Plantation of Ulster stamp

Rebelheart

Grimes wrote: »

History is neither positive or negative.

There's your problem, right there (and I'm not talking about the grammar).

DoireNod

Just adding my voice to the opposition of this stamp.

Dyr

Grimes wrote: »

History is neither positive or negative. It just happens and the result is the present. While the plantations did play a part in sectarian divisions there are numerous plantation towns all over the Republic that people who believe today to be "true Irish villages".

Thats because we did some vigorous weeding of the imported planters, thank god. We're overdue another expunging of collaborators by the looks of things.

Rebelheart

Ariyah Salty Mission wrote: »

Whats so bad with 1609 anyways?People give out about the plantations, yet wholly accept the religious conquest of Ireland prior to that. The arrival of catholicism was far worse in my opinion.

OK, you're woefully, wickedly and ferociously (;)) wrong about the importance of the plantations but, historically speaking, you could have something really good on the religious colonisation stuff.

Edit: I'm assuming you are talking about the success of the counter-reformation Catholic missionaries from the 1590s on - who were promoting what was in many respects a very different type of catholicism to Irish catholics - rather than talking about the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 5th century.

Rebelheart

MarchDub wrote: »

What gobsmacking idiot came up with the idea of a Plantation commemorative stamp?

Jim236 wrote: »

What idiot in An Post actually thought "do yeah know what we haven't celebrated in a while thats really benefitted this country"? What dope thought something which caused so many deaths, and resulted in the division and sectarianism in society across the island we see today, and more importantly the partition of this island, would be worth commemorating? .... Idiots...

Perhaps the same An Post employee who came up with that desperately cunning plan to remove the Irish placename from each post office across the state a few years ago?

Every minute, every minute there's one born.

j1smithy

I always knew An Post had Loyalist sympathies... they've never been republican since the rebels made shit of the GPO;)


I do think its a rather strange thing to put on a stamp, but it is part of our history, albeit one of the less glorious moments of it. We really do need to see a picture of it though, to find out whether its celebrating or acknowledging an event. I suspect it does the latter.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was a battle of the boyne stamp released either. Again though I imagine such a potentially controversial stamp would carry a rather neutral image.

This is hardly new though, sure don't a few people get up in arms about Christian symbols on stamps every year.

Quazzie

I wonder do the French or the Polish have a stamp depicting the invasion by Germany?

Dudess

Sherifu wrote: »

Link

Can't see the harm in this really. Anyone feel as strongly as this guy about it?

/rabble :pac:

partyguinness wrote: »

Oh dear...this takes the pandering the bigots/orange order/loyalists up North to new levels...:rolleyes:

While there are certainly plenty of people down here who do indeed pander to those bigots (just check out the Politics forum especially - to me it's the Irish equivalent of Uncle Tom-ism) I think this stamp is open to interpretation. I don't know whether it's celebrating anything - it might just be commemorating... I think it's rather hysterical to compare it to WWII and insulting to those who suffered at the hands of the nazis.

El Siglo wrote: »

Do you know who will love this more than unionists or those people, that Irish revisionist historian Ruth Dudley Edwards. I say, embrace the stupid stamp just to spite unionists and all of them, and show how 'forward thinking' we are in the Republic!:D

Hmmm... Twats who try to act like Conor Cruise O'Brien et al already posture as being "forward thinking" - e.g. by scorning Bloody Sunday, you know the drill...

Ariyah Salty Mission wrote: »

Were still backwards cunts for **** sake

Could you drop this "we" business please? Thanks.

Dudess

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Coincidently enough reeling in the years of 1970 was on tonight. Thousands of Catholics burnt out of their homes by so called loyalists. They would have been planter descendents

Oh that's just terrorist talk - you're obviously an IRA supporter. That never happened - catholics were always treated wonderfully from the day partition began. Now stop insulting our loyalist superiors brethren, but feel free to voice your anger about republican atrocities.

MarchDub

Grimes wrote: »

History is neither positive or negative. It just happens and the result is the present. While the plantations did play a part in sectarian divisions there are numerous plantation towns all over the Republic that people who believe today to be "true Irish villages".

You are displaying a serious lack of knowledge of how the Plantation of Ulster was organized and how it differed significantly from what occurred in the rest of the country. The Plantation did not merely "play a part" in sectarian divisions it was DESIGNED to bring about sectarian divisions which would result - it was hoped- in driving Catholics out of the region and thereby create a population willing to be loyal to the King.

You cannot, with any degree of validity, compare it to anything that happened in the rest of country. The Parliamentary document known as "The Printed Book" spells out the precise conditions of Plantation and is unlike anything that took place anywhere else in Ireland.

While the overlords in the rest of the country were replaced by English owners the Ulster region saw the ordinary tenants driven out and replaced by Presbyterian planters. Catholics in the region became the servile farm labourers and servants of this new planter class. The Presbyterian planter tenants were given land at a fraction of the going rate and paid taxes at half the rate the rest of the country was paying. Plus they got security of tenure against random eviction which was denied tenants - mostly Catholic - in the rest of the county where eviction was rampant and a recurrent threat. Security of tenure was only achieved outside of the Ulster region in the late nineteenth century.

