Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

[shoulditbethishard1]

Thought provoking, upsetting and realised that there’s still so much more I don’t know about the troubles

Did anyone else watch it?

I also think the Dublin/Monaghan bombing was barely mentioned, if at all? Maybe I just missed it.

Maybe they're mentioned in later episodes?

Are you kidding? No academic or even anyone with more than pure bias would claim the dehumanisation of victims was one sided.

I watched the 2nd episode. It was brilliant to see the Belfast punks and recognise their contribution to normality.

It reminded me of auditioning for a punk band in Giros when I was a teenager.

I was very surprised by this omission too.

I don’t recall any mention of them, having finished the series

I don't think so @TooBigForMyBoots as I've watched all episodes. I guess there were too many horrors to show them all, but given Omagh was actually the biggest atrocity and was only a couple months after the referendum, I would have thought it would have at least been referenced.

Thanks @Gothambutnotahamster, I've only done 2.

This is a comment from the guardian article about the documentary, it mentions the series not covering the 1968 descent into violence:

Commendable in several aspects, but I was puzzled by the decision to follow the tea and sandwiches welcome to British troops in 1969 with......a leap forward to the IRA's killing of troops in 1971, completely ignoring the reasons for the descent between 69 and 71.

For instance, one wonders why the writers chose to overlook the Tory GE victory in 1970, followed quickly by the wholesale mayhem, brutality, killings and collective punishment meted out to the Irish natives of West Belfast during the Falls Rd Curfew, swiftly followed by a jeep-borne victory tour of a brutalised community by ministers from London. A major seminal moment, swept under the carpet. Why? Because referring to it would work against a preferred narrative, where the IRA must shoulder most of the blame for the the manner in which the conflict unfolded?

I'm not stating that the writers are blatantly engaging in re-writing to offer a more comfortable narrative to viewers in Britain, but decades of somewhat lazy analysis of the origins and early moulding of the conflict seem difficult to shake off.

Personally, I think there has been centuries of discrimination, oppression and trauma between Ireland/northern Ireland, going back to 1500s, even further when the Anglo saxons invade...awful unimaginable things have been done by the English/British government. Similar to how we are now reflecting on slavery, colonialism, race and imperialism, we should listen and learn and educate ourselves as to what has happened, there's no excuse for violence but it is understandable (not condoning anything), I'd like to see a ongoing conversation/debate perhaps similar to what happened in South Africa where people talk about what happened to them or what they did (truth) and worth through the pain and reconcile in someway? That way we would learn more as people have space to speak.

I'm doing a lot of family history ATM, and the attached photo came up, I never knew that King Henry declared himself lord/king of Ireland, took land away from the native people and gave it away to his lord's, protestants were settled in Ireland (plantation) to civilised the natives, land was stolen and given to protestants, in 1641 there was a rebellion to have the land resorted, in 1649 there was the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, appalling atrocities commited by desperate people, then the English returned fire with fire.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Confederate_Wars

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Ireland

Lots of Irish were very poor, the land they farmed (the left over land) was in poor condition (the good land given to protestants)they relied heavily on potatoes for food, when the crop failed, there was mass starvation, the British government adopted laissez faire (do nothing)... absolutely appalling.

I think there's a lot of intergenerational trauma..and no wonder

As a non religious person who was late teens during the troubles (living in Scotland) it's pretty hard to see any reason for the troubles to be as violent as they were.
I can see that you would hold bitter grudges about the potato famine, which was cruel, but how do you rectify it? By murdering present MPs?

I was amazed to learn the population of Ireland was only 6 million. How is that the case in a Catholic country?? It is the case if thousands of natives have emigrated because there wasn't a living to be made in Ireland. Like Scotland the population hasn't grown (until now a bit thanks to Covid etc). So there are millions and millions of 'Irish' in the USA and all over the world, like there are Scots, spouting about independence and hating the English when the reason they left their homeland was because there was not great prosperity there. I suppose it could all be put at the door of the UK Gov that there is not prosperity but that cannot be the sole reason and Eire has been independent for decades.
For their own sakes these two countries need to move on and
I really cannot see who gains (except angry people with a grudge) to continue 'fighting for the cause' instead of getting on with making their children's lives better and safer and giving up the bitter grudges caused by events decades or centuries ago.

@Blippicip much of what you say is correct but I would just be careful of any source that talks about ‘Irish slaves’. That has been thoroughly debunked, and has actually become something of a calling card among the far right/white supremacists.

The population of Ireland still hasn't recovered after the Famine in the 1840's @Tots678.

Also, can you think of any reasons there wasn't a living to be made in Ireland for many Irish people?

The Troubles started because of the then treatment of Catholics in NI, not because of the Famine. It started as a civil rights movement and descended into violence (which I don't condone).

Have you heard of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998?

(Also it's not Eire. It's Éire, but only if you're speaking in Irish. Otherwise Ireland. ROI is fine too.)

What an insightful post @Blippicip, followed by a poster with little or no insight into the history of Ireland and how its distant past affected its more recent past up to today.

I do not condone violence.

@Tots678 you should probably not comment on subjects you know absolutely nothing about. You're embarrassing yourself.

@Anabella321 people should always be allowed to comment and ask questions, otherwise how will they learn?!

@Gothambutnotahamster I don't think making ignorant statements on sensitive political issues on mumsnet is a good way to learn about this.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1014909/population-island-ireland-1821-2021/
The population of Ireland dropped until 1960 4+ million , then rose slowly, jumping a bit in the last decades.

I watched the programme on the start of the troubles
um Scottish born and bred and hate the ongoing hatred between the football teams, religious groups - particularly as the majority never attend church from one year to the next.
We need to move on.

Good god, @Tots678 you really are embarrassing yourself. See that big population drop around 1840s on the graph you posted? Any idea of what caused it? And what country’s policies might have contributed?

Yes, as the article you've linked says, the legacy of the famine caused a century of population decline. The population is still not back at 1841 numbers. That's what I referred to upthread.

A century of decline takes you to 1941.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/more-irish-emigrants-leaving-the-country-than-returning-again-1.3998770

My point is that the population has not increased due to emigration (since 1941) and claiming it is all due to the way the Irish were treated by the English centuries ago is not the whole truth. In England the population has increased by 15+million since the 50s. Scotland's population has remained the same. 5 million. I accept that the UK Gov can be an influence but still people must be leaving or the population would have increased - especially before contraception. Scotland has had it's own parliament since 1998 but why isn't it thriving - apparently due to King Edward /Maggie thatcher/ the Tories.
We need to move on.

@Tots678 you don't think that the country suffering 700 years of being raped and pillaged by the English didn't have an effect once it became independent? Under British rule Ireland had no industry other than in Belfast, our natural resources were pillaged and most people lived in extreme poverty on tiny scraps of land owned by prick absentee British landlords.

Fair play to England for their population increasing. I'm sure that pillaging countless countries over hundreds of years did wonders for your economy and jobs market.

A century of decline takes you to 1941
Well, not exactly @Tots678, the famine years were 1845 to 1852, peaking in 1847 (Black '47).
There was also a smaller famine in 1879 when the potato failed again, this caused another spike in emigration as people feared the worst. Younger people tended to emigrate and those who stayed tended to marry later or didn't marry. The Famine had a profound effect on Irish society for a long time.

My point is that the population has not increased due to emigration (since 1941)
As the graph you linked upthread shows, Ireland's population started rising steadily again in the 1960s (though of course there has been emigration since then and more recently substantial immigration too).

What’s the difference here between emigration and immigration?