Happy St. George's Day.

We should also not forget that it’s International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.

Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios); died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier in the Roman army. Saint George was a soldier of Cappadocian Greek origin and member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades.

...

Cappadocian Greeks also known as Greek Cappadocians (Greek: Έλληνες-Καππαδόκες, Ελληνοκαππαδόκες, Καππαδόκες; Turkish: Kapadokyalı Rumlar)[3] or simply Cappadocians are an ethnic Greek community native to the geographical region of Cappadocia in central-eastern Anatolia,[4][5] roughly the Nevşehir Province and surrounding provinces of modern Turkey. There had been a continuous Greek presence in Cappadocia since antiquity,[6] and the indigenous populations of Cappadocia, some of whose Indo-European languages may have been closely related to Greek, (cf. Phrygian) became entirely Greek-speaking by at least the 5th century.[7] In the 11th century Seljuq Turks arriving from Central Asia conquered the region, beginning its gradual shift in language and religion. According to 1897 estimations, the sanjak of Konya had a total Greek population of 68,101 and according to Ottoman population statistics of 1914, the sanjak of Niğde had a total Greek population of 58,312 and the sanjak of Kayseri had a total of 26.590.[8] In 1923 following the genocide of the minorities of Turkey the surviving Cappadocian Greek native communities were forced to leave their homeland and resettle in modern Greece by the terms of the Greek–Turkish population exchange. Today their descendants can be found throughout Greece and the Greek diaspora worldwide.

I don't think Patrick should be our patron saint when he wasn't even Irish.

Brendan, Bridget or Malachy would have been better

Well Jesus wasn't Irish either nor the pope and look what we let them do to the country for centuries

Tbf Jesus didn't have any say in the matter, popes on the other hand...

St George wasn't English and St. Andrew wasn't Scottish.

Centuries you say?

Up until the 19th century the church didn't own much at all.

Before that from the middle ages up until the penal laws were introduced apart from the monastery they lived in and a few chalices etc that was about it.

Did you learn any history in school at all?

The average citizen of the Irish Republic has more English ancestry than me despite me being from Ulster. Dublin and it's hinterlands was an English haven and the English would have mixed in with the native Irish. The GB ancestry that I have is from Scotland and even then it is mostly Scottish Gaelic.

She'd be a good one but the British tend to venerate the Normans. They have no idea they have been colonised and I'd argue they still are colonised by the Normans. A shocking number of the British nobility are direct descendants of the conquering Normans of 1066. Inherited wealth for over a thousand years.

I go away with my English mates for a weekend once or twice a year. We book a big house in Northumberland and have a big weekend. We stayed in a house owned by the Percys. They own a huge amount of land and property in Northumberland including Alnwick Castle which was used in Harry Potter and Downton Abby.

They got that land from William the Conquerer, and hold it to this day. They appear in all kinds of history. Shakespeare wrote about Harry Hotspur (based on Henry Percy). Anne Boleyn was betrothed to another Henry Percy before ahead married Henry 8th. They were big figures at royal court through the centuries and pass their wealth through trusts and tax loopholes that don't apply to normal people.

Similar story with the Grosvner family who own huge parts of London.

They're colonised, and they don't even know it. They just don't know why their culture is alien to them.

Boudica led a rebellion against the governing forces in Britain at the time. That's the last thing the powerful British want the people to think about. It would give them notions.

They were linked to lots of them all the way down. They hung around the royal court for centuries.

The plantagenets were after 1066 so I'd imagine they were linked.

These guys

Family dynasty was founded in 1067 according to this.

Maybe. But I doubt it. They're a quare lot.

I know they used Boudica as a symbol in WW1. They made a propaganda video where the Huns were coming to rape Boudica.

But since the collapse of the empire, think they're not inclined to invoke the image of a woman who started an uprising and almost overthrew the government.

They also don't teach about other times the normal people rose up against the government. Like The Peasants Revolt of 1381. Wat Tyler led a revolt against the government looking for very reasonable changes for the working man, and they did quite well for a while. Similar story in Peterloo massacre where the people were working like dogs and their pay was being reduced. They tried to organise (unionise in a sense) and they government did everything they could to stop them. Ended up sending the army to massacre them.

We all know the English don't know know their history. But the question is whether its by accident or design. I think its deliberate.

I think the normal British person has been convinced their history is about Kings and the nobility where they were the good guys. But in reality the upper class suppressed the working class in England as much as they did in Ireland. We knew they were the enemy, the working man in England doesn't know the nobility are his enemy.

With the strikes on at the moment, do you think it helps the government to teach the people about Boudica, the pesants revolt and Peterloo massacre, or some meaningless story about Noble Roman soldier who never actually set foot in England?

Long answer to a short question. Sorry. This topic works me up. My English friends really admire how connected Irish people feel to their country. They know they're missing out on their own history but it's really not encouraged to find out about the history of the last thousand years unless you're going to learn the births and deaths of the Kings.

Yeah I'd say ite more likely an Irish person would know about the pesants revolt than an English person because its the kind of history we prefer. We like history about the underdog, the oppressed fighting back against the oppressor. The English aren't taught in that kind of history. They all know how many wives Henry 8th had and they ryme about whether they were beheaded, died, divorced or survived. But they're not taught about the history of the common english man. It would give them ideas (look at how the French treat their governments).

Anecdotally, my friends are politically informed, some are actively involved in politics and our job requires certain level of political insight into the day to day events in Parliament. But I would bet the house that none of them know much about the pesants revolt or Peterloo or even why they see Guy Fawkes as the azzhole in the story.

They would be a lot happier if they knew their history and their culture. But they don't.

Well, I haven't used it for sh1tting on everything English. You can use the thread for whatever you want.