1916 celebration

sceptre

Snickers Man wrote:

But if you'rea Mod and you think it deserves a new thread, go ahead.

There's a history board if you feel the urge. Can't hurt.

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

Why do we celebrate 1916 when a small revolt of a secret organisation managed to kill and mame a load of fellow Dubliners?

Really!!! Could you pass on the names of the books you read this in......as you seem to be reading off a different text alltogether. Was it not the brits who brought the gunboats up the liffey and started shelliing the centre of Dublin???? I've never heard of Pearse bringing artillery in with him to the GPO.....and the pictures of O'Connell St. when it was all over definitely show that the extensive damage was done by more than rifles....

The Sunday Indo is nothing more than a rag. Spends more resources on telling tit-tat and showing pics from parties and the like around Dublin...attended by celebrity solicitors and other ponces who've never worked a day in their life and would go to the opening of an envelope if there was free champagne at it. They have an editor who has to get his own pic into ever feature he does, writers who despise all things Irish and who have been ordered (allthough i'm sure they don't mind) to call their owner 'Sir' every time they print his name.......who are the 100,000+ people who buy this Sunday version of 'Hello'!!!!

Snickers Man

Wicknight wrote:

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't really know what you are talking about?

Who wishes to "paint" Ireland as a willing participant in WWI (I am not even sure I understand what you even mean with that).

Well I suggest you keep an eye on the regular rantings of the likes of Kevin Myers (Irish Times/Irishman's diary column) Ruth Dudley Edwards (Sindo) Eoghan Harris (ditto) the letters pages of the Irish Times. Especially around the times of anniversaries to do with the wars.

This year, as well as being the 90th anniversary of 1916 is also the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. It's the one in which the Unionists think the UVF (aka the 16th Ulster Division) were the only British soldiers to get massacred in droves. Expect a lot of dewey-eyed reminiscing about how the brave boys of the Dublin Fusiliers fearlessly went to their deaths for the defence of small nations.

wicknight wrote:

And I am pretty sure the "renewed" interest in 1916 has very little to do with a repainting of Ireland role in WWI.

Well I disagree with you on that point. Over the past number of years there has been a lot of revision of the role of Irish soldiers in the British army. Including the erection of a memorial to their memory in Messines, Belgium in the form of an ancient Irish round tower. President McAleese and the Queen attended its opening.

I have no problem with that at all. What I object to is the line taken by some commentators (see examples above) which appears to suggest that loyal service to the crown and Empire was the motivator of that generation of Irishmen whereas the real truth was a lot more subtle than that.

And it had parallels with the situation in india around the same time.

sceptre wrote:

Something about posting inthe history section

Sorry if you think all this belongs in the history section but the original post was about the relevance on politics today of the manner in which certain parts of our history are percevied.

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

Really!!! Could you pass on the names of the books you read this in......as you seem to be reading off a different text alltogether.

So you are telling me a large number of innocent Dubliners were not killed in the Easter Rising. Wow, thats great. You are saying there were not a least 420 reports of innocents killed. In fact that is brilliant!

I had no idea that for so long the offical statistics and the people living in Dublin at the time had been lying and in fact no one got killed at all. That is just super. Well since no civilians died in the Easter Rising I whole heartly withdraw any objects I had to it. I had no idea it was such a peaceful rebellion. Silly me.

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

So you are telling me a large number of innocent Dubliners were not killed in the Easter Rising. Wow, thats great. You are saying there were not a least 420 reports of innocents killed. In fact that is brilliant!

I had no idea that for so long the offical statistics and the people living in Dublin at the time had been lying and in fact no one got killed at all. That is just super. Well since no civilians died in the Easter Rising I whole heartly withdraw any objects I had to it. I had no idea it was such a peaceful rebellion. Silly me.

your right....'silly me'. If your just going to take one piece of what i said and twist it to suit your argument, then thats quiet sad. I clearly said in my piece:

Delboy05 wrote:

Was it not the brits who brought the gunboats up the liffey and started shelliing the centre of Dublin

.
Indiscriminate shelling by artillery on a large urban area clearly caused more damge and in my opinion took far more lifes than the men in the GPO,Bolands Mills etc armed with rifles ever possibly could.....

