https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/european-year-of-the-normans-reopens-debate-over-irish-identity
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Indeed, and more often than not the past is not what we thought it was. Interesting 'Who do you think you are' episode with Aisling Bea last night. Her family story remembered Irish nationalists and campaigners for the poor. She found that the mother of a revered nationalist of 1916 vintage had been a revered teacher of english - and thus an enemy of some of what nationalism stood for - while another ancestor had been a rich farmer targeted in peasant uprisings and whose family had done well out of the displacements caused by the great famine of 1844-46. My ancestry includes a goodly helping of corrupt judges and politicians.
Pay respect to history in its fullness rather than through the slit windows of ideology, nationalism or family pride and it becomes a good teacher of humility.
100%
My lady wife has taken to genealogy and my family is quite easy to find. I have a common 5 greats grandfather with the Webster who was an architect who built much of Kendal. He's the only member of our family with a wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Webster_(architect)
But because he's famous somebody traced him back, so inadvertently traced me back as well. My family can be traced back to Cockermouth in 1600.
What this actually means is that in four hundred and twenty five years my family have lived within forty five miles of Kendal. Rarely actually in Kendal, and never east of Kendal ;)
We were farm workers, miners, quarrymen, and occasionally rose to the giddy heights of stone masons.