Irish bashing

[ASAS]

Is it just me or have there been an unusual number of threads passive aggressively bashing our Irish sisters lately?

I'm not Irish so not particularly sensitive, but just seems to have come up out of nowhere. Prior to this most Irish threads were about the price of tinned tomatoes in euros and staff booking St Patrick's Day in NYC without authorization.

Peace and love, remember, peace and love.

Loads of irish bashing threads on here, since the fantastic ref vote. Utterly disgraceful that they are allowed to stand, and M.nHQ haven't even bothered to comment on them.
I've been lmao though at some of the posters going on about England being the bastion of all that is fair and progressive..
Still at least the scots are getting a break. It'll be the Welch's turn next.

Well Leeds its probably as much the will of the people as the current UK representation in parliament is. I really think it's awful that you don't have real democracy in the UK. You should do something about that.

leedy even!

I think Leedy is Irish.

I am Irish! I live here!

I'm English, from the dreaded Middle England, and I was thrilled with Saturday's result. As for Ireland being "backward" or " weird", would a backward or weird country allow it's Great Unwashed to decide something as important as marriage equality? No, it wouldn't! This proves that Ireland is a great modern and democratic country.

I am aware that there is a lot of campaigning in Ireland for legalising abortion, and I really hope that a referendum will follow soon.

Also, in discussions with my friends and family about this referendum, Irish holidays, Prince Charles shaking Gerry Adams's hand (to name but a few) there has been no bashing.

YY Shadows and Leedy.

I wish the sneery anti-Irishism that has recently reared its ugly head on MN was confined to the interwebs, but I meet it IRL too often for comfort. The level of ignorance - and condescension - within Britain regarding its nearest neighbour can be breathtaking at times.

There is a certain proportion of people outside Ireland who has the erroneous impression that Ireland in 2015 is just like Ireland in 1950-1970. In my experience and outworn patience, this outdated view often comes from an Irish parent or grandparent, who described the country to their children as it was when they left, and this picture quickly became outdated as the country itself moved on. It's the curse of the ex-pat: visits home can never give you a proper understanding of a living, evolving culture as it changes, and you become increasingly out of touch with each passing year as your personal picture of the country becomes frozen in aspic. Sometimes it's a benign and sentimental picture, and sometimes it's a bitter and sad one, but either way it's false.

I think we have seen a lot of that outdated view of Ireland on MN lately, combined with an unwillingness or inability to believe that the majority of the Irish populace is nothing like their personal pictures tell them we "should" be.

I agree geeka, those with Irish parentage are often incredibly extreme in their ignorance and intolerance of Ireland based on very limited knowledge and experience.

Do you remember when Eastenders went to Ireland? They left London in the late 90's and somehow arrived in Ireland in the 30's! It was all boreens and donkeys and everyone rolling around drunk wearing rosary beads.
Seems like a lot of people there have the same time-warp view of the place.

Winter - yes, that horrendous Eastenders episode is exactly what I mean!

The attitude that led an entire production team and cast to regard that episode as acceptable (before broadcast and subsequent backlash) is nicely representative of the latent anti-Irish bigotry that presents itself disturbingly often in Britain.

I'd like to think it couldn't happen now in 2015, but seeing the same old rubbish here on MN, and similar anti-Scot bigotry in the English media over the last 12 months, means I'm not so sure...

I remember going on a choir trip to the north of England in the mid-80s - the landlady in one B&B asked us very seriously if we knew what a tin of beans was as she'd heard that "you don't have tinned food over there".

Im Irish living in the UK and the most ignorant comment I had was from a beautician you was telling me about her trip to Dublin. She was surprised to find we were not all pikeys. I gave up after that comment.

I want to see this Eastenders episode!

On holiday in France in the 80s, I was asked by some English kids if we had electricity in Ireland.

I live in England and was asked by someone recently if I sent money home! Um, no. Should I?

I overheard a English person enquiring upon landing in Dublin if it was in a different time zone

That's before you get in to the whole politics of northern Ireland.

I know an Irish person who went to study history of art n Oxford at masters level and was asked by a fellow student was it not terribly difficult to study that in Ireland? The Irish person replied that it had become far easier now that most Irish people could read and write....[true story!]

There are some truly bizarre comments on here. Its not like the UK is perfect when it comes to people having rights over their own bodies. Last year a woman was taken to court for "poisoning" her daughter because she gave her medication prescribed by a Belgium doctor. Because obviously doctors in belgium know nothing about medicine... She was found not guilty but her daughter is still in foster care. Her mother isnt allowed her back because she gave her medicine a doctor prescribed. Yes of course we're all over rights to do with our bodies in the UK!

I had a situation in my workplace with regard to me being Irish. Despite it upsetting me my managers decided it was just banter.
I have had the old do you have electricity over there question. I told them we took it in turns to cycle a bike which generated power.

I apologise for not having responded to posts on here since this afternoon. I was busy with RL shite which had hugely angered me, but is irrelevant to this conversation, so I shan't mention it.

Leedy, wow, thank you. I've read some of your other posts. It's women like you who have paved the way for women like me. A thousand thank yous. You're amazing.

Stokes, it's not often that I'm accused of talking sense . Thank you for your very kind words.

I'm heartened to read most of the responses on here. Hopefully, moving forward, we can stand in solidarity, we can campaign to repeal the 8th, we can support Irish women seeking abortion, and we can do all this together. If any Irish MNers want to put our heads together and talk about that, I'd very happily participate.

That Eastenders episode was offensive so much so the the Minister of Tourism has issued a warning to the BBC about the 6 part spin off set in Ireland it's planned for Alfie and Kat.

You cannot formally leave the catholic church anymore unless you try to be excommunicated. So many people started to formally leave it through Count Me Out but the church closed the loophole that allowed people to leave. I had started the process but they closed it before I could be processed. The majority of people especially younger people have no time for the catholic church. The numbers attending mass have plummeted so much that the number of masses have reduced big time and most of the people attending mass are elderly or those making their communion or confirmation who have to attend mass every week. There's also a crisis in the church due to lack of priests as most of them are old.

The anti-abortion groups are getting major funding from the US and they flew plane loads of them to Ireland when there were marches. Today the Labour party said it will bring a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment if they get back into government but they'll probably get hammered at the next electing in the coming autumn or spring.

There are still a lot of people who are totally against abortion but there are a sizeable number who would only want it allowed in limited cases.