Spindoc,

"I had seven AK47 bullet holes in my car after a short trip down the Falls Road in Belfast.... "

Are you blaming the IRA for those?
The Falls was solid Orange territory, maybe someone mistook you for a Catholic.

Just as an interesting aside, have a look at:
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Arsenal-8216-IRA-8217-firearms-8211-including-AK/story-26075910-detail/story.html
it was a queer lot of 'fish'!

Is Mise

The Falls Road is solidly Catholic. Shankill Road was the Orange heartland. The two were divided by a “peace wall”.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-11/barbara-miller-on-peace-walls/4745202

Spindoc

You do seem to have been particularly unfortunate in your exposure to the troubles, with three separate incidents. I lived in London in the 1980s and travelled to Belfast occasionally for work, but was never directly affected, apart from the odd bomb scare.

Rhian,

My blunder! Good job my old mates of Sinn Féin can't see that!!

Might have been a British Army/RUC patrol having a shot at him, I can't imagine the IRA firing at a car in the Falls.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/27/1265498/-The-slaves-that-time-forgot?detail=email contains info about English attitudes toward and treatment of the Irish. Neither were good.

Davidf,

An interesting read and thank you for bringing it up.

I first became aware of the Irish slaves in the West Indies back around 1958.
I was having a yarn to John Pollock, the then Secretary of the Irish National Association,in his office at the INA building in Devonshire St, Sydney.
He got a phone call from a ship's captain; he had just docked and a few of his crew were Irishmen and could the INA give them a bit of a welcome.
There was nothing social on for a few days till the Saturday night dance but John said to send them up to see him and he'd see them right as they only had a couple of days in port.
I stayed to do a bit of reading in the fine library that they then had and about half an hour later John called me to come and meet the Irish lads.
Imagine my surprise when I saw three young West Africans, tall good looking young men and as Irish as any of us as they were all Irish citizens by Birthright and had Irish passports.
I forget their names but they were fairly common Irish ones, we made them welcome and I took them to the nearest "Irish" pub and introduced them around and they made a hit with the lads.

Dear Is Mise,

I saw a movie a few years ago about a young Chinese boy. He wanted to leave China but hadn't decided where to go. He whirled a globe around and stuck a pin in it. It picked out Ireland. He studied Gaelic and flew to Ireland. In Dublin people looked blank when he tried to talk to them in Gaelic. He went into a bar and met an old man who could talk to him. One bartender said to the other, "I didn't know Murphy could talk Chinese." Anyhow Murphy told the young man that many in Galway speak Gaelic. The movie ends with the Chinese boy happily tending bar in Galway.

There have been many genocides. "Blood and Soil" by Ben Kiernan recounts a 2,400 year history of genocide. The English genocide of the Irish is included.