"We as a people have lived through the conflict"

In a way everyone on our Islands have lived through this conflict. I can remember the terror caused by the bombs in Birmingham when people were really scared, and the Manchester bomb which had such a profound effect on the city, to this day it's impossible to escape it's consequences. Of course our perspectives are different as I've no idea what it's like to live under occupation, but I know how shit scared people become when bombs go off in shopping precincts and pubs.

"Why do you, as someone from another country try to rewrite history."

Ignorance. Because no-one in the UK is taught what really has happened in Ireland under British occupation. People do not have a clue about the subject, only what they read in the press and see on the TV (and this is still appalling biased - BBC breakfast the other day featured an interview with Tim Collins, retired Colonel who is famous for his inspirational speech in which Collins' hatred of Republicans involved in the peace process was aired and went utterly unchallenged by the interviewer).

No-one is taught the history of the fight to establish Irish independence or the reasons for partition or any other aspect of the history of the struggle that might place the Troubles into any sort of context. The whole issue of the behaviour of the British Empire in countries it occupied is simply not discussed, end of story. Amritsar and Croke Park? No-one's ever heard of them and they probably couldn't tell you where they were. I'm reading a book on the English Civil War at the moment (which has an obvious bearing on the subject) and even that's not taught in schools as far as I'm aware (it wasn't when I at school anyway, all those years ago). In Britain we don't even know our own history let alone anyone else's.

I picked up a copy of Saoirse? at Claddagh in Dublin recently - this should be shown in every school in the country as a start. It would be good if we could all see the other point of view.

It's only a matter of time before a united Ireland, let's just hope we can get there without the thugs and men of violence on all sides wrecking the whole process.