AIBU - England couldn’t care less about Northern Ireland

[ThisThatTheOther]

Northern Ireland has seen a return to violence , petrol bombs etc every night for a week now. It’s dominated the headlines here in Ireland. People are worried as peace up north is so fragile. Listening to the radio yesterday an old advisor of Tony Blair was on to discuss. The radio host read out the top 8 listed stories on all main English sites and the violence of Northern Ireland didn’t even feature. It’s the top headline again in all major Irish publications this morning but not in English publications.

@PADH

The violence isn't anything to do with Brexit. It's to do with the handling of the Bobby Storey funeral.

Indeed.

Rioting over that. I mean seriously! PETROL BOMBS - what the heck - whoever thinks that is right needs to examine their brain

I think that it’s not Englishness that’s a problem in NI, it’s religious sectarianism. Stop saying it’s something to do with colonial relationships in England. The people who went to NI and claimed the land, English but predominantly Scottish. Scotland has its own sectarian problems but funnily enough it’s not a problem in England. This part always gets left out but it’s the running sore that keeps the conflict alive for all these young fools whipped by paramilitary criminal gangs.

England has, after years of its neighbours becoming more nationalistic, become the same. That’s going to be an increasing problem for the smaller countries in the Union, who don’t seem to have twigged that the usual bully tactics in the context of devolution aren’t going to work.

Ireland will be one country in a generation - signing that protocol and Great Britain becoming a real legal entity, well, GB won’t even share laws and standards in a decade. It’s not like this decision wasn’t made with the realization of that. Seems some politicians in NI didn’t and haven’t realised they are now in charge!

It’s due to a culmination of many factors. Not just one thing. It’s very ignorant and dismissive to refer to this as petty and imply it’s just about a funeral. It isn’t.

Perhaps Brexit forced the issue of NI. Where does it really belong, Ireland or the UK? A border had to be drawn and by choosing the Irish Sea a signal was sent. A signal that made Loyalists feel betrayed and abandoned. Now we see the results.

Choosing a hard border on the land would have inflamed nationalists. Boris is busy trying to have his cake and eat it too, by saying nothing and not acknowledging the issue. Perhaps the media are colluding by saying little. Even acknowledging the issue is almost to take a side.

Being in the EU made it easy to finesse the issue. We no longer have that cover.

Watch the coverage wane even more now Philip has died. It'll be all the outpouring of sympathy for a member of a family responsible for so much devastation and destruction.

@Jurassicperk

Watch the coverage wane even more now Philip has died. It'll be all the outpouring of sympathy for a member of a family responsible for so much devastation and destruction.

Indeed.

I just think that the UK consists of four very separate countries. People, the world over, only care about what is happening in their own local area.

Do people in Northern Ireland know about what is happening in Wales, for example?

@CoolCatTaco

The Republican - not IRA - funeral is a bit of a red herring. Sinn Fein behaved really badly over it, but it's relevance is somewhat over stated. It's being used as an excuse to destabilise because the DUP messed up Brexit and can't bully their way out of it. There are plenty of other lockdown breaches...basically everything Sammy Wilson does is breaking Covid rules never mind the Loyalist mobs in Pitt Park, threatening port staff in Larne, illegal Marches etc.

exactly 💯

What I never understood when living in the Republic of Ireland, was that there was huge, and I mean HUGE hatred towards the English, all I heard there was "I hate the English, they came over and took our land etc etc", but there was no hatred at all towards Scottish people, even though the people that took the land in Northern Ireland were Scottish, not English.

I am so sick of all this ridiculous hate between our two islands. Will we ever move on?

@Sarahtrue11

The army responsible for the murder of Northern Irish citizens are the ones who invaded and ravaged the place (and have never been held responsible). They did it in the name of the queen as British soldiers.
Can't blame Scotland for that.

@PhoenixandtheRug

Rukaya, partition was FORCED on people here. I don't like it, don't accept it and when the vote comes I shall be voting to end British colonisation and British rule in Ireland once and for all.

And don't tell me what to call the six counties where I have lived all my life. We are NOT a part of England and it's ridiculous and highly offensive to colonised people here to say we are.

