History Lessons

ejmaztec · 16-10-2007 07:32PM

kevmy wrote: »

I don't know what you mean by getting what they wanted. They did The Treaty with Collins et al but only because they were forced to. If there was no Irish rebels or if they were easily put down the English would have gladly held on to Ireland. It was very useful to them in that we provided loads of food to Britain and manpower so close to home.

As for supporting the Free State they pretty much did. They had a deal with the Free Staters and did not want to let the Anti-Treaty guys into power. The English did not want the War of Independence to continue. Whether the Treaty was a good deal for Ireland that's another discussion but I suppose it all worked out in the end.

The Brits got everything on the cheap and they still had access to a starving source of cheap labour i.e. most of my relatives and everybody else's who decided to move there. That's why I'm categorised as a "Plastic Paddy".

Because I was educated by Irish priests in England, we covered history from everyone's point of view - that's why I'm so cynical.

peasant · 16-10-2007 07:36PM

In regards to learning about other countries' history ...

Not too much on that in Germany, really.

The first few years of history lessons were spent on ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome etc, all that stuff that bores your average 10 - 12 year old to tears.
After that the "Holy Roman Empire" in all its German/Frankonian guises, followed closely by the Prussian /Austro-Hungarian empires and finally the first German Nation/empire.

Somwhere inbetween a fair amount of time was spent on French/ German/ American Revoutions of the 1700 and 1800's.

During German colonial history the British empire was unavoidable and that's where Ireland and the potato famine got a short (and singular) visit.

After that ...Nazis all the way.

Only in the last years, on history special, did we do some intersting, detailed stuff ...like the Russian Revolution, Leninism, Stalinism, the "great march" of Mao, the Chinese "cultural revolution" ...in hindsight I know why ...they didn't want us asking awkward questions about the goings on in our back garden, where our American "friends" were stashing their pershings and cruise missiles and drawing up the battlefields for WWIII

fits · 16-10-2007 07:51PM

My bf had most of his schooling under the 'East' regime, where it was implied that the holocaust/nazis etc.. was something the West did...

He also still comes out with some crazy 'historical' facts.. cant think of any off the top of my head though..... I think one was that Stalin invaded Germany (rather than the reverse) and no mention of the pact with Hitler. (I'm not 100% sure about that though)

History Lessons

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