As someone who lives in NI, I can tell most of you don't understand what here is like. I come from a unionist background and went to completely protestant schools. The opposite of Kneecap! Even though I am neutral and don't participate in the twelfth or anything cultural, you can tell it's the first thing most people try to work out about you. There is a lack of trust on both sides
What you are dominates everything here. Where you live, work, learn and where you feel comfortable. There's nothing more unnerving than getting lost in Derry or Belfast and finding yourself in an area covered in terrorist flags and murals. There is lingering atmosphere of terror, whether this is West Belfast or Newtownards.
Even though the troubles ended when I was a teenage, I still remember the violence, bombings and killings that were discussed on the news every single night. I remember army stop points with their massive guns. Every one here knows someone who were killed in the terrorism. My grandparents told me of stories of vans being blew up on their way to work and how the bomb in the town five miles away made their homes tremble. It is hard to forget.
Northern Ireland may look all peaceful and flowers in the outside but there a bitterness underneath behind closed doors.
Integration education really needs to be supported. Faith schools are keeping the divide well and truly open. Unfortunately our bigot education minister is determined to put it on hold.
From the media, I sense there's a romanticism forming about the IRA. That they were patriots fighting for their freedom and country. However the constant bombing and killing just makes them murderers. I don't think we should be glorifying murderers who killed women, children and innocent men.
Kneecap are just young and stupid.