Colonization happened to many, many people a century ago. I just visited recently a part of Poland, that had been taken over by Germany during World war two. They still speak German in that part of Poland, because they were made to speak German a century ago, when Germany invaded them for years. Colonisation happened all over Europe.

The only difference is that Northern Ireland hasn't been given back to Ireland, that is why it is still causing problems for everyone. But they can't just give it back, because half of Northern Ireland want to remain in the UK.

@luxxlisbon

The Bobby Storey funeral as a reason for the rioting is the biggest pile of BS I've ever heard. That was literally in JUNE and it somehow justifies petrol bombing in APRIL the following year? It doesn't even make sense.

The police inquiry has decided that no action should be taken over it just last week, and many unionists are calling for an investigation into the police handling of the investigation.

Google the images from the funeral, and the amount of people in attendance, include high profile politicians, during a time when normal funerals were restricted heavily to the point that close family members were unable to attend.

The argument being put forward (rightly or wrongly) is that the police were afraid to act appropriately in case they were viewed as being too hard on the republican side, where obviously there has been a strong history of bias. They've allegedly completely gone the other direction and "let them away with it."

It's a very complex issue, during a time where everyone is already frustrated and highly strung with lockdown and brexit.

Tensions between unionists/nationalists have been mounting this last year due to brexit (hard border - which has a distinct separation from ireland/sea border- which gives us a distinct separation from the mainland - issues etc), coronavirus legislation (do we follow ireland who we share a border with or the UK who we are in a union with), and all the issues of corruption regarding the dup and sinn fein, for which no one is held accountable under the guise of keeping the peace.

@Jurassicperk

Watch the coverage wane even more now Philip has died. It'll be all the outpouring of sympathy for a member of a family responsible for so much devastation and destruction.

I have just finished the book 'And What Do You Do' by Norman Baker...the whole family is awful! Shockingly, wickedly awful. Greedy, grasping, racist, secretive and completely out for themselves. The only ones who comes out of it well are Princess Anne and possibly Harry and Meghan.

@Jurassicperk Not all of them. I remember talking to British soldiers in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Many of them were lovely people, who were very scared to be sent to Northern Ireland as they knew they were likely to be killed. Many of them were very young men , 20 - 23. And I am Irish, saying this. Those men were human beings.

Sarah I know and I understand that. I wouldn't like to see a poll for another few years yet as it has to be thrashed out so well that everyone understands what we are voting for. But all research so far shows that the Irish economy will do really well with reunification and once things become clearer it will be way less than half who want to remain stuck with Tory Brexit Britain compared to being part of a prosperous EU country with the goodwill of everyone across the globe.

England does care. We all should.

This latest shits in the faces of those of us in Ireland and mainland Britain who endured years of bombings shootings murders deaths fear and prejudice and painful politics to find a resolution.

Apparently we did it for nothing.

Some new generation of mindless morons who know fuck all about their own dismal history, wants to do it all over again. For what!

@Sarahtrue11

I feel sadness for anyone who dies but I can't bring myself to be overly sympathetic for men who join the army. They know what they're signing up for (conscription aside obviously). And that's beyond even the troubles. I save my sympathy for the innocent victims of national armies.

[quote Sarahtrue11]@Jurassicperk Not all of them. I remember talking to British soldiers in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Many of them were lovely people, who were very scared to be sent to Northern Ireland as they knew they were likely to be killed. Many of them were very young men , 20 - 23. And I am Irish, saying this. Those men were human beings.[/quote]

My father was shot at on Bloody Sunday by these soldiers. He never was able to speak about it. I don't wish them harm but have zero interest in their lives or their feelings.

I've completely different memories Sarah I was terrified as a child. Don't hang about near parked cars, don't pick anything up off the street, shit playgrounds, no infrastructure, no decent shops, metal turnstiles into town, bombscares in school, stones thrown at buses, soldiers checking buses, soldiers in my garden asking teenage girls where they were going if they were out, sitting in traffic at checkpoints, not driving too close to a police land rover incase a petrol bomb was thrown.

