Comment on Had to look this up

pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  To say the UK and Ireland have had explosive interactions in the past would be a bit of an understatement. There were spates of car bombings, shootings, and other forms of violence all along the border of Northern Ireland (Due to both sides believing Northern Island should be part of their nation).

  Rowling probably takes a more pro-UK stance, and therefore is comparing the Irish people to the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombers.

  The conflict(s) were part of a period known as The Troubles (Wiki page linked)

  Disclaimer - I’m an American outsider with an interest in learning about history, so I may not have the most accurate summary of events from either side of the story. The Wikipedia article should summarize incidents much better.

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  • daggermoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    This is the shit they should teach us in school. The American education system sucks. Almost everything i’ve learned about world history I learned myself.

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    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      My father is a history teacher - and he inspired me to always keep learning about every part of the world that I can (and also about unique hobbies and technical fields, since I aspire to be an engineer).

      I have to thank him again for all the amazing books he shared with me (and techniques for analyzing sources on the internet).

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    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      They teach it in the European History course and schools in the UK teach it. I find it quite plausible that mandatory education does not teach something with no relation to the USA.

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      • Infernal_pizza@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I was never taught this at school in the UK, that was about 10 years ago so it may be different now

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      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I’m pretty sure I was taught it in US public high school.

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    • DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      American PUBLIC schools suck NOW (mostly since Bush II, when they really ramped up their attacks). Private American schools for rich kids do not suck, and public schools didn’t used to suck.

      This is all by design, to be clear.

      I’m sixty, I got a decent public school education, and I was taught about “The Troubles” while they were happening. I was also taught about the horrors of The Holocaust by a history teacher who lived through the war. My eighth-grade English teacher was a WWII vet, and he had some stories.

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      • daggermoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        To be clear, we were taught extensively about the second world war and the holocaust. They really don’t teach world history after WWII.

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    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I think it varies from school to school based on what they think is important, but I wanna say that I learned about it in high school years ago. Of course, I also grew up in an area with a lot of Irish immigrants and descendants of Irish immigrants who were very supportive of the IRA. To the point of arms deals with the IRA being a thing with organized crime in the area. So I might know of it simply from living in Whitey Bulger country.

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    To add to that you also have the people living there rather split on which country they would like to be part of

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    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Definitely.

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  • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I feel this characterises it as more of a border dispute between nation states. I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of any side in this (because it’ll take far too long and frankly I doubt I could be completely objective). I’m commenting only to say it wasn’t that.

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    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I’m 100% an outsider on the topic, so I’d definitely defer to the wikipedia article. Feel free to let me know if there’s any holes I should patch in the post though.

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  • ohulancutash@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Fighting along the border was entirely immaterial. There are a large number of English who either don’t know Ireland ia a different country, or that Northern Ireland is part of the UK. The only thing that registers for most is that “the IRA” set off some very large bombs in Manchester, Birmingham, London and Brighton, fired an RPG at the MI6 building and a mortar at Downing Street.

    Its highly inaccurate to claim The Troubles as a border dispute, and most of the bloodshed was in the urban areas of NI. Most of the dead in NI were killed by their “own” side as reprisals for percieved disloyalty.

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  • pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Interesting stuff, thanks for the info!

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• frizzo@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  So your not American? Never drank a certain Irish named drop shot drink?

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  • BreadOven@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’m familiar with the shot and the years of conflict. But I didn’t realize that’s what it was referring to initially. Sometimes it takes some help for people to piece it together.

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  • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    The car bomb always sounded like it was referring to the events, but I was surprised to learn much later that the black and tan was also talking about something from history. I just assumed it was the colors of the beers.

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• Wander@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Americans seem to miss that the IRA (Irish Republican Army) were terrorists. Lots of people were killed including children.

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• kameecoding@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I think what you want to ask is what’s the trouble, mate.

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