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 experience is very different.

My experience has been one of people loving Irish accents, music, culture ... of having some understanding of the heritage and history and future. Of identifying and being proud of any Irish ancestory.

I am sad to read of issues others find.

Of course it was a comment on AMerican teeth, for heaven’s sake.

I’m of a generation where most Irish people only had significant orthodontic work done if their teeth were fairly problematic — I have perfectly fine teeth but a slightly out of alignment right canine which would certainly have meant braces if I’d been born at the same time as my younger siblings, for instance — but didn’t have the gleaming, ultra-white, perfectly even smiles of the Americans I was working with on my J1 summer. Which are now pretty standard for Irish teenagers, too.

How anyone can construe that into an anti-Irish comment is beyond me, particularly in view of my comments on the thread so far.

And US and Irish body language is different. I have not suggested either is better. They are distinguishable.

Jesus.

I read a thread on here a couple of years ago where someone had burned their hand and they were looking for advice.

A poster whose name I still remember gave advice saying this will sound a bit Irish. I asked what they meant by a bit Irish and was told it meant a bit backwards.

I'm Irish. The English can be so nasty about Irish people. But to be fair you should hear the way we are discussing the English here in Ireland these days. It's quite entertaining.

Re the point about Eire/Ireland/ROI I do remember as a child in the 70's living in London when my mother posted letters or parcels back home to Kerry she would write the address as EIRE. Now we write Ireland but don't know when that stopped. My mum grew up in the 40's rural Ireland where all her school books were written in the Irish language.

@mrsglowglow, it might be that she was simply using it to make sure it got to Kerry by using a name that was still in widespread use in England then?

I’ve lost track of the number of times when I’ve said in an English post office that this parcel was going to Ireland and had someone ask ‘Northern or Southern Ireland?’ And I say politely, even though this is the fiftieth time I’ve had this conversation with the same person, ‘Well, there’s only one country called Ireland, and if I’d meant Northern Ireland, I’d have said so.’

And don’t start me on applying for a national insurance number when I first arrived in the UK. Someone on the helpline, and their supervisor, tried to convince me at length that I could ‘just use the number you have at home, because it’s all the same system’. Aargh.

I'm English with Irish ancestry and grew up with stories of the xenophobia when my grandparents first came over. The thing is, the ruling classes of England perpetrates atrocities in every other country in the Union as well as the Republic of Ireland, let alone the rest of the world. In order to do so, it convinced the lower classes of their superiority to the other countries which conveniently distracted (and continues it distract) from the fact they were being screwed over by said ruling classes and therefore had more in common with everyone else than with their leaders.

The superiority complex of the English as a group is definitely an issue and in great part a hangover from the above - though you may not yourself fall into that category or have experienced it firsthand, it is the lived experience of enough people worldwide, including the Irish, that English people should listen. Flagging it up is not a personal attack, it's a statement of experience.

*perpetrated that should be, at least in reference to the empire

@WitchyPoos: you absolutely could have called them out at work. That sort of racism in the workplace is worse than elsewhere, because you can't walk away from it. You have to stay there to do your work, and you have to go and face them again tomorrow, and the next day.

I'm half-Irish, and if I experienced that sort of thing I would, in the first instance, explained that it was racist and that you found it offensive, and that you'd rather that sort of thing wasn't repeated.

If it then happened again, I'd be straight to management, explaining that X was said on Y date, that I'd made my feelings known, and that it seemed that that wasn't enough to stop it happening, so would management please have a word. If that doesn't work, it's a matter for HR.

I've had to do that, not about racist comments, but about sexism in a workplace where I was the only woman. I only had to mention it once, but it never happened again.

I’ve lost track of the number of times when I’ve said in an English post office that this parcel was going to Ireland and had someone ask ‘Northern or Southern Ireland?’ And I say politely, even though this is the fiftieth time I’ve had this conversation with the same person, ‘Well, there’s only one country called Ireland, and if I’d meant Northern Ireland, I’d have said so

At least they knew there were two parts! There are a lot of stories on here of people thinking Dublin is in the UK...

Mind you I don't think that's down to maliciousness or English superiority. My husband has worked with university-educated people who variously didn't know where the Channel Islands were, or that Amsterdam was the capital of the Netherlands, not Brussels.

There's definitely a case to be made that English education is rubbish, and not just history.

The Hague is capital of the Netherlands.

Oh dear

@Patroclus

Actually Amsterdam IS the capital of the Netherlands.
The Hague is the seat of government but Amsterdam is the capital. It‘s in the constitution.

www.tripsavvy.com/capital-of-the-netherlands-1456775

Inform trivial persuit, those fuckers cheated me out of a tenner.

Supposedly both are acceptable (even though I got penalised for saying amsterdam and not the Hague). Interestingly, the hague means 'the hedge'.

www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-capital-of-the-netherlands.html

Just checking in - is it;

A) Some English are racist
B) all English are racist
C) All English are ignorant
D) Irish looks are not racism but a point of national pride?

“Irish looks are not racism but a point of national pride” What?

@LexMitior, are not getting enough attention, or something?

On the matter of teeth, can I just say that the only difference between Irish teeth and English teeth (can't believe I'm saying this) is the amount of cosmetic dentistry Brits have.

My teeth are lovely.
We're as good looking as the English. They're deluding themselves if they think they're a better looking 'race'!

Abroad, it's English women who have a reputation for being fat, white, drunk. I think it's being poor that affects your looks and no nation is immune to that.

Americans believe that English have shit teeth but if you watch Makeover guy, American women (ordinary ones, not stars) have no better teeth than people have here, but Americans buy in to their own stereotypes.

I’ve lost track of the number of times when I’ve said in an English post office that this parcel was going to Ireland and had someone ask ‘Northern or Southern Ireland?’ And I say politely, even though this is the fiftieth time I’ve had this conversation with the same person, ‘Well, there’s only one country called Ireland, and if I’d meant Northern Ireland, I’d have said so.’

I had this exact conversation last Friday. Soooo many times over the years 🤦‍♀️

It occasionally fills me with a childish desire to say 'Oooh, are there two? Which side is Kerry on? What about Wicklow? Athlone? Can you check all those on a map for me, please?'

It's every time you meet someone 'foreign' and you say you're from Ireland. Guaranteed next question is - the North or the South?
Favourite was from a Danish guy many years ago where his response was - Isn't there a war there?

I think people see the war in Northern Ireland as happening in Ireland too when listening from abroad. For e.g. many moons ago, someone told me they were going to work in Korea! All I had was visions in my head of some Jung Um (or whatever his name is) and was horrified. When they said it was to South Korea and that they were two totally different countries, it was an education. (Asian geography wasn't my strong point). Or is it in Africa? Christ. Must buy atlas for Christmas. Or a globe or something.
But I think it's ok when someone from 'far' away asks the question, but when your next door neighbours ask, it's offensive.

I suppose the war in the North (troubles, violence, terrorism, whatever you choose to call it) sullies Ireland's reputation. I think people are resentful of that in Ireland. They really were two very different countries for a while.

Northern or Southern Ireland I'm from the Northern Ireland, where these descriptions are in common usage - I only learned it was incorrect via Mumsnet! 😂