1916 celebration

Delboy05

Wicknight wrote:

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

well another 20 years on top of that and you'd have included the famine period, and we all know hoe well the english 'listened' during that period. Home rule was nothing...westminister would have held the power on the really important national matters, oaths would still have to be sworn to a foreign king - we still would'nt have been a nation in a porper sense. To me Home Rule was like accepting yourself as being a region with britain....feck that.

Wicknight wrote:

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

why is that pathetic. It's a personal observation and 1 that I have found to be the case with a large amount of Irish people over the years.

Freelancer wrote:

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.

where did I get that from...well i read into your following quote:

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".

and took it to mean that you'd be one of those 'plenty of people' that would be happy if the english were still in charge. I don't think that was an unreasonable assumption to take from what you said.

and no it's " piece of absurd fantasist supposition, you've nothing to support it with"
to to state that a large majority of the irish people, if allowed vote on it, would have said yes to an independent Ireland in 1916. In the general election of 1918 Sinn Fein won 73 seats out of 105 and the Irish Nationalist party took another 6. Yes there was sentiment involved following 1916 which helped to increase the vote but the numbers are hugely impressive. And it is fair to say that a majority of people in their own native land want to see themselves goverened by themselves and not a foreign power.....if that was'nt the case, sure the Romans would be in charge of the world a long time ago!!!!

I joined this argument when it was being insinuated that the mend and women of 1916 had killed all the civilians in the rising. I pointed out it was the british artillery that destroyed the city and probably took most lives. The argument was then changed to 'well if the rebels had stayed in bed, no one would have died' (paraphrasing here by the way)......so i don't think i lost any argument...the goalposts were just moved when i pointed out holes in the theory.
I'll leave you to it......this is going no where. Some people will always want the brits back and in charge, it's some sort of inferiority complex. And we all know the brits would make such a good job of running this country - look what they've done to their own place....nice job. And to see how they handle the 'regions', look how well Scotland is doing!!!!! A read of kevin Myers article on Scotland from last weeks irish times is a must do for many advocates of the 'brits should never have been kicked out' brigade....

Freelancer

Delboy05 wrote:

where did I get that from...well i read into your following quote:

and...

and took it to mean that you'd be one of those 'plenty of people' that would be happy if the english were still in charge. I don't think that was an unreasonable assumption to take from what you said.

No you decided to infer I was a self loathing "west brit" and launched into a rather pathetic little rant at my character rather than make a point.

and no it's " piece of absurd fantasist supposition, you've nothing to support it with"
to to state that a large majority of the irish people, if allowed vote on it, would have said yes to an independent Ireland in 1916. In the general election of 1918 Sinn Fein won 73 seats out of 105 and the Irish Nationalist party took another 6. Yes there was sentiment involved following 1916

So you're admiting that the rising shaped the events and if it hadn't happened the poltical landscape, so your statistic is distorted, and not a fair and accurate one? Grand so.

I joined this argument when it was being insinuated that the mend and women of 1916 had killed all the civilians in the rising.

Who said that exactly? You do love putting words in peoples lives

I pointed out it was the british artillery that destroyed the city and probably took most lives. The argument was then changed to 'well if the rebels had stayed in bed, no one would have died' (paraphrasing here by the way)......so i don't think i lost any argument...the goalposts were just moved when i pointed out holes in the theory.

No you just took the ball away.

I'll leave you to it......this is going no where. Some people will always want the brits back and in charge, it's some sort of inferiority complex. And we all know the brits would make such a good job of running this country - look what they've done to their own place....nice job. And to see how they handle the 'regions', look how well Scotland is doing!!!!! A read of kevin Myers article on Scotland from last weeks irish times is a must do for many advocates of the 'brits should never have been kicked out' brigade....

Oh look more nasty unsubstantated insinuatations, good riddance, your parting shot is at the same level as the rest of your argument. You'll notice no one ever said "the brits should never been kicked out" just your rantings about a "foreign army" should be re examined......

ivan087

I was watching the prime time discussion on 1916 http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0209/primetime.html.

