#northern irish history

[khaperai]

IRA checkpoint during the 70s

[illogarithmil]

Ranking the various covers of Northern Ireland: A Political Directory whilst I citation-hunt for funsies

1980: Desperate for attention. Fails to be accurate or aesthetically pleasing. Please. I'm begging. Move the image down. 2/10

1989: bland, text background overwhelms the image, manages to misrepresent the political situation before page one. Who drew that chessboard? At least there's an image I guess. 4/10

1999: A bit boring and over-important, but a nice enough design. Not ashamed to own this version. 5/10

1994: Stark, confrontational, it knows you know the Troubles exist. No particular design genius, but a big improvement. 7/10

1983: Inspired, genuinely aesthetically pleasing, Schwitters meets postwar commercial graphic design. 9/10

[valkyries-things]

DR. ROSEMARY COOGAN // ASTROPHYSICIST

“She is an astrophysicist and UK astronaut from Northern Ireland. Her research considers galaxy evolution and space-based telescopes. She is part of ESA's European Astronaut Corps.”

[illogarithmil]

Also just the unsubtle racism of it all. "Why would people in a white first-world country doooo this?" The same logic is never applied when talking about intercommunal violence perceived as having religio-ethnic motivations* outside "the west". Or indeed when an Islamist (or somebody they've arbitrarily decided is an Islamist sometimes) kills someone in Britain. Then the sectarian violence makes perfect sense to them - they'll still condemn it, but it fits neatly into their underlying worldview. The lines around "bad religion" can be clearly seen, and the deeper reasons that might explain both incidences, that might make them interrogate what circumstances mean they do not need to fear the same sort of violence, can be discarded.

*"perceived as" because there's some dispute about applying that term to the Troubles and the ways it gets used elsewhere in the world can be pretty wack from what my global historian associates tell me

British people who act like they're superior to northern irish people vis a vis sectarian violence piss me off SO bad because they really invented a type of bigotry and killed each other over it for hundreds of years and then suddenly decided that wait actually if you do that it's due to natural moral weakness or whatever the fuck

[vox-anglosphere]

Dunluce Castle has the most precarious perch of any castle in Ireland

[norman-couple]

Female IRA fighter during the height of the troubles.

[luimnigh]

The charitable interpretation of the law passed in the British Parliament today, an amnesty for all crimes committed by both paramilitary groups and British soldiers over the course of the Troubles, is this:

It is perfectly fine for British soldiers to murder innocent civilians, citizens of the United Kingdom. They will not be investigated for it. They will be given amnesty. They will face no justice.

That is the charitable interpretation. That is giving them the benefit of the doubt.

That is assuming they see the people they murdered as fellow British, and not something other and lesser than British. That this is a rule for all British citizens, and not an exception made for a certain group. That it's okay if members of that group died.

The charitable explanation is a chilling indictment of the British Government. The other explanation was British policy for eight hundred years.

I kinda hoped it had stopped being British Policy.

[awetistic-things]

the amount of people saying “why is ireland the only european country who‘s supporting palestine??” is gonna make me pass out

[mariemariemaria]

The first Belfast Pride, 1991

[the-first-man-is-a-cat]

Man prepares to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, which is said to give eloquence, 1964

[culpepers-wife]

Belfast Confetti

- Ciaran Carson (1990)

[khaperai]

IRA posters

[illogarithmil]

This'd be a good sequel to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, I think?

[revoltedstates]

"Stacking Turf in Donegal" (detail). William Alfred Green. National Museums NI.

[werewolfetone]

FACT: 99% of irish republican organisations attempting to obtain aid from some random foreign power with 0 investment in the situation stop getting them to send ships full of weapons and crucial leaders of the cause for the british navy to easily capture right before one finally succeeds 💯

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Tully Castle, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. May 2018.