Absolutemaster
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Joined: 9/27/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
its complex PA. First point I'd make is that the IRA and Sinn Fein aint daft - they know that the Catholic population - which is generally the more republican and from whom they draw their support, is set to outnumber the Protestant population - generally loyal to the crown as descendants of British settlers, in the near future due to differing birth rates. Democracy therefore becomes a more interesting means of achieving their ends than shooting and bombing.
its even more complex with the troubles over there. Its not generally well known that the recent troubles - 1969 on, arose because the Protestants, who controlled everything and treated the Catholics as second class, beat the crap out of Catholic protesters for civil rights, marching with the inspiration of the civil rights movement in the US. Naturally this grew into tit for tat, and the British army was sent over to protect the Catholics would you believe, in the first instance. Well, the IRA (mark 2 as the original was the force which gained independence for the Republic) were a bit better at tit for tat than anyone thought possible, and the army ended up fighting them.
But it goes back way before all this to the Jacobite Rebellion. William of Orange (William III of England, invited to take the throne in favour of James II, a Catholic) beat the daylights out of the Irish Jacobites in the late 17th century, after the Irish Jacobites had beaten hell out of British settlers in Ireland - not without cause maybe as they'd taken land from the natives and were imposing Protestantism. Note - many of these settlers were Scots, just as rabidly anti-Catholic as any English Protestant - though of course, the Scots dont like this pointed out! From this time comes the "Marching Season" when Protestants basically tour the country, beating drums, waving flags and intimidating Catholics with the unspoken threat of "try that again and you'll get the same". Leads to a lot of trouble even today.
But before that was Cromwell around 50 years earlier who toured Ireland to hunt down Royalist sympathisers who had fled there and those native Irish who had supported King Charles I and II. Apparently he did a lot of sacking, slaughter and so on - which obviously didnt please the locals very much.
And before that the Normans had a few adventures over in Ireland too.
Its always been a strange relationship and a strained one I'd say. On the one hand it was always the case that we recruited Irish armies to help out in whatever war - even before we ruled the place, but on the other hand we feared the threat from over the sea that this brought with it.
E
And if some of the posters on this thread had their way, nobody would know any of this aside from a few solitary historians working away in dusty libraries because, according to them, this information isn't relevant to their day-to-day lives.
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RE: Americans ignorant to geography - 
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