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Irish Soldiers who deserted during WWII to join the British Army & Starvation order
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I haven't read any of his work but surely Ireland is not his field of expertise and he should know enough history that India & Pakistan made their support conditional on independence & that the Baltic states did not retain their independence after WWII.
I have no problem with a British historian having a pro-British view and I imagine that he is also pro restoring the statue of Queen Victoria to its rightful place and renaming UCC Queens University Cork too.
A few points on Geoff - he is currently the head of the school of History in UCC (bit too early to judge how he is doing, but IMHO a vast improvement on the previous incumbent).
His area of expertise is Stalin - he 'admits' to being a communist in his youth but apparently he got better
- but his knowledge of internal Irish politics is limited and that of wider contexts of specifically Irish history nearly non-existent.
I doubt he wants Victoria's statue put anywhere but the bottom of the river Lee but having said that I suspect his background did provide some motivation for writing in response to Tommy's letter.0 -
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The Vicky bit was gratuitous but he is a bit more of an imperialist than he is letting on.
I have noticed a tendency among many educated in the UK, in particular in England, - even professional historians - to just not 'get' Ireland - it's not just a question of not understanding nuance, but an inability to comprehend things from our perspective. To be fair, I imagine the same charge could be made against Irish educated 'getting' the UK but I do think 'we' understand 'them' far better then 'they' understand 'us' - we are surrounded by 'their' culture where as they only 'see' us through TV programmes like Father Ted (remember Ballykissangel?), performing artists like U2, Colin Farrell etc and they see the likes of Terry Wogan - an assimilationist - and wonder why 'we' insist on being different to 'them'. As if we were wilful children seeking to rebel against the authority and lifestyle of our parents...
A very kindly UK academic once remarked to me, during the height of the Troubles in the 80s, that he couldn't understand the level of Anti-Irish sentiment in the UK, after all, he informed me - 'you are just like us really'. I spent the next hour explaining that we are not just like them - that we are a separate people, in exactly the same way as the French, Germans, Spanish etc are not just like 'them' - we have our own culture, history etc. It has many things in common with wider British culture - as a result of our status as a colony - but also much that is uniquely 'ours'.
The end result was that he seemed to feel that my assertion of Irish culture as a separate identity from British culture was, somehow, me insulting British culture - a refusal on my part to accept our commonality rather then, as I saw it, a failure on his part to comprehend our separation and inherent differences. When I pointed out that he would not take such a view of an American insisting that although British culture had a huge influence on American culture they were nonetheless different from each other he actually called me stubborn and unreasonable - going so far as to say 'typical Irish!' before going off in a huff.
Now, having said all of that - there is a slow change happening at least in historical circles - I recently gave a lecture on the Composition of Connacht and how it attempted to legislate Gaelic culture out of existence at a conference at the University of London and I was all prepared for controversy and a certain :eek: amount of argument. What I got was a fascinated and genuine interest from the professional historians who were amazed they had never heard any of this before - even the Early Modernists. The only one there who had prior knowledge was Spanish- he 'got' it.
Apparently, there is a growing movement within Scotland and Wales to look at their indigenous cultures, not through the prism of nationalism or concepts of British identity but in a similar way to that pioneered here in Ireland by Ken Nicholls in the mid 70s and this is having an impact on the English universities by challenging their sub-conscious belief that all the diverse cultures found on the British Isles are really just local variations on English culture.0 -
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Bannasidhe wrote: »I have noticed a tendency among many educated in the UK, in particular in England, - even professional historians - to just not 'get' Ireland - it's not just a question of not understanding nuance, but an inability to comprehend things from our perspective. To be fair, I imagine the same charge could be made against Irish educated 'getting' the UK but I do think 'we' understand 'them' far better then 'they' understand 'us' - we are surrounded by 'their' culture where as they only 'see' us through TV programmes like Father Ted (remember Ballykissangel?), performing artists like U2, Colin Farrell etc and they see the likes of Terry Wogan - an assimilationist - and wonder why 'we' insist on being different to 'them'. As if we were wilful children seeking to rebel against the authority and lifestyle of our parents...
A very kindly UK academic once remarked to me, during the height of the Troubles in the 80s, that he couldn't understand the level of Anti-Irish sentiment in the UK, after all, he informed me - 'you are just like us really'. I spent the next hour explaining that we are not just like them - that we are a separate people, in exactly the same way as the French, Germans, Spanish etc are not just like 'them' - we have our own culture, history etc. It has many things in common with wider British culture - as a result of our status as a colony - but also much that is uniquely 'ours'.
The end result was that he seemed to feel that my assertion of Irish culture as a separate identity from British culture was, somehow, me insulting British culture - a refusal on my part to accept our commonality rather then, as I saw it, a failure on his part to comprehend our separation and inherent differences. When I pointed out that he would not take such a view of an American insisting that although British culture had a huge influence on American culture they were nonetheless different from each other he actually called me stubborn and unreasonable - going so far as to say 'typical Irish!' before going off in a huff.
