Did you guys learn the difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in schools?

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Dadda_Green@reddit

My standard response: “It was taught in schools. You just weren’t listening.”

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It may have been touched upon in discussions but it was not part of the History curriculum in secondary school, it can be dropped for GCSE too. Even so people may well have been listening to basically everything but not have perfect recall, try doing some maths papers now and see if you were "listening" judging by the result you get.

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Dadda_Green@reddit

It was definitely part of the geography curriculum both in the 90s and when I taught in the 2000s.

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mdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdm@reddit

This is a really shit response.

Curriculum change, bad teachers, a multitude of reasons as to why people might not have learnt it other than "you just werent listening"

In year 10 a bunch of us didnt realise we had coursework for GCSE Art. The teacher was retiring the year after and literally did not give a shit.

Depending on where you live, a primary school might really rush over some parts of the curriculum as they struggle to get kids in year 4 up to a year 1 english level.

Sometimes kids arent actually listening. Bunch of reasons as to why your answer is just not helpful.

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wedontneednoeduc@reddit

People seem to think that they have perfect recall about years ago in school despite knowing full well that kids zone out loads of stuff.

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spoo4brains@reddit

No, the news coverage and my own experiences of near misses with IRA bombs in London made me actually aware of it.

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huskydaisy@reddit

Not at all. Schooled in England in the 90s and early 00s. Didn't have a clue about any of it except a class trip being cancelled because of the London IRA bombings. Learned a lot about the Tudors, Eqyptians, WW2 and Penicillin though.

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pixeltash@reddit

We had the Romans, the plague, the great fire of London and the Victorians. In the Victorian part we learned about how the map was once pink and slavery

Oh and yes the Tudors, or at least "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived"

For history GCSE it was largely end of first world war, and causes of the second world war. Which also touched on the pink parts of the map.

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huskydaisy@reddit

Oh yeah, we did Romans in primary school but GSCE level was all Franz Ferdinand, etc. in the first year and history of medicine in the second. Couldn't have told ya shit about ireland.

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kaetror@reddit

I've got several friends who are northern/Irish so knew the difference pretty early, if not really understanding the why behind it.

It definitely wasn't part of any school curriculum here though.

But I know several adults who don't get the difference. We were talking the other day about Scottish money in England and I mentioned the stupidity of people who complain about England not taking Scottish notes, but screw their noses up at Northern Irish ones.

One of the group came out with "didn't think you could spend euros here!"

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pixeltash@reddit

I don't recall learning this sort of thing at school, but growing up in the 80s in a house with one TV that only had three channels (channel 4 was incredibly exciting) we picked up a lot by our parents watching the news.

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LeastInsurance8578@reddit

Anyone at a high school in the 70’s and 80’s would have to have lived in a cave or been illiterate not to know the difference, it wouldn’t necessarily have been taught at school but it was on the news and in the newspapers pretty much every day

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rich1068@reddit

Born in England in '68 and I can safely say that anything to do with Ireland (Northern or Republic) wasn't mentioned once. But as others have said, it was on the news every day. I think there's still a whole generation or two that still view Northern Ireland as an unknown country. I've been to every other part of the UK but never NI. It's quite bizarre.

As far as other UK capitals are concerned then I suppose it was a given that you'd know about Edinburgh and Cardiff. If some don't know about them and Belfast now then that's just down to sheer ignorance.

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Joanna1604@reddit

I went to a school in England. When I was 17, just before the Good Friday Agreement happened, we had a man from Northern Ireland visit to talk to us about the history of the Troubles and what was going on at that time.

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StuartHunt@reddit

Learnt it from the news, as I grew up in the 70s and 80s, so Norn Ireland was on the news every single day.

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imtiramisu2025@reddit

Yes but honestly didn't mean too much to me until I started working. Then I met my husband who is irish

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Short-Shopping3197@reddit

If they haven’t worked it out just from living here then they wouldn’t have remembered it from school either.

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DameKumquat@reddit

We were expected to know the four UK nations and the main countries of Western Europe in primary, round 1980. And then in y6-8 we had Current Events each week which was obviously the Troubles, the Middle East, and generally some horrible murder or child abuse case, teaching us not to get married as then it was legal for your husband to rape you and hit you...

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Tight-Principle-743@reddit

I had Irish parents, so I knew the difference growing up. You didn’t learn much about it in schools but in the 90’s but it was on the news pretty much every night.

