I’m 40 and therefore ancient in terms of internet years, but although I’m British (but one who was born to a Celt and an Southeast Asian born in a British colony, so don’t judge me) I really don’t remember how Ireland was viewed when I was younger. I didn’t have much awareness of current events until I was at least 10, and the Good Friday agreement was signed when I was 15, so I always view the worst of the conflict as something that was before my time.
I know there was a whole stereotype about Irish terrorists, but was that ever used by politicians and/or media figures to prolong the conflict? Are there any verifiable examples of this such as articles or videos?
I lived through this.
One of the reasons we sympathise with the Palestinians so much is we know all the rhetorical tricks used to justify colonialism. We see through them coz they were used here. e.g.
They claim that there was never such a nation as “Palestine”, that the nationalism is a lie. Well we had that here: revisionist historians like Gerald Cambrensis trying to say it was always a unified British Isles.
They say Palestinians in Israel can vote and are nominally equal. Well then why are Palestinians 21% of Israel but 8% of the Knesset? And we had the same here in Stormont and Westminster: Catholics could vote but they had half the voting-power
Also the word “terrorist” is a big rhetorical parallel. Most of my life the word “terrorist” meant “Northern Irish”; it was only around 2000±2 that it started to mean “Muslim”. And if you’re fighting “terrorists” you can do anything
I’m ashamed people said this to the Irish when they should have given them a hard time for failing to kill Thatcher.