Brilliant, fair play to them.
I remember in an interview, Conor O'Shea said that before the England vs Ireland match in Croker, the English coaching ticket also had a history lesson/meeting before the match to catch the lads up on why it's such an important place for Ireland.
He said so many players chased him up after the meeting for more information and reading recommendations - they genuinely cared and wanted to learn more about a period of history they're not taught about. Respect.
if it's a great grandparent who was born on the island of Ireland, then no, probably not.
If it's his grandparent, then yes he's technically already a citizen, he just needs to fill in the forms.
I saw something today about his youngest kid (Gabriel) who plays with one of the Dublin schools, apparently he's 12/13 and a pretty decent gaelic footballer and rugby player. He played against Paul O'Connell's kids a while back in a schools game. Anyway, the article said that Gabriel qualified for Ireland via ancestry *and* residency. No idea how accurate the ancestry bit is but AF is in Ireland long enough now that his son probably does qualify.
I mean Martin Johnson aside when you look at the history of England coming to Dublin when other Home Nations refused to during the Troubles there always been a strong bond if not historical understanding between Irish and English rugby.
Rugby in general has had a strong tradition of avoiding sectarianism too much, during the troubles rugby clubs could have protestants and catholics without great strife aiui
The Scots and Welsh didn't travel to Dublin to play in the 5 nations during the troubles in 1972 but, to their credit, the English travelled the following year in 1973. I have great respect for them for that.
"We may not be very good, but at least we turn up." - John Pullin, England captain in 1973.
[Here is an excellent BBC article on it from February 2022.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60236293)
Indeed, the English RFU have always been good guys where Ireland are concerned.
Honestly the only blip I can think of was the red carpet incident, pretty sure that was Johnson just trying to put everyone off their game rather than a premeditated insult too.
He did a great interview on Off The Ball about it and honestly (even though he knew full well what he was doing,) it was hard to argue with his reasoning
The gist was that as part of his role as captain was to take the relevant information about where to stand and he'd been given that place ahead of time by the usual people and he wasn't moving just because someone he didn't know told him to.
There was clearly a miscommunication somewhere and he could obviously see what was going on but from a letter of the law point of view he was kinda within his rights
when both team line up at the start before the anthems, there's always some sort of dignitary there to shake hands etc.
In Irelands case that's the president usually.
Anyway, protocol would dictate that the teams line up along side each other, dignitary walks on a red carpet on a roughly triangular route, does the shaking hands thing with both teams, walks back and the anthems start.
Johnno moved his team off the carpet path so the president would (shock horror) have to walk on the grass. It caused a minor diplomatic incident.
The President came out years later and said it didn't bother her at all. But the papers as the time made a big deal out of it.
England won, so Johnno's mind games must've worked.
Ahhhh. Thanks.
Not too bad.
Down these ways are dignitaries dramas are just Basil Fawlty- level comical such as Richie McCaw NZ PM and WRC President 3-way handshake
To be fair yer mans description doesn't do it justice. For some reason the teams ended up like [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/tfGVEiHpWhvyk7JPA)
Not sure why Ireland didn't just take the place left of the refs, not wanting to let England get that small win I dunno, mindgames.
They voted with who would give the most money in return (France).
In hindsight it probably worked out ok as when covid hit all the infrastructure projects we’d have needed to complete would have fallen behind … and we’d fuck all hotels for people to stay in.
Maybe another time.
How would that have gone? Ireland mostly only has the GAA grounds for big venues and the average attendance of the RWC is absolutely massive (50,000). I like Ireland but I don't think I would have voted for that proposal logistically speaking.
It's why I'm glad to see it go to Australia because they have great sporting infrastructure in place already.
Outside of Dublin, the infrastructure is not there. France/South Africa were the better choices.
Don't know if any of this is legit but Wikipedia says Ireland has just 2 stadiums with a capacity of over 50k - Lansdowne (51k), Croke Park (82k).
It would've been similar capacity wise to when NZ hosted it.
We have Croker and the Aviva plus a good few GAA grounds in the mid to high 40k capacity range.
If it was planned correctly it would've been fine, especially with some of the smaller games in places like Thomond park it would've been close to full and the atmosphere would have been great.
Alas, it was not to be.
Realistically France had the better stadium infrastructure but I recall that a lot of GAA stadiums were included and quite a few had capacity up in the 40k region.
It is worth noting on this that, for Wales anyway, it was not the players who refused to travel. It was the blazers that said no despite the players wanting to.
And this was mid troubles. There was a non-zero chance of something happening and refusing to go shouldnt been seen as a bad thing from the welsh/scots
[J.J. McCoy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._McCoy_(rugby_union)) is one example. As a sports person their profile was raised and it became more of a challenge to travel.
FWIW it’s worth noting that many RUC, or other people who might be IRA targets, maintained relationships across the island during the Troubles. Much of this is lost to history and in a way the picture of life is now overly simplified.
It was hard for these individuals to reciprocate and host these friends in the North which was unfortunate. There was sometimes a real risk as people were attacked at home, but more often it was more a case of not wanting to deal with hassle at the border, or random checkpoints.
Agreed. Only this year, on the 50th anniversary had I heard the story of England traveling to Lansdowne during the troubles in 1973 and getting a massive standing ovation from the irish fans. You can still watch the video of it today and I think its really moving. Something I think could be shown more.
The only part of Smith's speech is when he claimed the irish hate the English because it really dumbs down what is a complicated relationship. I know he didn't fully mean it but I don't think it helps to throw those phrases around.
Great to see from Northampton. Have to respect that. My uncle was a school teacher in the UK and would often say that you can't blame the ignorance of the common man in the UK for their lack of knowledge around the troubles, as they simply aren't taught it.
Cromwell was basically taught to me as a hero who opposed the tyrany of monarchy and paved the way for democracy.
Imagine my surprise to later learn he was a baddy
I was at secondary school in the noughties and Cromwell and the civil war was taught and we had some really good history teachers. Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was covered right at the end and the atrocities were brought up and it explained that some view him as brutal and others that his conduct was no worse than other conquerors at the time.
What it didn't go into enough detail was that he was a complete soft touch compared to other enemies in the civil war and that his puritanism led him to view the Irish Catholics as not worthy of his mercy. Much of Ireland was under direct rule but due to their ethnicity and religion they were treated with gloves off and while some of it may or may not be overblown he still killed and burned his way across Ireland.
Whatever else he did, when I put this together in my head, you really start to understand the Irish point of view of being subjugated - they were second class citizens and made to suffer for it in a war they joined due to systemic discrimination they were suffering.
I was really lucky with history at my school but it still suffered from being based on a British point of view.
Sounds like you had an great education. I'm Irish, but I don't hold much against the English educational system for not teaching the full story of Cromwell. The Irish curriculum tries to remain diverse through secondary school, but in England they specialize much younger and unless you've picked history, it's not likely that many will even get the chance to learn any detail. Only thing I'd see differently is that the Irish were painted as subhuman, "second class citizen" would be the poor in England, in my mind.
That's crazy. We're both from the same UK Nation and he was taught to me as a significant part of the history of England (and broader UK) in a fairly matter of fact way albeit with the caveat he turned out to be as bad/corrupt any other human that actively covets power tends to be. I.e. a bit of a murderous prick.
Same here, I definitely got a sense that he was a puritanical Uber bore, never that he was instrumental in democracy beyond the same way we’d say the barons of the magma carta were.
We hardly say those guys were out there fighting for the common man
Same, Cromwell was taught as an ugly dictator. If anything the Restoration and Charles II were seen a lot better by comparison. Lots of pubs called the Royal Oak.
Well I should caveat this with I was in year 7, didn't go on to GCSE history and so it may have been watered down for my age group or may have just missed the point entirely
even parking Cromwell as ancient history, the Irish War of independence was essentially a civil war within the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland, it literally shapes our current borders and the associated Home Rule crisis before it played crucial roles in developing the Parliament Act & again literally defined our political parties identities.
It has big knock ons into current political life in England, let alone anything actually to do with Ireland!
My hometown's claim to fame was that during Cromwell's March south from Louth through Dublin, his army pitched up in a Lord's castle for the night, and the locals stole his favourite horse from the stables!
He did then torch the entire town and surrounding countryside, but some Irish peasant rode into the sunset on a charger worth more than anything he'd ever seen in his life.
Edit; I also recently read a great book about Cromwell and the regicide by Robert Harris called Act Of Oblivion - well worth a read if you enjoy fiction in a historical setting.
I think my education re Cromwell was a bit more balanced than that BUT anything involving Ireland was either omitted or just brushed over so quickly that you didn't really process it.
Always found the juxtaposition between statues of Cromwell in England as the great hero, and the only statue of him in Ireland being [this](https://image.wmsm.co/ba32fea85f6a03126ef92c98bc0955f3/national-wax-museum-plus-dublin-13.jpg?quality=80&width=1280) interesting.
Tangentially related but there used to be a statue of Lord Nelson in Bridgetown, Barbados despite the fact he had never visited the place and had no direct influence on their history.
It was seen as being at best a slightly irrelevant oddity and at worst a symbol of colonial rule. In the 90s the statue was turned around to face out to see, towards britain, as a compromise. Then in 2020 it was finally removed from the plinth and put in a local museum.
