To point out that Ireland is a separate country?

[DrMantisToboggan]

Just that.

Ireland is a sovereign state, not part of the U.K. It hasn’t been part of the U.K. since 1922.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It’s not part of Great Britain though.

Some people refer to Ireland as the Republic of Ireland, partly to differentiate it from Northern Ireland, but the legal name of the state is Ireland.

While I’m at it, the term “British Isles” is controversial and the product of colonialist geography (geography is not a value-free discipline obviously). The British Gov itself apparently has internal guidance not to use it. In joint documents the British and Irish Govs use the euphemistic phrase “these islands”, and other options include Western Atlantic Archipelago or Islands Of the North Atlantic.

There’s no such country as “Southern Ireland”. And “Eire” is also incorrect, unless you’re in the habit of referring to Germany as Deutschland or Spain as España.

would get a brain aneurysm from listening to the ignorance and bigotry coming out of the Brexit supporters right now as they ride roughshod over every diplomatic relationship, especially the ROI-UK relationship, to achieve their lunatic Brexit dreams

At least you're out of it. Have a care for those of us who voted remain (and those who voted leave, but didn't intend for us to break off all connections with the EU and become the 51st state of the US) and are stuck with this shower of idiot politicians.

As for Xenia, yes she's being deliberately goady. She doesn't care what sort of border there is between "Eire" and NI? Goodness me, a well known lawyer who clearly knows no history at all (assuming she's the original Xenia).

Xenia “ I don't really see why it matters too much what kind of border there is with NI.“

Why do you think the Irish were shooting the arses off each other if it didn’t matter?

If Ireland remains in the EU then they have free movement of people for starters, so without a border there you can have bus loads of forrin types coming here and tekkin our jobs and our wimmin. And with a hard border, a big fuck off wall, checkpoints, we’re rapidly back to the seventies where the tensions were ghastly.

So your statement is really stupid.

Plimmy

*TooManyPaws

That is complete horse shit. Sorry, but it is.

Read some reliable history.*

@plimmy
You mean like the Scottish History I studied at a Scottish university (that was around at the time we're speaking of) and taught by academics who had researched and published on the subject?

Reliable history is not to be found in the Daily Heil so I would start reading some.

What Irish history do children in schools in England learn ?

mostly none, bean.
I recall something about the potato famine, potato blight or something. No mention of what really happened, obviously.

i don't really see why it matters too much what kind of border there is with NI

You don't see this? Really?

You don't see the difference between an open border that people cross (barely noticing that they're doing it) umpteen times a day and a patrolled border with checks queues, manning and documentation?

You don't see the difference for the people who live there? Who work on one side of the border and live on the other? Who have property that straddles both sides? Who identify as Irish while living in NI?

When you say 'you don't see it' what you mean is you haven't a clue, haven't given it a seconds thought and fundamentally don't give a fuck.

Which sums up the position of many brexiteers (though I appreciate you are a remainder).

I also had the advantage of being employed at the National Museum of Scotland for several years, working with internationally respected archaeologists and historians who I often see popping up as talking heads on TV; there's even a couple of programmes with me in that I hope have died a death.

History becomes a lot more real when you pass things like the Darien Chest on a daily basis, or the first day in the job involves a press conference about the new mace for the Scottish Parliament.... 😂

Is that history reputable enough?

It is rather odd that people agree with me that it was wrong to go around the world in the 19th century renaming geographical features, trying to oppress the local name that was 100s, if not thousands of years old for political reasons; yet think it's OK for the Irish state to do exactly the same for the British Isles?

Colonialism is not the same as anti-colonialism.

HTH.

I don't really see why it matters too much what kind of border there is with NI. Even if there is nothing physical there it is still the border -so again like a country name why does anyone care how it is demarked

Because when it was last "demarked" by the British, it involved soldiers pulling us out of our cars because we "smelt like Taigs" for daring to want to go to aunties funeral over the "border". Them blowing up the narrow road between two parts of our family farm so we had to go miles out of our way and through their checkpoints. Them putting guns in our mouths and threatening to pull the trigger for daring to have a puppy in our car that barked as we drove through their barbed wire.
You are intelligent and educated, @Xenia , you have no excuse at all to say such incendiary things. What I experienced isn't history - it happened to me as a teenager, and I'm younger than you are. we don't trust the British government and don't trust the DUP and will not set back and let the younger generations experience the violence and fear that overshadowed our own childhoods. And by that "we" I mean most people of my generation in the north of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant alike.

DrMantisToboggan No, it doesn't help. The name 'British Isles' predates any modern concept of colonialism, and was the name of a geographical notion pre-dating by millennia any idea of country as we now understand it. Trying to delete it, as some seem keen to do, is a form of censorship for political reasons.

Clearly you think this is OK to do, I don't. The incorrect meme 'British' to denote the ruling class of these islands doesn't help. It's as idle as the British = English concept, they were (and in many cases still are) drawn from all part's of the "Atlantic Archipelago", including Ireland.

