Ireland - wearing black armbands for a game near October 7th?

[mids2019]

So the Irish football team thought it would be some sort of protest to wear black armbands for their recent mat h against Israel and guess what strangely the Israeli team wore black armbands for the victims of the worst terrorist atrocity in their country. So the Irish were left wearing black armbands for victims of the Israeli Gaza conflict but I guess not the victims of October 7th? No wonder the Israeli players were pissed. Ireland then dress and threw the dummy out the pram by saying they shouldn't be playing Israel again......pretty pathetic.

You can also see how for countries like Ireland October 7th is being erased from history as when they went for their black armband protest they probably very stupidly forgot about the proximity of a day of Israeli national mourning.

Nobody is saying Ireland has nothing to reflect on or that things couldn’t be done better. But the whole “But… the Troubles!” line is a caricature of what people actually say.

the Troubles were a real and fairly recent part of Irish history and present. Drumcree?

You can’t just pretend they’re irrelevant because it’s 2026, even though you would like to. At the same time, obviously people can look at what’s happening in Ireland today and take responsibility for what needs to improve.

Both things can be true!

What’s surprising is the ease that certain posters are making sweeping statements about “Irish people” (and then dismissing any historical context as irrelevant.).

edited to say I’m actually a bit shocked that MN don’t moderate posts with extreme stereotypical prejudices.

Yet I was accused of ‘being ancient’ for mentioning WW2, which killed 100 times the number of people the Troubles did, and had even further reaching and longer lasting political consequences 🧐

Well Mumsnet don’t moderate the threads about ‘English people’ which are always v unflattering, so maybe get used to a bit of criticism?

Bang on @saidwhat👍

I think they do moderate fairly. You’ll see a poster on the previous page has had remarks deleted. If you report posts and they are as bad as you say they will be deleted. ( tbh I’ve had posts deleted that I don’t think showed extreme stereotypical prejudice in any way so I think the moderators err in the side of caution and delete quite quickly)

Yes - I think there was a very obvious double standard in that exchange - from some posters at least.

This is a primarily English forum. Any threads re English people are generally written by English people in a self deprecating tone.

I think Irish people in general are actually pretty critical of themselves and Ireland amongst ourselves. We have certainly seen where Ireland has to do better and then made changes, the abortion and gay marriage refs come to mind there and there is lots that we still fail at.

I don't think that anyone would deny there is racism and prejudice in Ireland either. Just the other day 3 men were in court charged with planning a terror attack on a mosque. We have our fair share of gobshites whipping up hate about asylum seekers too and those people who bang about white people becoming a minority blah blah.

The idea that we need to be 'invited' by anyone to examine whether we object to Israel actions because they are fucking barbaric or because we just really hate Jews or really love terrorism is incredibly patronising. Ireland is a diverse society with all kinds of clashing opinions and ideas, we are well able to question ourselves.

Ireland is a very young country at 104 years old, the growth and change we have seen here in the past few decades alone is astonishing and wouldn't have happened if we as a society were unable to question ourselves and examine our moral compass. From living under the church, extreme poverty, mother and baby homes, industrial schools, education for pretty much everyone ending at 14 etc etc to the modern educated society of today it's quite something and wouldn't have happened if we were unable to self reflect and sat comfortably as perpetual victims talking about how great we are.

A lot of the posts like yours talking about 'inviting us to self reflect' is patronising bollocks.

How about these for standing thread titles then?

‘Why are English people so cold and reserved?’
‘Is England a bit boring?’
‘do you think some aspects of English culture are selfish?’
‘What is with the English, affairs, and divorce?’
‘Are the British cultured?’

These are all threads that were left to stand and attracted hundreds of comments.

Can you please point me to a similar thread about Irish people that has been left to stand?

That’s not quite true… Most Irish are more than happy to criticise the English - either on here or in real life. And I don’t have a problem with that.
But it should be reciprocal

The affairs thread was written by an Irish poster, and MANY of the responses are ‘as an Irish/Scottish/Welsh person, I find the English to be…’ (always unflattering).

You would be HOWLING if this was in reverse.

Agreed - but I think jumping up and down at every criticism shows a lack of self confidence . So in many ways it’s good thing the English let the insults slide.