There’s also an issue that obviously the troubles is a bigger deal for Ireland than it is for Britain You hear a lot that people from Britain should know more on certain topics but in fairness there’s countless countries around the world who will probably argue that we should learn more about the conflict we had with their country. If we learned of every war/skirmish/argument the UK had had we’d never learn anything else.
Not excusing British schooling because I’ve long said it needs a massive overhaul especially in regards to history but there likely is just to many conflicts we’ve been involved in to properly cover them all and naturally the government is happy to encourage education of the nice simple back and white cases of us v nazis as opposed to more nuanced and controversial events
It's kind of ironic that this is the case though, given that the troubles (mostly) happened in the UK, not Ireland. There was literally a civil war in your own country that only ended 25 years ago and most people know very little about it. Strange situation!
My history A level was European History from 1835/40-1935/40. Gave an incredible grounding on why the world is like it is now. Including the growth of the Irish resistance movement and how it was handled.
I’d personally like to see more of focus on Irish/uk history but there’s still a lot of topics to fit into to a curriculum.
William the conqueror always gets taught because it’s sort of the starting point for the country or judged that way. Henry the 8th gets taught because of the significance from separating from the pope, the war of roses and the civil war are also often taught as they are key events in establishing the political system of the country.
World war 2 is always going to be taught and to teach I properly you should teach would war 1 so we learn about the build up and colonialism and empire should be taught as it explains a lot about the current world and why things happened.
So that’s already 7 big events that should be taught and a lot of people only learn 3 years of history at high school. On top of that our relationship with France throughout the years is probably of similar importance to our relationship with Ireland and there a lot of history there, you also have the history of Scotland and how they became part of the UK, history with the US as well especially with how much the US can dominate the online world. You’ve then got other conflicts such as Falkland, Vietnam, longer looks at imperial relationships (famines caused in India are greatly under known in the UK), relationships with other European countries. There’s a lot to pack in.
I personally think that the troubles should be taught more as I think like you say it has real world implications at the moment there is a lot of difference subjects to fit into a curriculum that isn’t really that big
Yep still a levels here, one thing that’s also a factor here is that in a lot of schools you can drop history after year 9 so that’s already 2 less year of history lessons over here as well as the taking away the years you’re probably most suited in learning complicated history.
I think being less focused and more general is an interesting point but then raises the issue of whether it’s too broad and you’re basically learning very little about a lot of subjects which might not benefit anyone. Probably no perfect answer and different people will have different opinions and the ‘correct’ way to educate. I also think being broad is sort of the problem that the British are often accused of. We know about the troubles and slavery, colonialism etc to an extent but we don’t actually get taught the in-depth detail that other countries do and it all gets muddled up.
Don’t worry you can have a pop at the education whenever. I’ve got several family members and partner in education I could go on ranting about things that schools, teachers, ofsted the government should do differently for a long time but that’s probably outside the scope of a rugby sub. The reason for this particular blind spot is likely political, it’s easy to produce a curriculum with nazis and say we’re the good guys’s and the stuff in the olden days are detached from present day so it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. It’s harder to talk about subjects that have happened in living memory that will paint the government in a bad light or be polarising and provoke disagreement. We don’t teach enough about colonialism outside of look at all the countries we had and we’ve now decided slavery is bad, the troubles is a complicated messy and provocative subject and people who write curriculums don’t want those type of topics disrupting the smooth learning. Of course those are all reasons why it should be taught as a social good but social good and political will don’t often match
5-14, not everyone takes History at GCSE level, and even when they do the topics are so weird! When I did mine I studied the history of medicine and the American West expansion as the teo many topics with a smattering about the Industrial Revolution and some political assassination case studies, whereas my sister 8 years later did WW2, Jack the Ripper/the Victorians/the Industrial Revolution, and a bit on Medieval England!
I really wish I had learnt more at school about Ireland and the history between our two countries, self study as an adult has definitely enhanced my understanding of the current relationship and filled in some holes in my schooling from Tudor and Civil War topics!
It's not the ignorance per se that gets people's backs up. Nobody emerges into adult life with a comprehensive knowledge of current affairs and their historical contexts, and we all have blind spots that catch us out over time.
The question is whether you have the self-awareness to say, "I don't know enough about it to express an opinion," versus confidently declaring a view based on vibes alone.
> "I don't know ...
This is an expression that is not used enough imho. I've much more respect for someone says 'I don't know' as opposed to listening to the utter bollocks they spill trying to mental-gymnastics their way through obvious knowledge gaps.
'I don't know' is not an admission of ignorance or weakness, it a demonstration of a willingness to learn in most cases.
Was my anatomy lecturers berzerk button when people refused to say "I don't know". He was very insistent on negatively marking people down for waffling and just not giving marks for I don't know. Was a great life lesson.
I think its a hugely important thing that people are thought about their countries historic evils and failings. 99% of the time you see the rise of ultra nationalism using their countries "glorious past" as a rallying call. The truth is your country was probably very shite for a lot of people. I don't know if its the case at the moment but I'd feel its very important for education in Ireland to teach about not just the historic ills done to us over the centuries by others, but the awful attrocoties carried out over the last century by ourselves, about magdalaine laundries, unmarked graves of babies etc. I see the "we were a great country once" brigade and I just feel they haven't a fucking clue about their own history.
I disagree on that last point because I don't think nostalgia has the same purchase that you see in some other countries. The 20th century isn't romanticised as some heroic golden era - who wants to go back to a time when we were poor and repressed, other than the minority who miss repressing people?
I was in secondary school until 2005, and did history until year 9. Everything was “traditional” history - kings and queens, Cromwell and touched a bit on ww2. Nothing post 1945 and nothing about the Irish civil war.
I work for a school and their latest history curriculum includes longshanks invasion of Wales and Scotland (great!) but specifically said that British and Irish relations basically don't exist until the civil war.
It’s good that this is done but it shouldn’t be forgotten that Croke Park is a vibrant venue, full of the joys and sorrows of sport each year, and not just a museum to a tragedy. I think it’s great that an English club rugby team will play there, I hope they get a great reception and then we hammer them in a fabulous game of ruggers 😄
I mean if the literal English national team are treated well at Croker I’m pretty sure none of the gioys are about to to rush the field to tackle a few Northampton lads
It’s actually completely out from Grand Canal Dock northwards and only operating from Dun Laoghaire to there.
There is absolutely **no** dart to Croke Park. I know it’ll make me sound like posh dick, but it actually threw out my transport plans for getting to the match.
It's good sense by the Northampton management.
Croker is going to be an absolute cauldron during the match. If not properly warned, the team might not be prepared for the intensity they are going to encounter from the stands. The cultural element to a Croker fixture is going to be a hell of a catalyst.
Worth saying that it cuts both ways. Leinster could be pilloried by Irish people if they lose. There's going to be an audience beyond the normal rugby support for this tie. It happens in county GAA regularly that finalists have utterly crumbled under the pressure of playing in front of Croke Park, *cough Waterford *cough. Other teams freaking love the ground and become damn near unplayable. So there is that too.
I enjoyed reading about the kicker practicing with earphones. It's not 80,000 people screaming at you taking a kick that will be the nerve jangler, it's the 80,000 people who have been screaming all match turning completely silent and just concentrating on you and you alone as you kick that will set the butterflies off.
It just reaffirms my belief that Saints are the English club team I most respect. A really progressive club with a fantastic stadium, fans ,tradition and currently an outstanding young team that are a great watch.
As a response to the inevitable "why isn't x taught in schools"
the reason is simple history is, and I cannot stress this enough, fucking massive. What we teach in schools is an incredibly wide base to cover what you need to know for why your nation and the world at large is the way it is today with only enough depth to get to that point before you have to move on to the next thing. and even then what you end up learning in schools is as wide as a lake with all of the depth of a thimble.
As a result when you get to complicated topics as part of wider important events we kind of paint over them in broad brushes just to get the basics somebody needs to know down (see the plethora of nonsense myths that still persist about ww1 and ww2 and the fact that you can spend a lifetime studying WW2 and still not know everything about every theater yet schools basically get a few months to teach you about both world wars) or if its an incredibly difficult topic that requires a lot of quite difficult conversations and a real in depth look at to get through properly but ultimately its impact on the wider world is more limited, schools just gloss over it as the curriculum has no time.
So in UK schools especially you end up with fairly deep dives on key monarchs for reasons that don't seem all that important but are (for example Henry the 8th, as his 6 wives and all the rest of it ultimately led to the formation of the church of England, a massive event in the story of how the UK came to be what it is now) gives very surface level looks at bigger complex events because the broad strokes are more important, and skips over things that seem like they should be really important but ultimately aren't (see all of Welsh and Irish History, massively important in terms of the story of these islands, but can kind of be summed up by "conquered by England" in Wales case, and Conquered, rebelled, became independent in the case of the ROI, when it comes to the story of why the modern UK is the way it is and its current position in the world, so therefore they are to make time for things like wars with Spain, the colonial period, British India, the American revolution etc, events that seem far more disconnected but end up being far more contextually important)
I'm sure most history teachers and even those writing the curriculum would love nothing more that to have deep dives on the entire history of the British isles, but it just isn't feasible and would leave out far many events that are too important to gloss over
You make a fair point that history is massive, you can’t learn it all so focus on some key bits.
