AIBU to ask you who started the Troubles in the North of Ireland?

[1FineDane]

If you watch this new BBC documentary, what is your answer?
I know British people think the IRA started the whole shit, but this is a BBC documentary and fairly unbiased.

I hope you watch it to realise what history there is in Northern Ireland.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008c47/spotlight-spotlight-on-the-troubles-a-secret-history-episode-1

As an English person, I can see that the U.K has caused terrible problems all over the world.
Our country has a long history of invading countries, taking land and treating people like slaves.

However I always see the distinction of : those people were in the past. It is not the current people of the U.K that did it. So how can we be anyway to blame. I hate when Irish people have been nasty to me, and said to me "the English are just murdering bastards".

If you see a young German girl today, would you blame her for what the Nazis have done? She has nothing to do with it.

We have to stop hating people because the ancestors of their country have committed crimes. It makes no sense. Those people have come and gone

@angell84 Stop your generation claiming that the British did nothing wrong then.

I don't think anyone here has blamed the current people for past atrocities. But the current people constantly back up their predecessors. Whatever.

Personally, I blame God.

@1finedane get over yourself. Maybe if you learnt to talk with a little less aggression, people would listen to you.

I was born in England , but I spent my school years in Ireland. I received horrendous abuse from the Irish , just because I was English. They were very, very cruel to me.

So it definitely has not just been the English being cruel to the Irish! You will find that alot of English people have received cruelty in Ireland too. I remember an english fella in ireland used to get beaten up for being English all the time. Is that any better?

I do hate when Irish people blame current U.K people for the violent history though.

Where has anyone said that on this thread?

Only a pretty dim person would blame the current generation for crimes committed in the past. But it is important that countries own up to their history, good and bad. Also where the troubles are concerned, a lot of these people are still alive and are being vigorously defended (e.g. Soldier F).

@sakura7 To make it clear - I am talking about my own personal experiences.

irish people have said to me many times that the English are all murdering bastards, and that I was awful, and should be treated with total hatred. purely because I am English.

This was my experience of being English and growing up in Ireland. Believe me, it was a horrible experience!

If you were bullied in an Irish school for being English, then maybe start a thread about it. This thread is about a documentary about the troubles in NI.

angell84

Of course that's wrong. But do you think the Irish in the UK had it any better? Apart from being discriminated against and attacked, they came under suspicion for no reason. Guilford Four. Birmingham Six.

@1finedane. I wasn't bullied. I experienced xenophobia.
As my point is - it is totally not right to blane current English people for what people in the past have done.
And my point is very relevant - any English people in Ireland, receive huge levels of hatred.

So how is that fair? That Irish people are hateful to PRESENT day English people wjo have done nothing wrong. That needs to change in Ireland. You know there is a huge level of hatred of England in Ireland. Sometimes I feel it is a bit ridiculous.

@Sakura7 the Irish were treated terribly in England, and that was very wrong.

The English have also received hatred ans abuse in Ireland, and that is also wrong.

I wish we could get along as neighbours. It is trying to heal the wounds and get people to move forward - that is difficult

When were you in school angel? I would think in more recent years things should be a lot better. We had a few English kids in my school and they got on ok. But yes of course that kind of bullying is wrong.

And my point is very relevant - any English people in Ireland, receive huge levels of hatred.

I have English friends living here who would disagree that it's like that today. I think we have moved on from those times, but that's why Brexit and the possibility of us going backwards is so frustrating.

It's xenophobia Sakura. Get with the program!

I can see how angell might not have gone down well in Ireland. Considering we're all hateful xenophobes........

@1finedane you are not really making any intelligent comment, by laughing at people. If you want to carry on with your extreme hatred of the British - carry on. It will only hurt yourself in the end

I can't think of one Irish person I have met that I didn't like, the majority of English don't hate the Irish. I remember that wasn't so much the case whilst the bombings were happening. I had a friend who would only whisper to me at train stations as she had experienced people visibly eyeing her up as a possible terrorist .

