Assimilated History

Exit

I was reading a thread on the Politics forum about a United Ireland, and I noticed some advocates were banging on about Britain invading Ireland 800 years ago, etc, etc. It got me thinking about some thoughts I had come up with a while ago.

My brother is a little wannabe republican dumbass, and he probably has the same views about the British (despite being a Man U fan, etc. but that's another issue) They invaded us, it's our land etc. I was doing some research into my family tree a while back and 'found out' (it was something I'd already known, but it brought it back up) that my dad's mother was a Protestant, and her family were all Protestants. So it can probably be safely assumed that somewhere back in time, her ancestors (and mine) emigrated from Britain to Ireland. Then doesn't this make me (and my brother) not 100% 'Irish', and that Irish history from hundreds of years ago isn't actually our history. A large part of it may be but a small part of British history may also be part of our history. If the British hadn't invaded Ireland then my family probably wouldn't be around.

I wonder how many of us here can say we're 100% Irish all the way back to the very first inhabitants of the island, or even as far back as written history, yet we consider every aspect of Irish history from Brian Boru to Wolfe Tone to be our history. It seems to be because we assimilate history.

An easy example of this would be if you imagine yourself emigrating to the States, and then you have kids there and they have kids there. As we all know with Irish-Americans they will consider themselves to be part of Ireland and of Irish history. But by the time they have kids and they have kids, the fifth generation will no longer be Irish in any way, and will look on themselves as American. And that means they will look at the War of 1812, and the Civil War, and Lincoln, Washington, JFK, etc. as their own history, despite the fact that it never ever was. Think about it, you don't consider American history to be your own right now, but it's entirely possible that your desecendants will.

I just find it strange how we think of certain histories being our own, when in actual fact, it could be that our ancestors weren't even around these parts at the time. I'm guilty of it too, looking back at Irish history long long ago and assuming it's might when I'm probably more English/Scottish/Welsh/French/whatever than Irish. For all I know, the Romans may have invaded my homeland.

Any thoughts?

Syth

Well I like to think that what nationality you are isn't really dependent on where your ansestors lived, but on where you live. Besides if you get back far enough, we're all Africans.

Paddy20

Afaik Ireland was part of the landmass of Britain until 'The Ice age' and the Irish Sea was created by melting ice thereby flooding and breaking the 'above water' land that connected what is now Ireland and the UK.

P. :ninja:

Specky

Well I like to think that what nationality you are isn't really dependent on where your ansestors lived, but on where you live. Besides if you get back far enough, we're all Africans.

Erm...but what about the Irish diaspora (or however it's supposed to be spelled) or to put it more colloquially, what about all the plastic paddies that make up the vast majority of the people in the world who call themselves Irish???

There are only 4 million true Irish by your definition. Great. We won't have to put up with all those bloody Irish Americans anymore, or the Irish with cockney accents or all those odd people in Argentina who have never been to Ireland but speak English with an Irish accent...

sigh...

Actually, despite what you might think from the past couple of paragraphs I basically agree with you. I don't go for all this teary eyed nationalism (no matter what country you're talking about) or shoulder to shoulder patriotism either. Treat other people (all of them) with decency and respect until they prove they don't deserve it and expect the same in return.

seaghdhas

How is nationality dependant on where you live?

Or to put it differently... I'm from the north-east and have lived in the south-east, further north-east, Dublin and am now in Cork. Where am I from? Any or all of the above?

I know someone who is half Irish, half Dutch. She says she lived in Dublin for her first two years, therefore she's from Dublin. My parents decided I lived in Dublin for my first two and a half years. But I don't remember any of it, and it has no influence on me (neither of my parents are from Dublin).

