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AIBU?

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Original poster

To apologise for arguing that discrimination against the Irish 'isn't a thing'

239 replies

wheresmymojo · 02/04/2019 10:26

I was on an AIBU thread months and months ago where someone was talking about 'Irish twins' (used for two children born 12 months or less apart).

I argued that it wasn't offensive because Irish people aren't discriminated against. That I've never, ever seen any disparaging remarks about Irish people except in jest, etc.

Anyway...I just wanted to say: I was wrong.
I should've listened more to the Irish people on the thread and I've learned my lesson there.

With the discussions about the NI border due to Brexit I've been reading up on the relevant history (back to before the famine) and I've been shocked at how our English Govt treated your people. I've been very naive about the degree to which English education misses out some lots of inconvenient parts of our history.

I also commented on several FB threads after the recent Bloody Sunday prosecution and was shocked at some of the comments of other people.

So I was wrong, and I apologise (even if no-one reads this - it's been playing on my conscience).

OP posts:
SrSteveOskowski · 02/04/2019 12:10

I'm Irish in Ireland. Thank you OP for this.

@MrTumbleTumble, my friend's (Irish) dad moved to London in the 1950's and found it very hard to get somewhere to live because of all the signs in accommodation "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". Terrible.

Where I live in Ireland has a large Polish population, most of whom have moved here in the last 10-15 years. I have a few friends who are Polish and all of them have said that they always felt welcomed here.
I think after seeing what our own people went through when they emigrated, we try to do the opposite.

SrSteveOskowski · 02/04/2019 12:11

@Proudirishnotpaddy, cross post.

Rainbowjellies · 02/04/2019 12:11

I mention it as the OP is getting at that we should be prostrating ourselves about how terrible our history is and we should carry the shame constantly, and aren't the British the worst things ever. When actually no, if you take it in the context of global times that was what lots of nations did not just ours. So why are the British singled out and told that we are constantly monsters?

And before I'm jumped on yes I do feel bad for what happened to the Irish but I had nothing to do with it and I have no ill feeling to the Irish (even though the IRA detonated a bomb right near my house) and I saw first hand the horrors. I think wallowing in past times stops society moving on and improving these relations.

sashh · 02/04/2019 12:12

Yes they were bad to the Irish but that's kind of what empires did back then (not saying it's right).

Including the last century? In the last 50 years?

For a bit of additional viewing there is a vis on Youtube called, 'th boarder' and that's what it is about.

it starts with a gentleman who is older than the boarder and goes through the history, finishing with Patrick Kielty showing his two passports.

It does talk about some of the violence but also on the 'smuggling', some of it quite serious and some of it people buying 1/2 a dozen eggs and some flour to feed families.

I remember some 'jokes' from the 1970s and 1980s, including, "Guilty until proved Irish" and in the Hillsborough film Ricky Tomlinson's character says, "They'll probably pin this all on some poor Irishman".

Discrimination against the Irish in Britain is less overt but still here and it is deep rooted.

Original poster
wheresmymojo · 02/04/2019 12:16

@Rainbowjellies

Yes. I am horrified at all of that too but I didn't make shitty posts about those topics so why would it be relevant to mention them?

Your 'what about other countries that were inhuman' post is part of the problem.

Imagine saying something similar if I was apologising to black women for saying I didn't believe racism existed against them.

(....and yes I realise 'racism' isn't quite the right word re: Ireland as were all caucasians but I don't know what word to use).

OP posts:
Rainbowjellies · 02/04/2019 12:18

Well yes, lynchings in America? Constant issues in Africa in French colonies, still going on now? China to Tibet and Taiwan?

I'm not saying it wasn't bad, but I'm not sure this is the way to solve it.

doIreallyneedto · 02/04/2019 12:18

Thank you op. Taking the time to check whether you were wrong and then admitting it, is very laudable.

Wrt whether the Scottish had any blame for the historical situation, there was a major influx of Scottish into Ulster during the 17th century as part of the plantation of Ulster. That said, I'm much more concerned about what is going today than apportioning blame for historical wrongs :-)

MindyStClaire · 02/04/2019 12:18

And before I'm jumped on yes I do feel bad for what happened to the Irish but I had nothing to do with it and I have no ill feeling to the Irish (even though the IRA detonated a bomb right near my house) and I saw first hand the horrors. I think wallowing in past times stops society moving on and improving these relations.

You might want to rephrase this. It reads as if you're conflating "Irish" with "terrorist". I'm sure you wouldn't want to imply such a thing.

And, as has been explained on this very thread - for the Irish, it isn't "past times". It's very much present and future as Brexit is about to fuck with our lives and no one in GB (including the Government!) seems to care. Old wounds that were healing, times that we were all starting to move on from, suddenly seem to matter again. It's a bit shit, really.

Thehop · 02/04/2019 12:19

My dad moved to England from Ireland as a young boy and remembers all the signs in pub windows declaring “no dogs no blacks no Irish” my kids were gobsmacked when I showed them pictures.

MargoLovebutter · 02/04/2019 12:19

Thank you for thinking about it wheresmymojo and coming back to post.

