Countries and their ashamed history

Rory Bluelow said:
Can’t argue with that. Having said that the Normans who first encroached in Ireland were *pretty hard (*that’s English understatement for being total bastards) on the native English after 1066 - they totally laid waste to the North of the Country.
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They invaded Ireland also. They became the aristocracy mainly down the East coast and their descendants, dukes and earls beyond Cromwellian times into the 18th century became known as the Old English.
An irony is that all through the Penal Laws which were perhaps unique in British rule on the British Isles, The Old English remained loyal to the crown but wanted their own Irish parliament. They despised The English government and wanted autonomy.

Things could have turned out differently here. Who knows.

No matter what way you look at our not too distant past, the Penal Laws were an abomination.
 
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Psychedelic Casual said:
The Irish also sent 2,000 troops to Britain to fight for King Charles I in 1644 in the English Civil War. Which won’t have gone down well with Cromwell.

After the Romans left Britain, the Irish raided and invaded Britain numerous times as there was a power vacuum. The Irish invasions are the reason the Angles and Saxons were first brought over as mercenaries to fight for the natives of Britain while they didn’t have armies to repel the Irish (which ended up biting the Britons on the arse as Angles and Saxons also found opportunity with the power vacuum and invaded as well).

The Scotti of Ireland conquered large areas of what became Scotland, small areas of what became Northern England and an Irish Kingdom was established in what became Wales after the Romans left. Both Gwynedd and Dyfed are said to have originally been established by Irish invaders.

They won’t have established themselves in these areas through a tickling competition.

It could be said that the invasion of the Irish Scots to what became Scotland and Wales in Britain, was the first time those areas of Britain thought of themselves as separate areas to the rest of Britain (although it wasn’t known as Britain, but a series of different tribes/kingdoms of who thought of themselves as the same peoples) and the divides of Scotland, Wales and England were first sewn then.

Without those Irish invasions the history of this island would have been very different.
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The Romans were a lot more civilised about it, they just ceded us parts of the Welsh coast to keep us happy. Can't raid and pillage what you already own after all.
 
Nethermoor said:
So the Coronation and the complaints from people about how the UK used to try to take over the world brings the interesting debate.

How far do we go back for each country? I really don't think there's a country going that doesn't have skeletons in their closet, yet somehow we're easy targets due to our past.

We don't moan at Norway about Vikings.
The USA, Australia etc were both taken from the natives.

If there is a completely clean country i'd be interested to know... maybe Greenland? Faroes?
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Personally for me its not about shame its about recognising and owning your history - apologising where an apology is needed and see what you can do to make any amends - its called being grown up
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
Forgive but don’t forget, lest the same mistakes are made in the future.
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We are mankind and it WILL happen again, in a 100 years time there will be some Chinese bloke having his neck pecked by a Taiwanese pressure group to apologise, and it will be someone elses turn next.

I have NO faith in the human race to change at all, the human condition really is that bad.
 
mexico1970 said:
We are mankind and it WILL happen again, in a 100 years time there will be some Chinese bloke having his neck pecked by a Taiwanese pressure group to apologise, and it will be someone elses turn next.

I have NO faith in the human race to change at all, the human condition really is that bad.
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Yes worldwide it will.
But using the hundreds of years of recorded history between ourselves Ireland/Britain as an example a line can be drawn under any conflict iwith the proper will and intention.

I hated history in school, as much for the way it was drummed into us in a Christian Brothers School, the curriculum in general, the fact that it was all about dates that had to be remembered for exams but had no relevance to me and also how we had a northern Irish teacher who would regale us constantly with his perspective of life in Belfast.

I found a love of Irish history later in life through my own need to understand why we were where we were and indeed are right now.

The progression, the story, now had significance to me.

For me and I would think a lot of my generation the line was finally drawn under our relationship with the GFA and the two referendums we had around it in The Republic.

To me it resoundingly said that Irish people agree that this is the way forward.

Nobody needs to forget the past. I would encourage people not to.
Let it be a reminder of where inequality and intolerance can lead.
 
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