Should the Queen Have apologised to the Irish?

[denuseri]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

[Thorne]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

Yeah, I can agree to a point. Except that a lot of the problems which have been ongoing in Ireland have happened during Elizabeth's reign.

Then, too, a lot of the problems can be laid right at the feet of the IRA. Maybe when the Irish apologize for the bombings in London, or the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen can worry about apologizing for British abuses.

[thir]

Yeah, I can agree to a point. Except that a lot of the problems which have been ongoing in Ireland have happened during Elizabeth's reign.

Then, too, a lot of the problems can be laid right at the feet of the IRA. Maybe when the Irish apologize for the bombings in London, or the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen can worry about apologizing for British abuses.

We could get into a lot of discussion here about Irish history and whether or not people who try get an occupational force out are terrorists or freedom fighters. Maybe we shouldn't.

Suffice it to say that the problems started when England took Ireland as a colony. Violence breeds violence.

"The coming of Cambro-Norman mercenaries under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed Strongbow, in 1169 marked the beginning of more than 700 years of direct Norman and, later, English involvement in Ireland. The English crown did not begin asserting full control of the island until after the English Reformation, when questions over the loyalty of Irish vassals provided the initial impetus for a series of military campaigns between 1534 and 1691. This period was also marked by an English policy of plantation which led to the arrival of thousands of English and Scottish Protestant settlers. As the military and political defeat of Gaelic Ireland became more clear in the early seventeenth century, the role of religion as a new division in Ireland became more pronounced. From this period on, sectarian conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history."

Wikipedia

[thir]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

Well, no. This history is recent, and better relations may deflect new terrorrism. Ireland has a lot of reason to hate England.

[MMI]

Well, no. This history is recent, and better relations may deflect new terrorrism. Ireland has a lot of reason to hate England.

My previous post might now be added to the number of those reasons, but Irish memories are as long as they are selective. An apology by the Queen would not be acceptable to Unionists nor accepted by Nationalists for reasons stretching back years, tens of years and centuries.