

I don't think anyone outside his ma is losing any sleep over your husband moving to Glasgow. Really.

weegiemum · 10/01/2013 23:45

I know it's your home. I'm sorry. I'd be going nuts if you said stuff about Scotland.

But my mil was here 3 weeks ago and then, there were burning barricades 500m from her (posh) South Belfast home. Why should I let my children see that (she wanted s to come for New Year).

I don't want my children exposed to that, but she lives on a sensitive divide between communities. I have to think about how scared that would make my 9yo!

bigheartedwoman · 10/01/2013 23:47

Weegie, that is not the case, I told you that your husbands remarks offended me, and the way you describe yourself is your own image of yourself.
May i just say that you said "foreign" not me.
That is your opinion, and you are wrong.
Oh And for the record, i'm a highly educated woman in teaching also, i would like to think that your students aren't educated by your views

scarlettsmummy2 · 10/01/2013 23:49

But yet you have said you live in a deprived and presumably segregated area of Glasgow, work with deprived mothers, so presumably your son is exposed to a less pleasant side of life, yet you feel he would be upset by a few tyres burning? Really?

weegiemum · 10/01/2013 23:53

Well luckily NI politics doesn't encroach on the basic literacy and numeracy work I currently do, with women from all communities, Protestant, catholic, Muslim, anything. I just teach them to read and count.

Probably just as well, as if you don't come from there it's impossible to get it in any meaningful way, no matter how hard you try.

weegiemum · 10/01/2013 23:54

Scarlett, deprived in Glasgow does not automatically mean segregated. Really it doesn't.

Narked · 10/01/2013 23:54

'you feel he would be upset by a few tyres burning? Really?'

Has your idea of normal been so warped by living in N Ireland that you can be blasé about that?

weegiemum · 10/01/2013 23:58

Thanks narked!

I'm ready for the fall out but I do have to go to bed now. I have cross community / religion / nationality women to teach in the morning. They can't read, that's what unites them. They don't care, otherwise!

weegiemum · 11/01/2013 00:01

Yep even on orange march days or old firm match days, I've never seen burning barricades in Glasgow like I have in Belfast!

(and it's my 9yo daughter I'm worried about seeing the barricades, as well as my 11yo ds and 13yo dd. How would you explain it?

TheCraicDealer · 11/01/2013 00:02

I don't think Belfast has a monopoly on tyre burning, to be fair. It's not normal even here, but I guess we have a stab at explaining to our weans what's going on. Much like those people in London, Birmingham, etc. last year who experienced the same thing, also through no choice of their own.

scarlettsmummy2 · 11/01/2013 00:02

My point is, you are bringing your son up in an area where there will be numerous social problems. Presumably you will be teaching him that not everyone is as fortunate as he is to have such amazing parents, so therefore he should be able to cope with the fact that tyres burning is just another unpleasant thing. I also presume he goes to school in this deprived area you have said you are living in??

Narked · 11/01/2013 00:05

You mean the summer of 2011? It's been that long. Rioting/trouble in N Ireland is a lot more frequent than that isn't it?

bigheartedwoman · 11/01/2013 00:10

Weegie, you are helping others, for that i applaud you

However, you and your husband, but mainly you come and parrot your husbands feelings about this wonderful place. Your 9 year old daughter would love it here, (as far as i know, all the 9 year olds here love it) but what you are doing and have done is denigrate it.
Thats just wrong and unfair.

apostropheuse · 11/01/2013 00:11

I don't believe that a doctor and teacher are sending their children to school in one of the deprived areas of Glasgow. That just doesn't happen.

scarlettsmummy2 · 11/01/2013 00:15

Well that's exactly my point.... Because if they were, the child would be able to cope with a tyre burning, especially if they had no concept of why it was burning....

DioneTheDiabolist · 11/01/2013 00:15

Bureni SP you can well remember the flag waving and joy in Dublin when the Twin Towers in New York got hit?

WTFShock

I was in Dublin when 911 happened. I remember it very clearly. I saw no such behaviour. I saw shock and panic and bewilderment. Where was all the flag waving and joy that you saw?

onedev · 11/01/2013 00:16

I'm with you craicdealer - BRA girl here too & agree our uniforms were much classier than Methody Grin

I do think its very hard for those who aren't brought up in NI to fully appreciate what it's like for people there & understand how deeply feelings run (on both sides). The flag issue was the final straw for many (obviously) & although I don't agree with rioting, I do hope it means that the issue of disaffected Protestant youths will be looked at & addressed as that will benefit society as a whole!

Although I did leave NI after graduating, I still think its an amazing, beautiful country where the vast majority if the population are peace loving & as always, it's the small minority (from both sides) who ruin things!

Weegiesmum - I do think your issues sound very personal with regard to your DHs family rather than NI & sounds like its given you the perfect excuse not to visit (sounds like ultimate MIL/DIL situation going on there!).

weegiemum · 11/01/2013 00:16

Well yes we are.

Our choice.

We chose our community, our place, so yes we do. And we're by no means alone.

2 other GPs children are in my dd1s class. From out local community.

They did primary elsewhere (before we moved) but we've chosen the local secondary now.