Much of what Buceph says is correct, though it’s worth pointing out that at the height of the civil rights marches in Derry, when British soldiers were murdering innocent civilians in the streets, the Republic did consider invading Northern Ireland. The plan ultimately went nowhere, although there was further controversy in the early seventies when some government ministers - including a certain Charles J. Haughey - were embroiled in a scheme to purchase arms for the Provisional IRA (who have gone away, with the so-called Real IRA stepping into that particular vacuum).
It’s also worth point out that in addition to being well-respected for their involvement in peace-keeping - in some of the worlds deadliest hotspots, I should add - the Irish Army is also reknowned for having one of the finest anti-terrorist units, in the Army Rangers Wing, as does the Garda Siochana in their Armed Response Unit (one or both of which has trained US forces in counter-terrorism in Afghanistan, or so I’ve read).
I don’t think Irish expats are unusual in having rose-tinted, misty-eyed notions about the Auld Country and Buceph already made reference to them in his earlier post.
Most Irish people have a healthy disdain for the English (note: we often use ‘British’ and ‘English’ interchangeably although we almost always actually mean ‘English’) in the same way that the Americans are disdainful of the French and the English are disdainful of the Germans. Er… and the French. Oh, and the Belgians. And so on. There is a minority of thugs and idiots whose disdain has crossed into genuine hatred and bigotry but fortunately they’re:
a) a tiny minority
b) sort of stupid and thus
c) generally so heavily infiltrated or otherwise covered by the security forces on both sides of the border that they’re largely inneffectual and these days are mostly good for extracting protection money from their own communities and knee-capping rival drug dealers.
You know what else is funny? The way black people always eat chicken and pick cotton. Casual racism sure is hilarous, begorrah!
I’m half Irish. Well, Irish/Scottish anyway, which means i’m hairy enough to survive naked in the Orkneys painted blue drinking fermented bog. And a quarter English, which probably explains the bad teeth. I’m confidently told, however, that my quarter German conquers all the rest of my ancestry; which has to be false, since i only want to kill everyone part of the time, not all!
And it’s fried chicken, let’s keep our casual racism straight.
I do wonder if in, say, 200 years racism against black people will be considered so bizarre and quaint that jokes like that are made. In the US the Irish stereotype went from “only slightly better than blacks” to “respectable shining lights of humanity with charming local customs” in the space of just 50 years. I guess the lesson is that if you win an assload of elections in crucial swing states people all that sucking up by the dominant majority will stick.
We’re on a bit of a tangent here but no, I don’t think it ever will. I think that black people - and particularly American black people - have been better able to highlight racist stereotypes about themselves and keep them highlighted than other races or ethnicities (with the exception of Jews). I think that that’s a double-edged sword though - if you make a big deal of it then it becomes a big deal (note that I’m talking more about casual racism and stereotypes here, rather than institutional racism).
With regard to Enidigm’s comment, the ‘drunken Irish’ stuff is just lazy and asinine. The thing that really bothers me is the joke about potatoes, which is pure ignorance. The population of the area that is now the Republic of Ireland in 1841, a few years before An Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger) started, was 6.5 million; in 1966 it was 2.82 million and we’ve only recently exceeded the 4 million mark. An estimated 1 million people died as a result of starvation and the ensuing disease, with the rest of the decline in population accounted for my migration.
For a bit of context, some of the antipathy towards the Royal family in this country - even amongst people who are otherwise positive about her visit - is down to the fact that Queen Victoria donated a paltry £2,000 in charitable aid and then made the Ottoman reduce his donation from £10,000 to £1,000 so that he wouldn’t outshine her. (To his credit, the Ottoman also sent food in ships which the British tried to block from entering port). It’s worth bearing in mind that Ireland was part of the British Union at this stage and her people - who were being evicted from their (tiny) land-holdings in their thousands for the duration of the famine - were British citizens.
and? Victoria is dead. Gladstone is dead. Disraeli is dead. Palmerston is dead. If you want to go spit on their graves go ahead, I won’t be upset.
