Easter Monday - GPO Dublin

Exile 1798 · 14-04-2009 3:13pm

My mistake. I should have said one third, if restricting it to the 80 years before the Rising, which I was.

RealityCheck · 14-04-2009 3:15pm

It would have created too many different jurisdictions, with too many varying governments and laws. I cannot see how that could ever lead to a free market stateless society. Surely the different jurisdictions would become a boundary to trade? I find the idea contradicting.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 3:32pm

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RealityCheck · 14-04-2009 3:49pm

But you would end up with good túatha's and bad ones. Rich túathas and very poor ones. It would have made a more unequal society than you are suggesting. It makes more sense for the whole island to pool togesther.

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Would it not have been better to have set up a secular state where religion is irrevelant. That surely would be more straighforward idea than the one you are suggesting.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 4:16pm

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turgon · 14-04-2009 4:22pm

The fact that the rising didnt have popular support is public knowledge. There is nothing revisionist about it at all.

Exile 1798, I think your time would be much better spent trying to find positive traits of the rising within the context of real facts. Rather than just coming up with an incorrect view (that the Easter Rising was well supported) and distorting the facts so as to support your fictional point.

The Easter Rising had some merits. Popular support is not one. Deal with it.

Exile 1798 · 14-04-2009 4:27pm

Where have I claimed it did?

Perhaps your time would be better spent responding the points actually made, rather then ones you imagine to have been.

LordSutch · 14-04-2009 5:27pm

Here is a perfect example of revisionism.

brianthebard · 14-04-2009 7:48pm

Like yourself and your anarchocapitalist spiels?

If you wish to deny the historical facts then that's fine but don't expect many people to engage in your fantasies.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 7:52pm

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brianthebard · 14-04-2009 7:53pm

If you look into the history of the ITGWU, the ICA and the history of the Dublin working class you'll see there was widespread support for revolutionary ideals in 1916 and for a number of years prior to the rising. A few people here are trying to present the rising as a couple of hundred outcasts who happened to find some guns and were so mentally unhinged that they decided to go on a murdering spree.
This is not a history I am familiar with.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 8:04pm

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brianthebard · 14-04-2009 8:06pm

Source? MacNeill was not involved in the rising, was he? Afaik he called off manoeuvres on Easter Weekend to try and stop it happening. If someone is against revolution, there's a good chance they aren't going to see a need for revolution. Much like yourself in that regard.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 8:25pm

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brianthebard · 14-04-2009 8:46pm

A source accessible to all?

Why do you assume the COS of the IVF knew what the general population wanted? I could just as easily say that as head of the ICA, commandant of the Dublin brigade, and a leading figure of the Labour party and ITGWU James Connolly had a better understanding of the populace's mood.

Lockstep · 14-04-2009 8:53pm

I'd strongly disagree with this.

Gaelic society was utterly cracked, slavery was common, most of the túatha spent their time raiding one another for cattle (necessitating the construction of ringforts)

It was also socially rigid with an extremely stratified form of law. For example, four tracts have survived detailing the various ranks and grades of the aristocracy with their different legal rights. Indeed, it must be noted how incredibly patriarchal the society was with women being subject to their husbands/fathers/sons or the heads of their fine. Women definetely enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy compared to other societies but it was still very authoritarian, most of the woman's rights pertained to her being able to divorce her husband if they couldn't sleep together. He was able to divorce her for things like not keeping a good house and was able to beat her.
I vividly remember studying tracts on rape law such as a prostitute couldn't be raped or that if a woman went into a mead hall she couldn;t claim rape as she shouldn;t have been there unchaperoned. Indeed, law dictated that if a son could only provide for one parent, he was to carry his father on his back and leave his mother in a ditch.
There was also a centralised structure of law, the law stood above all the petty rivalries as a unified system of custom and practice, it wasn't as decentralised as is often claimed although the king did have a fairly weak grasp of executive power.

Even when Christianity was introduced it quickly turned into a system of overly strong Monastic fedarations (paruchaie) Rather than the bishop exerting control, it would fall to the local Abbott

For all my respect of James Connolly, I never agreed with him on Gaelic Ireland. There is too much excessive idealism of it. Much of it would be unworkable today given how tightly knit and closely bound the Túatha were. It's all well and good for the Irish to provide a form of a welfare state to provide for the sick members of the group but given how fragmented and large our societies are these days I'd view them as unworkable.

turgon · 14-04-2009 8:53pm

Thats says nothing really. We all know you are apparently "familiar" with a history where the communist revolution is Cuba is a good thing, a kind of history that doesn't stand up to reason.

