Ah to be British

Exit

If she doesn't have the traditional kind of intelligence, then what does she have?

dubhthach

awh well the brits use to call the americans colonials for years after states broke away

what i find funny is way that they will call northerners irish, it always fun to watch the unionists start huffing and puffing about it

rcunning03

If she doesn't have the traditional kind of intelligence, then what does she have?

she'd be street smart

Elmo

she'd be street smart

Yes highly street smart when she asks why were not part of the UK, when she herself is Irish and she said it in Ireland and ...... god she was luckly she didn't say it in belfast or something.

Whats ur defo of Steet smart, I thought it was cop on. Did she miss the news and History Class.

What age was she?

rcunning03

she was as thick as two wardrobes i was trying to be nice

dubhthach

was looking at a book in town today "Fauna Britannica" as usual they were describing animals in ireland as well so i read through the introduction, according to them
"any animal that is native to the UK and Ireland can be termed british" :rolleyes:

i wonder if the dutch would do the same to belgium, i doubt it even though belgium was technically part of the netherlands (Spanish-Netherlands, austrian-netherlands and finally the Kingdom of the Netherlands) for several hundred years.

rcunning03

"any animal that is native to the UK and Ireland can be termed british"

As were animals too i guess that makes us british according to Fauna Britannica

seriously though i think it's easier just to say british instead of british/irish even if it's not exactly politically correct. I dont think the other animal species would care if they're call british or irish unlike ourselves

dubhthach

either that or they could just keep the book restricted to species only found in britian
though the first british book to do that will be the first

rcunning03

http://www.bbc.co.uk/testthenation/

when they do things like this you cant blame for getting confused

check out the map

Victor

Other than artificially introduced species, rabbits (16th century), mink (20th century), zoo animals (19th/20th century) etc. any animal indiginous to Ireland is also indiginous to Britain. However, there are animals indiginous to Britain that are not indiginous to Ireland. This is due to the migration of species north from mainland europe, after the ice ages which continued for longer in Britain than Ireland.

No doubt some individual animals (wolves, bears) died out in Britain beofre they died out here and vice versa.

dubhthach

aye tbh every british magazine that has a map tends to show the whole island of ireland, i just left feedback about it on the bbc site, should be fun to see if i get any response

The Brigadier

I think that people in Ireland have an inflated sense of their place in the world. Ireland is a small and insignificant country on the unfashionable end of Europe.

Why would people in England know anything about Ireland??

Go to France and see what French people know of the history of Luxembourg or Belgium...

dubhthach

oh i'm not saying they should know anything about us, but you don't see the dutch putting up maps on their webpages that include belgium and luxembourg, when they are talking about themselves in reality.

Both belgium and luxembourg are historically parts of the "netherlands"
so if the dutch don't do it why do the english (just look at that bbc quizz)

dubhthach

Originally posted by Victor
any animal indiginous to Ireland is also indiginous to Britain.

good point though there are a number of sub-species which are unique to ireland, such as the Irish Hare and the Irish Stoat, difference purely arising out of the isolation of the two populations from those in britian.

growler

Which was brought about by the great Stoat Revolt of 1753 if memory serves me, when the Irish stoats enraged by the behaviour of the erstwhile cousins joined forces with the Manx stoats to send the eveil English stoats back to whence they came. Of course a lack of planning and inability of the Irish stoats to accurately identify the enemy resulted in some of the worst scenes of stoat against stoat violence this island has ever seen, many dies in vain.

We still live the shadow of that great day.

couldn't resist.

;-)

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by dubhthach
good point though there are a number of sub-species which are unique to ireland, such as the Irish Hare and the Irish Stoat, difference purely arising out of the isolation of the two populations from those in britian.

Didn't they find some remains of giant Irish deer in parts of scotland ?

Elmo

I think that people in Ireland have an inflated sense of their place in the world. Ireland is a small and insignificant country on the unfashionable end of Europe.