What I dont agree with is the military element of the celebration and I started thinking on the way 1916 should be celebrated.

Wouldnt it be better to have a month of celebrations of Ireland, which revolves around Easter Sunday and St.Patricks day. A month of culture, free concerts, debates, parades, clelebration of language, sports, etc. not a celebration of terrorism, death, sacrifice, etc.

We could have free concerts showing traditional Irish music and traditional ulster music. there could be drama groups acting out old irish folklore in temple bar. It could be something similar to the Dun Laoghaire festival of world culture. we could have public readings of famous irish writers. this could be a huge celebration that would attract the tourists and irish people. it would be great for ireland and for our culture. it could be inclusive, where the ulster traditions are welcomed (lambeg drums and all!!!).

1916 is just a political day. every political party has a different opinion on it. its dividing irish people. this is not the way we should celebrate our nation. st.patricks day is recognised as a day for all ireland - because its not political.

with a bit of imagination our politicans could come up with something better then a military march up to the GPO.

im stepping off my soap box now;)

Discussed to death in the Tonys west Brit Rag thread...

Merging this into that one for now

Snickers Man

Freelancer wrote:

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

Yes and those allegiances change and morph with the times to reflect differing interest groups. Fascinating isn't it that the staunchest republicans in the North at the end of the 18th Century were the great great great etc grandfathers of the staunchest Unionists at the end of the 20th.

But that doesn't change the fact that for centuries there was always a body of opinion in Ireland that demanded a separate government from Britain. These weren't always Republicans. The Jacobite case, for example was a Royalist one. Basically you protestant Brits can have whatever illegitimate king you want but we don't have to go along with you on it.

Terry

We're no longer bullied by bishops or impoverished by little Irelanders but, as a nation, we still have a few sacred cows hanging about the place whose right to life needs to be called into question. One such is the belief that Easter Rising of 1916 was a good thing.

yes it was a good thing.
it brought about the independence we would later achieve, whether people like to believe it or not.
it might not have been popular when it first happened, but, when the leaders of the revolution were executed, the people of Ireland finally came around and saw the british for what they truly were, brutal oppressors who had held the country hostage for 400 years. this was the turning point that turned popular opinion around and let to a free state. yes, it was. stop denying your past and frowning upon it. it happened and it is a glorious reason to celebrate. we were under the thumb of an oppressive regime and were treated like second class citizens. remember that these were the people who banned the use of the Irish language, took land away from its owners and gave it to people who agreed to follow the teachings of the church of england, exiled people who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed their family to a harsh climate on the other side of the world, turned their back on the country when potato blight threatened to wipe out the entire population (except for the land owners who took the other crops from the tenant farmers as rent for land that should have rightfully belonged to the farmers and sold it to britan in order to keep up the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. 1 million people died during the famine. it's akin to the german slaughter of jews during WW2. so a few people decide to fight back against these oppressors and 90 years on the ancestors of those they tried to help are complaining because they don't want to upset the brits by celebrating the anniversary of a battle against them.

This particular cow sickened a while back, and while it got the occasional nod from passers-by for old time's sake, increasingly, it was worshipped enthusiastically by only a few fundamentalists, who encouraged it to run amok.

i am no a fundamentalist. i merely want to remember those who bravely put their lives on the line to free my people from the tyranny of british rule.

They point out that in 1916 Ireland was a democracy, that Home Rule was on the statute book, that during a war in which 140,000 Irishmen served, back home a tiny conspiratorial cabal staged a revolt that caused about 450 deaths and 2,600 injuries (mainly to civilians), that in the subsequent war about 1,400 died and in the civil war around 2,000, and that these conspirators still inspire young men to kill.