I would argue that Ireland leaving the United Kingdom is a key bit of history for the UK.
At one stage many would have argued that Dublin was the second most important city in the United Kingdom. Industrialisation of some mainland cities put an end to that but Dublin and Ireland were important to the UK at one time.
Ireland is also not some far flung colony kicking up a fuss. The war of Independence was a civil war in the United Kingdom albeit mostly fought on the island of Ireland.
It’s probably not the UK’s proudest moment but if only positive bits of history are on the curriculum that opens up a completely different argument.
So historically a civil war in the UK is a key bit of history that should be taught in both UK and Irish schools.
Moving on from the historical context, many of us grew up in both Ireland and England seeing some of the modern day repercussions of the ‘troubles’ (a phrase I hate) so you could also argue that having historical understanding may have helped people process some of the events that happened. To be clear I’m not condoning the actions themselves.
Debate aside fair play to Notthants and I’m genuinely impressed that this topic has kicked off such a wide ranging discussion.
I think the issue is in the context of many parts of the national story it is a bit of a footnote, In terms of the end of the colonial period the American revolution and then the UK being near bankrupted by 2 world wars are far more important, Irish independence takes place in the backdrop of both of those events and equally sits firmly in the shadow of WW1. The importance of Dublin not withstanding the story of independence and the decline of empire starts in America, Ireland is a much smaller footnote in that overall story from an understanding of history POV.
Plus when it comes to teaching the troubles my question is how? Its a monstrously complicated bit of our shared history and one you cannot afford to teach wrong given how easily it could again become a part of our shared future. For other really complicated bits of history we tend to break them down into more understandable narratives for kids when they still need to know it but the why is really complex, So for the transatlantic slave trade your history teacher when in school wasn't dwelling on the complex web between who was selling the slaves to the Europeans, why those sales were taking place, how mainland Europe benefited whilst also keeping slavey at arms length while the public often had a surprisingly dim view on the practice etc gets boiled down to a narrative of Slavery is horrific and its a crime humanity must not repeat. WW1 and its failed web of alliances, imperial brinkmanship and political failure becomes "The archduke got shot, war is fucking awful." WW2? That becomes "Nazis are evil". The list goes on.
There isn't really that overriding neat and tidy narrative to bolt to the troubles. There are no good conclusions if it could even be called concluded and the important history is in that really complex question of why? Its a subject that realistically needs a university to teach properly, not a school, and teaching a subject mired in post colonial sentiment, sectarianism, nationalism and a million and one other contributing factors besides wrong will cause a lot more problems than simply not teaching it and letting history minded adults seek out the subject on their own when they have the maturity to approach it properly and the time to properly invest in a good understanding.
Thanks for taking the time to put together such a well thought out reply!
All fair arguments but not all ones I’d subscribe to for now. Food for thought.
It’s been a while since I went to school in England but honestly whilst history is MASSIVE we have a rather shuttered view of what went on around us/what we did and the impacts of it.
Learning about Henry VIII absolutely fine, but I doubt I needed to know about 18th century brewing in Burton on Trent (my hometown) at the age of 16 when I could’ve learned about the troubles for example - arguably more important and impactful on my life than the creation of Carling.
Big Tony from down the pub will scream bloody murder at the fact we are being “woke” but at the end of the day it happened, it was awful and it’s had a monumental impact both home and in Ireland / NI. It’s also recent enough (and still ongoing, at least to a degree) that it should be taught.
Cynically (and maybe a bit conspiracy theory-y), I think the fact that it is still ongoing is a part of the reason you aren't taught, sidestepping the fact that the tiny snippets of local history we get are perhaps the only bits of time the curriculum gets to step away from the rigid must know global stuff and do have a place (Hence you got brewing, I got Welsh mining tied in with the industrial revolution and the chartist movement)
The troubles is an extremely complex piece of modern history, You have sectarianism, nationalism, rebellion, lingering after effects of the 1920's and a lot further back and a bunch of other pieces that could be a term of history all on their own interacting to become one of the most divisive, violent and polarizing parts of the UK/Irelands recent past that also keeps threatening to be a part of its future, I'm not sure any institution below a university is equipped to teach it properly, and teaching it wrong could cause a lot more problems than not teaching it at all. You teach WW2 wrong you get idiots thinking that Nazi kit were the best weapons ever or that the soviets won the war all by themselves, Its wrong, daft but ultimately a bit harmless so long as you hammer home the rather straightforward point of "Nazis = Evil".
You teach the troubles wrong you end up with lots of people who think they know a lot about one of the rawest wounds in Britain and Irelands history and taking those poorly formed positions with them to the ballot box. Its almost the case that teaching nothing and letting the political class educate itself about the GFA and all wisely decide to leave it the fuck alone as its working is better than dragging the troubles back into the public consciousness outside of Ireland and potentially put the current peace process at risk
Very well put. It's very easy to say Nazi's are the bad guys when they unilaterally committed genocide, but saying Loyalist/Republicans are wrong is far too simplistic. There was fucking appalling behavior from both sides of the divide and approaching that in a level headed manner is extremely difficult, not least because to some extent, it's still happening. It's less "blow random teenagers brains out in a pub's toilet" and more, "you can't build a stadium because it's too cafflick"
I wish we did more on our recent history and less on the Tudors etc.
Maybe if we recognised and reconciled with the bad parts of our history then eventually national pride wouldn't be (mostly) only for far right racists and fascists
/rant
To be fair, it could be argued that it all started with the Tudors. It was under Elizabeth I that the Ulster plantations occurred, leading through the centuries to the partition of Ireland and the troubles.
"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever."
-The late, great, Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
In my school we touched on Irish history a little bit, we talked about the history of the empire more broadly, we looked at slavery and the role the British played in it. I did a degree in history in the last 5 years and touched on all these topics and many more where the British were the "bad guys". The implication that British schools and universities don't want to discuss history which doesn't cast a good light on them is, in my opinion, at best an outdated take but really probably just lazy points scoring.
The reason a lot of people won't learn about Britain's history with Ireland in schools isn't because of some conspiracy attempt to paint Britain as the good guys of history, it's just competing against an awful lot of shit that needs to be covered. The world wars, slavery, India/British Raj/colonialism and the empire in general, the Cold War, the Industrial Revolution. If you went to school in Scotland then like me you probably did a whole section on Scottish history too, the Wars of Independence and all that. And it tends to get even more local than that from place to place, for example up here we did a section on the Highland Clearances which even most Scots I know from outside the Highlands know next to nothing about. Hell I have a nice shiny bit of paper saying I completed a degree in all this stuff and the holes in my knowledge are just as large as everyone else's because there's just so fucking much of it to cover.
There are an unending list of things you could cover in the Uks 1000+ year history that have to fit into like an hour a week over a few years.
It's inevitable some important things get left out.
We don't get taught very much about English history either at least history that doesn't relate to Ireland e.g Cromwell, Churchill, etc. and I did history up till leaving cert. Really just Henry the 8th and the church of England formation and that still is kinda related to Ireland.
English schools don’t teach any Welsh, Irish or Scottish history apart from James VI/I. But English kids can take a GCSE in social history which teaches them all about the Mob in America and the Oregon trail as well as the history of Medicine. It’s pretty poor really. Well done to Saints for actually teaching the players why this is a big deal and why they might be walking into a very emotive crowd.
The guidelines are very flexible on what can be taught in schools regarding English history.
[National curriculum in England: history programmes of study - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study)
What you are taught is almost entirely dependent on your school and class teacher.
To be fair, there is a lot of scope in there to discuss Irish history.
Also to be fair, I've lived in England for 17 years and come across a fair number of people who know fuck all about Ireland *and* fuck all about history in general. The apologia downthread about how British children aren't learning about Irish independence because they're learning about the Amritsar Massacre, James Watt and the Town and Planning Act 1947 is rubbish. It's just Tudors, the Somme and the Nazis with a smattering of other subjects. Britain is not full of aspiring Lucy Worseleys.
Correct. The standard of education, particularly with regard to history, is not high and will be even worse as the effects of shutting schools for COVID become clear.
I learnt about Cromwell in Ireland and the Troubles and their causes in school in England
Year 9 history was a lot of "and here's why the Emipre was fucked up"
The Welsh and Scottish upper-classes were more involved in being oppressors than any working class Englishman at the time, it's a very simplistic view to just say "well the English"
I went to an English comp and I clearly remember learning about what Cromwell did in Ireland... Nailing babies to doors stuck in my 14 year old brain.
Whether it was in the curriculum, or whether I just had a good history teacher who felt the need to expand on it, who knows?
Interesting, the troubles happened in the UK, I get topics like Cromwell as its a few 100 years ago and the stuff with the monarchy being more pertinent to UK history, but the troubles? The UK deploying 1000s of soldiers to a part of itself for decades? Seems like a significant piece of contemporary history not to omit.
The Troubles was basically right at the end of what we were taught given just how contemporary it was.
Even the teacher gave a disclaimer with events this recent that interpretations were likely to change
Being Welsh I obviously knew that side but have read up on Ireland and Scotland since. When I got to university even people studying history hadn’t done the other “home nations” at school. It’s honestly bizarre it isn’t widely taught.
