Ireland

Red took us on a very somber tour of The Troubles and Bloody Sunday.
Red was 17 during Bloody Sunday and was in the March. But he and his friends heard the gunfire and got out.
The stories he shared and the history learned was impactful for us all. I was teary-eyed.
The biggest takeaway is this:
The Troubles were not about religion. It's many, many years of British oppression, compiled with the Easter Rising in 1916, then the Partition in 1922, topped with the poor treatment of Catholics. Basically the Catholics and Protestants (the lower class were treated just as horrible as all the Catholics) got together and started a civil movement for equal rights in 1969. Things like jobs and housing to be equal and fair for all. If you were Catholic or a low class Protestant, you had slum housing and no job, or maybe you had a job, but you were paid at a lower rate. These poor conditions were the straws that broke the camel's back. There was so much more than religion involved.
Don't talk about Margaret Thatcher in Northern Ireland. They despise her. She claimed there was no war during the Troubles. Why did the British government send army tanks in and armed men? Lots to unpack.
There is peace now. But the Brexit issue has definitely caused some flare-up.Weiterlesen