Anti-British Xenophobia and Hatred in Ireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947336#Comment_117947336

I have been in a few local Irish pub cheering England on, not a bad word said against me. I suppose people have different experiences.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117944329#Comment_117944329

I know I'm not going to win any popularity contests around here by being seen in any way to be defending Priti Patel, but to say she suggested starving the Irish is hyperbolic, imo. She said that because the UK then stood as a major link in the supply chain when it came to getting stuff into Ireland from Europe, a no deal would create significant problems for a member state, i.e. Ireland, and this was a point that should be pressed home in negotiations with the EU.

Here is the quote of Patel's that keeps coming up

"This paper appears to show the government were well aware that Ireland will face significant issues in a no-deal scenario.

"Why hasn't this been pressed home during the negotiations? There is still time to go back to Brussels and get a better deal."

To be fair, I don't recall anyone around here having much problem with the flipside idea of no-deal creating significant shortages in the UK, and it was a much-vaunted scenario, and really the disaster that no-deal would have been was what prompted Boris Johnson to go to Dublin at the last minute seeking a hasty compromise, so the threat of it worked.

McMurphy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947336#Comment_117947336

Good job you presumably didn't watch any of the England games in the euros this year.... The amount of national anthems the English fans heckled and booed would have probably curled your toenails.

https://youtu.be/_GJkCso5D0o

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947359#Comment_117947359

I have never had abuse for cheering for England, but oddly an Irish friend was asked was he secretly an English **** because he was cheering for England in a match against Wales.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947388#Comment_117947388

https://youtu.be/eceARpvnjh0

I hate people who boo national anthems.

Ozymandius2011

I think its more dislike of a certain section of opinion in the UK that has nostalgia about the British empire, and that thinks it can stick it to the EU and dictate terms. That has clearly blown up in their faces, and yes I do gloat about it because its a just riposte to the "we have all the cards" and in some cases anti-Irish language (like a Tory saying Ireland should "know its place") regarding the row over the NI Protocol.

MBE220d

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947432#Comment_117947432

When England are playing the whole world want to see them getting beat, no difference to when Dublin is playing, every county in Ireland wants to see them getting beat.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947310#Comment_117947310

This.

The vast majority of comment here on Britain is to do with what it has done and is doing and how it impacts here.

I was called an 'obsessive' for doing that and the poster disappeared when asked to back up that. An invented sense of persecution to avoid dealing with the issues is the problem IMO.

osarusan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947388#Comment_117947388

I watched all of them and yes, some English fans are true dickheads.

That isn't in any way relevant to anything I said though. I can't see how you think it is.

indioblack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947336#Comment_117947336

Many years ago I went to a Cork theatre, [The Opera House?], with my Irish relatives. We all stood at the end for the National Anthem. My cousin turned to me and asked, "Why are you standing?" You stand out of respect for another country's national anthem. She was 12 years old!

On a lighter note, there was a visit to Ireland by a British orchestra. At the end of their performance they were asked to play the National Anthem......and, yes, they played the wrong one!

Junkyard Tom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947311#Comment_117947311

No-warning bombs in Dublin, massacres by British Army killers, and collusion with sectarian mass-murderers in the north, would most certainly qualify as an existential threat. Goodness knows what 'assets' the British state has in the unionist narco-terrorist gangs right now.

As stated, I wish we had the luxury of not giving a shit what's happening across the water but that's a pipe-dream, the best we can do is get a United Ireland to remove British state forces and then take internal security seriously.

pgj2015

It is a bit like how a mouse instinctively knows to stay away from a cat. You cant treat people the way they did for hundreds of years and expect everything to be ok.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117945792#Comment_117945792

Ireland's bank debt (unilaterally taken on by Ireland without consultation with EU and a "f you" to other EU countries) was €41.75 Bn - of the total €250 Bn Irish debt - most of which was run up in deficit spending since 2008. The EU telling Ireland "you f'd us by taking on this debt, your idea to renege further on the €42Bn [to let's not forget an entirely different set of people to those who originally lent the money to Irish banks, were guaranteed, sold up and got out of dodge] is financially silly and destabilizing - don't do it" seems pretty fair if you ask me - especially considering what the EU did to facilitate low manageable loans to Ireland

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947305#Comment_117947305

What? Really? Well if your going to play that card then this entire thread is an ad hominem attack against Irish people......

