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When I was nine, my father was elected to the Irish parliament and joined the new government.\xa0 Not long after that, my history teacher, a man of the opposite political persuasion, was expounding on the Norman conquest of Ireland and the attempts of the local Irish clans to wage war against them\u2026.\u201dnot like the \u201cwage war\u201d we have with the current government\u201d he said, finding humor in a rather dull subject.\xa0 I, being an overly sensitive child, took this as a terrible insult to my father and promptly burst into tears, whereupon he sent me out into the hall for disturbing the peace.