Queen shakes hands with IRA terrorist

[rocks 494]

if you can't take a bit of good-humored ethnic ribbing, you need a sense_of_humour transplant -------- now available via Obamacare

And I'm the one who needs to calm down?

[rocks 494]

http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/the-royal-african-company-supplying-slaves-to-jamestown.htm

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavery/a/The-Start-Of-Slavery-In-North-America.htm

I'm sure you're going to come up with some aggressive excuse as to why this isn't valid either. Just because you think something is true doesn't mean it is.

[Captain Oates 911]

http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/the-royal-african-company-supplying-slaves-to-jamestown.htm

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavery/a/The-Start-Of-Slavery-In-North-America.htm

I'm sure you're going to come up with some aggressive excuse as to why this isn't valid either. Just because you think something is true doesn't mean it is.

It might be valid in some other discussion but it isn't valid in the context of Northern Ireland today

You might as well talk about the introduction of European rabbits to Australia for all the relevance it has

Scouring the internet for anything bad to say about Britain's history anywhere and at any time is no substitute for targeted and relevant comment on Northern Ireland today

I said TODAY

[rocks 494]

It might be valid in some other discussion but it isn't valid in the context of Northern Ireland today

You might as well talk about the introduction of European rabbits to Australia for all the relevance it has

Scouring the internet for anything bad to say about Britain's history anywhere and at any time is no substitute for targeted and relevant comment on Northern Ireland today

I said TODAY

Yes, quite. This is really a pointless discussion with a defensive person who doesn't know what they're talking about.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I'm an Irish-American, with ancestors from North and South. I had some cockamamie and romantic thoughts about the North before I moved to the UK. What I learned in 12 years over there was that the majority of the people of the North want to stay in the Union because of the massive economic boon they have from being part of the UK. Honestly, I think the UK would be better off economically as just Great Britain, and I say that with respect to the people of Northern Ireland. But until the majority decide to leave the Union all this self-determination cr@p is just that -- a load of BS that is unfortunately supported by a bunch of uninformed Americans who don't know jack about day to day life in both Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole.

I would agree with almost all of your statements here, except the last line - I don't agree with that. There are certainly some uninformed Americans (way too many) but to characterize all supporters of leaving the Union as "a bunch of uninformed Americans" is... well, uninformed.

Still, what is not addressed is the root of the problem, and that's what perpetuates the conflict: the majority of the indigenous Irish people of the North were ethnically cleansed and their property seized in England's (later Britain's) ongoing project to seize the territory, drive out the Catholics, and colonize it with Protestants - a process which started about 800 years ago, and has continued even up into the last century.

Perhaps 1/3 of the Irish population was destroyed in the Great Terrors (the "Irish Holocausts") under Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell - millions murdered or starved, tens of thousands sold into slavery in the West Indies, and hundreds of thousands of formerly independent farmers and business owners turned into destitute tenants. These were attempts at genocide - some scholars today refer to it as a genocide.

The oppression continued under subsequent British governments - land confiscations, demoting Irish Catholics to essentially "non-human" legal status, etc. By the 1800s, many Irish were so poor they were subsisting almost entirely on potatoes and milk. Then came the devastating potato famine. From 1845-1850, the British government used the opportunity in a calculated strategy to try to starve out the rest of the population, forcibly seizing Irish food stocks of tens of millions of head of livestock, and tens of millions of tons of flour and grain which would have sustained them. 2 million Irish died during the famine, and many others emigrated to the U.S. during this time. These Irish immigrants brought with them the knowledge of what had been done and was still being done to the Irish people, and many passed down this knowledge through the generations.

By the end of the 19th century, what was left of the Irish people in Ireland had been reduced to impoverished peasants. There certainly were Irish rebellions and uprisings throughout the last 800 years, all of which were squelched quite brutally. British oppression continued into the 20th century with political assassinations, the use of deadly force on protestors, torching of Catholic churches, raiding of private homes, torture and deportation and more.

