Donal

No offence taken, if none intended.

I'm perhaps still a bit sensitive ... a couple of years ago, I nearly walked away from the Mudcat after a number of racist statements about "The English" which went unchallenged. As far as I recall, the most blatant of these was "We should always remember that The English are The Oppressor". One or two of my English friends quietly stopped coming to The Mudcat at the time, but I didn't ... and after a while the remarks seemed to.

I've been here a lot longer now, and I'm much more inclined to challenge statements like that - even if they're unintentionally insulting, they still give the impression that such things are acceptable.

I'm English, and I see no reason to be ashamed of what I was born (whatever it may have been). If people want to insult me, they can do it for something I can change, like the fact that I prefer cricket to football.

By the way, there are plenty of people I know of [Irish, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, West Indian ...] descent who I regard as perfectly proper English people. Is there something special about being "Irish"?

;-)
Ian