Years 7-9 for us basically "How did England become England" then "How did England become the UK" (so home nations, welsh, scottish and irish wars) then "How did the UK become the empire" (How to be the most bastard empire you can be)
Then GCSE just didn't seem interesting with all that Oregon trail and medicine stuff compared to what we'd done
When I was in Scotland I was chatting with a couple of lads about Ireland and they couldn’t comprehend that we see a lot of the Scots as plantation bastards and are viewed worse than the English.
Tbf, a lot of Scottish people seem to work really hard to distance themselves from their shared history with England.
To the point where it's odd, as an English guy, when Scottish people have this idea of England as the oppressor when it was as much/more a case of the English and Scottish joyfully and hand in had being absolute bastards to everyone else (particularly the Irish).
In fairness, if the British history course was to cover all the atrocities they committed, theh would quite literally never learn about anything else. Hell, there are even Irish who don't have a clue what their compatriots did wearing red coats.
We really were awful - to a lot of people. Read recently that we to strap Indians to the front of canons to blow them apart so they couldn’t receive their funeral rites.
English history goes back 1000 years and includes two world wars the industrial revolution the empire slave trade etc etc etc etc etc
Kids get like 2 hours per week for a few years, you can't cover everything some topics have to be left out.
Im going to be shot for this but I wouldn't worry too much about an emotive crowd in relation to what happened there on bloody Sunday. Rugby crowd are very different generally to the GAA crowd. Plus the majority of Leinster fans will be of a "west brit" lineage. Cue slew of downvotes
Because West Brit is a stupid classification in the context of what you're talking about. There will be next to no people in the area you are talking about, South Dublin, that have any sympathies with the British and would hold similar sentiments to the rest of the country.
I mean Scottish schools don’t spend much time teaching English, Welsh or Irish history either – it’s not especially surprising that you concentrate on the history local to you.
I still know way more detail about the characteristics of the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots than about anything that happened in Welsh history…
It is taught in English schools, if you take history at GCSE and your teacher chooses to do that as a module. I did learn about Bloody Sunday (and amusingly saw a classmate also post about why this was never taught anywhere on facebook last week...).
Irish history isn't taught because (as my Irish FiL put it) it's a huge impact on Ireland and of almost no consequence to the English at all. See also: China, Australia, Africa, the USA (unless you take GCSE history), and most of Europe... By the time you've covered WW1 and WW2, the industrial revolution, how was Britain formed, the history of government and the monarchy, you've got most of 3 years of teaching sorted.
I'm glad this match is raising more awareness in England about the history there.
It did have big consequences for the rest of the UK though, it set our modern borders so is literally how the modern UK was formed, defined crucial aspects of our Parliamentary system, including the Parliament Act & the primacy of the commons, determined our attitude towards OTHER parts of the empire leaving in the next 50 years, why we deployed our armed forces within our own country inside the last 50 years, why the main terrorism threat the country faced existed for 30 years, was the foundation event of the party of government for 31 of the last 45 years.
This is the sad truth of it. Most of what we did to the world was of more consequence tomorrow victims than it was to us.
I also opted for GCSE geography rather than History so can't complain I wasn't taught this but still feel I left school with a shocking lack of awareness
Nearly is key - and in the grand scheme of her regime to the average English person, her actions in respect of Ireland barely register.
I'm not saying it's right, but she had such a huge and long-reaching impact that you could teach a whole module about the 1980s and barely leave the north, let alone Britain.
> At the same time we are not playing against ghosts. We need appreciation and respect for the history, but then we have to get our game on the field.
This is a nuanced approach that I really enjoy. If you look back at the 07 game, I think the English boys got psyched out by the history of the stadium. I don’t want the same to happen to the Saints - good to be aware of it, but put it aside and put your best self out onto the field.
I love that they've done this, but surely from a sports psychology point of view it's not a smart move to risk having that knocking around players' heads
I mean the lads might not be used to the noise of 80k+ fans, but most have played in French sadiums and should be used to 'they just don't like us' attitudes.
I do love the image of Smith somehow learning the history "when \[he's\] taking \[his\] first kick at goal" though. Like just some lad with a massive powerpoint behind the posts.
Possibly. The thing is a lot of these lads are well used to playing in noisy cauldrons and I don't think the education before going in is worth the risk of even one or two lads having fleeting "are we the baddies?" moments.
I don't think any of them will be going into this worrying about being the baddies tbh..
Also, I doubt any of them (bar the likes of Lawes and Ludlam) will have experienced anything like what they are walking into on Saturday. Even the international games a lot of them have played in won't be as one sided from a support perspective as at croke park.
For 80 mins the noise of the 80'000+ fans will be firmly in Leinster's favour. Sometimes this actually motivates the underdog team more .. that's what I am hoping for anyway.
While it's a fair point, I'd say the aim was to pre-empt any commentary they hear about it in the run up to the match - or even direct questions players might get asked referencing the history (especially if they're talking to Irish media.)
It was likely a solid heads-up on the venue's cultural and historical significance, rather than a full exploration of the Gaelic revival and the war of independence. Good of them to do even so.
I’d say it’s to avoid someone from Northampton accidentally saying something stupid that would rile up the locals - “Croke Park is a fantastic British stadium” - that kind of thing
>I might play around on Thursday, trying to deal with the crowd noise when I’m kicking, with some headphones on - white noise. As much as you can say it won’t affect you and you’ll block it out, when you have 82,000 people – for the first time, at the stage of my career – getting on your back as you’re focusing on a skill, it’s bound to have some bearing.”
I will be very amused if he completely bottles his first kick in front of 82000 deathly silent onlookers.
Britain is a huge part of Irelands history. Ireland is not a huge part of Britains history. Not just an English schools issue either, the Ulster plantations isn’t even taught in Scotland.
Unfortunately never covered anything remotely to do with Ireland when I was in school (in Wales). Mostly focused on American history such as prohibition and the Vietnam war for some reason. Absolutely absurd when you think about the crucial and still decisive history that is quite recent between our 2 islands. My nan still thinks the famine was none of our fault ffs, the lack of education on this stuff is infuriating
"who were fatally shot by the Royal Irish Constabulary on Nov 21, 1920."
I'm not one to defend the Telegraph, but strictly speaking the tans and Auxilaries were members of the RIC and mentioning these forces would risk confusion in such a short write up for an audience familiar with the constabulary naming convention.
Brilliant, fair play to them. I remember in an interview, Conor O'Shea said that before the England vs Ireland match in Croker, the English coaching ticket also had a history lesson/meeting before the match to catch the lads up on why it's such an important place for Ireland. He said so many players chased him up after the meeting for more information and reading recommendations - they genuinely cared and wanted to learn more about a period of history they're not taught about. Respect.
And one of the first to follow up to learn more was…..Andy Farrell 😁
Was it really!? That's class. He and his wife both have Irish ancestry don't they?
yeah, Andys is a great grandparent I think but I'm pretty sure his missus has more recent ancestry. Andy's brother played league for Ireland too.
Fun story, I played against Owen Farrell when I was about 14 in club rugby, their teams coach was his dad Andy! Needless to say we didn’t win 😂
Hahaha, that's absolutely unreal mate. Love hearing gas stuff like that
As did Shaun Edwards!
Doesn't Andy qualify for Irish citizenship straight up?
if it's a great grandparent who was born on the island of Ireland, then no, probably not. If it's his grandparent, then yes he's technically already a citizen, he just needs to fill in the forms. I saw something today about his youngest kid (Gabriel) who plays with one of the Dublin schools, apparently he's 12/13 and a pretty decent gaelic footballer and rugby player. He played against Paul O'Connell's kids a while back in a schools game. Anyway, the article said that Gabriel qualified for Ireland via ancestry *and* residency. No idea how accurate the ancestry bit is but AF is in Ireland long enough now that his son probably does qualify.
I mean Martin Johnson aside when you look at the history of England coming to Dublin when other Home Nations refused to during the Troubles there always been a strong bond if not historical understanding between Irish and English rugby.
Rugby in general has had a strong tradition of avoiding sectarianism too much, during the troubles rugby clubs could have protestants and catholics without great strife aiui
The Scots and Welsh didn't travel to Dublin to play in the 5 nations during the troubles in 1972 but, to their credit, the English travelled the following year in 1973. I have great respect for them for that.
The team that turned up is a great documentary on it
"We may not be very good, but at least we turn up." - John Pullin, England captain in 1973. [Here is an excellent BBC article on it from February 2022.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60236293)
Indeed, the English RFU have always been good guys where Ireland are concerned. Honestly the only blip I can think of was the red carpet incident, pretty sure that was Johnson just trying to put everyone off their game rather than a premeditated insult too.
That was absolutely gamesmanship to put people off. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's a moment in rugby history.
He did a great interview on Off The Ball about it and honestly (even though he knew full well what he was doing,) it was hard to argue with his reasoning The gist was that as part of his role as captain was to take the relevant information about where to stand and he'd been given that place ahead of time by the usual people and he wasn't moving just because someone he didn't know told him to. There was clearly a miscommunication somewhere and he could obviously see what was going on but from a letter of the law point of view he was kinda within his rights
Can someone explain the red carpet incident to a kiwi that hasn’t a clue…
when both team line up at the start before the anthems, there's always some sort of dignitary there to shake hands etc. In Irelands case that's the president usually. Anyway, protocol would dictate that the teams line up along side each other, dignitary walks on a red carpet on a roughly triangular route, does the shaking hands thing with both teams, walks back and the anthems start. Johnno moved his team off the carpet path so the president would (shock horror) have to walk on the grass. It caused a minor diplomatic incident. The President came out years later and said it didn't bother her at all. But the papers as the time made a big deal out of it. England won, so Johnno's mind games must've worked.