British government propaganda against Irish Catholics was quite vicious. You get an idea of the lasting effect of this propaganda in some of Rocks' posts - she inexplicably links the Irish to the anti-abortion movement in the U.S.

So the majority of people who live there in Northern Ireland today are not ethnic Irish who just happen to be Protestants - they are descendants of British colonials and usurpers. That is why they are so overwhelmingly pro-UK. The ethnic Irish know this - they know that these pro-UK Protestants are the legacy of a foreign attempt to occupy and steal their country. Irish people haven't forgotten what happened to them; they won't forget, and they won't stop fighting for their rights until Britain gives them their rights (or kills every last one of them.)

Even despite the centuries of brutal ethnic cleansing, the ethnic Irish still outnumber Northern Irish Protestants on the island, by about 2-and-a-half to 1. This makes some Northern Irish afraid - they know they would not be able to dominate the government of a unified Ireland, and they fear it.

But if you don't address the root of the problem, it doesn't go away.

(It's not identical, but it has many parallels to what happened in Palestine.)

And..... two thousand zero zero party over oops out of time. Gotta step out... have fun !

[rocks 494]

Still, what is not addressed is the root of the problem, and that's what perpetuates the conflict: the majority of the indigenous Irish people of the North were ethnically cleansed and their property seized in England's (later Britain's) ongoing project to seize the territory, drive out the Catholics, and colonize it with Protestants - a process which started about 800 years ago, and has continued even up into the last century.

Was it OK when the Catholics tortured and killed the Huguenots? Christianity is to blame for these problems. Get rid of that and there won't be any problems.

Edited June 29, 2012 by rocks

[Captain Oates 911]

I would agree with almost all of your statements here, except the last line - I don't agree with that. There are certainly some uninformed Americans (way too many) but to characterize all supporters of leaving the Union as "a bunch of uninformed Americans" is... well, uninformed.

Still, what is not addressed is the root of the problem, and that's what perpetuates the conflict: the majority of the indigenous Irish people of the North were ethnically cleansed and their property seized in England's (later Britain's) ongoing project to seize the territory, drive out the Catholics, and colonize it with Protestants - a process which started about 800 years ago, and has continued even up into the last century.

Perhaps 1/3 of the Irish population was destroyed in the Great Terrors (the "Irish Holocausts") under Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell - millions murdered or starved, tens of thousands sold into slavery in the West Indies, and hundreds of thousands of formerly independent farmers and business owners turned into destitute tenants. These were attempts at genocide - some scholars today refer to it as a genocide.

The oppression continued under subsequent British governments - land confiscations, demoting Irish Catholics to essentially "non-human" legal status, etc. By the 1800s, many Irish were so poor they were subsisting almost entirely on potatoes and milk. Then came the devastating potato famine. From 1845-1850, the British government used the opportunity in a calculated strategy to try to starve out the rest of the population, forcibly seizing Irish food stocks of tens of millions of head of livestock, and tens of millions of tons of flour and grain which would have sustained them. 2 million Irish died during the famine, and many others emigrated to the U.S. during this time. These Irish immigrants brought with them the knowledge of what had been done and was still being done to the Irish people, and many passed down this knowledge through the generations.

By the end of the 19th century, what was left of the Irish people in Ireland had been reduced to impoverished peasants. There certainly were Irish rebellions and uprisings throughout the last 800 years, all of which were squelched quite brutally. British oppression continued into the 20th century with political assassinations, the use of deadly force on protestors, torching of Catholic churches, raiding of private homes, torture and deportation and more.

British government propaganda against Irish Catholics was quite vicious. You get an idea of the lasting effect of this propaganda in some of Rocks' posts - she inexplicably links the Irish to the anti-abortion movement in the U.S.

So the majority of people who live there in Northern Ireland today are not ethnic Irish who just happen to be Protestants - they are descendants of British colonials and usurpers. That is why they are so overwhelmingly pro-UK. The ethnic Irish know this - they know that these pro-UK Protestants are the legacy of a foreign attempt to occupy and steal their country. Irish people haven't forgotten what happened to them; they won't forget, and they won't stop fighting for their rights until Britain gives them their rights (or kills every last one of them.)

