To say the UK and Ireland have had explosive interactions in the past would be a bit of an understatement. There were spates of car bombings, shootings, and other forms of violence all along the border of Northern Ireland (Due to both sides believing Northern Island should be part of their nation).
Addendum: This was not a purely binary conflict. There were also those in Northern Ireland who did not align with either aggressor.
Rowling probably takes a more pro-UK stance, and therefore is comparing the Irish people to the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombers.
The conflict(s) were part of a period known as The Troubles (Wiki page linked)
Disclaimer - I’m an American outsider with an interest in learning about history, so I may not have the most accurate summary of events from either side of the story. The Wikipedia article should summarize incidents much better.
This is the shit they should teach us in school. The American education system sucks. Almost everything i’ve learned about world history I learned myself.
My father is a history teacher - and he inspired me to always keep learning about every part of the world that I can (and also about unique hobbies and technical fields, since I aspire to be an engineer).
I have to thank him again for all the amazing books he shared with me (and techniques for analyzing sources on the internet).
They teach it in the European History course and schools in the UK teach it. I find it quite plausible that mandatory education does not teach something with no relation to the USA.
I feel this characterises it as more of a border dispute between nation states. I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of any side in this (because it’ll take far too long and frankly I doubt I could be completely objective). I’m commenting only to say it wasn’t that.
I’m 100% an outsider on the topic, so I’d definitely defer to the wikipedia article. Feel free to let me know if there’s any holes I should patch in the post though.
(The fighting occurred along the border, which is what I mentioned, but there is probably nuance I need to add).
To say the UK and Ireland have had explosive interactions in the past would be a bit of an understatement. There were spates of car bombings, shootings, and other forms of violence all along the border of Northern Ireland (Due to both sides believing Northern Island should be part of their nation).
Addendum: This was not a purely binary conflict. There were also those in Northern Ireland who did not align with either aggressor.
Rowling probably takes a more pro-UK stance, and therefore is comparing the Irish people to the IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombers.
The conflict(s) were part of a period known as The Troubles (Wiki page linked)
Disclaimer - I’m an American outsider with an interest in learning about history, so I may not have the most accurate summary of events from either side of the story. The Wikipedia article should summarize incidents much better.
This is the shit they should teach us in school. The American education system sucks. Almost everything i’ve learned about world history I learned myself.
My father is a history teacher - and he inspired me to always keep learning about every part of the world that I can (and also about unique hobbies and technical fields, since I aspire to be an engineer).
I have to thank him again for all the amazing books he shared with me (and techniques for analyzing sources on the internet).
They teach it in the European History course and schools in the UK teach it. I find it quite plausible that mandatory education does not teach something with no relation to the USA.
To add to that you also have the people living there rather split on which country they would like to be part of
Definitely.
Edit: added an addendum to the original post.
I feel this characterises it as more of a border dispute between nation states. I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of any side in this (because it’ll take far too long and frankly I doubt I could be completely objective). I’m commenting only to say it wasn’t that.
I’m 100% an outsider on the topic, so I’d definitely defer to the wikipedia article. Feel free to let me know if there’s any holes I should patch in the post though.
(The fighting occurred along the border, which is what I mentioned, but there is probably nuance I need to add).
Interesting stuff, thanks for the info!