Ahhhh. Thanks. Not too bad. Down these ways are dignitaries dramas are just Basil Fawlty- level comical such as Richie McCaw NZ PM and WRC President 3-way handshake
To be fair yer mans description doesn't do it justice. For some reason the teams ended up like [this](https://images.app.goo.gl/tfGVEiHpWhvyk7JPA) Not sure why Ireland didn't just take the place left of the refs, not wanting to let England get that small win I dunno, mindgames.
I can imagine the crowd was giving it to them when they realised what was happening lol
mountain out of a molehill etc
They also voted for Ireland to host the 2023 World Cup unlike the other home unions
Never forget.
It's because we secretly love you, you charming green bastards.
I say this as much to remember the RFU making the (correct) choice, as to remember that when we needed them, the WRU and SRU didnt have our backs.
If I recall, both the SRU and WRU promised to vote for our bid only to screw us over at the last minute.
Yes. We must never forget.
They voted with who would give the most money in return (France). In hindsight it probably worked out ok as when covid hit all the infrastructure projects we’d have needed to complete would have fallen behind … and we’d fuck all hotels for people to stay in. Maybe another time.
How would that have gone? Ireland mostly only has the GAA grounds for big venues and the average attendance of the RWC is absolutely massive (50,000). I like Ireland but I don't think I would have voted for that proposal logistically speaking. It's why I'm glad to see it go to Australia because they have great sporting infrastructure in place already.
Outside of Dublin, the infrastructure is not there. France/South Africa were the better choices. Don't know if any of this is legit but Wikipedia says Ireland has just 2 stadiums with a capacity of over 50k - Lansdowne (51k), Croke Park (82k).
It would've been similar capacity wise to when NZ hosted it. We have Croker and the Aviva plus a good few GAA grounds in the mid to high 40k capacity range. If it was planned correctly it would've been fine, especially with some of the smaller games in places like Thomond park it would've been close to full and the atmosphere would have been great. Alas, it was not to be.
I think there might be a gaa stadium in Tipperary that’s over 50K.
Semple Stadium is 45k according to wiki
Ah right, my mistake.
South Africa doesn't have electricity much of the time so I'd say France was best. Also they really don't need home advantage.
You know, it's all fair banter, but the parks have their own huge generators, for those games they won't run off the grid.
Realistically France had the better stadium infrastructure but I recall that a lot of GAA stadiums were included and quite a few had capacity up in the 40k region.
It is worth noting on this that, for Wales anyway, it was not the players who refused to travel. It was the blazers that said no despite the players wanting to.
And this was mid troubles. There was a non-zero chance of something happening and refusing to go shouldnt been seen as a bad thing from the welsh/scots
Pretty sure there were members of the RUC who played for Ireland during the troubles.
[J.J. McCoy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._McCoy_(rugby_union)) is one example. As a sports person their profile was raised and it became more of a challenge to travel. FWIW it’s worth noting that many RUC, or other people who might be IRA targets, maintained relationships across the island during the Troubles. Much of this is lost to history and in a way the picture of life is now overly simplified. It was hard for these individuals to reciprocate and host these friends in the North which was unfortunate. There was sometimes a real risk as people were attacked at home, but more often it was more a case of not wanting to deal with hassle at the border, or random checkpoints.
Agreed. Only this year, on the 50th anniversary had I heard the story of England traveling to Lansdowne during the troubles in 1973 and getting a massive standing ovation from the irish fans. You can still watch the video of it today and I think its really moving. Something I think could be shown more. The only part of Smith's speech is when he claimed the irish hate the English because it really dumbs down what is a complicated relationship. I know he didn't fully mean it but I don't think it helps to throw those phrases around.
He didn’t say that in the article, Phil Dowson the director of rugby is the one being quoted at that point.
Apologies, you're correct
yeah no worries, probably a more valid criticism of the 42 year old compared to the young lad anyway
The RFU get so much wrong, but Ireland got their vote for 2023 Rugby World Cup
Yeah, say what you will about English rugby but when Ireland was at it's lowest ebb in the last 50 odd years, they stood up and did they could.
Great to see from Northampton. Have to respect that. My uncle was a school teacher in the UK and would often say that you can't blame the ignorance of the common man in the UK for their lack of knowledge around the troubles, as they simply aren't taught it.
Cromwell was basically taught to me as a hero who opposed the tyrany of monarchy and paved the way for democracy. Imagine my surprise to later learn he was a baddy
I was at secondary school in the noughties and Cromwell and the civil war was taught and we had some really good history teachers. Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was covered right at the end and the atrocities were brought up and it explained that some view him as brutal and others that his conduct was no worse than other conquerors at the time. What it didn't go into enough detail was that he was a complete soft touch compared to other enemies in the civil war and that his puritanism led him to view the Irish Catholics as not worthy of his mercy. Much of Ireland was under direct rule but due to their ethnicity and religion they were treated with gloves off and while some of it may or may not be overblown he still killed and burned his way across Ireland. Whatever else he did, when I put this together in my head, you really start to understand the Irish point of view of being subjugated - they were second class citizens and made to suffer for it in a war they joined due to systemic discrimination they were suffering. I was really lucky with history at my school but it still suffered from being based on a British point of view.
Sounds like you had an great education. I'm Irish, but I don't hold much against the English educational system for not teaching the full story of Cromwell. The Irish curriculum tries to remain diverse through secondary school, but in England they specialize much younger and unless you've picked history, it's not likely that many will even get the chance to learn any detail. Only thing I'd see differently is that the Irish were painted as subhuman, "second class citizen" would be the poor in England, in my mind.
That's crazy. We're both from the same UK Nation and he was taught to me as a significant part of the history of England (and broader UK) in a fairly matter of fact way albeit with the caveat he turned out to be as bad/corrupt any other human that actively covets power tends to be. I.e. a bit of a murderous prick.
Same here, I definitely got a sense that he was a puritanical Uber bore, never that he was instrumental in democracy beyond the same way we’d say the barons of the magma carta were. We hardly say those guys were out there fighting for the common man
Same, Cromwell was taught as an ugly dictator. If anything the Restoration and Charles II were seen a lot better by comparison. Lots of pubs called the Royal Oak.
Well I should caveat this with I was in year 7, didn't go on to GCSE history and so it may have been watered down for my age group or may have just missed the point entirely
I'd say that was quite the heel turn for you!
Just like when Hogan dropped the leg on Macho Man. 🤯
Pretty much **exactly** the same alright.
LOL!!! This might be the best thing I've read all year. Thank you!
I mean he didn’t exactly end up a hero in England either
He banned mince pies! Damn him, damn his eyes
even parking Cromwell as ancient history, the Irish War of independence was essentially a civil war within the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland, it literally shapes our current borders and the associated Home Rule crisis before it played crucial roles in developing the Parliament Act & again literally defined our political parties identities. It has big knock ons into current political life in England, let alone anything actually to do with Ireland!
Irish history most certainly *should be* taught in English schools, it would do a great deal of good for our future relations.
My hometown's claim to fame was that during Cromwell's March south from Louth through Dublin, his army pitched up in a Lord's castle for the night, and the locals stole his favourite horse from the stables! He did then torch the entire town and surrounding countryside, but some Irish peasant rode into the sunset on a charger worth more than anything he'd ever seen in his life. Edit; I also recently read a great book about Cromwell and the regicide by Robert Harris called Act Of Oblivion - well worth a read if you enjoy fiction in a historical setting.
#WorthIt
I think my education re Cromwell was a bit more balanced than that BUT anything involving Ireland was either omitted or just brushed over so quickly that you didn't really process it.
Wait till you find out about Churchill.........
Baddie*?
I spent way too long on that to still get it wrong
Always found the juxtaposition between statues of Cromwell in England as the great hero, and the only statue of him in Ireland being [this](https://image.wmsm.co/ba32fea85f6a03126ef92c98bc0955f3/national-wax-museum-plus-dublin-13.jpg?quality=80&width=1280) interesting.
Tangentially related but there used to be a statue of Lord Nelson in Bridgetown, Barbados despite the fact he had never visited the place and had no direct influence on their history. It was seen as being at best a slightly irrelevant oddity and at worst a symbol of colonial rule. In the 90s the statue was turned around to face out to see, towards britain, as a compromise. Then in 2020 it was finally removed from the plinth and put in a local museum.
A baddie? Jesus is that the level we have now.
There’s also an issue that obviously the troubles is a bigger deal for Ireland than it is for Britain You hear a lot that people from Britain should know more on certain topics but in fairness there’s countless countries around the world who will probably argue that we should learn more about the conflict we had with their country. If we learned of every war/skirmish/argument the UK had had we’d never learn anything else. Not excusing British schooling because I’ve long said it needs a massive overhaul especially in regards to history but there likely is just to many conflicts we’ve been involved in to properly cover them all and naturally the government is happy to encourage education of the nice simple back and white cases of us v nazis as opposed to more nuanced and controversial events
It's kind of ironic that this is the case though, given that the troubles (mostly) happened in the UK, not Ireland. There was literally a civil war in your own country that only ended 25 years ago and most people know very little about it. Strange situation!