Even despite the centuries of brutal ethnic cleansing, the ethnic Irish still outnumber Northern Irish Protestants on the island, by about 2-and-a-half to 1. This makes some Northern Irish afraid - they know they would not be able to dominate the government of a unified Ireland, and they fear it.

But if you don't address the root of the problem, it doesn't go away.

(It's not identical, but it has many parallels to what happened in Palestine.)

And..... two thousand zero zero party over oops out of time. Gotta step out... have fun !

For the North, it's entirely about religion and the fear of religious junk in the law

In that way, it's similar to why US States are passing laws against Sharia

An examination of laws in the South will reveal that they were dictated by Rome and Southern women had to endure an oppressive theocracy along the lines of Iran. Condoms/abortion etc - all in the law of the land

For the South it's simply a primitive desire to take back territory much in the way that a tribe of chimpanzees does

The South is now better educated and realizes it has no interest in expansionism - only a few bog hopping mountain-boy IRA sympathizers and dumb Americans with a tenuous and ancient connection to Ireland are at all interested

So it's peace all the way and that's great. It still sticks in my craw to see McGuiness shaking hands with the queen but Mandela was a bomb throwing terrorist so I suppose that's the way it has to be

Edited June 29, 2012 by Ashud Cocoa

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I never called all Americans who supported a One Ireland state uninformed. I said a bunch of them were.

Though I know w_o_m's feelings on this are intense, nothing really beats living in a situation, being friends with people on both sides of the religious divide, having a conflict affect your day to day life (I lived in the UK pre-Good Friday Agreement, and narrowly escaped a bus bombing in London by about 15 minutes once) might just give one more insight on the practicalities of the situation. I was raised with crypto-IRA-sympathies as mother's milk. My eyes were opened dramatically when I moved to the UK, as were those of my American family.

I think the majority of those posting on here know full well the oppression of the Irish by the British. And yes, it lasted until very recently. But Northern Ireland now is a completely different animal, economically, culturally and otherwise than it was in the 70 and 80s, heck even the 90s! The people who live there want to get on with their lives, to leave sectarianism behind. To heal. And the British want that as well. The people of Northern Ireland themselves should determine their destiny, and right now they want to stay in the UK by a clear majority. Are people of both faiths still discriminated against, yes. There's no doubt. But to paint the Catholics indiscriminately as the heroes here and the Protestants as the baddies is disingenuous and naive at best.

[Captain Oates 911]

I never called all Americans who supported a One Ireland state uninformed. I said a bunch of them were.

Though I know w_o_m's feelings on this are intense, nothing really beats living in a situation, being friends with people on both sides of the religious divide, having a conflict affect your day to day life (I lived in the UK pre-Good Friday Agreement, and narrowly escaped a bus bombing in London by about 15 minutes once) might just give one more insight on the practicalities of the situation. I was raised with crypto-IRA-sympathies as mother's milk. My eyes were opened dramatically when I moved to the UK, as were those of my American family.

I think the majority of those posting on here know full well the oppression of the Irish by the British. And yes, it lasted until very recently. But Northern Ireland now is a completely different animal, economically, culturally and otherwise than it was in the 70 and 80s, heck even the 90s! The people who live there want to get on with their lives, to leave sectarianism behind. To heal. And the British want that as well. The people of Northern Ireland themselves should determine their destiny, and right now they want to stay in the UK by a clear majority. Are people of both faiths still discriminated against, yes. There's no doubt. But to paint the Catholics indiscriminately as the heroes here and the Protestants as the baddies is disingenuous and naive at best.

Bye Gum Honey you are using your Sunday talk at the mo. let's see how long you last before some slack jawed mountain boy gets your goat.

I used to go to Northern Ireland every month from work. I used to park at the Europa Hotel - the most bombed building in Britain.

