What so English school books say about Ireland?

Fratton Fred

Grandeeod wrote: »

Going by some posts here, it appears that the UK are attempting to introduce Irish history into the curriculum. That's a good thing and I hope it reaps dividends, in particular to the historical references to Irish people as being as thick as **** and portrayed by the English media as being dumb as ****. It gets a bit tiresome.

I'm in my early 40s. I visited and lived in England. I got abused on the streets of Liverpool as a 10 year old. I was humiliated in Bristol when I was in my early 20s. Repeatedly referred to as a stupid Paddy in my late 20s in Norwich. (the complaint went nowhere and I was working for the BBC!) I had decent English friends who treated me like a human being, but there was a very evident dislike of being Irish. I got the whole IRA thing as if it only started in the 1980s/90s. No amount of explanations or attempt at explaining the history cut the mustard. It was one of the most sickening experiences of my life that left me thinking that the English are an ignorant bunch of twats. That's not right, is it?

Speaking of the BBC, Des Lynam in 1993 referred to the location of the Eurovision song contest in Ireland (Millstreet) as being a cow shed. Why? Because it was in a rural area, despite being a really fabulous showcase and TV production. More ignorance and stereotypical BS. A year or two later the great English tradition of Horseracing was embarrassed in Aintree when a Grand National had a false start. That didn't stop some obnoxious trainer spouting off on the BBC about how this wouldn't happen in a point to point in a backward country like Ireland. A compliment and insult all in one!

Honestly, I hope a bit of education can help you lot, because as a professional working with English people in the 1990s, my experiences were not good at all. Even now in a social context, I meet English people that are completely devoid of any semblance of reality. It's all Paki this and Paddy that. History could teach them a thing or two about why they feel that way. Not saying they are all like that, but it's there. I believe the Poles and Portugese are the latest targets according to the link below. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish. May not have been widespread, but it happened and England has welcomed it again.

http://www.the-latest.com/landlords-return-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-irish

Of course, Ireland is the land of tolerance and equality.

Before proselytizing about racism in England, maybe you should look at your own country.

Green and Orange lights on Dublin taxis?

There was a property owner on a phone in show the other night, totally unapologetic about the fact that if he heard any sort of an African accent, he would refuse to let them his property.

He was rightly.ridiculed.by the presenter, but received a fair bit of support for his stance.

An earlier poster.alluded.to panic in Britain because people though. The Argentines were invading. That is nothing but an attempt at running down the British.

If you really want to see bigotry and hatred, try watching an England game in a pub. It isn't just sporting banter either, when England played Wales last year, a middle aged supposedly well to do guy decided to leave the pub at half time when he realised there were about six English guys in there. He'd spent the first half jeering the national anthem and screaming kill the English ***** at the tv.

But sure, that's just banter I suppose.

You aren't going to stamp this out with history lessons. It's small minded bigots being small minded bigots.

HansHolzel

Fratton Fred wrote: »

O

Green and Orange lights on Dublin taxis?

He wants us to paint our post boxes red again.

What's he doing here at all if even the lights on the taxis are so oppressive to him?

Fratton Fred

HansHolzel wrote: »

He wants us to paint our post boxes red again.

What's he doing here at all if even the lights on the taxis are so oppressive to him?

Rather than jumping in with the ad homine Attacks, try engaging your brain first.

Some Taxi drivers in Dublin were putting green lights on their signs to indicate they were of Irish origin. Basically stating they weren't black.

HansHolzel

Real swastika stuff, yeah

I suppose labelling stuff as Irish produce is racist too?

Fratton Fred

HansHolzel wrote: »

Real swastika stuff, yeah

I suppose labelling stuff as Irish produce is racist too?

Oh dear.

HansHolzel

It's ad hominem by the way.

(I assume I'm allowed to correct his bog Latin ;-)

Fratton Fred

HansHolzel wrote: »

It's ad hominem by the way.

(I assume I'm allowed to correct his bog Latin ;-)

What's "bog latin"?

HansHolzel

http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/b/bog-latin.html

markesmith

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Of course, Ireland is the land of tolerance and equality.

