Who do you think you are series 20

[Top-of-the-hill]

  As most of us on this website are history buffs to some degree or other, I think we are bound to be shocked by the ignorance of these mostly quite young people. I have a nasty feeling that my middle-aged children wouldn't know much about the Easter rising either!

[coombs]

David Tennant's WDYTYA from years ago was good to start with but then it became about The Ulster Covenant and then the rest of the episode seemed like it was researching history, not genealogy and I lost interest.

[KGarrad]

Surely, if you want to understand your ancestors, you have to place them in an historical context?
Why did they make certain decisions in life?

But I suppose that, to some, ignorance is bliss?!

[coombs]

Surely, if you want to understand your ancestors, you have to place them in an historical context?
Why did they make certain decisions in life?

But I suppose that, to some, ignorance is bliss?!

A tip for you, make friends on here, not foes.

[andrewalston]

It is not just on the eastern side of the Irish Sea where knowledge of Irish history is sketchy.

I recently came across someone on YouTube with a very strong Dublin accent claiming that it was the English who burned the Four Courts.

[Blue70]

Surely, if you want to understand your ancestors, you have to place them in an historical context?
Why did they make certain decisions in life?

But I suppose that, to some, ignorance is bliss?!

Working class Irish people in the 19th century were more interested in putting food on the table than the governance of the country. It was a case of new boss same as the old boss after independence. Painting postboxes green instead of red didn't address poverty and the unemployment situation in Ireland.


Blue

[california dreamin]

I found it rather sad that the descendants of the family which had spent so much of their time supporting the Irish cause and had built a college to help retain the Irish language moved to London in the 1950's and then had their children take elocution lessons to be less Irish! All within what... 40 years or so?

CD

[Blue70]

I found it rather sad that the descendants of the family which had spent so much of their time supporting the Irish cause and had built a college to help retain the Irish language moved to London in the 1950's and then had their children take elocution lessons to be less Irish! All within what... 40 years or so?

CD

Me too. Migration to Britain, USA etc continued through the 20th century so the problems of Ireland were more complex than being all the fault of British misrule. Ireland was a mostly rural country with less opportunities than in the cities of Britain and USA and investigating that can help us to understand why so many people emigrated.


Blue   

[coombs]

There was a lot of "pre 1840s famine" emigration from Ireland as well. Estimated that London had about 20'000 Irish people in 1800. I would say many of them in Westminster, St Giles and Bethnal Green.