I don't think we do have an inflated sense of our place in the world.

I think we don't appreciate the British not knowing anything about a country that they once ruled (and still part rule).

It is unlikely on a British quiz that the follow question would be asked:-

Who was the 1st female MP?

why because she was part of Sinn Fein and that is a part of history that the british don't want to know about. A stain on the Empire.

Oh do ye know the answer?

And you base this statement on what exactly?

I was being sarcastic when I said "Anyway when the British talked about the empire they were refering to the English Empire, Like the scotish, irish and welsh should have an empire. Haaaa Haaa Huuuu haaa. (evil english laughter)"

Also I get the impression from the English Media (Not the British media or the english people) that they dont like the Welsh, Scottish or Irish that much.

Victor

Originally posted by Elmo
Who was the 1st female MP?

Countess Marcivitz. Odd that royalty would be "in" the House of Commons.

BarryFry

A few points of interest to enrich the debate:

1. The hare is not indigenous to the British isles, but was introduced by the Romans for sport.

2. "The Isles", was written by a Scotsman, and not an Englishman.

3. The Union between England and Scotland was largely a result of failed Scottish imperialistic ventures in South America. The bankrupt Scots sought union with England to rescue their economy. As such, a great deal of the moral and intellectual drive that sustained the British Empire came from Scotsmen, as did the economic justifications behind it (cf. "The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith)

4. The people of the West of England are descendants of the earliest inhabitants of these islands, many of whom can trace their ancestry to the original stone age peoples. Any doubters, please go to Google and type the words "Cheddar", "Gorge" and "Man". It is the western English who are the true ancient people of "Britain".

5. The term "Great Britain" before it became politically loaded, was orignally used to differentiate the British Isles from "Little Britain" i.e. Brittany in France.

Finally, would anybody get upset if British TV removed the Republic from their weather maps? Perhaps all the Irish immigrants in Britain would?

Victor

Originally posted by BarryFry
5. The term "Great Britain" before it became politically loaded, was orignally used to differentiate the British Isles from "Little Britain" i.e. Brittany in France.

Didn't "Great Britain" come about when Britain (England and Wales, "Britain" originally being an English sop to the Welsh) joined Scotland in the first Act of Union (c1700)?

Originally posted by BarryFry
Finally, would anybody get upset if British TV removed the Republic from their weather maps? Perhaps all the Irish immigrants in Britain would?

We don't mind it there, once Northern France is there as well.

Ping Chow Chi

lol - can not believe you would be worked up that Ireland appears on british weather programs god bless you though

sceptre

Originally posted by Victor
Countess Marcivitz. Odd that royalty would be "in" the House of Commons.

It was acquired on marriage (as Victor probably knows already, he being my first choice for a table quiz team). Born Gore-Booth. And a Polish title in any case if I remember correctly.
(mind you, I think her parents were titled as well but she didn't get to carry on whatever it was as she was a chick & had an older brother. She was probably Lady Gore-Booth though)

Most British people (at least of the tiny percentage who have any notion) probably mistakenly think that the first woman MP was Nancy Astor. Elected in 1919, a year after Markievicz. She was Britain's first MP, a distinction only important to you if you reckon that it's important to remember that Man United were the first English (as opposed to British) club to win the European cup.

(as an aside Count (George) Plunkett (MP at the same time)'s title was a papal one)

Elmo

Most British people (at least of the tiny percentage who have any notion) probably mistakenly think that the first woman MP was Nancy Astor. Elected in 1919, a year after Markievicz. She was Britain's first MP, a distinction only important to you if you reckon that it's important to remember that Man United were the first English (as opposed to British) club to win the European cup.

Where was Nancy Astor From? I guess England, but prehaps I am wrong.
But the fact the Nancy Astor is the first British Female MP really shows how the British really never gave a **** about Ireland.
The first female MP remain Irish, which I have to say I am proud of, She abstained, did she not? I assume as most of sinn fein did at the time.