You don't seem to agree!

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Before proselytizing about racism in England, maybe you should look at your own country.

This quote sums up your entire boards.ie persona.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

An earlier poster.alluded.to panic in Britain because people though. The Argentines were invading. That is nothing but an attempt at running down the British.

:rolleyes:

Fratton Fred wrote: »

If you really want to see bigotry and hatred, try watching an England game in a pub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_syaDEXPn3Q

I still remember where I was when that goal was scored. Post-Falklands, Thatcherite, miner-crushing, Hoddle fronting a team that would out-Stoke Stoke, getting their asses handed to them.

Spook_ie

tac foley wrote: »

Being the duty pedant today, please note that 'Great Britain' means England,Scotland and Wales.

No mention of any part of Ireland.

The title of the whole place is 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

tac

Being the pedant of the day you should know that Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles, Ireland being the 2nd largest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_the_British_Isles

tac foley

Spook_ie wrote: »

Being the pedant of the day you should know that Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles, Ireland being the 2nd largest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_the_British_Isles

Uh, yes.

And your point is?

What, precisely?

tac

Fratton Fred

markesmith wrote: »

You don't seem to agree!

This quote sums up your entire boards.ie persona.

in your opinion.

As I've often said

The English are total ***** = witty banter
Gosh the M50 was bad today = anti Irish abus

I still remember where I was when that goal was scored. Post-Falklands, Thatcherite, miner-crushing, Hoddle fronting a team that would out-Stoke Stoke, getting their asses handed to them.

Point being?

Jawgap

markesmith wrote: »

You don't seem to agree!



This quote sums up your entire boards.ie persona.



:rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_syaDEXPn3Q

I still remember where I was when that goal was scored. Post-Falklands, Thatcherite, miner-crushing, Hoddle fronting a team that would out-Stoke Stoke, getting their asses handed to them.

That's a 'soccer' problem not an English problem - try watching a rugby match in the company of a bunch of Englishmen (and women) and the experience is totally different.

Fratton Fred

I was wondering why Ireland scoring a try against England was relevant.

Then I remembered its a history thread ;-)

dpe

Jawgap wrote: »

That's a 'soccer' problem not an English problem - try watching a rugby match in the company of a bunch of Englishmen (and women) and the experience is totally different.

Except its not quite as straightforward as that. Generally the way it works in the UK is: England fan watching Scotland, Wales or Ireland v. Anyone Else, England fan will be at worst neutral, at best probably supporting Scotland Wales or Ireland (because most Englishmen have an Irish, Scottish or Welsh granny). On the other hand, England v. Anyone Else, and the Irish, Scottish or Welsh fan will support Anyone Else. Every time. And that rule applies equally in rugby.

tac foley

You guys and your girly ball games, sheesh...............................

If you want REAL partisanship, try going to a REAL hockey match.

You know the old saw....'Well, we had a real good fight going here, when, all of a sudden, a g*ddam game broke out......'

tac

dpe

Back on topic; I don't think I was taught anything significant about Ireland in history at school. Maybe a reference to Henry VIII and a bit about the famine. I didn't know a thing about Plantation or Oliver Cromwell in Ireland until I was an adult. On the other hand, I seemed to learn quite a lot about the rest of the British Empire, especially the triangular trade, India and "The Scramble For Africa", and none of it in flattering terms (much, I guess David Livingstone came out of it OK), so I don't think Ireland was whitewashed out particularly, as I learned about the Culloden and the Highland clearances as well, so maybe just a vagary of the syllabus.

HansHolzel

tac foley wrote: »

You guys and your girly ball games, sheesh...............................

If you want REAL partisanship, try going to a REAL hockey match.

You know the old saw....'Well, we had a real good fight going here, when, all of a sudden, a g*ddam game broke out......'

tac

Hurling requires much more physical courage than ice hockey, where the players are padded all over and just play human dodgems with each other.

hahashake

The UK has history with over half of the countries in the world due to colonialism. Objectively speaking, the relationship with Ireland doesn't rank very highly in terms of global importance and you would expect the UK history curriculum would reflect that.