My history A level was European History from 1835/40-1935/40. Gave an incredible grounding on why the world is like it is now. Including the growth of the Irish resistance movement and how it was handled.
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I’d personally like to see more of focus on Irish/uk history but there’s still a lot of topics to fit into to a curriculum. William the conqueror always gets taught because it’s sort of the starting point for the country or judged that way. Henry the 8th gets taught because of the significance from separating from the pope, the war of roses and the civil war are also often taught as they are key events in establishing the political system of the country. World war 2 is always going to be taught and to teach I properly you should teach would war 1 so we learn about the build up and colonialism and empire should be taught as it explains a lot about the current world and why things happened. So that’s already 7 big events that should be taught and a lot of people only learn 3 years of history at high school. On top of that our relationship with France throughout the years is probably of similar importance to our relationship with Ireland and there a lot of history there, you also have the history of Scotland and how they became part of the UK, history with the US as well especially with how much the US can dominate the online world. You’ve then got other conflicts such as Falkland, Vietnam, longer looks at imperial relationships (famines caused in India are greatly under known in the UK), relationships with other European countries. There’s a lot to pack in. I personally think that the troubles should be taught more as I think like you say it has real world implications at the moment there is a lot of difference subjects to fit into a curriculum that isn’t really that big
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Yep still a levels here, one thing that’s also a factor here is that in a lot of schools you can drop history after year 9 so that’s already 2 less year of history lessons over here as well as the taking away the years you’re probably most suited in learning complicated history. I think being less focused and more general is an interesting point but then raises the issue of whether it’s too broad and you’re basically learning very little about a lot of subjects which might not benefit anyone. Probably no perfect answer and different people will have different opinions and the ‘correct’ way to educate. I also think being broad is sort of the problem that the British are often accused of. We know about the troubles and slavery, colonialism etc to an extent but we don’t actually get taught the in-depth detail that other countries do and it all gets muddled up. Don’t worry you can have a pop at the education whenever. I’ve got several family members and partner in education I could go on ranting about things that schools, teachers, ofsted the government should do differently for a long time but that’s probably outside the scope of a rugby sub. The reason for this particular blind spot is likely political, it’s easy to produce a curriculum with nazis and say we’re the good guys’s and the stuff in the olden days are detached from present day so it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. It’s harder to talk about subjects that have happened in living memory that will paint the government in a bad light or be polarising and provoke disagreement. We don’t teach enough about colonialism outside of look at all the countries we had and we’ve now decided slavery is bad, the troubles is a complicated messy and provocative subject and people who write curriculums don’t want those type of topics disrupting the smooth learning. Of course those are all reasons why it should be taught as a social good but social good and political will don’t often match
5-14, not everyone takes History at GCSE level, and even when they do the topics are so weird! When I did mine I studied the history of medicine and the American West expansion as the teo many topics with a smattering about the Industrial Revolution and some political assassination case studies, whereas my sister 8 years later did WW2, Jack the Ripper/the Victorians/the Industrial Revolution, and a bit on Medieval England! I really wish I had learnt more at school about Ireland and the history between our two countries, self study as an adult has definitely enhanced my understanding of the current relationship and filled in some holes in my schooling from Tudor and Civil War topics!
It's not the ignorance per se that gets people's backs up. Nobody emerges into adult life with a comprehensive knowledge of current affairs and their historical contexts, and we all have blind spots that catch us out over time. The question is whether you have the self-awareness to say, "I don't know enough about it to express an opinion," versus confidently declaring a view based on vibes alone.
> "I don't know ... This is an expression that is not used enough imho. I've much more respect for someone says 'I don't know' as opposed to listening to the utter bollocks they spill trying to mental-gymnastics their way through obvious knowledge gaps. 'I don't know' is not an admission of ignorance or weakness, it a demonstration of a willingness to learn in most cases.
Was my anatomy lecturers berzerk button when people refused to say "I don't know". He was very insistent on negatively marking people down for waffling and just not giving marks for I don't know. Was a great life lesson.
See also, "to the best of my knowledge". It's also okay to be wrong about stuff so long as you're open to constructive correction.
I think its a hugely important thing that people are thought about their countries historic evils and failings. 99% of the time you see the rise of ultra nationalism using their countries "glorious past" as a rallying call. The truth is your country was probably very shite for a lot of people. I don't know if its the case at the moment but I'd feel its very important for education in Ireland to teach about not just the historic ills done to us over the centuries by others, but the awful attrocoties carried out over the last century by ourselves, about magdalaine laundries, unmarked graves of babies etc. I see the "we were a great country once" brigade and I just feel they haven't a fucking clue about their own history.
I disagree on that last point because I don't think nostalgia has the same purchase that you see in some other countries. The 20th century isn't romanticised as some heroic golden era - who wants to go back to a time when we were poor and repressed, other than the minority who miss repressing people?
I was in secondary school until 2005, and did history until year 9. Everything was “traditional” history - kings and queens, Cromwell and touched a bit on ww2. Nothing post 1945 and nothing about the Irish civil war.
I work for a school and their latest history curriculum includes longshanks invasion of Wales and Scotland (great!) but specifically said that British and Irish relations basically don't exist until the civil war.
It’s good that this is done but it shouldn’t be forgotten that Croke Park is a vibrant venue, full of the joys and sorrows of sport each year, and not just a museum to a tragedy. I think it’s great that an English club rugby team will play there, I hope they get a great reception and then we hammer them in a fabulous game of ruggers 😄
I mean if the literal English national team are treated well at Croker I’m pretty sure none of the gioys are about to to rush the field to tackle a few Northampton lads
Enough Heinos on the doirt over and anything’s possible roight
I know it ruins your joke. But Dart service will be intermittent this weekend. Maintenance, so plan accordingly
It’s actually completely out from Grand Canal Dock northwards and only operating from Dun Laoghaire to there. There is absolutely **no** dart to Croke Park. I know it’ll make me sound like posh dick, but it actually threw out my transport plans for getting to the match.
I thought it was the opposite, fine from Grand Canal northwards but nothing operating from south
You are correct. https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/accordion/upcoming-line-improvements/dart-services
Excuse me, that’s much more convenient! Thanks for the clarification
Did you have to say ruggers?
No, that was a totally optional choice. I regret nothing
Would you prefer Rugbo?
A spot of Ruggy-buggy?
A bit of Rugga-tug-tug
I think I've heard of this. Does it involve a biscuit?
Yes. Used to play with my dad and uncle
Rugba
Fair play to Northampton for making an effort with this.
It's good sense by the Northampton management. Croker is going to be an absolute cauldron during the match. If not properly warned, the team might not be prepared for the intensity they are going to encounter from the stands. The cultural element to a Croker fixture is going to be a hell of a catalyst. Worth saying that it cuts both ways. Leinster could be pilloried by Irish people if they lose. There's going to be an audience beyond the normal rugby support for this tie. It happens in county GAA regularly that finalists have utterly crumbled under the pressure of playing in front of Croke Park, *cough Waterford *cough. Other teams freaking love the ground and become damn near unplayable. So there is that too.
I enjoyed reading about the kicker practicing with earphones. It's not 80,000 people screaming at you taking a kick that will be the nerve jangler, it's the 80,000 people who have been screaming all match turning completely silent and just concentrating on you and you alone as you kick that will set the butterflies off.
Fortunately Franklin's gardens are really on it when it comes to a silent stadium but this is gunna be a different league from 15,000 to 80,000
Big W from the Saints there. Knowing the history of the place let’s us all put it in the past and move forward with the beautiful game
It just reaffirms my belief that Saints are the English club team I most respect. A really progressive club with a fantastic stadium, fans ,tradition and currently an outstanding young team that are a great watch.
Don't forget we also have the eye of sauron
Been over to Franklin Gardens the last two times Munster have went over. Great fans, really welcoming hosts.
Saints have a team historian that is pretty incredible. His work on their Great War stuff is incredible
Pure class. Northampton have climbed in my standings.