The “bounce your grandchild on your knee indoctrinating him with stories on what a now dead person did to a whole bunch of other dead people” thing is what keeps hate/sectarianism alive and kicking. Not just in Ireland, its a global cultural trait, the Muslims and Jews, Greeks and Turks, Catholics and Protestants et al are all equally guilty.
History is useful as teaching a lesson how it should never happen again, but in reality people bear grudges for generations. Whilst the Irish famine was going on the White Rajahs and British Empire were merrily stealing all resources and wiping out local culture in my fathers homeland, but I can’t get myself remotely worked up against any one still living about this.
I’m all for hating on the royal family, but this sounds like a myth to me. For all the bad that the royal family do and have done, it is usally down to ignorance, greed or lack of concern. Deliberately increasing the suffering of a starving population just to save face is evil, and I’d need serious evidence of this for me to believe it.
It also doesn’t make much sense. I did a bit of research to see if I could find any valid sources, and I discovered plenty of people and organisations donated more than Queen Victoria, so clearly the British had no means or intention to prevent people outdonating the queen. The story also begs the question: What kind of person would agree to such an awful request?
If Victoria had really wanted to save face, it would have been very easy to do so without increasing the suffering of the Irish. They could have channeled the money through various other organisations, or different Turkish Sultans. Why go to all the trouble to send secret aid ships that would end up embarrassing Victoria even more if you are a man who gladly agrees to hurt millions of Irish just to save Victoria embarrassment?
I’m not saying I agree with the sentiment, I’m just pointing out one of the reasons that the attitude exists and you need to bear in mind that for better or worse, the famine has become ingrained in our folk memory. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t lay the blame for the affair at Victoria’s feet. From what I understand, parliament was the main reason that ‘Britain’ wasn’t able to do more. Noting that there had been other crop failures that were just as bad, if not worse, but the Governments at the time weren’t hogtied by parliament the way they were in the 1840s. Like everything to do with Britain and Ireland, the whole thing is more complex that it seems at first.
As far as the Queen or the Royal family today goes - personally, I don’t care; at this stage, it’s about time we let bygones be bygones, as playingwithknives more or less says above. People in the North have the right to self-determination (i.e., they can identify as Irish or British or both as they see fit) and beyond that… well, who really cares if you’re being governed from Dublin or from Westminster? (Personally and privately, I suspect you’re probably better off if it’s the latter but don’t tell anyone I said that :P )
Tell you what though: it must be a fucker being a modern Royal - imagine not being able to admit that you’re an atheist because doing so would undermine your very existence.
I’m not skeptical about the story at all, to be honest - I think that rather being an example of how awful Queen Victoria was (and I actually think that in many ways she was a great Queen), it’s an indictment of the ridiculous competitions that royalty from all countries used to get into.
It probably helps to have new minorities that you can demonize. The history of ethnic integration in the US is a series of slowly expanding inclusiveness as new, slightly more different ethnic groups increase enough in population to be notices by the majority.
Tempted to post the links to the Living With Lions documentary on Youtube. A few minutes of watching Keith Wood give Matt Dawson a pre-match talk would be enough to dispel any notions of genuine cross-border hatred from the majority of the population.
Unfortunately some hard-line Republicans seem to despise rugby, they see it as a British influence sport. They seem to forget that it was the Christian Brothers, an incredibly Irish institution, that developed it in Ireland, and that it was the Irish Christian Brothers who helped spread it to a lot of places, including Argentina.
Seeing Her Madge speaking Irish made me smile. Good speeches from both her and the president. Her Madge came within a whisker of apologising (not that that will be good enough for the bigots.) The Royal Correspondents on the BBC are saying this visit and her actions during the visit is the single most political act the Queen has ever done. And she has forever avoided politicising the monarchy.
