[PotatoHeadMick]

In fairness it is not just the US education system. Few people in the UK know about this either.

The way Irish history is taught in British schools is sort of a semi-apologetic, “we weren’t very nice in Ireland, but you know how it is those Irish are a crazy lot and there wasn’t much else we could do but let’s pass over it, bye-gones be by-gones and all that”, but the slave trade, the oppression of black people by the British Empire is examined in great detail and the guilt trip is imbued in British schoolchildren.

Try telling a British person who has been educated about the crimes of empire that every single crime committed by the British in their empire against blacks and Indians was first tried out against the Irish, the racism, the genocides, the expropriation, the denial of basic human rights, famine, slavery the lot, all were tried out first on the Irish and you’ll be regarded as a bit of a crank.

Now I am not a MOPEr (”MOPE” is used as a term of abuse to describe chip on the shoulder Irish people who regard themselves as the “most oppressed people,ever”). I do realise that the past was a different place and things were done routinely hundreds of years ago that would horrify us today, but the genuine ignorance among British people about the enormity of the crimes committed in Ireland can sometimes be a bit exasperating.

As an example the figure given above about the decline in the Irish population in the mid-seventeenth century. In British schoolbooks that period is referred to as the “English Civil War”. Well, in the “English” civil war about 1% of the population of England died, in Scotland it was 3%, in Ireland it was something like 40%! And yet Ireland will feature as little more than a footnote in British history books discussing the English Civil War.

[bronxville]

Yes, know Irish history and one knows what’s happening today. Ireland was the English laboratory for eight hundred years.

[lizma2]

” and things were done routinely hundreds of years ago that would horrify us today,’

No. Sounds like ISIS today.

History ALWAYS repeats its self.

Because many people never learn from it.

[Eagles6]

Bttt

[Oberon]

Well, in the “English” civil war about 1% of the population of England died, in Scotland it was 3%, in Ireland it was something like 40%! And yet Ireland will feature as little more than a footnote in British history books discussing the English Civil War.

If you want to write the history books, you have to win the wars.