RealityCheck · 14-04-2009 9:32pm

I thought the whole idea of Anarchy was to focus on the individual as oppossed to State? I mean old gaelic Ireland was not Anarchist. It was an imperialist system that flies totally in the face of your claims.

Also, How the hell can you say people were more free? Slavery clearly existed then. This society was simply not based on the individual. It was in effect a dictatorial totalitarian society. The law was forced on the majority by the learned minority. That is a fact.

It was a series of dictatorships that remained apart due to the fact that there was no requirement for a central government.

nesf · 14-04-2009 9:49pm

Yeah, the whole claiming old Celtic Ireland as an anarchist state is a bit bewildering given the whole Brehon Law thing to be honest.

Lockstep · 14-04-2009 10:27pm

Especially given that early Irish law was territorial law; it applied to all citizens in every part of the country.

Quoting Ó Cróinín; "despite the seeming multiplicity of kings and loyalties, the edifice of the law stands above all local and regional rivalries as a unified system of custom and practice"

Permabear · 15-04-2009 2:03am

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Lockstep · 15-04-2009 9:09am

Anarchic would be the last thing I would call Gaelic Ireland. It was extremely heavily stratified and law dominated with a clearly defined legal caste.
I'd disagree with you claim that it is the recieved wisdom that the society was anarchic. The annals and the law tracts (there's still a lot of primary sources around on pre-Norman Ireland) give a very different opinion and while some aspects of the society were fairly chaotic by our standards, there was a rigid rule of law in place.

Permabear · 15-04-2009 12:22pm

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Nodin · 15-04-2009 12:41pm

One which ignores the fact that regardless of what we were up to, it was nobodys business but our own...

Lockstep · 15-04-2009 1:49pm

When I was studying pre-Norman Ireland and I never came across anyone claiming it was anarchic. The authors/primary sources I came across indicated a strong form of central authority in the guise of the law and certain castes. When priests came along for example, they benefited from protection wherever they went.

Pre-Norman Ireland was a strange place, local authority tended to be bound by blood more than anything (which the Vikings found to their detriment, they could kill off a king but would still have to deal with fragmented political units and so could never exert the control they had in England) I wouldn't go so far as to call it decentralised given how prevalent national law and paruchiac power went. Strange form of authority though.

I'd completely agree that it was bizarre how much nationalists siezed on pre-Norman Ireland, they seemed to have a really strange idealisation of it.

OhNoYouDidn't · 15-04-2009 3:39pm

This is a man who claims Hitler and the Nazi's were left wing. He tends to look at things a bit differently to the rest of us and mould them to his political bias.

Big government including fascism is left wing and smaller states are anarchistic in his head.

sceptre · 15-04-2009 3:56pm

Any chance you could all stop with the ad hominem attacks with the equivalent of "considering your views on..."? It tends to put you in my possibly silly box. It's dark in there and you wouldn't like the company.

I'm looking at you turgon and OhNoYouDidn't. Yes, yes, I'm aware that you're attempting to put views in context but when more than one of you does it in the manner you've done it takes more from the universe than it gives back. Stop throwing stones.

Disagreement discussion on this is best by PM with me as this is a moderator strongly hinted request, commonly referred to as an instruction.

Permabear · 15-04-2009 4:08pm

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RealityCheck · 15-04-2009 5:13pm

Its rather strange that the only people that make those claim are anarcho capitalists themselves. I have not yet seen or heard of impartial historians making those claims.

It was only resisted because they felt there was no need for one. You must consider the fact that society was focussed locally. You can't apply that logic to early 20th century Ireland. There was too much water under the bridge.

But that is the point; societies view of society has changed.

Im not so sure that was the case. Your viewpoint does not take into account the views of some people of anglo saxon descent, many of whom were involved and supportive of the gaelic revival. The only thing the rebels sought was the right of the people of this island to self determination.

OhNoYouDidn't · 15-04-2009 5:22pm

Can you please explain how a tribal based, heirarchical feudal system was stateless or in anyway anarchic?

Easter Monday - GPO Dublin

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