And yes I'm sure lots of young soldiers were very scared, most of them were little more than 18/19 years old but let's not kid ourselves. The first people who called me a sectarian slur and used sexually explicit language to me, shouted out the back of a jeep were soldiers. They already thought I was less than them. I didn't think any of it was exciting.

@Sarahtrue11

What I never understood when living in the Republic of Ireland, was that there was huge, and I mean HUGE hatred towards the English, all I heard there was "I hate the English, they came over and took our land etc etc", but there was no hatred at all towards Scottish people, even though the people that took the land in Northern Ireland were Scottish, not English.

I am so sick of all this ridiculous hate between our two islands. Will we ever move on?

Yep. Easier to just hate the English.

Hundreds of years later some are still hating the English.

Imagine how things would be if ALL people in NI just put their energy into a better country for EVERYONE living there whether catholic/protestant/non religious and from wherever they came hundreds of years ago..... Much easier to just keep the hate going and the division going on and on and on through the generations - very sad and inward looking.

It all gets conveniently forgotten that partition was devised and put forward by a Welshman; honestly, there are people in Ireland incensed by “.the English” yet of course they mean the political classes in Westminster, which includes English, Welsh and Scottish PMs.

Some of my relatives were killed in NI; I don’t spend my time getting incensed at “the Irish” as that would be ignorant and stupid.

@implantsandaDyson - me too, I was a shy 13 year old when it first happened. Walking alone in my school uniform.

It took the PPS 9 months to come to the decision to not prosecute anybody. The decision was made sometime last week, after which an emergency meeting was called at Stormont where ALL the parties in N.I (barr Sinn Fein) criticised Sinn Fein's handling of the funeral.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-56581056

Anyone who thinks it's ok for a leader and party members to attend a funeral of that scale after being on tv the night before telling people to socially distance needs their head seen to. The fact it wasn't just a funeral , but a show of strength needs acknowledged too. The crowds went to Milltown cemetery for speeches by senior republican figures before then going onto Roselawn cemetery for his cremation. Lynn Paul - a woman who was turned away at the cemetery from her own MOTHER'S funeral - words sum up how a lot of people are feeling:

"How can one person or one family matter more than the rest? For my family, we feel like we don't matter, no matter how hard I worked through this pandemic, no matter how much we abidedby every rule and regulation that was set by the government, it just feels like it was all worthless."

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-53275733

m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/family-told-only-10-mourners-at-roselawn-day-after-30-plus-attended-ira-man-storeys-cremation-39345945.html

It's already galling enough for the Protestant community, many who have been victims or had family members killed by the IRA - my own grandfather had his cousin took off a work bus, lined up and shot, just for being protestant - to see them now not just running the country, but making their own rules that suit them. These are convicted bombers and murderers. Anywhere else it would be unheard of.

Sinn Fein purport to be about equality and inclusiveness for everyone barr the Protestant community. A few years back Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Fein's president) marched in New York's St.Patrick's parade with a large sign saying 'England get out of Ireland.'

What is inclusive about that?

@PhoenixandtheRug

Sarah I know and I understand that. I wouldn't like to see a poll for another few years yet as it has to be thrashed out so well that everyone understands what we are voting for. But all research so far shows that the Irish economy will do really well with reunification and once things become clearer it will be way less than half who want to remain stuck with Tory Brexit Britain compared to being part of a prosperous EU country with the goodwill of everyone across the globe.

I live in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately I don't think it matters how well everything is explained or how well we will thrive under a united ireland economy (and same vice versa). Even in 10 years time, there'll still be enough of the generation voting who are very patriotic to GB that will vote to remain in the union even if it meant living in a tent and eating cold baked beans for the rest of their lives (and vice versa). A lot of the time there's no rationale for why we are one side or the other, it's the culture we're brought up in.

It's sad and demoralising. I've no preference either way, and would vote towards whatever would give the best quality of life for me and my family, but there aren't enough people thinking like that in Northern Ireland at the minute - and a lot that do end up leaving anyway. I read somewhere the Northern ireland had the highest percentage of a level students chosing to study out of their country than any other nation in the UK. (Disclaimer: this was part of my politics a level 12 years ago so may not be the case now).

I certainly don't hate the English, my OH is English - although he pledges his allegiance to Yorkshire grin]