You are literally the one who uses the argument of "yeah well what about this bad thing in Ireland, you dont talk about that enough" when theres any discussion that might lean even slightly negatively towards the UK.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117946604#Comment_117946604

Ireland is far worse for being slavishly devoted to establishment and group think

The English pride themselves on individual thinking where as we frown upon those who don't tow the line

McMurphy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947564#Comment_117947564

I cant see how you're confused.

You said one of the saddest and pettiest things you've ever seen was bar staff turning down the volume on the television,.during the English national anthem being played at a rugby match.

I gave a comparable example of English fans booing and jeering during another countries national anthem.

The two things are fairly relevant in my eyes, you'll get people acting like dickheads during rival teams national anthems everywhere.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948231#Comment_117948231

I would say more that the Irish psyche is focused on and at times obsessed with authority, cocking a snoop at it while tacitly tugging the forelock. I suppose because for so long we were a small and parochial population looking outside for direction. If we look back through history the "Irish rebel" was as likely if not more so to be found outside Ireland, away from the "parish". When we got rid of "The Brits", something that wasn't close to a foregone conclusion, we were quick to replace them with the Church and transferred the forelock tugging to that lot, while blaming the same "Brits" for our woes, just as when the Church got the heave ho we in turn attached our woes to them.

The British only value individual thinking when it comes from the middle classes and up. The higher up the better. The hoi polloi are and always were cannon fodder who did what they were told by their betters. Romanticised as stout yeomen at best(which served its own purpose) or an ever present danger at worst. London and the elite of England treated the Irish, Scots and the Welsh peasantry with disdain in general with some real nastiness in the mix. Then again they didn't exactly treat the English peasantry so well either and still don't. If anything the English are more slavishly devoted to establishment, or certainly were.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948392#Comment_117948392

Wasn't really thinking of yesteryear, groupthink dominates all levels in Ireland

seamus

Cultural memory is a thing. When a particular nationality/race/ethnicity/etc has been the subject of a sudden massive trauma, or longstanding abuse, these become ingrained into the cultural norms of that group, and get passed down between generations. Not intentionally, it's just a cultural thing.

Distrust of the British - and the English in particular - is one of these cultural memories, and it's only in relatively recent times there has been any reason that people might question it. Certainly our parents and grandparents lived in a time when Irish people were poorly treated by the British.

Even in more contemporary times, the treatment of catholics in Northern Ireland (which was both encouraged and financially supported by England) was in effect an attack on "cultural" Irish North and South. So this stuff is not ancient history, it's in living memory. People in the Republic were horrified by what was going on in the North, but there was considerable sympathy, if not understanding for why the IRA were doing what they were doing.

There is a bit of work to be done on the Irish side in understanding that we don't get to exclude Unionists from the definition of "Irish". Protestants and others on the unionist side may be something of a distinct sub-culture, but they're still Irish even if they do put their toaster in the press.

But for the most part, this distrust is aimed at British institutions moreso than British people. Cultural memory tells us that Westminster looks out for English interests only, in the main, that British institutions will put Britain and the crown before everything else. It also tells us that British politicians absolutely cannot be trusted in the promises they make to non-British entities, and if you're not English, you'll get stabbed in the back if necessary to further English interests.

One could say that these cultural biases should be challenged often. But the last decade has proven to us in many many ways, that this negative portrayal of British institutions is as valid and accurate now as it was 150 years ago.

lived here for 10 years as an English person, my experiences would be..

About a week after moving here a lad at my job took me to coppers, night was fine until I went to a takeaway at the end of the night, a group of young lads heard me and took great offence to my accent and seemed to hold me directly responsible for the 800 years. They were waiting outside for me and I reckon they were going to give me a proper hiding, fortunately the bouncer, some massive Eastern European lad took pity on me and went out and decked one of them, the others soon took of.

