h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Derry is a real conundrum. Protestants call it Londonderry, and Catholics call it Derry. It's official name is Derry City, due to the fact that Catholics are in the majority there. The politically correct name is Derry/Londonderry, and as a result it's called "Stroke City" by some wits due to the "/" in the middle of the name...

Interestingly there is a Londonderry and a Derry in New Hampshire - always gave me a bit of a laugh.

The marching season is still in full flow - only a very small number of Orange marches are deemed controverial and have been diverted away from Catholic areas. Most of them keep to their own areas, and they happen on a wearyingly regular basis throughout the summer. I was only ever at one Orange march in Bangor. It was nearly as petrifying as the time I went to see Northern Ireland play Lithuania in Windsor Park many years ago. Talk about an atmosphere full of menace...

Dick Spring was once called the Kerry Contraceptive on live telly. Poor guy. He was actually a fine politician...

According to Google, there are towns called 'Orange Walk' in Belize and Barbados. I'd *love* to see a Bajan orange walk.

FTQ *and* FTP!

Naughty, naughty!

>It was nearly as petrifying as the time I went to see Northern Ireland play Lithuania in Windsor Park many years ago. Talk about an atmosphere full of menace...<

Is there something in particular against Lithuanians, or are football fans all just nuts? I'm not a fan of any kind of sports, but I have seen how awful sports fanatics can be. The Lithuanians I've known have all seemed pretty nice, on the other hand.

All of this information is making my head spin. But it's fascinating! Did Edward make a joke that zoomed over my head?

Nah - nothing to do with Lithuanians - it was the only soccer match I ever went to in Windsor Park. Some of the NI supporters were, lets say, a tad more than passive-aggressive. It was a grim match and I was glad to be out of the place.

FTP and FTQ are common graffiti expressions in NI intended to annoy the other lot. "P" means Pope and "Q" means "Queen" - the "FT" bit you can probably figure out yourself!

The Proddy Dog graffiti reads 'FTP' - the pope.
The Catlick riposte is 'FTQ' - the queen.
Both of these are very common in Glasgow.

Then there was the story from a friend's wife...she was filling in a hospital admissions form and was momentarily nonplussed by one of the boxes. She was just about to write 'NO!' against it when the penny dropped. Over here, 'd.o.b.' can also mean 'Dirty Orange '

It's sometimes said that Scotland dosen't have racism - only bigotry (which is the term usually used for protestant/catholic animosity). Sadly, it's far from true. The same in Northern Ireland. Now that peace (of a sort) has broken out, attacks on the few black and chinese residents have increased massively. (There were never that many immigrants. Who'd have chosen to live there?). I don't think anyone has a particular grievance against Lithuanians. I imagine the tension was *amongst* the supporters. Interstingly, though - since the EU enlargement, there has been a lot of migration from eastern Europe, to Ireland, North and South. Britain and Ireland are (I think) the only countries to have abandoned restrictions from the start. The other EU countries are acting illegaly!

I was at university with a guy from Belfast called Levi.
'Are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?'

simulpost

"attacks on the few black and chinese residents have increased massively"

Right. A lovely state of affairs isn't it?

It's always struck me that many cultures can move on because they are allowed to forget the past. The US is a major trading partner with the Japanese, their sworn enemies of 60 years ago. The Vietnamese have no problems letting American tourists and businessmen into their country. Russia and Germany have by and large left the horrors of the second world war behind them. Britain and France deal with each other on relatively friendly terms despite being at each other's throats for centuries. Even the Serbs vote for Croatia during the Eurovision for crissake!

And then we have Northern Ireland. Every year and for months on end (particularly during the month of July), Protestants are given ample opportunities to remember what Catholics did to them and what they did to Catholics over 350 years ago. It's a kind of forced, culturally embedded sectarianism which is quite unmatched anywhere in the world. Every year, despite whatever political efforts or community advances are made in the interim, you have a fixed period every year where Protestants and Catholics stop taking and in some cases start fighting. It's right at the root of the problems in Northern Ireland.

About 2 weeks ago a young Catholic teenager was beaten to death by a group of Protestant teenagers. At least it caused outrage in both communities (with the aforesaid Dr. Paisley visiting the family of the deceased youth to comfort them) but it's really depressing also. You would hope that the kids coming up would have different attitudes from their parents but there is no sign of it at all in many working class areas. There's a link I read recently (I'll see if I can dig it out) about how Protestant kids and Catholic kids in Belfast distinguish each other by how they dress. Thoroughly, wretchedly depressing.

The story is in the Irish Times (you have to pay 2 euro to read it on the web). It's worth a look though. Here's the link if you are interested.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/newsfeatures/2006/0506/1682044631WK06BELFAST.html

And here's another (free) link if you want to get another perspective.

