Nigel Farage demonstrated staggering ignorance on Irish TV

I lived and worked in Dublin for three years just over a decade ago, and one subject you can’t get away from is Ireland’s ‘British issue’, writes David Harding

‘You haven’t got a clue’: RTE’s Claire Byrne challenges Nigel Farage over his knowledge of Ireland (RTE)

Nigel Farage appears to be many things, not just the brains behind the most disastrous policy idea in a generation. By going on ​​RTE and excruciatingly lecturing Ireland about its history and relationship with Britain, Farage can also be considered brave, foolish and ignorant.

For many Brits, their understanding of the “Irish issue” is truly limited – like many crimes of the Empire – and not half as knowledgeable as, say, well, the average Irish person.

For a man of Farage’s generation, it is undoubtedly shaped by the events of the Troubles, which makes his recent “up the Ra” mistake unfathomable. And that was before he took to Irish TV to talk about what form Irish independence should take, inaccurately comparing the relationship Dublin has now with Brussels to the one it had with colonial London.

I lived and worked in Dublin for three years just over a decade ago and one subject you can’t get away from is Ireland’s “British issue”. The Republic’s fight for independence from London is at the very heart of Irish life, referenced limitlessly and constantly.

In the same way that some use the Second World War as a political and cultural reference point for the UK, the hundreds of years of occupation of Ireland by Britain, the lives sacrificed, the famine, the struggle for independence (an ongoing issue for many) is everywhere in Ireland.

It was referenced daily. I was made aware of the crimes of Britain by friends, colleagues, strangers, the newspapers, and radio and TV programmes every single day. My (British) nationality was constantly mentioned in conversation as a nod towards historical events.

It was hardly ever done maliciously – there’s recognition of the difference between the individual and the state. Bizarrely, it made me feel uncomfortable ordering English mustard (which I love) in a restaurant, in case I sounded like the worst kind of coloniser.

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Ireland’s history of struggle is everywhere; in the bullet-marked central Dublin buildings, the IRA graveyards scattered across the country, the books, in rebel songs in pubs and in sport. It envelopes Ireland, it is inescapable. Whether that is healthy for Ireland is for the Irish to decide.

But for an Englishman to go on Irish TV and finger wag at Ireland about how to be an “independent, democratic nation” is ignorance of the highest order.

Yours,

David Harding

International editor