Flex

Wicknight wrote:

Please quote the post where I said Bloody Sunday was an acceptable military action??

Jesus christ one says "I'm not happy about celebrating Easter 1916" and you are labelled a unpatriotic west-brit British army supporter.

This is ridiculious.

You didnt, I was using it as an example. Do you consider the British army a terrorist organisation because going y the point that its the actions that determine if a group are terrorists or not, the British army should be regarded as terrorists, no?

Furthermore I didnt/havnt called you an 'unpatriotic West Brit'.

Freelancer

Delboy05 wrote:

Indiscriminate shelling by artillery on a large urban area clearly caused more damge and in my opinion took far more lifes than the men in the GPO,Bolands Mills etc armed with rifles ever possibly could.....

What was the british alternative? Storm the building in hand to hand combat at a great loss of life to British troops?

The general made the correct tatical decision.

Yes it's entirely the "brits" fault. How dare anyone try to blame the rebels for their part in this, by holding up in heavily defended positioned in the middle of heavily populated urban areas!

The rebels played a part in the shelling, because of their tactics, they forced the British to begin shelling, and therefore must shoulder some of the responsibility for the loss of life and damage to the people they were trying to "liberate".

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

Indiscriminate shelling by artillery on a large urban area clearly caused more damge and in my opinion took far more lifes than the men in the GPO,Bolands Mills etc armed with rifles ever possibly could.....

And...?

That makes it ok then does it? The British killed those people so it doesn't matter? I am sure they all were more than happy to give up their lives for the "cause" :rolleyes:

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

And...?

That makes it ok then does it? The British killed those people so it doesn't matter? I am sure they all were more than happy to give up their lives for the "cause" :rolleyes:

Never did I say it was ok.....you seem to be blaming all the deaths on Pearse and the volunteers. Loss of civilian life is always regrettable in war - most civilians were probably too afraid to flee their homes for fear of looting and thus stayed in the line of fire. But the british artillery killed far more people than the volunteers did - i'm just pointing this out.
The men in the GPO could have been starved out, negoatiated with, firebombed etc. There were many alternatives. But the easiest option was to bomb the bejaysus out of them from a safe distance with no regard to civilan losses.

As for Freelancers point about the brits making the right decision to shell !!!!!I take it so that you support the US army's methods in Fallujah where they practically levelled the town to get at the terrorists within, regardless of the loss to civilian life in order to save the lifes of their own troops, a la 1916.

Freelancer

Delboy05 wrote:

As for Freelancers point about the brits making the right decision to shell !!!!!I take it so that you support the US army's methods in Fallujah where they practically levelled the town to get at the terrorists within, regardless of the loss to civilian life in order to save the lifes of their own troops, a la 1916.

Oh look whataboutery. Never try and look at the rebels position and whether they were doing the right thing or the wrong, just blame the brits

I never said it was the "right" decision I said "correct tactical decision", your refusal to look at both sides of the picture is depressingly normal for the average republican.

Snickers Man

Freelancer wrote:

What was the british alternative? Storm the building in hand to hand combat at a great loss of life to British troops?

The general made the correct tatical decision.

Maybe. But given the way attitudes to the rebels changed so quickly after the rising, maybe he made the wrong strategic one.

Still, as the great Marx once said. "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms"

That's Groucho, not Karl.

Freelancer

Snickers Man wrote:

Maybe. But given the way attitudes to the rebels changed so quickly after the rising, maybe he made the wrong strategic one.

Fine but the issue under debate is who caused the most casualties, not the overall impact of the bombing, and again the rebels need to shoulder some responsibility for the casualties caused by the shelling.

Still, as the great Marx once said. "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms"

That's Groucho, not Karl.

The exact quote is Miltary Intelligence is an Oxymoron, and its orgin is unknown.