I think the reason this upsets some people is that the same can't be said of Ireland where the relationship with England and the UK is the primary focus of their history in the last 1000 years and realising this focus isn't mutual leads to feelings of insecurity. Obviously Irish people want British people to understand the history between the two countries but this isn't unique to Ireland.

riffmongous

hahashake wrote: »

The UK has history with over half of the countries in the world due to colonialism. Objectively speaking, the relationship with Ireland doesn't rank very highly in terms of global importance and you would expect the UK history curriculum would reflect that.

While it might not be of 'global importance' would you not think that the bombs that where going off in England only 20 years ago would deserve at least some sort of background explanation in school?

tac foley

riffmongous wrote: »

While it might not be of 'global importance' would you not think that the bombs that where going off in England only 20 years ago would deserve at least some sort of background explanation in school?

That would be found under 'current affairs' - way too soon to be taught as 'history'. After all it was only a couple of days ago since a bomb didn't quite go off in Belfast. History books ten to be written with a longer view than something that was only last week.

tac

riffmongous

tac foley wrote: »

That would be found under 'current affairs' - way too soon to be taught as 'history'. After all it was only a couple of days ago since a bomb didn't quite go off in Belfast. History books ten to be written with a longer view than something that was only last week.

tac

I said 'background explanation' for the bombs, which would be history, not current affairs

tac foley

Like most countries, the UK tends not to wash its dirty linen in public. Try reading a recent schoolbook history of France in which THEIR war against their colonial interests on mainland France as well as Algeria, let alone Viet Nam, or a Spanish history book for kids, that has any mention of ETA in it?

For most other countries, their periods of civil unrest are decently over with and in previous centuries.

For instance- how much did you read in history book in Ireland about the Hungarian uprising in 1956? Something that affected Ireland? I doubt it, yet mainland UK absorbed over a quarter of a million Hungarian refugees as a result of it, as did Canada.

tac

riffmongous

tac foley wrote: »

Like most countries, the UK tends not to wash its dirty linen in public. Try reading a recent schoolbook history of France in which THEIR war against their colonial interests on mainland France as well as Algeria, let alone Viet Nam, or a Spanish history book for kids, that has any mention of ETA in it?

For most other countries, their periods of civil unrest are decently over with and in previous centuries.

For instance- how much did you read in history book in Ireland about the Hungarian uprising in 1956? Something that affected Ireland? I doubt it, yet mainland UK absorbed over a quarter of a million Hungarian refugees as a result of it, as did Canada.

tac

So it's ok to be willfully ignorant since everyone else does it? I wouldnt hold that view at all, I'd love to see a more balanced version of Irish history than what I was taught on the curriculum.

I honestly don't remember what we learned about Hungary anymore, I do think it got a section with the Prague uprising as part of the Cold War

tac foley

riffmongous wrote: »

So it's ok to be willfully ignorant since everyone else does it? I wouldnt hold that view at all, I'd love to see a more balanced version of Irish history than what I was taught on the curriculum.

I honestly don't remember what we learned about Hungary anymore, I do think it got a section with the Prague uprising as part of the Cold War

I'm not arguing with you, just telling you how it is here in UK or Canada. My granddaughter - in 4th grade - has so far learned SFA about anything to do with Ireland in ANY context.

My nephews and niece in Canada - all at school in the nineties and early noughties - got told nothing about the recent troubles, either, although they HAD heard about the Easter Rising, but not from anything on the school curriculum. There is a large Irish population group in our part of Ontario, and St Patrick's Day is celebrated in most of our local townships.

tac

Fratton Fred

riffmongous wrote: »

So it's ok to be willfully ignorant since everyone else does it? I wouldnt hold that view at all, I'd love to see a more balanced version of Irish history than what I was taught on the curriculum.

I've heard this said before, that history taught in schools here is pretty unbalanced, but in what way?

dpe

tac foley wrote: »

Like most countries, the UK tends not to wash its dirty linen in public. Try reading a recent schoolbook history of France in which THEIR war against their colonial interests on mainland France as well as Algeria, let alone Viet Nam, or a Spanish history book for kids, that has any mention of ETA in it?