Why, they ask, do we celebrate that?

ever ask yourself why 140,000 Irishmen went to war?
it wasn't out of love of all things british. no, it was in order to get some money so that they could feed their families. i know this because my grandfather was one of these men and he told me that all of the men he fought alongside were there for the same thing. they couldn't get a job in an oppressed country, so the only way to feed their families was to go to and fight in a war that had nothing to do with them.
these conspirators were fighting against a regime that oversaw the death or exile of millions of their countrymen. that is why they did what they did. better a few thousand die than many million more. ever wonder what would have happened if we were still part of the british empire during WW2? remember that britan declared war on germany and not the other way around. how many Irish men would have been sent to the slaughter had we still been under british rule? again, better a few thousand than many million.
and i'm sorry, but home rule just wasn't enough.
ooh. i have an idea. give the Irish home rule. we will still have them under our power and they could come in handy if we need a few hundred thousand expendible troops on the frontlines in this impending war with the kaiser.

Last weekend, President Mary McAleese, presumably at the behest of the Government, denounced such heretics as "a powerful and pitiless elite" who wickedly suggested that 1916 was "an exclusive and sectarian enterprise".

Her speech demonstrated that despite her modish rhetoric, at 54 our president is little changed from the Mary Patricia Leneghan who grew up sharing the prejudices of a fiercely nationalist, Catholic Belfast community.

oh no. our president was brought up in a nationalist community in belfast. she must be a terrorist. we all know that every single catholic brought up in west belfast wants to kill all the brits.

She shows no sign of having read any modern Irish history except that produced by a gaggle of counter-revisionists who repackage old myths in modern jargon, and she put at risk all the good work she has put into trying to make friends with unionists.

The McAleese hotch-potch of justifications for violence included women not having the vote and her curious belief that Ireland was run from the Kildare Street Club.

so let me get this straight. the president wants to celebrate a failed battle against the tyranny of britan, but it's ok for unionists to celebrate a successful battle againt Ireland .
are we just supposed to forget everything that happened in our past so that ian paisley and his murderous bunch of followers can be appeased?
THE speech was littered with sneering references to "imperial English gentlemen" and the "foreign class" (ie Anglo-Irish Protestant) who mainly ran Ireland. (There was, of course, no mention of the enormous contribution made by the Irish to protecting and running an efficient empire.)

Roy Garland, a unionist commentator who feels nothing but friendship for our Republic, wrote of how Mrs McAleese "has taken risks for peace but now plays with fire".

To him, the legacy of her 1916 "heroes" was "the utter decimation of the southern unionist community, the cowering of many 26-county Protestants, partition and fratricidal strife in the North."

"She has let herself down and demeaned the presidency," said a moderate unionist friend. "And she made it worse by comparing 1916 - where 16 men were shot for staging a revolution - with the Somme, where tens of thousands of people died terrible deaths in a war they hadn't started."

this man is a unionist. he wants to remain part of britan. he calls himself british. why the hell should we care what he thinks about 1916 celebrations?

A friend from a unionist background but now a constitutional agnostic emailed:

"I am distressed and disappointed by a speech that reeks of narrowness . . . exclusivity - precisely those characteristics which Mrs McA levels at the critics of 1916.

"For example, to claim, as she does, that membership of the Catholic church automatically enabled Irish people to have a higher level of contact with the wider world causes the followers of Irish Protestantism to wonder whether they have been relegated to the status of lesser beings to be pitied for their insularity and unavoidable small world view.

"It is precisely this sort of dogma which helps to make non-Catholics feel a sense of 'not belonging' to Ireland - of being outsiders who can never really belong."

more unionist paranoia.
hey, buddy. we're not out for revenge here. were a united Ireland ever to come about, we wouldn't treat you in the same way you treated catholics up until a few years ago. we don't care what religion you are. the leader of one of the countries biggest political parties is jewish. do you really think this would happen in a country ruled by the catholic church?

Terry

Before our army starts marching in celebration of 1916, we need a sober debate about whether we should cheer. The small favour I ask is that you consider and discuss these questions posed by Kevin Myers last week.

