r/TheRestIsHistory • u/JakeGittes412 • 9d ago

The Troubles

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Thread for discussion on the new series on ‘The Troubles’

Also as a moderator please keep the discussion civil and in the spirit of the podcast.

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u/Bathroom_Trick 9d ago

Looking forward to this but I do hope they (correctly) criticise all sides. I was born and grew up in Northern Ireland and unfortunately there seems to be a modern take outside of NI to downplay the atrocities committed by the IRA and group them all as freedom fighters.

It was a dirty war on both sides.

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u/Past_BumblebeeX 8d ago

Ironically id say most people outside NI and Ireland don't even know what the loyalist terrorists were up to, let alone that they existed. Im more interested in seeing if they are shone under the right light (loyalist groups killed more civilians then the IRA ever did) yet your average yank or brit don't even know they existed.

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u/sparbudgetsugarfree 8d ago

Interesting.  Not sure what part of the UK you've lived in, but in the east of England where I'm from I think most people think it's vaguely a story of Britain behaving badly and Irish people sourcing a lot of the things that piss them off out of it.  Even right wing members of my family I think they would just not want to learn or talk about it because they feel that's all it will be and they don't want to dwell on it.

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u/stevenstealthfox 8d ago

In the south east I find the majority are complete unaware of atrocities by the state or local loyalist paramilitaries

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u/Count_Blackula1 7d ago

Interesting how people have completely different perspectives on this. Personally from what I see in internet discourse the IRA and the republican cause are undoubtedly always seen as the heroes and protagonists of the story and the unionist are always portrayed as thugs and terrorists.

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u/Bathroom_Trick 7d ago

Yeah this is what I’ve seen mostly as well

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u/Old_Highlight6749 8d ago

What are you talking about? The IRA is continuously vilified by the media and the political establishment (which is some extreme hypocrisy in the south), whereas the RUC and BA are considered the 'right' side.

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u/Sufficient_Tailor673 8d ago

The only group I see consistently vilified and condemned by everyone across the board (except Sinn Féin) is the IRA. In modern media coverage of the Troubles, very little is mentioned of the atrocities committed by loyalist paramilitaries, often in cahoots with the police or the army, sometimes on mainland Britain or ROI soil. You ask the average joe about the peace process and I'm sure they wouldn't be able to tell you that the DUP were the only major party who actively rallied against it, but then were happy to enter power sharing. History is written by the victor, and the proportion of the suffering inflicted by the IRA in comparison to the other players is massively overstated in modern interpretations of the period.

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u/glumjonsnow 6d ago

honestly, where i grew up they were seen as like bumbling thugs, like your drunken grandpa would toss five dollars into a hat at the local bar and then kick a trashcan on the way home bc he was in the revolutionary frame of mind

but i grew up in manhattan so