As an English-born person who was taken as a child to live in Donegal in 1975, who married a Catholic Irish man and has Irish children, and wanted to fully participate in Irish life, I have a few observations.
I accepted the history taught at national school without question, as did my classmates. This resulted in feelings of exclusion and not belonging, which went well into my adult years. It resulted in my brother (11) having to defend himself every day at school from the other children who saw him as fair game because he was English. This lasted until about half way through secondary school.
It was only in recent years that I fully started to realise that the history we were taught at national school level left so much unsaid that what was said was little more than a propaganda exercise for republicans.
The myth of a peaceful, pure race of Celtic people who only wanted to be left alone to play beautiful music in a single united country needs to be challenged. The brutal fighting between the various Irish tribes should be included. It could hardly be called a single nation.
The level of poverty in Britain at the time is not taught. Check out the childhood mortality rates in Britain in 1845. Children were sent down mines and worked in factories in appalling conditions – as they did all over Europe. There were famines and land clearances in Britain too.
What is not taught is the benefits that occupation by Britain brought to Ireland. I have Indian friends and African friends who have told me that their countries greatly benefited by British occupation in that they adopted all the measures of government that Britain used – civil service, law, education and health care resulting in their countries progressing much better than their neighbours.
Look at the investment Britain put into the main cities in Ireland in buildings and roads and rail.
I see people who identify as pro-republican and who talk about ‘Brits’ quite happy to send their children to universities in the UK, watch mostly UK television and support UK soccer teams.
If we really want a united Ireland that accepts its past and to make it an inclusive society we need to start by at least making the history taught in our schools free from bias and in context of what was happening in Ireland and the rest of the world at the time.
RACHEL DURNING
Letterkenny, Co Donegal
Combating cost of living crisis
At Stormont 25 DUP MLAs are preventing the rest of the Assembly from tackling the frightening cost of living crisis.
At Westminster the outgoing prime minister is doing nothing while the rivals for his post propose differing solutions to woo Tory voters but there is no action. There is need for urgent action to help those most affected – many of them in work but their wages are not enough.
The £20 Covid addition to Universal Credit must be restored, the iniquitous no child payment for a third child regulation must be removed.
It is disgraceful that a rich country like the UK has children living in poverty.
There must be support with fuel costs for small businesses just recovering from the effects of the pandemic.
The huge profits being made by gas and oil producers should be used to help those most affected by the soaring bills.
Climate activists have been warning for years about the need to end dependence on fossil fuels – we have seen this summer the effect of climate change in the UK and Europe, not just in distant lands.
Why are houses still not being built with full insulation?
Why does every newly built house not come with solar panels? Even a small number of panels can produce enough power to sell back to the grid.
Before the days of central heating we wore woollen sweaters rather than T-shirts in our homes in the winter – we should go back to that, not just to save money but to combat climate change.
MARGARET MARSHALL
Belfast BT8
Offended by burning of Israeli flag in Bogside
We are all very lucky to live in a society where our freedom of expression is a natural part of our daily life. We are also blessed with unlimited access to information, to quality libraries and historical records. As an Israeli citizen, I was very offended to see my country’s flag burned in the bonfire in the Bogside area of Derry on August 15 – children, young and old families watching. What is it that you are teaching your young generation? Do you not know that Israel has arisen from the ashes of 2,000 years of European Jewish persecutions? Have you forgotten that Jews had started to return to their homeland when Tsars had made life in Russia for the Jewish minorities impossible to live? Do you not remember that for similar reasons two million Irish left your homeland to migrate to America and Australia, lands that had been unjustly taken from American Indian and Aboriginal populations? What makes your struggle a better one than ours? I was told that your people identify with the struggle of the Palestinians. As an Israeli, I understand and respect the aspirations of the Palestinian people. We will need our own version of your Good Friday Agreement. But for that to happen, we need visionary leaders on both sides of the borders. While you have been blessed with those, we are still waiting. So either you burn the Israeli and the Palestinian flag together for lack of a peace progress, or you shift your attention to today’s dramatic plight of Ukraine – you choose which flag would qualify for burning.
CHRIS BLUDS
Montagnac-la-Crempse, France