I’m in the south and NI has more or less nothing to do with attitudes towards the Gaza conflict where I am.

I’m worried about Drumcree etc of course, but it’s not tied up with how I feel about Gaza. Might be different of course in NI, but here, no, not really, not in my experience.

This thread was about ROI footballers, not NI ones. It seems to be mostly UK-based posters who imagine the Troubles to be influencing the opinions of those in ROI on the situation in Gaza. Those imaginings don’t actually reflect reality. I may have mentioned this already…

Maybe English people just aren't confident enough to speak up for their country?

Yes, we’re not entitled to live without being offended, and I think some of the criticism is truthful. Either way people are entitled to criticise England without me throwing a fit and demanding their comments are deleted. Tbh the fact those threads are standing shows how tolerant we are! I just can’t imagine a ‘why are Irish people so cold and reserved?’ thread standing for more than 10 seconds.

😂

Yes that’s why our history is so diminutive and private…

Hmm, there’s a bit of a difference between accusing someone of being boring and reserved and implying they’re a terrorist sympathiser though 🤔

Ireland always gets a hard time on threads like this one and most of the comments are left to stand, even though a lot is inaccurate as it’s written by posters who don’t live here.

I’m sure the reverse has happened in some of the threads you’ve listed. People don’t listen to one another and bias and misunderstanding abounds. Sad but true.

Ireland never gets a hard time in comparison with England.

Why can’t you just say ‘actually yeah that’s pretty unpleasant - I wouldn’t like a thread about the Irish being cold/selfish/uncultured/immoral’.

Your total lack of acknowledgement and constant hand waving just makes you look petty now. You know full well if any of those threads had been about Ireland you would have demanded deletion immediately.

I’m really not sure where you are going with this in the context of this thread. In response. to your point that England faces more criticism and discussion than Ireland, of course it does. It’s a bigger country. It has a bigger reach in world politics, much more than so than Ireland. It had Brexit, that created some discussion! It has a history of being a coloniser. Our histories are intermingled and complicated but we are moving forward.

if you just mean in relation to individual threads,, most of which I don’t think were started by Irish people, @Neverblackcurrant response covered it.

Well, it is unpleasant that you have to put up with that and I’m not justifying that.

Where you’re wrong, though, is that Irish people aren’t at the receiving end of it too. I’ve personally been told I shouldn’t comment on a thread about language because I’m Irish. We’re too uncultured and our grasp of English is too poor apparently 😁 I can’t remember if the comment was deleted or not.

Sometimes I think it’s better to let these comments stand and show what people really think. It depends what’s being said, obviously.

Who started those threads? Were they English people? Your post wasn't clear. Because the nationality of who started them will elicit a different view of them.

If you think Irish people don't criticise themselves, their country or each other have a listen to their daily radio show Liveline.

I think it's like your own family, you can rant about and criticise them as much as you like but the minute someone from outside the families criticises them you can get quite defensive. It's normal human behaviour

Im sure you feel free to criticise other countries - ( most Irish are more than happy to criticise England and that’s fine imo)
I think in the context of rising antisemitism we should be able to call it out in any country where it exists.
There is a growing problem with antisemitism in Ireland. I didn’t think so at first but I do now.

Examples of antisemitism in Ireland were provided by a Jewish pp.
These were quickly dismissed and minimised by other posters .

Today we have had a poster from Ireland deleted for calling another (Irish) poster a “shameful baby killer” because she objected to the several pro Pal Irish protests on one day of the year 7/10.
(“baby killer” was the antisemitic slur @Jewishcraic mentioned. )

And yet so many posters in here only want to discuss the offence they have suffered and the way they have been stereotyped.

It seems to me there is a problem.

Some aren’t, some apparently are (but honestly just read as someone pretending to be English so it looks more acceptable to get the xenophobia machine whirring). They know exactly what they’re inciting. A lot of people jump at the opportunity to engage in English-bashing.

Kneecap are from a nationalist working class in the north @Emilesgran said that there was a Disneyfication of the troubles by the South.

The support for Palestine in the South isn’t linked to the north today either. Support for Israel and Palestine in the north itself can feel very different.