Intro; background: a poor recollective overview of Irish history

Aparrently somebody got in a boat from Scotland or crossed the then very small stream that seperated Ireland and Scotland (sounds mythical) sometime B.C. and that's who was here first. Well they settled in and created great edifices like Newgrange and so on and so on... I'm not too good on my history but rumour has it that despite the mass marketing of Celtic Ireland and despite the fact that both sides of my family can be traced back to Celtic names from Scythia the scientific DNA research is showing that the Celts didn't interbreed with the Irish but only inculturated them (this too sounds unlikely). So the Irish people adopted the Celtic culture and so Celtic Ireland was born. When exactly? Well you'll just have to consult one of the historians who argue about such stuff, see www.nuim.ie NUI Maynooth's Celtic studies Dept. for more detail ( Incidentally the Prof. has been arrested for protesting against the distruction of tara, www.tarawatch.com ). So then St.Patrick (one of two) came and converted us all to Catholicism about the fourth century. Then the vikings came and sacked all the monastries containing the saints and schollars which had grown up under Christianity, the the Normans came and then the British ( with the Pope's blessing). The British rulled Ireland for some 700 - 800 years and then in 1922( I think) gave us back 26 out of the 32 counties. thus creating division.

My memory of Irish history is so poor that I do not even know for sure if the chronology above or dates stated are acurrate.

Well, under British rule the Irish felt that this was not their country, that they hadn't power, that the "establishment", the system was not theirs. So it became a cultural value to be a dysfunctional idiot for the purpose of sabotaging the British system and for one's own personal game. The Irish became as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

It is my proposition that 85 years later when the majority of the country is in Irish rule we are still sabotaging our own system for the purpose of self gain. Some of you might extrapolate this further to show how the whole world is sabotaging the environment for the purpose of self gain. this is not what this site is about, if you are interested in the environment I suggest you check out www.cultivate.ie or www.treehugger.com . this blog will be mostly about Ireland and how dysfunctional it is.