“Racism” towards the Irish on here

[Giantbanger]

Can we please talk about it and can you please get your mods some training.

There was a thread that stood from yesterday. The op was goady and people were reporting the fuck out of it from yesterday.

It went this morning because the op was previously banned for being goady. No surprises there then.

But it contained a post from a member of MNHQ that really bothered me and I would like to discuss.

Add message | Report | Message poster EstherMumsnet (MNHQ) Mon 29-Oct-18 19:43:38
Hello!
Thanks for all the reports on this one. We'd like to leave this up as it's a pretty interesting discussion - one for the colonial/post colonial literature experts perhaps (yes - we know there's an argument over whether Irish literature counts as such!) - so please keep to the spirit of the site when discussing this and make your points politely. Thanks

So if there’s a “racist” thread about the Irish, it is an interesting discussion and the Irish need to be polite when telling racists they are racists.

(And Yes. I know in the dictionary definition Irish isn’t a race. It’s a subset ethnicity of Caucasian but the term is used more broadly in general use than the dictionary definition.)

What a shocker @MNHQ giving a non explanation again.

@MNHQ this latest response from you underlines how ignorant MNHQ are about Ireland and our colonised past and its legacy to date. I have read so many threads where there are nasty and yes, racist, antI-Irish comments that are allowed to stand undeleted.

I am among those who worry with the approaching months and the prospect of a no-deal Brexit that the racism that has been under the surface for many years is now surfacing loudly again. In recent years, it was no longer OK to say 'No black, no Irish, no dogs' but the anti-Irish feelings were still there. But now you've got politicians openly making anti-Irish statements (JRM et al) so now it's OUT THERE again.

It's quite depressing to know the level of ignorance there is generally in the UK about Ireland and the UK's role in our history. 25 years ago, I had a conversation with an English student who was very cross when I said that Irish people always cheered for the team playing against England in Italia90. ( This was all pretty GFA and post GFA sentiments have been much more warmoney and fuzzy. ) HAvington I've never this student a tiny history of the impact of colonialism on our country as the reasons why there was resentment toward England, he responded that we 'should feel grateful to England for all our beautiful Georgian buildings. We civilised your country - you'd be running around in bearskins if it wasn't for us.' I had hoped that ato iTunes and general knowledge had changed in the interventing years but it seems not to have.
Many politicians don't understand it. ( This one in particular shocked me.
www.google.ie/amp/www.thejournal.ie/karen-bradley-northern-ireland-4223738-Sep2018/%3famp=1)
We do understand it. We have lived it. It's in our family historis, our community histories and in the interactions and the experiences and interactions we've had with people.

So don't, please, tell us when it's OK to be offended and when it's an interesting discussion. We've generally got thick skins and can debate with the best of them. But when we say it's offensive, and it was from the very OP, then please act responsibly.

'MNHQ's comment was a response to the discussion as it stood at the halfway point of the thread ' It had been pointed out from the very first response to the OP that it was racist and offensive but you chose to read it differently.

'We understand that many of you were offended by the tone of the discussion and we could have taken it down sooner.'
No. You SHOULD have taken it down immediately because it was offensive and racist. Not because you realised the OP was a goady fucker.

This is only going to become a more common problem in the coming months on MN and MNHQ needs to get its house in order.

Please excuse typos. I'm on my phone which sticks random stuff in. Hope my post makes sense.

I can’t help noticing the glaring contrast between how this issue is dealt with by MNHQ and how a certain other issue is dealt with. They can’t act fast enough to delete when someone states a truth that isn’t fashionable to state.

pleasegotowork I agree with you 100%

Weighing in to add support to the complaint. And also to say things are going to get worse when the Irish border becomes a convenient scapegoat for the failure of Brexit negotiations. Get ready @MNHQ and get your house in order.

Have reported the response from this morning, it really is unbelievable that MNHQ consider that to be an appropriate response. Doesn't address the issue at all and makes clear they have no intention of tackling this particular flavour of rasicm.

Not quite so booming right now in the wake of the primark fire. City centre shops really struggling. If you happen to come across any posts from city centre stores on FB please share them on, they really need the trade.

I'm not proud of my ignorance - abbs the problem is that a lot of people are. The Irish posters try to explain why what they're saying is wrong and instead of using the information to educate themselves they just refuse to believe it!

JaneJeffer - you mean like most British people? I have Irish cousins in England and all of their hubbies seem to make paddy jokes etc. They all voted for the March shitshow too. If this was an Irish site we would be dramatically LAUGHING OUT LOUDER THAN LOUD about the decision of brexit. But we are not big enough to have a huge sounding board and we are not unintelligent enough to think brexit was ever a good idea. Can we have loads of threads started about how the Irish MOCK the brits for their decision to leave the EU? If we can then racism and bias is fair game cos if some fucker is going to goad my Irish country then I am certainly going to goad their brexit stupidity.

I think this thread is the perfect place for this genius from Tommy Tiernan on Brexit

Particularly love:
Irish Stereotypes? The stupid Englishman. He switched it from it being about Irish to being about English.
And then:
We didn't vote to leave Europe

Lol

As for the end bit where the African guy wins a trip back to Africa.....

Was just listening to the Blindboy podcast and he said "how many bombs did there need to be for the British to understand what Northern Ireland is".

Very funny @SheBangsit

What was the thread that was deleted?
What section of Mumsnet was it on ?

beanaseireann The poster was questioning if famous Irish writers like Oscar Wilde should really be considered Irish because they were more 'culturally' British, apparently.

Y'know, because they were well spoken and educated.

Where is Goldsmith's house in England?

Because I'm pretty sure it's down the road from my home in Ireland.

In any case, one of my favourite poems is by Seamus Heaney

Digging
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

And I know Yeats wrote about hurling the little streets upon the great while he was dating the great nationalist Maud Gonne

No Second Troy
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Basically Yeats was jealous of her devoting all her time to Nationalism, so he had a little huff.