When I stopped at the runabout, a British Soldier would lean forward and point a rifle at my head from a range of 3 feet. That was normal and you soon get used to it

My pal was driving ahead and he came up behind a British Army land rover - a car pulled out in front of the land rover and the soldiers thought it was an ambush. They jumped out into ditch and pointed their squad machine gun at my pal. He was somewhat perturbed.

The local were quite laconic about it all

We had two factories in Craigavon - a catholic one and a protestant one. The catholics were infinitely sexier (the women) and had black hair and green eyes. The proddies had ginger hair and I have married 2 readheads so I wanted a change from freckles and anyway catholics think its more naughty so they are more excited

One of them told me she lived on the far side of Portadown and had to pass through a proddie road block to get home. The masked gunmen checked her papers most nights and swore at her

I am glad it's all over and both sides don't have to feel they are either living under religious laws they don't want or suffering discrimination at work or in housing etc

The Americans should be glad too that the populations have self-determination. Isn't that what America is all about and not about claiming geography ?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Continuing….

You used the word English instead of British. You messed up, it's OK to admit you did something wrong, we are all human.

I used the word “English” because I was talking about Americans of “English” descent (as opposed to Americans of Scottish or Welsh descent, etc.) I wasn’t talking about “the British” - you were.

Well obviously, if you don’t know the history of Ireland, then you can’t possibly be of Irish descent - it's common knowledge that this information is transmitted via DNA.

Again, thanks for telling me what I know, what I don't, and my ancestry! I will cherish this nugget of invaluable information.

You are deeply, deeply confused.

I was directly responding to your statement here (Post #90):

I meet Americans all the time that claim to be "Irish" yet they don't have any link to Ireland at all. They don't know if they are Irish, they just like to think they are. This is common knowledge.

Well obviously, if you don’t know the history of Ireland, then you can’t possibly be of Irish descent - it's common knowledge that this information is transmitted via DNA.

I didn’t use the obvious /sarcasm tags, but at that stage I didn’t realize just how far off track you were willing to go. So I will now patiently explain that the “you” in the above context is a figure of speech which means “a person.” It‘s like the “you” in “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” It doesn’t mean *you* personally, Rocks. Context matters.

It's a public holiday in Northern Ireland, which is where we are talking about. I linked you to the public holidays, you didn't bother to read it though. Imagine that.

Again, you have completely lost the context. I wasn't talking about holidays in Northern Ireland; I was talking about holidays in the U.S. This is what I said (Post #66):

...many Americans of European descent can and have traced their family trees, and they know where they came from. The reason there *is* a St. Patrick's Day here (and not a Guy Fawkes Day) is because there are so many Irish - you know they breed like rabbits

Next...

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

You quoted Wikipedia.

Go back and read.

You’re hilarious

Actually, I read the entire article, including taking the time to open up the source links for specific points. I quoted portions that were credibly sourced. I did not quote parts that were not credibly sourced; you did.

You are clinging to a line in that article which is not backed up by a credible source, simply because it serves your purpose. At the same time, you reject the parts that say otherwise, even though they are linked to credible sources, for no other reason than that they contradict you.

I am sure that you don’t see your hypocrisy in demanding that I accept the line of your choosing in that Wiki article, while you reserve for yourself the right to cherry-pick - without any consideration of where the information comes from.

Anyway, this will shed further light on the oft-repeated error about the “Dutch ship” being first to bring slaves to Jamestown:

Mystery of Va.'s First Slaves Is Unlocked 400 Years Later

JAMESTOWN -- They were known as the "20 and odd," the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607.

For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace.

Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began.

The slaves were herded onto a Portuguese slave ship in Angola, in Southwest Africa. The ship was seized by British pirates on the high seas -- not brought to Virginia after a period of time in the Caribbean. The slaves represented one ethnic group, not many, as historians first believed.

...

