historicalbird:

j3fa:

lasiguanaba: thirstrani: no bro you really don’t not at fucking all stop

It appears absolutely no one realizes this character (assuming this story takes places during the time in which it was filmed) grew up during The Troubles of Northern Ireland.

You don’t if he’s Northern Irish. You don’t know if he’s Catholic. You don’t know if he grew up watching his people get murdered by Loyalist Protestants and British soldiers who carried heavy racial prejudice against Irish Catholics (hellooo, Bloody Sunday anyone?), who had for centuries been characterized as barbaric, racially inferior, lowly people who needed to be wiped out or converted. Attacks by the IRA, and therefore retaliation by the British, didn’t completely cease until 1998, I believe? This film came out in 2002.

You don’t know if he was an Irishman who grew up in England. Bomb attacks carried out by the IRA in England kindled misplaced aggression toward innocent Irish civilians living among the English population and Irish people were verbally and physically attacked and their businesses targeted. Perhaps similar to how ordinary Muslims bear the brunt of aggression after attacks by Muslim extremists…

You can still find yourself threatened and demeaned if you’re a Catholic in Northern Ireland or if you’re a Protestant in Ireland and some older dude in a pub in a smaller town straight up asks you if you’re Catholic or not and you’re afraid what’ll happen if you don’t lie about who you are.

You can still hear casual racism toward Irish people in everyday life and in publicly broadcast media in the UK.

You can still see and hear “Kill All Irish" and other pretty heavy anti-Irish sentiment among Loyalists in Northern Ireland who don’t consider themselves Irish at all.

Just because it now appears that the island of Ireland has been allowed to move on from war and their appearance and culture generally allows them to blend into and reap the benefits of the White European demographic doesn’t mean that this character does not have the background suitable to fully empathize with her. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, we just don’t know his story.

But I guess you’ve never been demeaned as a Paddy or a Taig so you wouldn’t understand what it feels like, would you?