The Cracked Looking Glass of a Servant

I read today with interest that Ireland and the United Kingdom must learn to become “subjects of our history, not its prisoners”, This from Prince Charles on the occasion of the first-ever visit by a member of the British royal family to the Irish Embassy in London last night.

Remember these? Probably not if you're British

But isn’t this just a polite way of saying “Yeah, yeah, Cromwell, the Potato Famine, Bloody Sunday, Innocent till proven Irish, can’t you just let it go already? Sheesh, get over it!”

We are prisoners of history but not in the way that Mr Saxe-Coburg-Gotha thinks. An old but apposite quote springs to mind: “Irish history is something the Irish would do well to forget and the English would do well to remember. “

Ireland is the prisoner of a history in which the villain of the piece has moved on with amnesiac oblivion and simply can’t understand what the fuss is about.

Britain is a prisoner of its signal failure to come to terms with its less than flattering role in the histories of a hundred exploited nations.

So Charlie may be right, we are prisoners, but let’s be clear, we are in very different jails.

Comments

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