My Irish mother married an Englishman and moved over here. Before they had DC, Dad was posted to do a big auditing job in Blackpool for a few months. My Mum took some holiday from her own job and went up to stay with him and was walking around Blackpool and was so disheartened to still see signs up in boarding houses that said "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish" in the windows.

She said the 1970s & 80s were awful because of all the IRA activity and the endless assumptions by English people that all Irish people were rabid terrorists. She also says if she had a penny for every sorry joke or disparaging comment about Irish bogtrotters, paddies, tinkers, navvies, peasants and drunks that people have made in front of her, before remembering she is in fact Irish, she'd be a wealthy woman!

I work with a man, granted at the more elderly end of the workforce, who still today talks about the "sly Irish" which I politely remind him is not on at all.

Rainbowjellies · 02/04/2019 12:19

@wheresmymojo I haven't denied there hasn't been discrimination, there has. I think constantly making people who weren't involved apologise for it doesn't help either side or to improve relations

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 02/04/2019 12:20

Personally I am not proud to be English. The Irish, the Scottish, the Welsh... we have treated them all appallingly.

I'm neither proud nor ashamed of having been born English - I wasn't responsible for anything that my ancestors/countrypeople did, appalling though very much of it was.

Rainbowjellies · 02/04/2019 12:21

@MindyStClaire my point was it would be easy to have anti-Irish sentiments if you've been a victim of the IRA, surely you can see that? But actually I can separate it and I don't.

MindyStClaire · 02/04/2019 12:21

(....and yes I realise 'racism' isn't quite the right word re: Ireland as were all caucasians but I don't know what word to use)

To answer this aside, OP, the following is the definition of race under the equality act:

In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality.

So racism is the correct term to use.

longwayoff · 02/04/2019 12:22

Yes I am, hereward.

havingtochangeusernameagain · 02/04/2019 12:22

I'm neither proud nor ashamed of having been born English - I wasn't responsible for anything that my ancestors/country people did, appalling though very much of it was

Exactly this.

MaxNormal · 02/04/2019 12:22

I have been shocked at some of the comments I've seen regarding NI and Brexit. "Cutting NI loose would be a small price to pay for a hard Brexit" sticks in my mind.

PianoVigilante · 02/04/2019 12:24

And before I'm jumped on yes I do feel bad for what happened to the Irish but I had nothing to do with it and I have no ill feeling to the Irish (even though the IRA detonated a bomb right near my house) and I saw first hand the horrors. I think wallowing in past times stops society moving on and improving these relations.

You are conflating 'Irish' with membership of a specific terrorist group rainbow. Yes, we all nip about in balaclavas, setting car bombs. Congratulations for illustrating quite neatly what the OP is talking about. Hmm

MindyStClaire · 02/04/2019 12:24

my point was it would be easy to have anti-Irish sentiments if you've been a victim of the IRA, surely you can see that? But actually I can separate it and I don't.

No one on the thread had mentioned the IRA. You were the one who made the connection between "Irish" and "IRA". In just your second post on the thread. If you can't see that the problem there is with you, I'm not sure I have the energy to explain it to you, tbh.

3timeslucky · 02/04/2019 12:25

Thanks OP, not just for being big enough to apologise and for bothering to, but also for taking the time to find out more. Makes me reflect on how more of all that would help make the world a better place.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 02/04/2019 12:26

My dad moved to England from Ireland as a young boy and remembers all the signs in pub windows declaring “no dogs no blacks no Irish” my kids were gobsmacked when I showed them pictures.

A lot of signs also included 'No Jews' as well. Phil Lynott (of Thin Lizzy) once commented that he (very understandably) felt multiplied hatred, being all of those (except for canine, of course).

Utterly, utterly disgraceful. Well, banning dogs from certain places was fair enough; but it wasn't even just the fact that black, Irish and Jewish people were classed with the same level of undesirability as dogs - the dogs were given top 'billing' as it were.

MindyStClaire · 02/04/2019 12:26

Makes me reflect on how more of all that would help make the world a better place.

Absolutely.

SaskiaRembrandt · 02/04/2019 12:26

Rainbowjellies The OP isn't trying to solve anything. She is apologising for a misconception she had.

doIreallyneedto · 02/04/2019 12:27

@Rainbowjellies - my point was it would be easy to have anti-Irish sentiments if you've been a victim of the IRA, surely you can see that? But actually I can separate it and I don't.

Whether you have anti-Irish sentiment personally is irrelevant. The point is that anti-Irish sentiment continues to exist in the UK.

I personally don't have anti-Islamic sentiments or anti-Semitic sentiments. However, I recognise that others do. I think it is wrong and I would most definitely call it out. You seem to think that just because you don't have anti-Irish sentiments that nobody does.

PianoVigilante · 02/04/2019 12:27

my point was it would be easy to have anti-Irish sentiments if you've been a victim of the IRA, surely you can see that? But actually I can separate it and I don't.

Only if you are so monumentlly ill-informed you believe the IRA's methods and objectives are representative of every Irish person, as a foreigner might consider the EDL doing Nazi salutes and throwing bricks at mosques representative of all English people. Hmm

I'm going to assume you are being intentionally goady, though, because no one, no matter how ill-informed, is that thick, surely.

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