FourFriedChickensDryWhiteToast
Thank you re Irish history in English schools.
So no wonder many people think Ireland is part of UK.
They don't know we had a War of Independence.

we didn't learn about anything like that, Bean.

Which geographical notion are you referring to, Ifailed - the Roman one? That was a colonial enterprise (or would-be colonial enterprise in the case of Ireland, since the Romans never conquered Hibernia), even if it predates the modern period.

As it happens, I quite like 'Atlantic Archipelago'...

FourFried you didn't learn anything about the Irish War of Independence?
Wow! I didn't know that.

It just seems astounding...I've met people from India, who know about the Black and Tans, who's grandparents (native Indians...not white ancestry) revered Michael Collins.
Why?
They used the Irish War of Independence as a model for their own ongoing attempts to procure Indian independence.

But as I've repeated upthread our nearest neighbours, with whom we share a long history, they don't teach about it in your schools.

I really struggle to understand that.

DrMantis, I would guess that she is talking about the fact that there is evidence that these islands were known to the Ancient Greeks as the Prettanic Isles. The Romans named the big island after the name of the island group.

However, although I am all sorts of pedantic, I think that this history doesn't matter given the currently understood meaning and the term 'British Isles' should be avoided (kind of like how 'man' used to refer to our species rather than its males, but using it in that context now is not cool).

*named their province on the big island...

DrMantisToboggan I've posted this in a PP. The term 'British Isles' pre-dates the Romans, and is reported by Greek writers as the name given by the local population.

I believe that the vast majority of people's ancestors on these islands were treated like shit, regardless of where they lived. Whether it was the suppression of Anglo-Saxon English by the Norman invaders, likewise in Cornwall, Northumbria, Kent etc. The 'English' have been habitually enslaved and ruled by foreign masters - probably the longest time-wise compared to Ireland. Later on the normal people in Wales, then parts of Ireland and Scotland suffered the same fate. Throughout it all, the rich and privileged in those areas typically hung on to power and wealth.

The same has happened across the globe over centuries, typically aggressive men turn up to murder, rape and steal and subjugate the local population. It happened on a smaller scale within Ireland, prior to the Norman, English and Scottish invasions, all with varying success.

The argument about naming Islands, is IMHO, a typical distraction. I have no idea where you live, nor do you about me, but I suspect we have more in common than our rulers would wish us to think. Of course terrible things have been visited on our relatives in the past, unless your family owns a few 1000s acres that was originally stolen from the people who lived there.

You’re free, of course, to consider it a distraction but I would suggest to you that that in itself is a product of (post)colonial privilege.

Ifailed - exactly. I have many more Irish (north and south) and Scottish ancestors than English but all of them were dirt poor and pretty much had difficult lives including those up by the Roman wall when the Romans came I expect.

Hopefully now we can all try to live at peace with each other.

You’re free, of course, to consider it a distraction but I would suggest to you that that in itself is a product of (post)colonial privilege.

Fair comment, do you?

Xenia Fri 13-Jul-18 08:10:13
I don't really see why it matters too much what kind of border there is with NI.

Xenia, this has to be one of the most ignorant statements I have ever read on MN.

The NI border cuts through lives, it cuts through communities and families, it cuts through farms, businesses, even family homes.

And you honestly can't see why it matters too much what kind of border there is with NI?

Why would UK schools teach anything about Irish history, BaronessBlonde? They mostly do not come out of it well so there's no incentive. My DH is Scottish and said that they mostly learned about WWI and WW2 in their history classes - and that's Scotland where there is some shared history with Ireland (mass emigration, land rights movement, sectarian issues etc). They would rather teach about slavery, I'm sure, because they can look like the good guys since the Abolitionist movement was also UK-led.

I personally think it's a huge loss to people in the UK as they then have no understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland, which is a problem shared across both islands, really, but is always portrayed as some bizarre, violent problem with 'the Irish' in the UK media. The ignorance that results is why you get attitudes like Xenia's where people simply do not know what went on in NI and don't care because they feel it won't affect their lives.

And on that topic, I'm sorry you and your family went through that Somerville. Those were hard times and people suffered so much, none more than people living in Catholic areas who were getting it from both sides, IRA violence (e.g. Jean McConville murder and other 'informer' murders) and British Army / RUC oppression. It's sickening to think that people in the UK have such short memories they are happy to even contemplate the prospect of all that violence breaking out again.

Inion "Why would UK schools teach anything about Irish history, BaronessBlonde?"

You're right...and on this thread, it's been a bit of an eye-opener. I had put it down to wilful ignorance, but no, it seems that English people genuinely don't know. Which leads to a whole raft of other problems of course.....

Working in an entry level job in London, I brought the habit with me from home, of taking a broadsheet paper every day. I would have a flick through it over lunch to see what was happening (pre-internet days).
My English colleagues used to take the p out of me...and it's only now dawning on me why that is.

Why would UK schools teach anything about Irish history, BaronessBlonde?

some UK schools teach Irish history