Apart from that very little, I’m always taken back by how passionately Irish people support anyone but England, even more than they support Ireland sometimes.

Is there an undercurrent of hatred here? I think there defiantly is, but it’s small and you could go one year to the next without someone commenting on your accent. That said, if Sinn Fein get in power, I expect it to become more prevalent, it will be seen as acceptable for those who hold the anti brit views.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948437#Comment_117948437

Neither was I, but what we have today is a result of the past. As for groupthink, we're still a tiny country with a tiny population and until very recently a very homogenous one and we still have the sniff of the parish and parochial thinking and smaller groups of people in charge who all know one another. Even so I'm not seeing the level of groupthink you see. Can you give examples?

Now let's look at the UK. England has fifty million more people than Ireland. Hell Scotland that is like Australia in being mostly empty save for bits around the edges(thank London for that too) has a half million more people than Ireland. Given the population is so much bigger in England you'd expect to see less "groupthink" and a lot more individual thinking, by mere virtue of numbers, but you don't really.

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117946314#Comment_117946314

I'm sure Gerry Conlon and his family, same with the Birmingham 6, would dispute that it "wasn't that bad".

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948486#Comment_117948486

Obviously their experience was exceptional and terrible, but it isn't reflective of what life was like for most Irish people in the UK at the time.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948231#Comment_117948231

I would say the opposite is true.

The English in general are far more likely to follow rules than we are. The Irish like to thumb their noses authority due a history of oppression.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948460#Comment_117948460

But for the most part, this distrust is aimed at British institutions moreso than British people. Cultural memory tells us that Westminster looks out for English interests only, in the main, that British institutions will put Britain and the crown before everything else. It also tells us that British politicians absolutely cannot be trusted in the promises they make to non-British entities, and if you're not English, you'll get stabbed in the back if necessary to further English interests.

This pretty much. And like you say it's London and the English institutions and authority. This United Kingdom and Great(er) Britain is more a PR sop to the non English and English who aren't in authority and don't toe the line. While it was certainly worse in the past, it's still a very heirarchical society in many ways.

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948478#Comment_117948478

There is a fair bit of anti English stuff around alright, which is wrong and people blaming you for things that happened even before you were born is disgraceful. I don't think racism extends to shouting for other teams in soccer, I desperately wanted England to lose the Euro final, but its the same part of the brain that had me supporting a team facing our neighbouring hurling club two weeks ago.

I don't think SF coming into Government will make anti English racism more acceptable either. I actually think the anti-English stuff while still bad isn't what it was 20 years ago, but obviously any amount of it is wrong.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948514#Comment_117948514

It’s hard to know with the Sinn Fein stuff and I’m probably being harsh because I’m aware not everyone voting them will hold anti British views. I’m probably basing it on Brexit, those morons who held xenophobic views now have a platform and are not ashamed to say what they think, where as pre Brexit they probably kept these views more to themselves, (not all of them granted)

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948484#Comment_117948484

Well beit ,the media, political class or the so called intelligentsia, every one of them have more or less the same view on everything

Brexit unconditionally bad

Immigration unconditionally good

Gender identity politics a good thing

Environmental issues

Size of the welfare state

American politics

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948478#Comment_117948478

A lot of generalisations and sensationalism around something that goes on in every country I have ever been to.

FFS England thrives on mocking and deriding the accent...especially of those they have a grudge about.

'Allo Allo'? 'Auf Wiedersen Pet'?, 'Fawlty Towers'? I could literally go on and on and on.

Deriding other nations is deeply embedded in English/British culture, is there an undercurrent of hate there?.

Over sensitivity leads to blindness obviously.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948548#Comment_117948548

What are you banging on about? When have I spoken about accents apart from saying it barely gets mentioned one year to the next?

what has fawlty towers got to do with it? Are you ok? Do you need help? Or do you just enjoy commenting on every single British post in the history of boards… goes without saying you’re not anti British of course!!