Irish racism in England

[angell84]

I am shocked. I am half English, half Irish. My Irish mum lived in England for a long time, gave birth to us children there with her English husband, and then moved back to Ireland.

The reason that she always gave me for returning to Ireland, was that, "she could not take the nastiness to her anymore". She described one incident of many to me: she went to my brother's primary teacher in England, and said that he had lost something, he must have been six at the time, and the teacher said to her , "sure what do you expect - he is half Irish".

I always thought of it in an abstract way, I never really understood what she meant. Until I spent quite a long time in the U.K this year.

I was absolutely shocked at the hatred and nastiness, and calling Irish people stupid.

How can it be possible? The U.K stole alot of Ireland's land, committed mass genocide during the famine, eradicated the Irish language,

And yet instead of apologising, many people are going around calling Irish people stupid.

Isn't it nearly unbelievable? It would be like a German going up to a Jew and calling them stupid. That it was their fault , thhat everything happened the way it did.

I am really shocked

My niece has red hair!

My DS however is mixed race with a smattering of freckles.. He just about held on to his claim to the Irish 'look' lol.

Well said mrsglowglow...you have hit on the problem that has been ongoing for a long long time...even more evidently by some of the ignorance displayed on this thread

If you go back a few pages, I posted an article about the “black Irish”, a term that I only heard recently.

Whether you believe the myth, or not, it’s quite interesting to read about the mixed heritage many Irish (and Welsh, English and Scots) have.

Sushiroller, where did you learn to call Ireland 'Eire'?

@WhenISnappedAndFarted

I don’t think it’s on the standard curriculum for GCSE. When I did a level history, in 1997, the teacher chose one of NI, Israel/Palestine or South Africa for us to learn about. Our teacher chose NI.

De Valera used to call it 'Eire', including in official documents/statements.

The thing that always struck me was how we never heard about loyalist violence - both in NI and the Republic.

By that I mean, those of us living on the mainland UK didn’t hear about this violence in the news.

Wrt the Irish 'look'.

I'm Irish, and according to 23and Me I have ancestry from France- Germany, southern Europe and East Asia, with the majority Irish-British.

I wonder what image all of that conjures up.

I see you did a module in Irish history, @Patroclus.

That explains a lot.

Are you sure you just didnt look for it? Paisley was a household name. The loyalists also spent a lot of time at war with the british army as well.

Wrt genocide - does 'taking advantage of the desperate situation of millions of starving people to clear land for sheep farming and raising beef cattle' sound better than the G word?

I have Anglo Irish ancestors in my background who did exactly that. I don't know what became of the people they evicted between 1845 and 1860.

De Valera used to call it 'Eire', including in official documents/statements.

Only if he was speaking/writing in Irish (I presume you mean Éire). In English it’s Ireland, as per the constitution.

The mainland - that phrase makes my toes curl. My whole family and my husband’s family are all “ship wrecked Spanish sailors” dark skin and dark brown eyes. Not a red head to be seen.

Used all the time in English, I've been told even in the constitution but I arnt sifting through that on a monday evening

Funny that, Math, as you seem to spend the rest of the time on here complaining stupid british people arnt educated about Ireland.

Have a copy of the constitution on my desk. It mostly refers to Ireland and Éireann but only one mention of Eire

.

DoTheHop my Anglo Irish landlord ancestors were Catholic, and all their descendants too.

My dad's family were brought up by nursery maids, taught by a governess, served dinner by parlour maids. Staff and family were all Catholic, even the Swedish governess.

My grandfather, my dad and one of his brothers all served in the British armed forces (one Indian army officer, one engineer under Montgomery in WW2 and one RAF officer).

I even have an English surname.

There were always many well off Irish and Anglo Irish Catholic families. My ancestors were barristers, solicitors and judges, doctors and engineers - Castle Catholics in fact, who turned into rabid Republicans. The women up to my dad's generation (all my aunts) went from genteel boarding schools to finishing school in Paris, and then got married.

Any evidence to support your assertions, Patroclus? Or is it just bollocks?

Spot on @ logjam...

*Her Majesty’s Treasury Sir Charles Trevelyan wrote, the famine was an “effective mechanism for reducing surplus population”.

“Judgment of God,” he continued, “sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated… The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the [Irish] people.”*
www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/02/how-britain-s-dark-history-ireland-haunts-brexit

I have Anglo Irish ancestors in my background who did exactly that. I don't know what became of the people they evicted between 1845 and 1860.

About 1.7 million of them emigrated to the US, including my ancestors.

www.everyculture.com/multi/Ha-La/Irish-Americans.html

@BettyJean our teacher chose Stonehenge - that's seriously what I took for GCSE.