Anyhow, weren't the Celts from central Europe? And where were the previous inhabitants of the British Isles (if you'll excuse the word play) from?

dr_manhattan

The Celts have their origins in asia minor: actually, if you look at pre-islamic persian texts and artwork, it's all very celtic looking: a mate of mine was also astonished that the persian for 64 is the same as the irish for it (handy bit of farsee vocab, hahaha - just means if you visit tehran you'll get 64 of everything ;-))

But on the irish vs UK side of things -

My father was a british soldier, and even though he served all his time in central europe and the middle/far east, I am still amazed at how much grief our family got as a result. For some, it could never be forgotten. And all of it, to be honest, from beer swilling bar prop cowards with nothing better to do than intimidate children between binge drinking: we never got any hassle from anyone with any real connections to violence from the north. Not to say we wouldn't have, but it just seemed all these people had grief over nothing.

ironically enough, half my mother's family were on pensions from 1916 - but they could keep a civil tongue with my Da and take him for who he was, rather than what he had been employed as.

But what amazes me is how much this acrimony still happens - sometimes from kids who are too young to even remember the real troubles... And the bull**** reasons people give for it.

My GF is english, and some of the incidents she's described of pure bigotry are almost hilarious (of course, we being irish don't see it as bigotry - over here, you're not a bigot unless you kill someone or something - in any other country, people obsessed with, and making their day-to-day personal decisions based on, 800 year histories are idiots, plain and simple)

A friend of my GF's boyfriend won't leave it alone, even at one stage claiming that the UK weather forecast, which only shows the north of Ireland, was "racist" - the guy has no connection to the troubles, but he fancies himself as a politician I guess, and seems to think this involves every remark to english people being loaded with historical traps and pitfalls - it's almost funny. When I first met him, i played along with it and thought we were having a laugh: then I found out he was serious.

And the funny thing is, many times here on boards.ie, because I bring up issues of national identity, I have been accused of being "one of those people who hates the brits and supports Sinn Fein"... yeah right.

I do support the efforts of post colonial cultures to reclaim an equal identity, in the interests of an equal world free of inferioriry / superiority complexes (if you want to put it pretentiously, haha) but I do not support nationalist paramiliatries or the hatred of people who were born into colonial countries as "the enemy" (a term I've heard applied to the brits far, far too many times)

Anyways, where was I....?

...we got more in common with iran than a lot of places. But that's the thing, as was correctly said, you go back far enough and there's links with everywhere. I know people who are convinced that the black giants described in atlantean mythology are ancestors of the masai, and that an antediluvian african civilisation traded with western europe, giving us all our technology and cusotms (I personally doubt this, ahem: but as a fable, I love it)

So various national identities and histories are basically often distorted to suit the agendae of people who wish to polarise opinion: "create" a national spirit in the name of "nationalism" - but that's the ugly side of national identity I guess.

I would hope that nationality, aka cultural identity, whatever you want to call it, could become more treasured and less fought over in the future. I agree wholeheartedly with Exit's sentiments: and I would also add that it's almost always those who dwell on history that distort it most.

But they do, unfortunately. Not too long ago, I had an argument with a work colleague who came out with statements along the lines of "british soldiers and their families are legitimate targets, yadayada..." I was told afterwards that i should have broken his nose and claimed I was defending myself as the threatened family of a serviceman (I don't think he knew my da was a squaddie).

I probably should have ;-)

DadaKopf

Culture is where you come from. Nationality is something invented by states or political movements to justify actions in specific territories.

I'd rather be culturally Irish than a dogmatic nationalist.

Nationalism only emerged in the period following the French Revolution and in tandem with the industrial revolution. It's a new form of identity that was invented to mobilise political support for regimes or movements.

Culture is broader and deeper than nationalism. It implies fluidity and transience rather than ideology and staticness. As such it makes possible a local identity that embodies the entire richness of one's society's/societies' experiences, historical and current.

I often walk down Moore Street and other multicultural areas like it thinking that this is now part of 'Irishness'. That's certainly not to say that I disregard the Irish struggle for independence, the appalling way the British treated our ancestors, but I also do not disregard the positive role Irish protestant settlers played in Irish culture. I personally feel that we've written protestants/settlers out of our history to our detriment. We became too concerned with reclaiming 'Irishness', perhaps even reverting to a kind of tribalism, that we shot ourselves in the foot.

