Booing our players for taking a knee

They're not booing the players, and players should not take it personally. They're booing the gesture. There's a difference. 

Fair enough the players are not politicians, but the gesture started not as a gesture of solidarity with black players, but because of what happened to George Floyd. Tragic as it was, that was not a football, or sporting incident, so it's not for football or sports in general to deal with. If you want to show your support, go back to wearing tshirts and armbands. It's just as effective and nobody will boo that. 

We know the players views, we've got the message every game for the past 12 months, we see it on SSN every few minutes. When fans came back into grounds, booing the gesture was expected, so it should not be a surprise. Players can nicely package it as "human rights" all they want, but nobody boos human rights issues. It's booed because some fans see it as a political symbol linked to a political identity in the USA. It's a pre match ritual now that has to be seen to be done. The players have said that they won't stop doing it, so the booing itself won't stop until they do. The rest of Europe are well able to play games without needing to kneel down in the middle of the pitch to make a point, even those nations with serious racism issues and very questionable human rights records. 

As regards Ireland and Irish players, our culture and willingness to integrate with other races is much better than in the UK, while there's not really a major problem for the players relative to British ones. The obvious exception is McClean, but as he's white, nobody really cares about what he has to put up with, apart from us.