Zombrex

Flex wrote:

Do you consider the British army a terrorist organisation

No, because they aren't a terrorist organisation, they are an army. But why does it matter?

That doesn't mean that they cannot (and haven't in the past) use terrorist tactics. It doesn't mean they cannot use equally immoral tactics that don't fall into the category of terrorism. I really wish people would get out of this habit of thinking "terrorist" means "bad thing"

Terrorism is a certain form of military tactic. It is nearly exclusively used by small guerrella organisation that cannot fight on equal terms with their enemy. The British Army rearly use terrorism, not necessarily because they are any more moral, but simply because most of the time they don't need to.

You can be more immoral than a terrorist organisation such as Al Queda and still not use terrorism. The Nazi's rounding up Jews and sending them to death camps wasn't terrorism, that doesn't mean it was any better than Al Queda crashing a plane into the world trade centre.

I have no idea why people get so fixated on trying to prove the British Army use terrorism

Saying that the Irish rebels were a terrorists organisation and the British Army aren't is not saying that the British Army were any better or worse than the Irish Rebels.

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

Never did I say it was ok.....you seem to be blaming all the deaths on Pearse and the volunteers.

I am saying the Rising caused the deaths of at least 420 civilians. And that if the Rising did not happen they would probably be a live. Do you disagree?

Who actually killed them is rather irrelevant to that fact. Being shot by a Rebel bullet or being shot by a British bullet isn't going to make you any less dead.

Delboy05 wrote:

Loss of civilian life is always regrettable in war

I'm sure thats what the British said when they started shelling the city...

Delboy05 wrote:

But the easiest option was to bomb the bejaysus out of them from a safe distance with no regard to civilan losses.

Very true. And as Freelancer pointed out, tactically it was the best option for the British army.

Or put it another way you would have to be mind boggling stupid not to think the British army would start shelling you once you started the Rising and that innocent people would be killed.

But then Connolly (being the little socialist that he was) insisted that no capitialist government would shell their own property. Boy was he wrong. And because he was wrong civilians died.

You cannot start an uprising in a heavily populated urban centre and then take no responsibility when people get killed, by you or the army. A (very) large part of the responsibility for the death of those civlians, even the ones killed by the British, lie in the hands of the Rebels.

The British are also equally to blame, but then I don't remember anyone calling for a national holiday to celebrate what the British did during the Rising.

Zombrex

Snickers Man wrote:

Maybe. But given the way attitudes to the rebels changed so quickly after the rising, maybe he made the wrong strategic one.

Well that had more to do with the executions (very bad decision on the part of the Army) than the shelling.

The vast majority of Dubliners blamed the rebels for the destruction caused by the Rising, even the bits done by the British.

It makes sense, if a man holds up a bank and it ends up in a massive shoot out with police (like at the end of the movie Heat) most people are going to blame the bank robber for the shoot out, not the police.

I have no problem saying that the British response was excessive, but as Freelancer said what did people seriously expect them to do.

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

I have no problem saying that the British response was excessive, but as Freelancer said what did people seriously expect them to do.

Well they could have gone back to their own country, apologised for the hundreds of thousands of people they had killed,maimed,starved and tortured and let us get on with running our country and catching up with the rest of the industrialised western world

wicknight wrote:

I am saying the Rising caused the deaths of at least 420 civilians. And that if the Rising did not happen they would probably be a live. Do you disagree?

And if we all joined hands and sang there'd be world peace!!!! At the end of the day, the british were a foreign force in our country. What the 1916 men and women did was no different to what people have done all over the world from day 1. They did what they thought was right at that time.....it's very hard for us to judge and pass verdict through 21st century morals and viewpoints.
I am no shinner, nor a supporter of the 'ra. I'm an irish citizen who is proud of his country, glad that we have our own identity in the world and appreciative of the sacrifices that many men and women made in times past so that we could obtain what we have today, independent of any foreign power....
Yes it's sad that people died in the rising, but many,many,many more died at the hands of an occupying force in this country for centuries....should we start looking through the archives trying to pick out each one to apportion blame and seek apologies.....