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Mission_Beach_7098@reddit

I went to high school 89-93 and learnt virtually zero about Ireland. Lots of people saying kids don't pay attention but that wasn't me & geography was probably my favourite subject. I do remember one teacher telling us about the abuse of prisoners by the British but I suspect he was going off piste there. However I didn't really understand the wider political situation at the time and didn't learn about it until the first time I visited Ireland.

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Christian-Metal@reddit

Wait, is there a difference?

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CorpusCalossum@reddit

Steady....

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johnbobk@reddit

or he'll start a bloody war

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Tumeni1959@reddit

Geographically, yes.

Politically, no.

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Plastic_Length8618@reddit

I went to school in Wales, Scotland and England and I don’t recall being taught anything about how the UK came about or anything about its empire.

That might have brought up the possibility that its ruling class not always have acted entirely honourably.

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Remote_Development13@reddit

British history lessons are actually much more in tune with our colonial past than outsiders sometimes assume - I learnt about slavery, the colonisation of India and various other topics at school that might surprise people outside the UK

My parents are from the Bogside in Derry - one thing that was never covered for me personally at school (or later at A Level) was Irish history, partition, the Troubles etc. Weirdly, as a country we do seem ready to confront aspects of our colonial past, but Britain's relationship with Ireland remains a blind spot (or did - I should note that I finished my A Levels in 2010)

It's often said that the Irish are too distinct to be British, but too similar to be foreign. I do think that plays into things over here tbh. It's also probably easier to analyse settled issues like Indian independence from Britain than ackowledge that citizens in a constituent part of the UK were being killed by Britain right up to the end of the 20th century

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leah_amelia@reddit

Not directly but I love maps both now and as a kid. I learned over time that we colonised Ireland and later why there are (currently) two Irelands. I do feel like schools should teach more about why there's two Irelands

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wedontneednoeduc@reddit

This is a classic askuk post where people assume that their hobby horse has significance when it really doesn't. Sweeping generalisations also aren't true.

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GooseyDuckDuck@reddit

Yes, of course we did. Some people are idiots though.

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

I actually don't think we did cover it in school.

But at the same time I have never met a British person who doesn't at least broadly know the difference. Yeah they might not know if Bobby Sands or Bloody Sunday but they certainly know the difference between RoI and NI.

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StrangerThings1106@reddit

I was in school from late 90s to late 2000s. We were taught about the Good Friday Agreement in high school English Literature class as I believe it was a topic in a story or poem or something we were studying but that was it, wasn't in depth or anything and lasted about 5 minutes to get a better understanding of the text.

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SoggyWotsits@reddit

People take in some subjects better than others. I found Geography boring, but history and science interesting. I believe we were taught about both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and their histories. I could tell you the basics, but I found medieval medicine much more interesting and could tell you much more about that.

There’s some information on the BBC Bitesize website which shows you the kinds of things that are covered. Whether it catches the attention of a room full of teenagers is another matter.

Someone who knows very little about Ireland might be able to tell you lots you don’t know about elsewhere or other topics.

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ResplendentBear@reddit

No, as someone living in England.

Although being moderately close to London and growing up in the 80s I kind of picked it up pretty quickly with the bombs and stuff. (Although when the loyalist paramilitaries started bombing stuff too it was at time hard to keep up as a child/teen.)

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OohRahMaki@reddit

Yeah, but for me it was taught in primary school (in the 00s). The difference between GB, UK, the individual nations etc. Gibraltar and overseas territories, commonwealth countries etc. Far too young and far too important to not revisit IMO.

Only if you did history at GCSE did Irish Independence and the troubles even get covered which is absolutely abysmal.

It might have changed now.

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Ok_Contract3027@reddit

It was not on the syllabus in the 80s. So no.

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love_in_october@reddit

I went to school in Northern Ireland. I guess we technically didn't learn the difference but it was kind of obvious.

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Kudosnotkang@reddit

It seems (genuinely) everyone was thought Northern Ireland and ‘Southern’ Ireland

No need to inspect how that came to be … “whistles in nonchalant British “

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fickle_tartan@reddit

Some Brits can barely even spell Britain, schools teaching things doesn't stop some people from being idiots.

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Particular_Camel_631@reddit

Didn’t need to learn the difference at school.

It was on the news every night.

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HotelPuzzleheaded654@reddit

Yes, some people don’t pay attention in school and are fundamentally incurious.

We now carry a device that has the answer to anything at the click of a button and people still know astonishingly so little.

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beeurd@reddit

Some Brits don't pay attention in school, tbh.

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