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i am who i am....

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    #32
    Eve_Dublin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,884 ✭✭✭Eve_Dublin


    I come from a fairly Republican family. Both of my grandads fought in the IRB and one of my grandads played a very important role in the War of Independence BUT my father was in the British Army in the 1960s as he lived in England and there was conscription at the time and he had no choice but to join. He was very ashamed of this aspect of his past and found it hard to reconcile with his own father´s history. When he left the army, he married my mother and they moved to London where he had two children who are both entitled to British passports. We all grew up with a very warped view of the British and it was only when I went to live there, made English friends and fell in love with an English man did I realise how brainwashed I was and essentially what an ignorant idiot I´d been all these years.

    The irony is my surname is as British as they come (although I´ve done my research and it actually has Scottish roots and not English, contrary to popular belief). I remember when I was a teenager I used to tell people that the English forced my family to change our original surname or we would be killed. Completely ridiculous. I felt the same kind of shame about my dad being in the British army that you feel about your family´s past.

    Fact of the matter is England has been good to my family. My dad got a job there when he couldn´t get one here but still he carried that begrudgery around. I got my degree and worked there for 2 years after graduating and was always treated with respect and kindness. I met the occasional idiot but I could count them on 3 fingers.

    You´ll be happy to hear my dad has chilled out an awful lot in his old age and sees that hate will get us nowhere.

    I´m proud to be Irish but I´d never blame the British today for what was done in the past. We need to move on and show the world were not victims. It´s a bit of a joke at this stage when we equate our "struggle" (I´m talking people from the Republic) with other countries who really are suffering. We need to build a massive bridge and move on. This is what your generation should be remembered for...the ones that took a grown up attitude to all this hatred and ridiculousness and moved on so other nations will look at us and see that being Irish is not about being part of a nation with a "victim complex" but a nation that can define themselves not by the past, but by the present.

    Don´t let this stupid cycle continue OP.


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    #33
    IzzyWizzy
    Registered Users Posts: 6,645 ✭✭✭IzzyWizzy


    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    Cop the f*ck on. Your anti-englishness is sickening. The British colonised Ireland in the past so you hate English people? You wouldn't even get that crap from the Real IRA.

    Not saying anything else because you're probably trolling.

    +1

    Honestly, all I have to say is, if this is what you consider a problem, you lead a charmed life. Normally I'd say every issue is valid but honestly? Even if being English was such a big issue for you, how does what you found out make you any less Irish? I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find any person in Ireland with fewer links to England than that.


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