For most other countries, their periods of civil unrest are decently over with and in previous centuries.

For instance- how much did you read in history book in Ireland about the Hungarian uprising in 1956? Something that affected Ireland? I doubt it, yet mainland UK absorbed over a quarter of a million Hungarian refugees as a result of it, as did Canada.

tac

In the UK the Hungarian uprising would be covered, but usually in the context of British history, e.g. Suez happened at exactly the same time and distracted the world from Hungary's plight for the sake of some deluded Colonial adventurism (and yes the British are quite good at self-criticism...sometimes). Wider European and world history is usually taught in the context of its effect on the UK (or the UK's effect on it), but I don't think that's that unusual in any country, certainly not in second tier education, and because the UK has such a global footprint, British students probably get a slightly wider perspective (especially as a quarter of any class is going to be kids from the former Empire), but the corollary is that its probably a shallower one than in other countries.

Wordless

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I've heard this said before, that history taught in schools here is pretty unbalanced, but in what way?

I am generally wary of entering into the various merits and demerits of the history curriculum but in the secondary system it is very wide and varied and had been for a long time. I think some teachers may be the root of the problem in terms of bias and of course the influence of local 'stories'. The curriculum for the JC is: first year. The job of the historian looking at sources, archeology and bias.An ancient civilisation either Romans, Greeks or Egyptians. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age Ireland. Christian Ireland such as monks etc. Medieval Age and the coming of the Normans (including how they were invited in to Ireland). Then the Renaissance in Europe for example Italy, Germany and England.

Second Year: The Age of Exploration, The Reformation in Europe and the UK and a plantation in Ireland. Then you look at The American Revolution and the French Revolution and the 1798 Rebellion (which mentions the massacre at Scullabogue and that Tone committed suicide). They also look at the Industrial Revolution in England and the effects of the revolution in Ireland.

Third year looks at political developments in Ireland from the nineteenth/ twentieth century this covers the Act of Union, O' Connell, Parnell, Home Rule (from the view of Unionists and Nationalists), 1916, The War of Independence, The Civil War, The Free State, World War 2 (or the Emergency) and Northern Ireland. Then social change in 20th Centiry Ireland contrasted with social change in another society ( usually the USA or USSR). Finally, students look at international history from either World War 2 or the Rise of the superpowers or moves toward European unity or African Nationalism. The rationale behind the syllabus can be found online http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Information/Curriculum-and-Syllabus/Junior-Cycle-/Syllabuses-Guidelines/jc_history_sy.pdf

As you can see the remit of the Junior Cert is fairly wide and varied and this has been in existence since 1989. Personally, my history teacher, teaching me in 1990 was an excellent teacher and historian that taught us about bias and never shied away from looking at all sides. He was and still is a GAA man and my old school was a very run of the mill VEC. I mention this only to highlight that my school was in no way unrepresentative of the norm in Ireland. I also remember seeing a documentary where a secondary school teacher in Cork would give an essay entitled 'Carson: Irish Patriot' just to get his students to think of their biases.

It is important to remember, in my opinion, that the representation of Irish history teachers as a rabble of rabid republicans ,as often happens online,does the profession and the teachers professionalism a great disservice ( I say this generally and not as a reply to anyone on here). Of course, it should go without saying that there are teachers that let their own biases show too much and that people can only go on their own experiences in a classroom. Another important point, on what is a long post, is that by academic standards something has to be thirty years old to be considered history and therefore those of us in school in the 90s wouldn't have looked at the history of the troubles in great depth as it was still considered current affairs rather than history.

Wordless

Just a shorter follow up: the leaving cert syllabus can be found here http://www.scoilnet.ie/hist/docs/lc_history_sy.pdf
On the OPs question I think the bigger debate concerning history as it is taught in Britain is to do with the way history is broken up. I read, and will try and find a source, that states that recently the history syllabus in the UK isn't told in a narrative way so many students can't make the connections between what they are taught and that in the UK they want to revert to their older system.

Francisco Durden

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=small+country+syndrome

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