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=14197-qqqx=1.asp

In that case...has it been firmly establihed that the killing was sectarian? Or were the sects coincidental?

I'd be interested to know about the catholic/protestant distinguishing marks. There are a lot of shibboleths (literally!) in Northern Ireland. Gerry Anderson, who coined 'Stroke City' talked about how these could be a matter of life or death. You might be in a car at night, headed for the city, and encounter a roadblock manned by mysterious masked men with guns. You'd have a split second to work out whether you were headed for Derry or Londonderry. Aitch/Haitch is another one.

There was a Scottish play on a while back. A girl was bringing her boyfriend home to visit her bigoted father. He quizzed her about her surname to check whether it was identifiably Irish.
'Och...that could be anything...Will he be wanting fish for his dinner?'

And It's amusing that the two chief negotiators on either side were McGunness and Maginnis. The difference is *very* important!

Then there's the Glasgow pubs that sell Jamesons and those that don't.

And the obvious one: Rangers and Celtic jerseys.

Interestingly there is (or was) a "Liverpool Supporters Club" very prominent in Sandy Row in Belfast. Sandy Row is almost exclusively Loyalist/Protestant. And yet Liverpool FC has always been seen as a Catholic team...

Sounds pretty sectarian to me, that attack. Thanks for the links.

Quick question, and I apologize if it's a dumb one: what are some of the other factors involved in the loyalist/unionist hatred, besides religion and the sort of thing that transpired on Bloody Sunday?

Edward, I'm still reeling from that film... thank you and Woodpigeon both for taking the time to explain all of this stuff to me so clearly.

It's depressing and upsetting to me, this kind of hatred...

Liverpool...like I say...nobody there knows which team is which. I'm a tribal Liverpudlian by birth (but I'm not remotely interested in footie) but a Prod. My dad's friend was an Evertonian from Dublin.

The Irish team of choice is traditionally Man U, isn't it? Is that just down to Georgie Best?

Bloody Sunday didn't have so much to do with the Protestant vs Catholic animosity. It was more a Catholic vs British Army/Government thing. There was a civil rights march organised in Derry, and the British Army got a tip-off that elements within the IRA were going to use it to cause trouble. The British Army decided to get their retaliation in first by deploying a bunch of trigger-happy Paratroopers into the city, guns and live bullets at the ready. It didn't take long before all hell broke out.

It was a ready made cause celébre for the IRA - "See? Look how the British treat us? Sign up here...".

The IRA don't see themselves as anti-Protestant, more anti-British. (Although even then the distinction line is very hazy - the IRA carried out plenty of attacks against Protestant paramilitaries and suspected paramilitaries in their time, as well as innocent Protestant civilians ).

Lot's of Irish people support Liverpool. Hardly anyone supports Everton. Support for UK soccer teams is usually predicated on who is in the ascendant - Leeds in the seventies, Liverpool in the eighties and Man U in the 90's. Arsenal never really had much of a following though - not to mention Chelsea. The traditional teams with a big Irish support would be the 3 above, plus Glasgow Celtic.

>>Bloody Sunday didn't have so much to do with the Protestant vs Catholic animosity

Up to a point...although the civil rights movement was a reaction against anti-Catholic discrimination in employment, housing and education. But, yes, it was latched onto by the IRA who had a broader, revolutionary agenda.

And agreed the IRA were not specifically Catholic. There were one or two high-ranking Protestant volunteers. On the whole they were a more professional outfit than the loyalist paramilitaries. The provos tended to target the military and paramilitary targets (although their definition was often highly suspect). The protestant paramilitaries would shoot someone simply for being catholic.

Moving on to the INLA...the Mounbatten assasination is worth thinking about. (USAnian note: The Queen's cousin. His yacht was bombed when he was on holiday in the Republic). He, of course, was the figurehead nominated to replace the queen in the planned military coup in the 1970s. (I can picture PC going ). One of the motives for that coup was the army's perception that the British government was selling out over Northern Ireland (The Stormont Agreement, etc)...and some of the plotters are known to have been connected with the UDR and with the rogue military intelligence elements who were supporting the paramilitaries. But could the INLA have been so organised?

This is a shady area and I'd really like to know more about it. I wish somebody would write the book!

There were a couple of TV documentaries about Harold Wilson on recently. He told a couple of reporters about the coup. Apparently the army surrounded Heathrow with tanks at one point. They said it was a major anti-terrorist exercise. But they neglected to tell the PM it was going to happen.

Jeez - I never heard about that. Can you just imagine it? They would be planning a re-invasion of Ireland right about now in that case..

And of course, we all know that the CIA sank a British Leyland container ship in the Thames estuary...
(source: Spycatcher)

Jaysus knows how Wilson managed to keep us out of Vietnam. He should be remembered for that if nothing else. I wonder what they've got on Tony?