John Rolfe, Virginia's first tobacco planter and husband of the Indian princess Pocahontas, wrote the widely held account of the African landing in a letter to the Virginia Company of London. The captain of a Dutch warship that arrived in Jamestown in August 1619 "brought not any thing but 20 and odd Negroes, wch the Governor and Cape Marchant bought for victuale . . . at the best and easyest rate they could." Rolfe explained that the ship and another called the Treasurer had embarked from the West Indies.

A retired University of California at Berkeley historian, Engel Sluiter, made a startling discovery in the Spanish national archives in the late 1990s as he did research for a book on Spanish America. A colonial shipping document he uncovered in an account book identified a Portuguese slave ship called the San Juan Bautista. About 350 slaves were bound for Veracruz, on the east coast of modern-day Mexico, when the ship was robbed of its human cargo off the coast of Mexico in 1619 by two unidentified pirate ships, the record said.

Sluiter, who died in 2001, published his discovery in the William and Mary Quarterly. It caught the eye of John Thornton, an expert on the Portuguese colonies in Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The outlines of the other half of the story took shape.

"I said, 'I can figure out how these people were enslaved,' " said Thornton, a Boston University professor who, with his wife, historian Linda Heywood, is publishing a book on the slave trade between Angola and the North American colonies. Previous scholarship has documented the slave trade from Ghana, Senegal and other parts of West Africa. "We know Angola was a big exporter of slaves to Brazil and the Spanish colonies, but now we know that they showed up here," Thornton said.

Through records of a legal dispute between the pirate ships, Thornton identified the British vessels as the Treasurer and the White Lion, which was flying a Dutch flag. Each took 20 to 30 slaves before the San Juan Bautista continued to Veracruz. They landed at Jamestown within four days of each other and traded the Africans for provisions. The Treasurer then sailed to Bermuda, dropping off more slaves, and returned to Virginia a few months later, trading the final nine or 10 more.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/02/AR2006090201097_2.html

As mentioned in the article, the senior curator of the Jamestown-Yorktown Historical Society, which operates the museum at Jamestown, says the exhibits have been updated in a 25 million dollar new wing of the museum which reflect the updated information.

Edited June 30, 2012 by wife_of_mahmoud

[Pooky 3,844]

Her Majesty should knight Mr McGuinness ... with a sharper than usual sword.

[Póg mo 1,749]

Her Majesty should knight Mr McGuinness ... with a sharper than usual sword.

And this would help the Irish peace process how?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

People claim to be Irish without knowing their DNA history. Why are you making me repeat myself over and over?

Most people have their own family records or access to public records, and it’s really not that hard to search back 100, 200, 300 even 400 years. Remember that most of the Irish families who emigrated to the U.S. came between the 1820s and early 1900s (some arrived earlier, but the vast bulk of them came within the last 200 years.) 200 years ago is only 8-9 generations - a piece of cake, really. It’s not like they arrived in prehistoric times when there were no records. There is a lot of data on the passenger lists from arriving ships, as well as church records of births, marriages and deaths. Vast compendiums of data have been archived in the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City (the largest genealogical library in the world) and their data is free to the public.

So we don’t need DNA tests to know we’re Irish - our Irish surnames, our family Bible histories, and the family stories passed down through the generations etc. are supported by the written records: “so-and-so arrived in such-and-such year, birthplace County such-and-such Ireland, parents so-and-so, born County X Ireland” etc.

Rather, it’s *you* who would need evidence such as DNA testing to prove your silly claim that they’re *not* really of authentic Irish descent.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

My style is different to yours but that doesn't invalidate it

I am as childish as that film of Hitler playing with a puppy

I live with a cheesehead from wisconsin and if you can't take a bit of good-humored ethnic ribbing, you need a sense_of_humour transplant -------- now available via Obamacare

Before the op, make sure it isn't jewish humor (woops there goes another one !)

Your style of posting is not “invalid” (or even sickly.) I think it's very entertaining. I’m just saying that a bunch of invective, or jokes, with no substantial addressing of the point being debated does not constitute “debate.” You could call it flaming, or maybe comic relief, depending on context.