I *am* concerned that Irishness is now tending to be equated with "economic success", rather than cultural enrichment (whatever that may be) so we should be careful not to reduce contemporary Irish culture to what's in the charts etc. Irish identity, like anywhere, is an awful mess of a lot of stuff, including the stuff we'd rather forget about - like urban poverty, alcoholism etc.

Paddy20

Are we now not 'all' Europeans, with those born and brought up in Ireland inheriting their natural Irish Culture, history and genetic individualism ?...

Seems "What goes around comes around".

P. :ninja:

dr_manhattan

Seems to me to have always been a central irony of nationalism: that what should be the source of pride (a mongrel, assimilated, fusion culture) is instead denied in favour of some mad idea of 'pure' national identity.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest ingredients to Britain has been their successive conquests and assimiliations: romans, vikings, saxons, normans, the island is an utterly hibrid nation, and that's why their culture has such appeal (i.e., why half the world speaks english) - yet they attempt to subsume it all into an idea of a "great britain" which denies their mixed roots.

Same with spain (another country with half the world speaking its language) - the diversity of arab, french, and indigenous cultural influences have made it a flamboyant, creative, romantic culture that has spread all over the world - and what happens? They deny it, and subsume it all into Franco's dream of "spain" - a forced unity of cultures that are really quite separate. It's bizarre to me that the Madrillenos, who everyone in spain blames for the centralised state (madrid was artificially built as a seat of kingship, geographically central) all say that they are Castillian rather than spanish.

Anyways, I'm blathering here: all I'm trying to say is that, in very broad terms, human being who refuse to mix culturally or genetically become like purebred dogs ;-) - very pretty, but dumb, petty and unable to relate to other cultures (or dogs, as the analogy stretches, haha). Mongrels, however, have a beauty of their own and are always cooler.

Damn, I should lay off the coffee. I ahve no idea if that even makes any sense ;-)

Exit

Originally posted by DadaKopf
That's certainly not to say that I disregard the Irish struggle for independence, the appalling way the British treated our ancestors, but I also do not disregard the positive role Irish protestant settlers played in Irish culture.

In my earlier post I made the point that we assume a history because we are born into it. To apply it to your post, how do you know your ancestors weren't the British who treated the Irish badly? Sure, you may know your family history going back to your great-grandparents but beyond that...?

Apart from that, I agree with your sentiments.

dr_manhattan

Actually, on the subject of the above, what about the irish who treated the irish badly.

A while ago I was talking to a historian about frustrated attempts he'd made to publish info about the "emergency" (term always makes me giggle) - thing is, apparently for the 60 or 70 executed with trial before independence by the british, we then executed over a hundred with trial and about 90 WITHOUT trial. This is besides all the well known stories of people with guns being dragged behind sheds and ignominiously shot.

he said publication of details will have to wait until a generation has died, because one thing irish people don't want to know is that we did ourselves as much of a disservice as the Brits ever did.

And no, btw, that is not to say the british occupation/plantation/roman holiday was a good thing. Just that bad people do not follow national boundaries.

martarg

Same with spain (another country with half the world speaking its language) - the diversity of arab, french, and indigenous cultural influences have made it a flamboyant, creative, romantic culture that has spread all over the world - and what happens? They deny it, and subsume it all into Franco's dream of "spain" - a forced unity of cultures that are really quite separate. It's bizarre to me that the Madrillenos, who everyone in spain blames for the centralised state (madrid was artificially built as a seat of kingship, geographically central) all say that they are Castillian rather than spanish.