In school we learnt something of the history of Ireland as background to a book called Across the Barricades. It was a teenage love story between a catholic and a protestant. I don't remember the details but it focused mainly on the fact that most Irish people just want to live in peace and security. The background teaching made it clear that the English 'started it' but that there needed to be forgiveness and compromise to 'fix it'. There was never any historic blame of the Catholics taught.

The first Englishman I dated, I gave him a bollocking for being English. We dated for a year after said bollocking.

Just in case angell gets her knickers in a twist, it's a typically Irish thing to do - give the Englishman a bollocking, see how he takes it. We're actually just pulling yer leg! If he can take a bollocking, then that's ok, he has a sense of humour. If not - good luck to you!

@Sakura7 I am in my thirties, so I was in school in the nineties. Yes I got it all. I remember all the Irish girls would lock me into a bathroom, or invite me to a party because their parents invited every child in the class, and then when I got to the party, the girls would lock me into a room by myself. My brother was called a black and tan bastard. I met one other guy who was born in England, with Irish parents, and moved back to Ireland, and he used to say to me " please do not tell anyone that I was born in England, because he knew the abuse that he would get.

I remember my mother went to look at a house , and the landlord said that he did not want English children living in it. I heard the English are all murdering bastards loads of times

The thing was, I have an english father, and an Irish mother - so I firmly hate no one, but if you had an ounce of English in you in those days , you were hated.

It was the Normans. They invaded England and then Ireland, but Norman’s became synonymous with being English while the Irish always maintained a separate identity.

Really much of the British Isles just has a history of most of the population being oppression by aristocrats so most of the entire populations of both the UK and Ireland were oppressed by the same small groups and we really had more in common with each other that with the ruling class, so I find it sad when there is enmity there.

Pre-WWI Ireland was on course to have home rule while remaining semi- detached to the rest of the isles but it was put on ice during WWI but the Easter Rising in 1916 was intended as a ‘blood sacrifice’ by extreme Irish nationalists to galvanise Irish nationalism. It succeeded because the British came down very hard and that turned Irish opinion against us and enlivened the nationalist movement.

The troubles in the north in modern times I’m sad to say was mostly the fault of the British. I think a lot of British people don’t understand that we denied Catholic’s civil rights in a way not dissimilar to apartheid in South Africa.

@1FineDane the joke is on you. I am half Irish, my mother is Irish.

So will you ever stop woth the godforsaken nonsense. You are making a show of yourself. And don't ever call me an "englishman" again. Jesus christ. Go back in your box

@1FineDane what annoys me about Ireland - having lived there and received loads of abuse about being half English. That was unnecessary!

Alot of people there constantly and I mean constantly go on about all the awful things that England did to them.

When Ireland is not perfect. And many times not nice to people from other countries.

It is one of the whitest countries in Europe, and plenty of black people in Ireland have told me about the extreme racism that they suffered on Ireland.

There were also the time when Polish people were treated as second class citizens in Ireland. Remember that? There is still a big Polish population in Ireland - and many of them say to me that Irish people will have nothing to do with them.

No country is perfect. None!

My brother was called a black and tan bastard. I met one other guy who was born in England, with Irish parents, and moved back to Ireland, and he used to say to me " please do not tell anyone that I was born in England, because he knew the abuse that he would get.

This is almost exactly the experience of my husband. His Dad was working here on the roads and his Mum a nurse. He was born here and they moved back to Cork when he was about 18 months, to a village his fathers family had lived in for hundreds of years, half of the village were related to him. His mother was from about a 15 min drive away. He was awfully bullied for being English and is referred to as a blow in 50 years later.

I am saying this from my own experience. I think that their is alot of racism in Ireland.

Me, and the only two other foreign girls used to sit together in school, because none of the Irish girls would talk to us.

A black woman told me in Ireland that she is constantly told to fuck off back to Nigeria.

My Polish friend in Ireland told me that most Irish people will have nothing to do with her because she is foreign.

You know that racism is a big problem in Ireland!

Thank you! @Ibiza2015 it IS important to point out - that there is HUGE HUGE abuse of English people who live in Ireland.

And that is just as wrong!