Now, having said all of that - there is a slow change happening at least in historical circles - I recently gave a lecture on the Composition of Connacht and how it attempted to legislate Gaelic culture out of existence at a conference at the University of London and I was all prepared for controversy and a certain :eek: amount of argument. What I got was a fascinated and genuine interest from the professional historians who were amazed they had never heard any of this before - even the Early Modernists. The only one there who had prior knowledge was Spanish- he 'got' it.
Apparently, there is a growing movement within Scotland and Wales to look at their indigenous cultures, not through the prism of nationalism or concepts of British identity but in a similar way to that pioneered here in Ireland by Ken Nicholls in the mid 70s and this is having an impact on the English universities by challenging their sub-conscious belief that all the diverse cultures found on the British Isles are really just local variations on English culture.
Right on. Very well put!
"the likes of Terry Wogan - an assimilationist"
Bob Geldof's the worst though! Wealthy brat, wannabe punk, but actually a conformist. (but that's for another day).0 -
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Of course, he was. (Well Bob was)
He went to Blackrock College, a fee paying school.
To be fair to Bob - and I am by no means an admirer - I went to a fee paying school and my Dad was a baker. He had a side line as a pig farmer to fund the fees (this was post-1968 - I'm middle aged, not old) 0 -
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I addressed it on the Alan Shatter thread. It harps on about Dev offering condolences on the death of the German head of state in 1945. Its negative, but written by the newspaper's correspondent to London.
It didn't say that they had all skulked around to the Swiss Embassy for advice on what the appropriate protocol was but do they ever blame the Swiss. Noo.
Do they ever mention who we inherited our civil service from.Nooo.
This springs to mind
http://www.bofh.org.uk/2005/12/01/you-shag-one-lousy-sheep
On a more serious note the campaign has harmed Ireland and is now one of those situations where they need to acknowledge that they went too far.0 -
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Bannasidhe wrote: »I have noticed a tendency among many educated in the UK, in particular in England, - even professional historians - to just not 'get' Ireland - it's not just a question of not understanding nuance, but an inability to comprehend things from our perspective. To be fair, I imagine the same charge could be made against Irish educated 'getting' the UK but I do think 'we' understand 'them' far better then 'they' understand 'us' - we are surrounded by 'their' culture where as they only 'see' us through TV programmes like Father Ted (remember Ballykissangel?), performing artists like U2, Colin Farrell etc and they see the likes of Terry Wogan - an assimilationist - and wonder why 'we' insist on being different to 'them'. As if we were wilful children seeking to rebel against the authority and lifestyle of our parents...
A very kindly UK academic once remarked to me, during the height of the Troubles in the 80s, that he couldn't understand the level of Anti-Irish sentiment in the UK, after all, he informed me - 'you are just like us really'. I spent the next hour explaining that we are not just like them - that we are a separate people, in exactly the same way as the French, Germans, Spanish etc are not just like 'them' - we have our own culture, history etc. It has many things in common with wider British culture - as a result of our status as a colony - but also much that is uniquely 'ours'.
The end result was that he seemed to feel that my assertion of Irish culture as a separate identity from British culture was, somehow, me insulting British culture - a refusal on my part to accept our commonality rather then, as I saw it, a failure on his part to comprehend our separation and inherent differences. When I pointed out that he would not take such a view of an American insisting that although British culture had a huge influence on American culture they were nonetheless different from each other he actually called me stubborn and unreasonable - going so far as to say 'typical Irish!' before going off in a huff.
Now, having said all of that - there is a slow change happening at least in historical circles - I recently gave a lecture on the Composition of Connacht and how it attempted to legislate Gaelic culture out of existence at a conference at the University of London and I was all prepared for controversy and a certain :eek: amount of argument. What I got was a fascinated and genuine interest from the professional historians who were amazed they had never heard any of this before - even the Early Modernists. The only one there who had prior knowledge was Spanish- he 'got' it.
Apparently, there is a growing movement within Scotland and Wales to look at their indigenous cultures, not through the prism of nationalism or concepts of British identity but in a similar way to that pioneered here in Ireland by Ken Nicholls in the mid 70s and this is having an impact on the English universities by challenging their sub-conscious belief that all the diverse cultures found on the British Isles are really just local variations on English culture.
With all due respect, I think you are falling into two traps there, the first one is proving your own point, just as in the UK we may not "get" the Irish, I think you've demonstrated that you don't "get" the English.
You are also bating an assumption on one conversation with an academic. Surely a few more in your sample would make your findings more accurate.
One thing the Irish don't get, is the cultural diversity in England. Despite what they may think on after hours, Ireland is still pretty much entirely full of white Irish Catholics, with the biggest immigrant group being white polish Catholics.
To someone in England who is used to living with a wide assortment of Irish, Scots, Pakistanis, Indians, Poles and Afro- Caribbeans, yes, the Irish are just like us.0 -
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