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

Well they could have gone back to their own country, apologised for the hundreds of thousands of people they had killed,maimed,starved and tortured and let us get on with running our country and catching up with the rest of the industrialised western world

They did didn't they?

Delboy05 wrote:

At the end of the day, the british were a foreign force in our country.

At the end of the day the British were the only force in our country. They were the only legitimate army and the only legitimate police force. People might not have like that very much, but then I don't think they liked the Rebels running into the city centre with guns.

You only have to look at the execution of looters during the Rising by the Rebel forces to see the problems that causes if you just want to suddenly "take over"

Delboy05 wrote:

They did what they thought was right at that time.....it's very hard for us to judge and pass verdict through 21st century morals and viewpoints.

I can judge and pass verdict on 19th, 20th and 21st morals and view points if you like.

As i've said, just because you believe your cause is just that doesn't excuse your actions. That applies as much to the rebels in Easter 1916 as it does to Palestinian suicide bombers or the German Army in 1942. They all believed their cause was just.

Delboy05 wrote:

I'm an irish citizen who is proud of his country, glad that we have our own identity in the world and appreciative of the sacrifices that many men and women made in times past so that we could obtain what we have today, independent of any foreign power....

Great, so you would have no problem not celebrating the Rising considering it didn't contribute anything to that ...

Delboy05 wrote:

Yes it's sad that people died in the rising, but many,many,many more died at the hands of an occupying force in this country for centuries....

So whats the difference??

Why is it justifed when the Rebels shoot looters on Grafton St. to maintain law and order, but not justified when the RIC "oppress" Irish people?

The people of Ireland didn't ask the Rebels to start shooting up Dublin city centre any more than they asked the British Army to start shelling the city.

Delboy05 wrote:

should we start looking through the archives trying to pick out each one to apportion blame and seek apologies.....

Maybe we could start by not celebrating them ... just an idea. :rolleyes:

Snickers Man

Freelancer wrote:

The exact quote is Miltary Intelligence is an Oxymoron, and its orgin is unknown.

Well when Groucho said it he said 'contradiction in terms' which is synonymous with oxymoron.

His version is more memorable. Obviously. As he is remembered and the coiner of the other version is lost to anonymity.

Flex

Wicknight wrote:

No, because they aren't a terrorist organisation, they are an army. But why does it matter?

That doesn't mean that they cannot (and haven't in the past) use terrorist tactics. It doesn't mean they cannot use equally immoral tactics that don't fall into the category of terrorism. I really wish people would get out of this habit of thinking "terrorist" means "bad thing"

Terrorism is a certain form of military tactic. It is nearly exclusively used by small guerrella organisation that cannot fight on equal terms with their enemy. The British Army rearly use terrorism, not necessarily because they are any more moral, but simply because most of the time they don't need to.

You can be more immoral than a terrorist organisation such as Al Queda and still not use terrorism. The Nazi's rounding up Jews and sending them to death camps wasn't terrorism, that doesn't mean it was any better than Al Queda crashing a plane into the world trade centre.

I have no idea why people get so fixated on trying to prove the British Army use terrorism

Saying that the Irish rebels were a terrorists organisation and the British Army aren't is not saying that the British Army were any better or worse than the Irish Rebels.

OK, thanks for clearin that up

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

Great, so you would have no problem not celebrating the Rising considering it didn't contribute anything to that ...

Thats your opinion. I personally believe that without the rising we would'nt have the free independent country that we have today...the rising gave new life to the push to re-establish an independent nation (granted the job sill is'nt filly complete). And I will be forever greatful to Perase et al. for what they did....

Freelancer

Delboy05 wrote:

Well they could have gone back to their own country, apologised for the hundreds of thousands of people they had killed,maimed,starved and tortured and let us get on with running our country and catching up with the rest of the industrialised western world

What they'd been in charge here for a few hundred years and plenty of people were happy with this status, so what, some nitwit in a silly hat takes over the GPO and thats it "the jig is up".

