To wonder which school a Catholic 'English' girl would have gone to school in Northern Ireland in the 1990 s !

[mountford100]

I was watching Derry girls last night and what struck me was the boy cousin of one of the characters was unable to attend the boys school.
This was because he was English and would have faced problems regarding bullying and his nationality, despite being a Catholic himself.

This is of interest to me because i am a Catholic English girl, whose mother emigrated to England from Donegal when she was 8 .

I have only ever lived in England . However, the fact the cousin on Derry Girls had to attend a girls school, has made me curious as to which school i would have attended .

This being if my mother had decided to go to Northern Ireland in the 1990s , where most of her cousins live.

I know this is not applicable any more because two of my cousins DDs attend a non Catholic girls grammar in Belfast.

I went to school in the 90s, well mainly early 90s. There were a good few kids at my Catholic grammar school (Belfast) with English accents - their parents moved because of work. They were teased in the same way anyone that stood out was, like everyone else they learnt to say "fuck off" quick enough and everybody rubbed along.

I left as soon as I was 18 and went to university back ‘home’ in England where everyone was telling me tk fuck off back to for 8 years. So I did!

I will add I was the only English student at both of my secondary schools.

I left school in 1992 after A levels, nonetheless Derry Girls made me wonder if a English Catholic child would have been equally a pariah at both Protestant and Catholic schools at that time.

Thanks Implants for enlightening me about what actually happened to such children.

Implants - you talk about these kids as if they were in your school but maybe not in your year or class? How do you know by just rubbed along? And why is that deemed acceptable?

And I guess I will just pass on to bullied children that if they just tell the perpetrators to ‘fuck off’ , then it is all ok?

I went to a Quaker grammar school in NI in the eighties. We had squaddy kids, Catholics, Prods and even a royal African family. It was a weird school, many teachers at the time were v into CND and super left wing. It was a crap school in many ways but interesting as NI was very segregated and white at the time.

Lovely! howdoyoudecide your experience was awful but you can't say everyone in NI is small minded.. have you met every single person in NI

howdoyoudecide it wasn’t Dominican was it? I remember chatting to my SIL about how people are much more accepting and diverse over here now. She went there and was telling me that as recently as the ‘90’s anybody who was slightly different at school got a hard time and how an English girl really wasn’t accepted. When she went to school. There’s still so much work to be done but that sounds horrific. I’m so sorry for what you went through .

I must watch Derry girls now!

I say it in the same way we generalise about different cultures. British people living queuing, stiff upper lip, bad teeth etc. This doesn’t apply to every single British person but is a generalisation if the country.

In my experience, NI is a small minded place. I see it in my own mother, in my extended family. Saw it in the people I went tk school with and still see it in some of the people I still stay in touch with. I am sure there are some open minded people but by and large it is a small minded place

My family moved from Northern Ireland to Scotland and I was bullied so I wonder if it is just being ‘different’ is the problem. I was only 7 and children would shout ‘watch out or she’ll bomb you’ push me into walls shouting ‘Your Dad’s in the IRA’ mocked my accent mercilessly. Children are so cruel.

Hick - I’m sorry I don’t know how to tag people. It was Rathmore. Next to hunter House (which is where I wanted to go - but hey didn’t have space)

A boy I considered a friend spat in my face on one day.

Ugly i think your school is now the one of best schools in Northern Ireland.

This is a link from the Guardian 2012 and shows the make up of Northern Ireland schools.

Sadly many schools are still devoid of anything different from their own sect.

://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/24/religious-divide-northern-ireland-schools

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/24/religious-divide-northern-ireland-schools

How That’s awful! I have DC at another well known catholic grammar and I’m so pleased we’ve moved away from all of that.

I am English and there is a large population of English ex-pats where we are. Nobody has ever made anything of it. I do think NI can be small minded in parts but I can honestly say I’ve never had any trouble in nearly 15 yrs over here.

I would never live there. As far as I am concerned they are small minded bitter people living in the past. I’m sure that will offend people but just my experience.

This is a horrible thing to say! I am genuinely sorry you were bullied, but I don't think your posts show much understanding of NI at all.

There aren't Protestant schools (with the exception of a few quaker ones) like there are in England- no Church of Ireland or Prebysterian run ones. They're just schools that cater to everyone and because the Catholics go to the faith schools and everyone else goes to the non-religious ones, it makes those schools "Protestant" in the eyes of the locals.

I went to a "Protestant" grammar in N Belfast but in reality by the time I started (2000) about a third of the intake was RC. The reason being that it was a better school than the local RC grammars.

The degree of "acceptance" of an English child will depend on the period in time, as well as the geography and ethos of the school. A school which has catchment area in a very republican community in 1980 will be completely diffferent to, say Knock in East Belfast or Aquinas in South Belfast in 2000.

An ex-work colleague of DH had an English dad who was exforces, married a catholic girl and settled in Fermanagh. He went to the RC grammar but found it very difficult because everyone knew about his dad, so ultimately moved to the "Protestant" school where he fared better.

howyoudecide, I'm not sure how you can eulogise on how crap NI is now when you clearly left as soon as you could- presumably that was some time ago before you lived in the place as a adult. My English DH has been here 8 years and experienced nothing like the picture you paint. I'm sorry you have poor memories of the place and had shit teachers but really, you're being rude to those of us that actually live here who aren't like that. You know, the majority.

howdoyoudecide I'm from NI and on visits to England during the 90s and early 00s, I have been called an Irish whore, a dirty Irish bitch, been hit, called a terrorist etc.

I feel England is a very racist and narrow minded place based on this, have no time for the country and never intend on going back.

Oh wait, no I don't, because I'm not stupid enough to colour a whole country according to my own experiences.

Shame you can't do the same. Still, what a relief you don't intend on returning to NI. Shut the door on your way out, sweetie.

I’m the child of an NI mixed marriage (DM is Protestant, DF is Catholic, I was raised as nothing as they both stopped any kind of religious worship). I went to a state school (it was pretty much 99.9% Protestant) but lived in a Catholic area and have a Catholic surname, and I was badly bullied in school and definitely made to feel like an outsider.

That said, my DF’s family hated that he married a Protestant, but his brother married a Catholic Englishwoman and apparently that was deemed to be worse.

This post is super goady. Of all the countries I've lived, England was the one where I faced the most prejudice. You are basing this post on a fictional comedy.