Never really thought of this before...but the highlighted bit is quite interesting.
The vast majority of the "issues" we consider up here date back to the late 60's (the Troubles)....and in and around partition. Am i right in stating the "issues" for many in the Republic are the 400 odd years of British oppression....for me, thats a different issue to the reunification of the North.
Im sure most in the North are mostly (only) concerned with the recent history
I think it definitely goes back further for people in the Republic. Where do I start? I'll have to try not ramble all over this subject.
I'm not sure how history is taught in school now. I know my young lad hasn't the same hangups about Britishness that I would have had ingrained into me.
The thing is we were taught by a Christian Brother doctrine which is very Catholic viewed in it's delivery of what should be a totally objective subject.
I hated history in school, mainly because I found it boring and couldn't related it to anything of significance to how we are where we are now.
That's mainly down to how it was taught, because in my mind, that is exactly what history is. It's the story of how we got to this point and every small action is significant and important.
I love the subject now. I may forget name or dates but they can be researched. What I don't forget is the story.
The other side of the coin to how I was taught history, which was very heavily weighted towards Irish history, is that most in Britain I suspect, learned next to nothing about Irish history or their involvement in it. I honestly don't know how it is taught in Northern Ireland, so maybe you could enlighten me there.
There is a need down south not to be revisionist about our history and indeed our place in world history. I definitely think it is heading that way. The 1916 commemorations that I saw broadcast were very objective, I thought. We need to respect the fact that whether we think it was accepted or not, the fact is this island was British and just going back that 100 years or so, it has to be acknowledged that the Rising was unpopular in Dublin when it happened and ordinary people were doing ordinary jobs like policing for the Crown. Ordinary people saw beyond the confines of Ireland and went to fight in WW1. Both Catholic and Protestant. Ordinary people.
Public opinion only really turned against the British Crown after they executed the leaders of the rebellion in Kilmainham gaol although even non nationalist sympathisers felt that the leaders had acted honourably. There would have been more executed except for the opinion change.
What happened after is the Catholic church hijacked the revolution's memory and made it a sectarian memory which it never was. De Valera supported this of course. But the rising was very much a labour supported non sectarian equality for all movement at inception.
We then had the guerilla war of independence, partition and a civil war and we ended up with a Fianna Fail government and didn't get the Republic that was fought for, I would argue, until perhaps the 21st century.
There are people down here that would argue that NI hasn't come into the 21st century yet, possibly because of the start of the troubles, but I would say the preceding years of inequality going back to partition that fired it certainly cemented the division. I don't mean that to be incendiary and I sincerely hope you don't take offence. Just trying to give you an honest perspective from down here.
Ok. I'll finally get to the point. What always seemed clear to those willing to compromise and most definitely those who never accepted the compromise, or partition state was that it came about purely because of the demographics of the island. There was a loyalist protestant majority in the North East of the country. The reason that all of Ulster wasn't put into the mix was to maintain that majority.
Now historically that demographic is a direct result of the Ulster plantations which date back to 1609 onwards, whereby lands were taken from the indigenous population, mainly the O'Neill and O'Donnell clans and given to English and Scottish settlers loyal to the crown. This is where Irish taught history and British taught history probably differ so significantly.
The fact that Britain saw a chieftain society that they probably didn't regard Ireland as a country or didn't care anyway.
Irish people would consider the first unification of the clans as going back to Brian Boru which goes back to the battle of Clontarf in 1014.... a half century before the battle of Hastings.
So the short answer to your question (sic), you could go back over 400 years of various different oppressions, slaughters, and inequalities that we were very much force fed in school, but even though a great deal of it was subjective, quite the majority isn't, but seems unknown to the average British person who would probably rightly tell us to get over it.
The thing is it is easy to tell people to get over things and move on when the very superiority that they regard as their history i.e colonialism and the empire is where their wealth and dominance came from.
Sorry for the length of reply. I hope it doesn't come across as a lecture.
