MyTwoCents wrote:
Mantissa wrote:
On related note, the Army are apparently visiting my son's school this week to present them with an Irish flag. The kids are furiously learning the national anthem. Strikes me as somewhat jingoistic, but no harm I suppose. If it gets them interested in history it would be good.
No harm in some ways as you say if it gets them interested in history but the prism through which they receive their historical lesson matters. I saw a picture recently in my parents' house drawn by my niece who's attending a Gaelscoil. It was a picture of the soldiers giving their school an Irish flag. In the corner of the page was a union jack crossed out and a speech bubble saying 'Boo ar na Sasanaigh!' Not particularly nice anyway but especially dodgy given that her own grandfather was English (though he died a long time before she was born)! That sort of stuff is what turns me off it all.
I presume I'm not the only one who recalls the version of Irish history we were taught in primary school, where the noble, fierce and courageous - but astonishingly unlucky - Irish were somehow defeated again and again by the Vikings, the Normans, themselves, King Billy, Cromwell, the potato, and so forth. It was whatever the level below 'cartoonish' is.
My father was taught by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. Now that was an education.
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