r/ireland • u/Imaginary-Candy7216 • 22h ago
Christ On A Bike Tony Blair asked if nationalists would support England in World Cup
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/tony-blair-asked-if-nationalists-would-support-england-in-world-cup-EA4QUVYIGZFWFDZNZYA4K5V6G4/54
u/Mothersullivan 22h ago
What's the phrase? "I'd rather guide my father into my mother"......
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u/Markitron1684 8h ago
My go-to is ‘I’d rather watch my grandparent’s sex tape’.
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u/Otchy147 3h ago
There's probably a generation of people where that's an all too real possiblity so that couldn't use that
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u/LoverOfMalbec 12h ago
Its insane how the English see Ireland and "the Irish question". They literally haven't a clue from the top of their society to the bottom.
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u/ButterscotchSure6589 12h ago
He's Scottish.
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u/LoverOfMalbec 12h ago
I genuinely didnt know he was Scottish, but hate to be so crude in this instance, same difference.
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u/Confident_Reporter14 11h ago
He’s not really Scottish though. He wasn’t raised there and he’s almost certainly identifies as “British”.
He has more in common with Bojo than Sturgeon.
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u/ThatIsTheLonging 3h ago
He was partly raised in Scotland and had some of his education here (albeit at Fettes College, a weird private school that actually follows the English rather than the Scottish educational system), but yeah it's pretty clear he sees himself as more broadly British than having a specific Scottish identity.
(Saying that, though, his father and grandfather were Glaswegians, so I guess that makes him fairly Scottish whether he wants to be or not)
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u/the-1-that-got-away 17h ago
How could he even ask it lol
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u/TabhairDomAnAirgead 15h ago
Because a lot of the british are completely ignorant and uninformed about these sorts of things
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u/Ok_Bell8081 10h ago
Wasn't his granny from Donegal and he spent a lot of good childhood there? He couldn't be that ignorant of Irish issues.
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u/theeglitz Meath 13h ago
You'd hope someone from Scotland might have a bit of insight into this.
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u/Confident_Reporter14 11h ago
He’s not really Scottish though. He wasn’t raised there and he’s almost certainly identifies as “British”.
He has far more in common with Bojo than Sturgeon.
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u/Dublin-Boh 4h ago
To be fair, I have a few Dublin acquaintances who like to shout at Derry City fans that they’re ‘English’. And not even as a subversion of their status as predominantly nationalist. There are a fair few over here who aren’t clued up when it comes to the north.
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u/Callme-Sal 12h ago
The Welsh and the Scottish generally don’t support England in football tournaments, why on earth would the Irish?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with friendly rivalry between neighbouring countries in sports events. It happens the world over.
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u/OptiLED 7h ago edited 7h ago
The English players and team are absolutely fine —there are many very positive connections between English football in the broadest sense and Ireland — Jack Charlton for example has absolute legendary national treasure status here, but theres an element of England fans who often politicise soccer and see it like proxy war. It’s not just a fun day out shaking your giant inflatable shamrock equivalent… They go into ultra nationalism and it isn’t very cuddly or pleasant.
They still have a legacy of hooliganism, including that appalling 1990s incident in Lansdowne Road, and behaving abysmally abroad. It’s much more heavily loaded than just being about sport —and it’s a seriously stupid question, and was even more so back in that era.
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u/Dublin-Boh 3h ago
Yeah, I’m an Englishman by birth and like to support the current group but when we played each other at the Aviva, a couple of lads from my hometown attended and went full No Surrender, fuck the fenians, stop the boats, and it me so sad to see.
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u/Pleasant_Birthday_77 13h ago
Why are they so obsessed with that?
It actually makes it funnier that we don't.
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u/L3S1ng3 22h ago
"They will, ya."