1. What right had the 1916 insurgents to start killing innocent Irish people in Dublin? What right? (No, no, no: don't ask what right the British had to rule Ireland. That's quite another question, to which, of course, the poor victims of the 1916 insurgents had no answer.)

innocent people are inevitable victims in a rebellion or any kind of war. what right does the british government have to kill innocent iraqi's or afghans? the poor victims of gulf war II - this time it's personal can't answer that question.
innocent people are always going to die during a war. it's a sad, but unavoidable result.

2. Why had none of the signatories of the Proclamation, not one of them, ever stood for parliament?

because they didn't believe in home rule. they wanted an Irish government, run by Irish people for the people of Ireland with absolutely no british involvement.

3. How could they possibly call the butchers of Belgium 'gallant allies'?

because they had a common enemy.

4. How can supposedly civilised people today 'celebrate' an orgy of violence in which hundreds of innocent Irish people died?

because they died for a reason and that reason was liberation from a people who attempted to take over the entire world and who killed millions of Irish people. we will celebrate the sacrifice these people made so that we can live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world today.

And here is one from me: 5. How can it be right for a handful of unelected men in the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood to kill and maim in the name of Irish freedom in 1916, in a democracy, yet be wrong for members of various secret Irish Republican armies (some of them elected) to do the same over the subsequent nine decades?

because these terrorist organisations were outlawed by the Irish government that came to power in 1922. they were the gangsters that todays IRA are. they actually did believe in freedom for Irish people and fought for that freedom.

when i was growing up i had a friend who didn't want to live here. he claimed that Ireland was a backward country and he couldn't wait to turn 18 and move to london. he lasted 2 years there and came back to embrace this country and all that it stands for.
all of the people against this celebration sicken me. if it wasn't for these men we would probably still be under the thumb of the british government and would not have the luxuries that we enjoy today. if you don't agree with the celebration, then don't take part in it. if you don't like this country (and i'm not talking about how it's run or who is in power. i'm talking generally) then get the hell out of it. we can do without you here. go and live in britan if you want to live under their rule.
how people can glorify british rule in Ireland is beyond me.

i once debated this with an english friend of mine. his arguement was based around the fact that the british empire brought civilisation to a barbaric world. now correct me if i'm wrong here, but the people of spain, italy, norway and sweden to name but a few seem very civilised to me and they were never under british rule.

constitutionus

ivan087 wrote:

I was watching the prime time discussion on 1916 http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0209/primetime.html.

What I dont agree with is the military element of the celebration and I started thinking on the way 1916 should be celebrated.

Wouldnt it be better to have a month of celebrations of Ireland, which revolves around Easter Sunday and St.Patricks day. A month of culture, free concerts, debates, parades, clelebration of language, sports, etc. not a celebration of terrorism, death, sacrifice, etc.

We could have free concerts showing traditional Irish music and traditional ulster music. there could be drama groups acting out old irish folklore in temple bar. It could be something similar to the Dun Laoghaire festival of world culture. we could have public readings of famous irish writers. this could be a huge celebration that would attract the tourists and irish people. it would be great for ireland and for our culture. it could be inclusive, where the ulster traditions are welcomed (lambeg drums and all!!!).

1916 is just a political day. every political party has a different opinion on it. its dividing irish people. this is not the way we should celebrate our nation. st.patricks day is recognised as a day for all ireland - because its not political.

with a bit of imagination our politicans could come up with something better then a military march up to the GPO.

im stepping off my soap box now;)

i secound this. i have relatives involved in the rising but i too feel uncomfortabe about a military celebration. id rather it was something EVERYONE could feel welcome at and many of your above suggestions have merit in my eyes.

it shouldnt be about triumphalism but rather about irishness and what the aspperations of the rising were all about. despite the age of the document the proclomation is a remakably forward looking ideal and although not all of it has been delivered alot of it has, particulaly in regards to women. i may be wrong but seeing women on an equal footing as men didnt get main stream acceptence worldwide till the 60's and we had it in the teens. ok it wasnt enacted, but it WAS there (and alot of people forget the contribution women made to the rising and the war of independance. hell i wish we had more of them around now:D )

so id like to see a more inclusive affair