Steve Heaven wrote ... > On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 13:12 +0000, Ian Cardinal wrote: > > > Like it or not, Britain did have a terrible colonial > > history in Ireland
To be pedantic, *England* had a terrible history in Ireland dating back to long before the colonial era. > And most of the rest of the world ! And by and large, the British Empire was a relatively benign influence (I emphasise the word 'relatively'). There were some pretty awful aspects - not least the treatment of the Australian indigenous peoples - but there were also a great many positives. Personally, there was much I find admirable about the British Empire in its heyday and I think it is a shame that we indigenous Brits are expected to constantly apologise for the Empire Bru