Well, as a Spaniard I had to answer this.... It is really a very complicated issue to decide exactly what constitutes a common Spanish culture, and what belongs to each region (or community, or whatever) in particular, and I think it all depends on whom you talk to... for myself, my parents were born in two opposite corners of Spain, I was born in Madrid, then moved to my mother's place as a child. Although I feel obviously closer to where I have spent practically all my life, I cannot claim to a "pure" (?) regional background, I don't speak the regional dialect, and I don't see my father's family as belonging to "another" culture. But that is a long and complicated subject when culture and nationality tend to get mixed up, I am not exactly sure which we are talking about right now.... in any case, my story is not so different from that of other millions of Spaniards who have emigrated and married somewhere different from where they were born....

I begin to feel we will never get rid of Franco, even though he died thirty years ago... well, we haven't got rid of the Civil War yet, even though there are very few people alive who actually took part in it, but it is incredible how family tradition and stereotypes will persist and not let you move on. If your family were republicans and you lost someone in the war, you will be left wing, if it was the republicans who killed your relatives, you will be right wing. But the right wing is still suspect of who knows what dictatorial aspirations... Franco tried to force unity under his person, and the backlash now is to deny it and assert regional differences. Hmm, will perhaps saying that I would like us to remain together make me a Spanish nationalist and a potential fascist? :dunno: In any case, I do see the differences between regions as enriching, rather than separating us...

DadaKopf

Originally posted by Exit
In my earlier post I made the point that we assume a history because we are born into it. To apply it to your post, how do you know your ancestors weren't the British who treated the Irish badly? Sure, you may know your family history going back to your great-grandparents but beyond that...?

Maybe it was a Freudian slip, but I suppose I consider all of us to be ancestors of each other. It's possible to see it like this now because, rather than us being oppressed by a foreign minority, we're kind of all just oppressed by ourselves. The came can't be said about the North where the correlative situation is more current, albeit improving.

Maybe I should have been clearer when I said that, but I really wouldn't have a problem if I ever found out any of my family were English/British settlers. But maybe I *would* have a problem if I found out any of my ancestors went around murdering people. I should probably go and find out.

Specky

Maybe I should have been clearer when I said that, but I really wouldn't have a problem if I ever found out any of my family were English/British settlers. But maybe I *would* have a problem if I found out any of my ancestors went around murdering people. I should probably go and find out.

But surely you accept that somewhere in your ancestral past people have killed other people, they've stolen, they've been part of unjust retribution on minorities etc etc etc.

"The past" is a very long time your "ancestors" are a hell of a lot of people. You can't think about taking any sort of responsibility for their actions.

I have people in my extended family who are involved or have been involved in all sorts of morally, ethically and legally reprehensible activities and although I can admonish them I cannot take responsibility for them...so how can you say that it's ok that your ancestors were british as long as they weren't the british who did nasty things to the irish?

I have a branch of my family who were protestants burned out by nationalists and were forced to flee to england. Should I now be anti-Irish/anti-nationalist/anti-catholic? No. I do not expect all Irish people. nationalists or catholics to take responsibility for the actions of some of their number under an unknown set of circumstances in the past. Similarly I would expect Irish people in general to have the sense to not hold all English people responsible for tha acts of Oliver Cromwell or the Bloody Sunday shooters, or the special branch collusionists...these were not the acts of the Englishman in the street.

simu

It's very much an individual thing as well - i'm Irish and grew up speaking Irish and spent all my summers in the Gaeltacht and I feel pretty different from most Irish ppl due to this. Everybody belongs to various cultural groups, some ppl are really into finding out about the cultures of their ancestors while others don't care. It only becomes a problem if ppl use history as an excuse for racism. While I find the history of Ireland very depressing - the way the language was nearly wiped out and all our bardic schools were destroyed etc I don't go around blaming the English for it but instead I'm glad that the language is still being spoken today and that ppl are still producing literature in it.

I found out i have Norman ancestors who must have spoken French many centuries ago which is cool, because I did French in college (even though the language has changed quite a bit in between!) - you should look at it that way - every ethnic group has interesting things about it - focus on the good stuff like the literature and the art and so on rather than on the cruel acts that every group has comitted during its history.