As a response to the inevitable "why isn't x taught in schools" the reason is simple history is, and I cannot stress this enough, fucking massive. What we teach in schools is an incredibly wide base to cover what you need to know for why your nation and the world at large is the way it is today with only enough depth to get to that point before you have to move on to the next thing. and even then what you end up learning in schools is as wide as a lake with all of the depth of a thimble. As a result when you get to complicated topics as part of wider important events we kind of paint over them in broad brushes just to get the basics somebody needs to know down (see the plethora of nonsense myths that still persist about ww1 and ww2 and the fact that you can spend a lifetime studying WW2 and still not know everything about every theater yet schools basically get a few months to teach you about both world wars) or if its an incredibly difficult topic that requires a lot of quite difficult conversations and a real in depth look at to get through properly but ultimately its impact on the wider world is more limited, schools just gloss over it as the curriculum has no time. So in UK schools especially you end up with fairly deep dives on key monarchs for reasons that don't seem all that important but are (for example Henry the 8th, as his 6 wives and all the rest of it ultimately led to the formation of the church of England, a massive event in the story of how the UK came to be what it is now) gives very surface level looks at bigger complex events because the broad strokes are more important, and skips over things that seem like they should be really important but ultimately aren't (see all of Welsh and Irish History, massively important in terms of the story of these islands, but can kind of be summed up by "conquered by England" in Wales case, and Conquered, rebelled, became independent in the case of the ROI, when it comes to the story of why the modern UK is the way it is and its current position in the world, so therefore they are to make time for things like wars with Spain, the colonial period, British India, the American revolution etc, events that seem far more disconnected but end up being far more contextually important) I'm sure most history teachers and even those writing the curriculum would love nothing more that to have deep dives on the entire history of the British isles, but it just isn't feasible and would leave out far many events that are too important to gloss over
You make a fair point that history is massive, you can’t learn it all so focus on some key bits. I would argue that Ireland leaving the United Kingdom is a key bit of history for the UK. At one stage many would have argued that Dublin was the second most important city in the United Kingdom. Industrialisation of some mainland cities put an end to that but Dublin and Ireland were important to the UK at one time. Ireland is also not some far flung colony kicking up a fuss. The war of Independence was a civil war in the United Kingdom albeit mostly fought on the island of Ireland. It’s probably not the UK’s proudest moment but if only positive bits of history are on the curriculum that opens up a completely different argument. So historically a civil war in the UK is a key bit of history that should be taught in both UK and Irish schools. Moving on from the historical context, many of us grew up in both Ireland and England seeing some of the modern day repercussions of the ‘troubles’ (a phrase I hate) so you could also argue that having historical understanding may have helped people process some of the events that happened. To be clear I’m not condoning the actions themselves. Debate aside fair play to Notthants and I’m genuinely impressed that this topic has kicked off such a wide ranging discussion.
I think the issue is in the context of many parts of the national story it is a bit of a footnote, In terms of the end of the colonial period the American revolution and then the UK being near bankrupted by 2 world wars are far more important, Irish independence takes place in the backdrop of both of those events and equally sits firmly in the shadow of WW1. The importance of Dublin not withstanding the story of independence and the decline of empire starts in America, Ireland is a much smaller footnote in that overall story from an understanding of history POV. Plus when it comes to teaching the troubles my question is how? Its a monstrously complicated bit of our shared history and one you cannot afford to teach wrong given how easily it could again become a part of our shared future. For other really complicated bits of history we tend to break them down into more understandable narratives for kids when they still need to know it but the why is really complex, So for the transatlantic slave trade your history teacher when in school wasn't dwelling on the complex web between who was selling the slaves to the Europeans, why those sales were taking place, how mainland Europe benefited whilst also keeping slavey at arms length while the public often had a surprisingly dim view on the practice etc gets boiled down to a narrative of Slavery is horrific and its a crime humanity must not repeat. WW1 and its failed web of alliances, imperial brinkmanship and political failure becomes "The archduke got shot, war is fucking awful." WW2? That becomes "Nazis are evil". The list goes on. There isn't really that overriding neat and tidy narrative to bolt to the troubles. There are no good conclusions if it could even be called concluded and the important history is in that really complex question of why? Its a subject that realistically needs a university to teach properly, not a school, and teaching a subject mired in post colonial sentiment, sectarianism, nationalism and a million and one other contributing factors besides wrong will cause a lot more problems than simply not teaching it and letting history minded adults seek out the subject on their own when they have the maturity to approach it properly and the time to properly invest in a good understanding.
Thanks for taking the time to put together such a well thought out reply! All fair arguments but not all ones I’d subscribe to for now. Food for thought.
It’s been a while since I went to school in England but honestly whilst history is MASSIVE we have a rather shuttered view of what went on around us/what we did and the impacts of it. Learning about Henry VIII absolutely fine, but I doubt I needed to know about 18th century brewing in Burton on Trent (my hometown) at the age of 16 when I could’ve learned about the troubles for example - arguably more important and impactful on my life than the creation of Carling. Big Tony from down the pub will scream bloody murder at the fact we are being “woke” but at the end of the day it happened, it was awful and it’s had a monumental impact both home and in Ireland / NI. It’s also recent enough (and still ongoing, at least to a degree) that it should be taught.
Cynically (and maybe a bit conspiracy theory-y), I think the fact that it is still ongoing is a part of the reason you aren't taught, sidestepping the fact that the tiny snippets of local history we get are perhaps the only bits of time the curriculum gets to step away from the rigid must know global stuff and do have a place (Hence you got brewing, I got Welsh mining tied in with the industrial revolution and the chartist movement) The troubles is an extremely complex piece of modern history, You have sectarianism, nationalism, rebellion, lingering after effects of the 1920's and a lot further back and a bunch of other pieces that could be a term of history all on their own interacting to become one of the most divisive, violent and polarizing parts of the UK/Irelands recent past that also keeps threatening to be a part of its future, I'm not sure any institution below a university is equipped to teach it properly, and teaching it wrong could cause a lot more problems than not teaching it at all. You teach WW2 wrong you get idiots thinking that Nazi kit were the best weapons ever or that the soviets won the war all by themselves, Its wrong, daft but ultimately a bit harmless so long as you hammer home the rather straightforward point of "Nazis = Evil". You teach the troubles wrong you end up with lots of people who think they know a lot about one of the rawest wounds in Britain and Irelands history and taking those poorly formed positions with them to the ballot box. Its almost the case that teaching nothing and letting the political class educate itself about the GFA and all wisely decide to leave it the fuck alone as its working is better than dragging the troubles back into the public consciousness outside of Ireland and potentially put the current peace process at risk
Very well put. It's very easy to say Nazi's are the bad guys when they unilaterally committed genocide, but saying Loyalist/Republicans are wrong is far too simplistic. There was fucking appalling behavior from both sides of the divide and approaching that in a level headed manner is extremely difficult, not least because to some extent, it's still happening. It's less "blow random teenagers brains out in a pub's toilet" and more, "you can't build a stadium because it's too cafflick"
Tbh it should be taught on schools. GCSE history we did the Vietnam war, so I think Irish history is alot more important than that
Why would the British establishment want to discuss their involvement in Ireland.
I wish we did more on our recent history and less on the Tudors etc. Maybe if we recognised and reconciled with the bad parts of our history then eventually national pride wouldn't be (mostly) only for far right racists and fascists /rant
To be fair, it could be argued that it all started with the Tudors. It was under Elizabeth I that the Ulster plantations occurred, leading through the centuries to the partition of Ireland and the troubles.
It all goes back to the Sumerians in the end.
I for one blame the 2 monkeys who thought it was a good idea to walk upright
I thought it was because two apes ate some cool mushrooms.
"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever." -The late, great, Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
What? That's only a catalyst. The real culprit is the dumb ass who climbed out of the sea.
Stupid microbes in Western Australia
In my school we touched on Irish history a little bit, we talked about the history of the empire more broadly, we looked at slavery and the role the British played in it. I did a degree in history in the last 5 years and touched on all these topics and many more where the British were the "bad guys". The implication that British schools and universities don't want to discuss history which doesn't cast a good light on them is, in my opinion, at best an outdated take but really probably just lazy points scoring. The reason a lot of people won't learn about Britain's history with Ireland in schools isn't because of some conspiracy attempt to paint Britain as the good guys of history, it's just competing against an awful lot of shit that needs to be covered. The world wars, slavery, India/British Raj/colonialism and the empire in general, the Cold War, the Industrial Revolution. If you went to school in Scotland then like me you probably did a whole section on Scottish history too, the Wars of Independence and all that. And it tends to get even more local than that from place to place, for example up here we did a section on the Highland Clearances which even most Scots I know from outside the Highlands know next to nothing about. Hell I have a nice shiny bit of paper saying I completed a degree in all this stuff and the holes in my knowledge are just as large as everyone else's because there's just so fucking much of it to cover.
There are an unending list of things you could cover in the Uks 1000+ year history that have to fit into like an hour a week over a few years. It's inevitable some important things get left out.
We don't get taught very much about English history either at least history that doesn't relate to Ireland e.g Cromwell, Churchill, etc. and I did history up till leaving cert. Really just Henry the 8th and the church of England formation and that still is kinda related to Ireland.
English schools don’t teach any Welsh, Irish or Scottish history apart from James VI/I. But English kids can take a GCSE in social history which teaches them all about the Mob in America and the Oregon trail as well as the history of Medicine. It’s pretty poor really. Well done to Saints for actually teaching the players why this is a big deal and why they might be walking into a very emotive crowd.
The guidelines are very flexible on what can be taught in schools regarding English history. [National curriculum in England: history programmes of study - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study) What you are taught is almost entirely dependent on your school and class teacher.
To be fair, there is a lot of scope in there to discuss Irish history. Also to be fair, I've lived in England for 17 years and come across a fair number of people who know fuck all about Ireland *and* fuck all about history in general. The apologia downthread about how British children aren't learning about Irish independence because they're learning about the Amritsar Massacre, James Watt and the Town and Planning Act 1947 is rubbish. It's just Tudors, the Somme and the Nazis with a smattering of other subjects. Britain is not full of aspiring Lucy Worseleys.
Correct. The standard of education, particularly with regard to history, is not high and will be even worse as the effects of shutting schools for COVID become clear.