I notice that you've not actually tried to refute the point that Pearse and the rebels must shoulder some responsibilty for the deaths cause by the Helga, so I assume you admit thats a valid point.

And if we all joined hands and sang there'd be world peace!!!!

Wow glib scarcasm day.

At the end of the day, the british were a foreign force in our country.

A foreign force in a country they'd been in for 600 years, it only takes a generation to naturalise in most countries, but hey, why nitpick.

Yes it's sad that people died in the rising, but many,many,many more died at the hands of an occupying force in this country for centuries....should we start looking through the archives trying to pick out each one to apportion blame and seek apologies.....

Again another fine piece of whataboutere

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

Thats your opinion. I personally believe that without the rising we would'nt have the free independent country that we have today...the rising gave new life to the push to re-establish an independent nation (granted the job sill is'nt filly complete). And I will be forever greatful to Perase et al. for what they did....

Well like you said, "your opinion." The historical facts though tell a different story though.

But if people want to believe a myth rather than what actually happened, not much arguing is going to change that

Flex

Wicknight wrote:

Well like you said, "your opinion." The historical facts though tell a different story though.

But if people want to believe a myth rather than what actually happened, not much arguing is going to change that

If there was no rising, do you think there wouldve been a War of Independence though? the rising may have been a defeat, but it was also the catalyst that set in motion the events that led to the creation fo the Free State.

Freelancer

Flex wrote:

If there was no rising, do you think there wouldve been a War of Independence though? the rising may have been a defeat, but it was also the catalyst that set in motion the events that led to the creation fo the Free State.

And if there hadn't been a rising we probably would have gotten home rule and independence true independence would have been won in maybe the same time frame, that it did occur.

Zombrex

Flex wrote:

If there was no rising, do you think there wouldve been a War of Independence though? the rising may have been a defeat, but it was also the catalyst that set in motion the events that led to the creation fo the Free State.

But thats the point, no it wasn't

The catalyst that lead to the increase of popularity of Sinn Fein and eventually the first Dail was the executions of the rebels by the British, the blaming of the rising on Sinn Fein by the Army, the successfull inflatration of Sinn Fein by other Republicans, and most importantly the threat of conscription in 1918. All happened after the Rising. None of them were caused directly by the Rising. All of them were caused by actions of other people after the rising.

The Rising was a military and political disaster right up to the point where the rebels were executed. If the men had not been executed it would still have been a military and political disaster. Therefore you cannot say that anything the rebels did was a cataylast for the Free State.

Nothing the rebels actually did contributed to the Free State, at all.

Unless you count getting executed as something you do

Celebrating the Rising is like thanking Ben Dunne for starting the tribunals into political corruption...

Flex

Wicknight wrote:

But thats the point, no it wasn't

The catalyst that lead to the increase of popularity of Sinn Fein and eventually the first Dail was the executions of the rebels by the British, the blaming of the rising on Sinn Fein by the Army, the successfull inflatration of Sinn Fein by other Republicans, and most importantly the threat of conscription in 1918. All happened after the Rising. None of them were caused directly by the Rising. All of them were caused by actions of other people after the rising.

The Rising was a military and political disaster right up to the point where the rebels were executed. If the men had not been executed it would still have been a military and political disaster. Therefore you cannot say that anything the rebels did was a cataylast for the Free State.

Nothing the rebels actually did contributed to the Free State, at all.

Unless you count getting executed as something you do

Celebrating the Rising is like thanking Ben Dunne and his cocaine habit for starting the tribunals into political corruption...

But thats the point Im tryin to make. If there was no rising there wouldve been no executions, no rise of Sinn Fein (and without Sinn Fein to oppose or be an alternative to the HR party the conscription crisis wouldnt of made a difference because people wouldve had no alternative to the HR party) and so on........ Everything that led to the creation of the Free State in 1921 was a result of the rising. If there was no rising we wouldve just drifted along until Home Rule was introduced and after that who knows what our history would be like.

