Why do the Brits have such trouble owning up to the terrible things they did in Ireland?

That's just not true, and I think you do yourself a disservice if that's what you truly think we're taught here. Most ignorance about what the British did in Ireland is borne from general stupidity and nationalism rather than a systemic pro-imperial bias in our very left-leaning education system.

The history curriculum is very broad, especially at KS3 (Y7-9) and GCSE level which is where most formal history studies end. I spent half a year being taught about the triangle trade and transatlantic slavery, mostly from a British perspective (nothing about the Portuguese or Spanish, and a bit about the French in Haiti), and one of my four GCSE topics was the Troubles, alongside castles, the history of medicine and interwar Germany.

But the problem arises that Britain has interacted with so many parts of the world as an imperial power that it would be impossible to mention every nation or people the British state has oppressed, conquered or subjected in anything close to the detail they deserve. This is further compounded by the fact England and Scotland have an awful lot of very important domestic history which already isn't taught in schools as standard in favour of some very general overviews of ancient cultures and specific time periods like the Tudors. I wasn't even taught about the Wars of the Roses or the Glorious Revolution, for example, both seminal events in English history and essential in understanding the last five hundred years of the islands. If we can't fit these in, what hope is there for the Scramble for Africa, British rule in Ireland, or the Raj to make the cut?

Personally, I disagree with teaching history in school at most levels. It's too easy to politicise and is never going to be sufficiently detailed to be of any serious utility, especially for imperial nations like the UK and France. Philosophy is more important for all students, and essential to other studies in the humanities, so perhaps history should be introduced like law or politics at GCSE level rather than in primary school.

/r/ireland Thread Parent