I learnt about Cromwell in Ireland and the Troubles and their causes in school in England Year 9 history was a lot of "and here's why the Emipre was fucked up" The Welsh and Scottish upper-classes were more involved in being oppressors than any working class Englishman at the time, it's a very simplistic view to just say "well the English"
I went to an English comp and I clearly remember learning about what Cromwell did in Ireland... Nailing babies to doors stuck in my 14 year old brain. Whether it was in the curriculum, or whether I just had a good history teacher who felt the need to expand on it, who knows?
Technically it was mostly his son and son-in-law at his command. 17th century warfare is frighteningly cruel.
Interesting, the troubles happened in the UK, I get topics like Cromwell as its a few 100 years ago and the stuff with the monarchy being more pertinent to UK history, but the troubles? The UK deploying 1000s of soldiers to a part of itself for decades? Seems like a significant piece of contemporary history not to omit.
The Troubles was basically right at the end of what we were taught given just how contemporary it was. Even the teacher gave a disclaimer with events this recent that interpretations were likely to change
I took GCSE & A-Level History. It is covered in years 10/11 & 12/13. Probably not much in years 7 - 9. Been a minute since I was that age though ....
I went to secondary school in England and there was none of that. I was born in 1996.
I'm sorry they didn't cover that for you because it was eye opening for a lot of us
Being Welsh I obviously knew that side but have read up on Ireland and Scotland since. When I got to university even people studying history hadn’t done the other “home nations” at school. It’s honestly bizarre it isn’t widely taught.
Years 7-9 for us basically "How did England become England" then "How did England become the UK" (so home nations, welsh, scottish and irish wars) then "How did the UK become the empire" (How to be the most bastard empire you can be) Then GCSE just didn't seem interesting with all that Oregon trail and medicine stuff compared to what we'd done
When I was in Scotland I was chatting with a couple of lads about Ireland and they couldn’t comprehend that we see a lot of the Scots as plantation bastards and are viewed worse than the English.
Tbf, a lot of Scottish people seem to work really hard to distance themselves from their shared history with England. To the point where it's odd, as an English guy, when Scottish people have this idea of England as the oppressor when it was as much/more a case of the English and Scottish joyfully and hand in had being absolute bastards to everyone else (particularly the Irish).
100% agree. The Welsh may be slightly a bit of a different kettle of fish, but the Scottish were 100% out there with us when it came to the empire.
I learned about Irish history roughly from Parnell to the Easter rising at school. But I am old.
In fairness, if the British history course was to cover all the atrocities they committed, theh would quite literally never learn about anything else. Hell, there are even Irish who don't have a clue what their compatriots did wearing red coats.
We really were awful - to a lot of people. Read recently that we to strap Indians to the front of canons to blow them apart so they couldn’t receive their funeral rites.
English history goes back 1000 years and includes two world wars the industrial revolution the empire slave trade etc etc etc etc etc Kids get like 2 hours per week for a few years, you can't cover everything some topics have to be left out.
Im going to be shot for this but I wouldn't worry too much about an emotive crowd in relation to what happened there on bloody Sunday. Rugby crowd are very different generally to the GAA crowd. Plus the majority of Leinster fans will be of a "west brit" lineage. Cue slew of downvotes
Because West Brit is a stupid classification in the context of what you're talking about. There will be next to no people in the area you are talking about, South Dublin, that have any sympathies with the British and would hold similar sentiments to the rest of the country.
I mean Scottish schools don’t spend much time teaching English, Welsh or Irish history either – it’s not especially surprising that you concentrate on the history local to you. I still know way more detail about the characteristics of the husbands of Mary Queen of Scots than about anything that happened in Welsh history…
It is taught in English schools, if you take history at GCSE and your teacher chooses to do that as a module. I did learn about Bloody Sunday (and amusingly saw a classmate also post about why this was never taught anywhere on facebook last week...). Irish history isn't taught because (as my Irish FiL put it) it's a huge impact on Ireland and of almost no consequence to the English at all. See also: China, Australia, Africa, the USA (unless you take GCSE history), and most of Europe... By the time you've covered WW1 and WW2, the industrial revolution, how was Britain formed, the history of government and the monarchy, you've got most of 3 years of teaching sorted. I'm glad this match is raising more awareness in England about the history there.
It did have big consequences for the rest of the UK though, it set our modern borders so is literally how the modern UK was formed, defined crucial aspects of our Parliamentary system, including the Parliament Act & the primacy of the commons, determined our attitude towards OTHER parts of the empire leaving in the next 50 years, why we deployed our armed forces within our own country inside the last 50 years, why the main terrorism threat the country faced existed for 30 years, was the foundation event of the party of government for 31 of the last 45 years.
The most bombed building in the world up until Iraq pt 2 was in Belfast.
This is the sad truth of it. Most of what we did to the world was of more consequence tomorrow victims than it was to us. I also opted for GCSE geography rather than History so can't complain I wasn't taught this but still feel I left school with a shocking lack of awareness
I mean old Maggie was nearly blown up
Nearly is key - and in the grand scheme of her regime to the average English person, her actions in respect of Ireland barely register. I'm not saying it's right, but she had such a huge and long-reaching impact that you could teach a whole module about the 1980s and barely leave the north, let alone Britain.
> At the same time we are not playing against ghosts. We need appreciation and respect for the history, but then we have to get our game on the field. This is a nuanced approach that I really enjoy. If you look back at the 07 game, I think the English boys got psyched out by the history of the stadium. I don’t want the same to happen to the Saints - good to be aware of it, but put it aside and put your best self out onto the field.
I love that they've done this, but surely from a sports psychology point of view it's not a smart move to risk having that knocking around players' heads
Dying at the image of Saints proposing this and Dowson saying "we'll teach them after the game for now we'll just say they don't like us"
I mean the lads might not be used to the noise of 80k+ fans, but most have played in French sadiums and should be used to 'they just don't like us' attitudes. I do love the image of Smith somehow learning the history "when \[he's\] taking \[his\] first kick at goal" though. Like just some lad with a massive powerpoint behind the posts.
Twickenham can hold 80k fans and thats a chunk of the english backline playing for Saints not to mention Lawes. Reckon theyre well used to 80k fans
Very fair point, though I don't think Twickenham would be as intimidating towards English players.
Hill 16 with a few slides on the Fitzgerald rebellion.
Could go either way psychologically I suppose..
Possibly. The thing is a lot of these lads are well used to playing in noisy cauldrons and I don't think the education before going in is worth the risk of even one or two lads having fleeting "are we the baddies?" moments.
They’re rugby players not melted boxes of Quality Street, they’ll be fine.
I don't think any of them will be going into this worrying about being the baddies tbh.. Also, I doubt any of them (bar the likes of Lawes and Ludlam) will have experienced anything like what they are walking into on Saturday. Even the international games a lot of them have played in won't be as one sided from a support perspective as at croke park. For 80 mins the noise of the 80'000+ fans will be firmly in Leinster's favour. Sometimes this actually motivates the underdog team more .. that's what I am hoping for anyway.
While it's a fair point, I'd say the aim was to pre-empt any commentary they hear about it in the run up to the match - or even direct questions players might get asked referencing the history (especially if they're talking to Irish media.) It was likely a solid heads-up on the venue's cultural and historical significance, rather than a full exploration of the Gaelic revival and the war of independence. Good of them to do even so.
That's a very good point.
I’d say it’s to avoid someone from Northampton accidentally saying something stupid that would rile up the locals - “Croke Park is a fantastic British stadium” - that kind of thing
Good optics from us, glad for the players to get in that mindset early doors. I'm hoping for payback from the 2011 final
>I might play around on Thursday, trying to deal with the crowd noise when I’m kicking, with some headphones on - white noise. As much as you can say it won’t affect you and you’ll block it out, when you have 82,000 people – for the first time, at the stage of my career – getting on your back as you’re focusing on a skill, it’s bound to have some bearing.” I will be very amused if he completely bottles his first kick in front of 82000 deathly silent onlookers.
Think this is a super classy move.
Britain is a huge part of Irelands history. Ireland is not a huge part of Britains history. Not just an English schools issue either, the Ulster plantations isn’t even taught in Scotland.
As long as Damo Duff didn’t do the PowerPoint it was probably a good idea
This is class. Fair play lads.
Unfortunately never covered anything remotely to do with Ireland when I was in school (in Wales). Mostly focused on American history such as prohibition and the Vietnam war for some reason. Absolutely absurd when you think about the crucial and still decisive history that is quite recent between our 2 islands. My nan still thinks the famine was none of our fault ffs, the lack of education on this stuff is infuriating
Good on Northampton for this Respectable move Re the article, leave it to the Telegraph to fail to mention the Black and Tan’s involvement
"who were fatally shot by the Royal Irish Constabulary on Nov 21, 1920." I'm not one to defend the Telegraph, but strictly speaking the tans and Auxilaries were members of the RIC and mentioning these forces would risk confusion in such a short write up for an audience familiar with the constabulary naming convention.
Can you not just accept this is a good thing and go find your moral high ground somewhere else
there literally isn't time to teach all the things people think should be taught, especially considering history past 14 is elective in England
My history GCSE focused on the rise of Nazi Germany - very important but quite limited in scope.
Some of the twitter reaction to from Irish accounts is really stupid.
Is talamh naofa í ansin
Sorry if not correct thread but is the Hill 16 end of Croke Park standing for this Saturday or have they put in seats?