Delboy05

Freelancer wrote:

And if there hadn't been a rising we probably would have gotten home rule and independence true independence would have been won in maybe the same time frame, that it did occur.

'Probably'....great word. At least we DO KNOW that due to the rising we did eventually gain independence.

Freelancer wrote:

A foreign force in a country they'd been in for 600 years, it only takes a generation to naturalise in most countries, but hey, why nitpick.

Freelancer wrote:

What they'd been in charge here for a few hundred years and plenty of people were happy with this status, so what, some nitwit in a silly hat takes over the GPO and thats it "the jig is up".

I don't know whether your Irish or not, living here or just passing through so I can't really throw this at you. But I'm always amazed at the amount of Irish people who'd seem happy to have anyone in charge of us as long as it's not the irish themselves, but especially if it's the english. Do you really hate your own race/country that much. You could always head off to the utopia that is england if you hanker after it so much.
Ireland has as much right as any other nation on this earth to govern itself and to this end, it's people have a right to do whatever is necesarry to achieve that. If the brits were here for a thousand years,it makes no difference in my eyes....this was not their island to control.
You say plenty of people were happy with the brits in charge - well i'd be fairly certain if a referendum had been held throught the country a large majority would have said they were'nt happy - but that was never going to happen was it. Because we did'nt have a true democracy; the people were only allowed vote for what westminister decided to give them. No matter how many wanted total independence, the english were'nt going to listen.

Zombrex

Flex wrote:

If there was no rising we wouldve just drifted along until Home Rule was introduced and after that who knows what our history would be like.

But thats not true. There could have been a rising and things turned out very very differently.

The events that significantly influenced the Free State happened after the Rising. They were a response to the rising, but then why pick the rising. Why not pick everything that happened the day before the rising. Or the day before. Or the day before

It would be like thanking my breakfeast for my promotion at work. My breakfeast lead to my promotion at work, but it wasn't the reason I got my promotion.

Freelancer

Delboy05 wrote:

'Probably'....great word. At least we DO KNOW that due to the rising we did eventually gain independence.

You're the one who started with the if's and but's

I don't know whether your Irish or not, living here or just passing through so I can't really throw this at you. But I'm always amazed at the amount of Irish people who'd seem happy to have anyone in charge of us as long as it's not the irish themselves, but especially if it's the english.

Hold the fúcking phone. Where exactly did I say any of the above? Point it out, underline it, put it in bold. I haven't, quit trying to put words into my mouth.

Do you really hate your own race/country that much. You could always head off to the utopia that is england if you hanker after it so much.

You're putting words into my mouth, words I've never said and nothing I've said suggests that I hate ireland. A contemptable piece of lying by your good self.

Ireland has as much right as any other nation on this earth to govern itself and to this end, it's people have a right to do whatever is necesarry to achieve that. If the brits were here for a thousand years,it makes no difference in my eyes....this was not their island to control.

And who's is it? only the celts? plenty of people born on this island for hundreds of years felt themselves British.

You say plenty of people were happy with the brits in charge - well i'd be fairly certain if a referendum had been held throught the country a large majority would have said they were'nt happy - but that was never going to happen was it. Because we did'nt have a true democracy; the people were only allowed vote for what westminister decided to give them. No matter how many wanted total independence, the english were'nt going to listen.

And thats just a piece of absurd fantasist supposition, you've nothing to support it with.

In fact you've nothing to support any of your arguments and are reduced to putting words into my mouth to try and make a point.

Zombrex

Delboy05 wrote:

But I'm always amazed at the amount of Irish people who'd seem happy to have anyone in charge of us as long as it's not the irish themselves, but especially if it's the english.

Thats a rather pathetic post in my mind. Seriously, is that the best you can do.

You've lost the argument so you start into personal insults and calling anyone who doesn't agree with you unpatriotic and hating their country.

Delboy05 wrote:

No matter how many wanted total independence, the english were'nt going to listen.

Your grasp on history is about as impressive as your debating skills.

The "English" were listening. They had been listening for the previous 50 years.