James McClean

Difference is that Sterling doesn't court abuse simply by the colour of his skin. If McClean was abused simply for being Irish you could consider it racism. What McClean does though is go out of his way to publicly induce offence through his words and actions which is entirely different from racial discrimination but he lacks the intellectual sophistication to comprehend this. 

I think he enjoys the attention and the adulation and credibility points it scores him back in Derry and in Republican Ireland. Maybe he has realised that his popularity with the Irish public and even how he is rated as a footballer increases proportionately to how much he runs his mouth off about his political views and sees this as a useful way to compensate for the decline of his performances on the pitch. 

Agreed. He’s got a valid issue here with the FA, but he comes off as being dismissive of Sterling’s struggles

That's not fully true though, or at least it wasn't originally. There's no doubt that McClean should give up social media, but this all  stems from him not wearing a poppy. The hysterical reaction to this by the media and by Sunderland AFC themselves is what led to the abuse.

The reaction, in Ireland and England, has probably emboldened his view, but I would be fairly certain that if the media(and Sunderland) had ignored his poppy stance, like they did with Matic, he would be getting far less abuse.

That is why there is some common ground between him and Sterling and makes his comments regarding Sterling even more churlish. It feels like they are fighting a similar battle against the same people, yet McClean comes across as more bitter at Sterling for having some success than the people who refuse to validate or accept his arguments.

So anyone who likes the Wolfe Tones is Pro IRA? 

My own experience is that a lot of people know little about it. That is, they know of the IRA and hate them, but many haven’t a notion why they were bombing England. I was shocked by how ignorant many were of it.

Anyway, that’s an aside! There is some truth in that, but it was certainly handled differently by the media. Given that the poppy has come to mean patriotism and not remembrance, to the point where British newsreaders receive death threats for not wearing one from about now, the fact that Matic’s decision went unheralded was about more than an ignorance of the Yugoslav war. 

As Brexit has shown us, there is still a lot of ignorance here for their neighbours. In my experience, there is little to no hatred of the Irish, but often very little knowledge, even with the cabinet!