seeing a lot of "irish people as colonised and oppressed" vs "irish people as colonisers and oppressors" discourse on the tl today and the shocking answer is literally that both of those things can be, and are, true at the same time. those aren't mutually exclusive phenomenon and

ireland's historical and ongoing colonisation and oppression by the british does not mean that we are inherently incapable of participating in those same evils in other lands. to suggest as such is historical revisionism and it is highly disrespectful to the descendants

of those people who WERE oppressed by members of the irish diaspora in places like turtle island, puerto rico, etc once they had assimilated into whiteness and afforded the power that came with that. don't let your irish nationalism turn to into a white chauvinist.

we all know the difference btw nationalism from the perspective of an imperial/colonial power and that from the perspective of colinised lands fighting for self-determination but shockingly(!) that does not mean all irish nationalism is good lol. and when your form of nationalism

involves you talking over other colonised peoples' experiences of oppression at the hands of the irish diaspora who leveraged their whiteness over them, bc that doesn't align w your fantasy of the irish as eternal victims incapable of evil, you have very much crossed that line.

as always, 'how the irish became white' by noel ignatiev is a mandatory reading for these discussions and there is a (FREE!!) pdf available here: https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Noel-Ignatiev-How-the-Irish-Became-White-1995.pdf

and, as pointed out by @SpookyAnarchist, one really doesn't even need to look abroad to the diaspora to see examples of how we irish leverage our whiteness over racialised groups or even other groups of white people that we deem lesser.

one need only look to how despicably travellers, migrants etc are treated in this country TODAY to see irrefutable proof against the idea that bc ireland has been colonised it is now some utopia or safe haven free from racism and colonial paternalism. direct provision says hello.

if you noticed the several typos no you didn't