Remembering

Yesterday I had an interesting interaction with an English acquaintance. He started talking to me about it being November 11, Armistice Day, as though he expected that the date would mean a lot to me. I told him that Ireland did not directly take part in World War I so that the date does not have great significance for me. In Ireland there is no great remembrance tradition for World War I due to the fact that the events that happened in Ireland itself at that time had a far greater bearing on our history.
The acquaintance pointed to the Irish blood that was spilt on Flanders' fields and that November 11 was all about remembering those that gave their lives in World War I. It is not the first time that I have had this lecture because I was regularly scolded when I lived in the UK for not wearing a poppy.
As far as I am concerned people should be free to remember historical events if they wish but I do object to being told that I should remember something that does not mean a lot to me. Yes it was an awful war but Irish people have fought in countless wars historically including hundreds of thousands who fought on both sides in the American Civil War. In my own family a number of people fought for the British Army in World War II. Other people I know have been in the US Army, the French Foreign Legion and the Irish Army. I don't feel any compulsion to remember all of the Irish people that ever fought in any war.
Moreover, I don't see why British people want to push their version of history on to Irish people. We can all read history in our own ways and glorify our own nation's role but that does nothing to alter the present. From my viewpoint Ireland's experience as part of the UK was a disaster that led to a collapse in the country's population, the decline of our native language and to the partition of the country. I prefer to look forward rather than backwards with selective memory. It is not for nothing that they say "if the English could only remember, if the Irish could only forget".