The 1st english team to win the european cup also shows up the English.

I am sure there are lots of things the English (Sorry British, I actually have more respect for the welsh and the scottish to put the with the english but anyway) still don't understand about Ireland. They proable are still confussed by the "Irish Question".

sceptre

Originally posted by Elmo
Where was Nancy Astor From? I guess England, but prehaps I am wrong.
But the fact the Nancy Astor is the first British Female MP really shows how the British really never gave a **** about Ireland.

Plymouth. She won a by-election after her husband was kicked upstairs. She was the first British female MP (hence my italics). Markievicz was the first female MP elected to Westminster and hence the first woman MP elected in the United Kingdom.

She abstained, did she not?

She didn't take her Westminster seat which isn't quite the same thing as abstaining but I'm guessing that's what you meant. All of SF did at the time (and for many moons afterwards as it happens - that's why the Republican SF split of 1983 happened)

They proable are still confussed by the "Irish Question".

Quite a few people are still unsure of the ultimate solution to the "Irish Question". It's part of the reason we've been through all the trouble we've had, both politically and non-politically. If there was an easy answer that didn't involve a million boat tickets to Scotland or ethnic cleansing on both sides, that option would probably be taken. Some wag (EC Sellar around 1930 or so as it happens) once said that Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question - unfortunately whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question. Disraeli probably put it better a hundred years earlier when he reckoned that the real Irish question was that there was a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien church and the weakest executive in the world. Some things don't change that much.

Elmo

once said that Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question - unfortunately whenever he was getting warm,

It was a pity he never defined the Irish Question, It always handy to solve a problem when you at least have a question.

His years and his years and his years trying to sort out the Irish Question was proably the reason why the so called question changed, lets face it, it changed because of frustration of taking so long to resolve anything because the Brits didn't want to give us anything.

Home Rule that was the question from 1870 to 1914
Then it was Freedom. etc. etc.
Because they took so long to resolve the first question.

She didn't take her Westminster seat which isn't quite the same thing as abstaining but I'm guessing that's what you meant.

Why didn't she take her seat? And why is that not abstaining, have I got the wrong term?

dubhthach

Sinn Fein when origanaly founded to advocate a dual-monarchy system akin to Austro-Hungary
They figured that if all the irish elected mp's were to follow the hungarian example and not sit in westminister but setup their own parliment in dublin, that the british would concede.
They had no problem with keeping ireland withing the british empire.

rcunning03

very interesting dub

dubhthach

which reminds me i still see english books referring to it as a "Sinn Fein Rising" even though Sinn Fein at the time of 1916 was basically dead, and that pearse and the other IRB men had told Griffith to go home and not to take part.
it was fair enough at the time but still making the same mistake 87years later is just sloppy research

ruchna

Did you know that there is a Irish Unionist Alliance website (www.irishunionism.org) which is advocating that the Irish Republic would benefit from a federal British Isles in the long run. The Irish Republic reasserting it's Britishness and rejoining the United Kingdom is a definate no-no, a quack idea for me anyway.


I would support the Irish Republic rejoining the multi-cultural Commonwealth though. After all, beneath the diplomatic facade, the peoples of these islands are enmeshed in a massive web of personal, cultural, social, economic and human relationships. We watch the same football teams and television programmes, even Eastenders, and read many of the same papers. There are more Irish people in Britain than in the Republic. The extent of mingling is very high.

Elmo

I would support the Irish Republic rejoining the multi-cultural Commonwealth though.

Yes the Commonwealth, not that 2 of it members are at war India and Pakistan and Mugaby and the fact that It has done little to stop the growing proverty and aids epidemic in many of its member countries. Or that It represents the last of an Empire that had little respect for the citizens it ruled over.

"Sinn Fein Rising" even though Sinn Fein at the time of 1916

I always call it the "1916 easter Rising".