As voters in Northern Ireland ‘take to’ the poills…
Zhou Hang writes:
I am journalist with The Stream, a social media-based show [presented by Femi Oke, top) on Al Jazeera English. Yesterday, our show looked at the border concerns in Northern Ireland. Based on your previous posts, I think your readers may be interested in watching it…
FIGHT!
Northern Ireland on the cusp of change (Al Jazeera)
‘Voting steady’ in NI Assembly election (BBC)
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er why would a youngish guy from Dublin use the phrase “mainland Britain?”
arghhhh hate that phrase so much!
ingrained west brit attitude, where the nation of Ireland is only an island of the west coast of the motherland and home of the true queen
You’ve added “West Brits” to your paranoid fantasy repertoire, have you?
Makes for a nice change I guess
Lol
Can’t wait for “Plastic Paddy” to emerge
Not a fantasy, you can clearly hear an Irish citizen declare that another Island to the east of us is “the mainland”, it’s either very poor geography or an ingrained subservience.
Finally, my kind of people. Baratheon was a usurper, the true Queen is on her way.
OK, what should one call the island to the East of Ireland (the one that isn’t the Isle of Man)?
Don’t take this as supporting the OP, but I believe the objection is in the term “mainland”, which would then imply that Ireland is a satellite in a geographic (and perhaps cultural) sense to Britain, which causes offense.
He could have said “people in England, Scotland and Wales”, which is what he meant. Or “Britain” (of which Northern Ireland is not a part, though it is a part of the UK).
I particularly liked the anchor’s ref to “the Briddish province”.
When I hear “Al Jazeera”, I automatically think of terrorists and people who wipe their arse with their left hand.
I’m the same when ‘Castlecourt” is mentioned.
Ha!
@Peter Dempsey – You’re wrong there. Al Jazeera – at least the English-language part of it, can’t speak for any of the other languages – is an excellent journalism channel, formed mainly by the Arabic division of the BBC which Margaret Thatcher dissolved in one of her cutting frenzies. If there’s a news story in the Middle East, in Europe or in Eastern Europe, it’s my go-to channel for on-the-spot reportage and distanced, neutral commentary. Then I’ll go to BBC, CNN and the rest, and finally to RTÉ and to Sky’s 20-second slot repeated every three minutes.
Shouldn’t we focus on the Ireland we have now and not the part of it we don’t and most likely never will? If people put half as much effort into talking about and worrying about the land we actually control instead of the land we don’t we’d have a much better country.
All depends who “we” are.
Irish people in the 6 counties are Irish.
“We”, the Irish, don’t have the gift of validating or not validating their identity.
They are part of “we”.
You can tell your brother that he’s nothing to you now, he’ no longer your brother.
That just means you don’t like him, It doesn’t change the fact that he is your brother.
It’s not about ignoring who is or isn’t Irish in the general sense of the term, it’s about the fixation many people have on the North instead of more pressing issues in the Republic. “We” is fine for a greater sense of pan-Irishness, “we” for all practical intents and purposes does not include the six counties. “We” for those in the Republic are those in the Republic in the sense that the issues and concerns and the power to fix them rests here and that the Republic has very limited power in terms of the issues and concerns of those living under the rules of a different government. (Of course this isn’t to ignore sensible cross-border initiatives such as energy markets and immigration)
Funny, they pictured the signpost for the flagstaff, one if the primary smugglin routes back in the day.
…not that i’d know anything about that.
A “journalist” said mainland Britain. It was a fatal credibility killer so I stopped watching.
No wonder Trump hates the media!