[font=&quot]This commemorate stamp is in my opinion an appalling insult to the Catholics of Ulster and the historic impact that the Plantation had on them. [/font]

Kev_ps3

Dudess wrote: »

/rabble :pac:

While there are certainly plenty of people down here who do indeed pander to those bigots (just check out the Politics forum especially - to me it's the Irish equivalent of Uncle Tom-ism) I think this stamp is open to interpretation. I don't know whether it's celebrating anything - it might just be commemorating... I think it's rather hysterical to compare it to WWII and insulting to those who suffered at the hands of the nazis.
Hmmm... Twats who try to act like Conor Cruise O'Brien et al already posture as being "forward thinking" - e.g. by scorning Bloody Sunday, you know the drill...

Could you drop this "we" business please? Thanks.

They didnt suffer under the Nazis for 800 years.

FlutterinBantam

Adamcp898 wrote: »

Judging by this thread An Post got this one wrong :rolleyes:

Personally I see nothing wrong with it

i wouldn't judge anything from this thread son.

mike65

I was thinking, is this sort of thing the inevitable consequnce of the Good Friday Agreement? Before it and "hands across the table" oop north such a thing would never have been even thought of, never mind given serious consideration and then approval.

It might well be that such minor outrages will be quite common as previously taboo notions are challanged in the name of peace and progress.

gurramok

mike65 wrote: »

I was thinking, is this sort of thing the inevitable consequnce of the Good Friday Agreement? Before it and "hands across the table" oop north such a thing would never have been even thought of, never mind given serious consideration and then approval.

It might well be that such minor outrages will be quite common as previously taboo notions are challanged in the name of peace and progress.

You're onto something

Just look at the Battle of the Boyne. If my memory is correct, a visitors centre is due to be built there to help relations and a couple of years ago, Bertie and Paisley had a great honeymoon there

g5fd6ow0hseima

Rebelheart wrote: »

OK, you're woefully, wickedly and ferociously (;)) wrong about the importance of the plantations but

How am I wrong? I didnt say anything about.

Rebelheart wrote: »

Edit: I'm assuming you are talking about the success of the counter-reformation Catholic missionaries from the 1590s on - who were promoting what was in many respects a very different type of catholicism to Irish catholics - rather than talking about the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 5th century.

Im talking about the arrival of Christianity, although I did say 'catholicism' in error. Yet its arrival is never seen as a dark era of Irish history. Instead we focus on the plantations. What is it that makes you so upset about it?

lego

Why are an post doing this?

I don't see Royal Mail issuing stamps commemorating Hugh Ó Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone.

In relation to Northern Ireland, some westbrits say that we should let bygones be bygones.

A piece of land in the northeast of our country is still occupied by another country at present, even within the gerrymandered occupied area, 44% of the population consider themselves to be Irish and don't want anything to do with the occupying power.

Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, South Armagh, South Down and North Antrim (Moyle District Council) all have Irish(Nationalist/Republican) Majorities, yet the occupation remains.

Ireland will let bygones be bygones when bygones are bygones.

Zebra3

Wait til people on here find out that the Irish taxpayer is funding the Orange Order. That'll really piss people off.




Oops....... :pac:

Sherifu

Dudess wrote: »

/rabble :pac:

:pac:

stovelid

lego wrote: »

In relation to Northern Ireland, some westbrits say that we should let bygones be bygones.

.

Rebelheart

Ariyah Salty Mission wrote: »

Im talking about the arrival of Christianity, although I did say 'catholicism' in error. Yet its arrival is never seen as a dark era of Irish history. Instead we focus on the plantations.

To say it is "never" seen as a "dark era" (whatever that precisely means) is wholly incorrect, and a sloppy use of language. The works of Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Charles Doherty, F. J. O'Byrne and the late Kathleen Hughes, to take five leading historians of early Christian Ireland, have highlighted many of the negative consequences of Christianity. There has been an enormous amount of research done on this period, much of which I've read, so I'm at a loss to think of a single modern historian who fits into your stereotype of unquestionable admiration for the arrival of Christianity.

The Plantation - the subject of this thread - is in contrast a radically different event for several rather obvious reasons.

• First, it is closer to a modern Irish audience by over 1000 years; there are very many families in south Ulster who are still living on the bad mountainous land looking down on their ancestral lands in the valley, now occupied by people who benefited from the Plantation, for example.
• Second, unlike Christianity, the Plantation entailed the usurption and dispossession of the native population en masse with the exception of small tracts of land granted to so-called "deserving Irish"; the natives were explicitly forbidden from this land which was reserved for ethnically British and religious Protestant settlers. Where is your analagous event in early Christian Ireland?
• Third, the Plantation directly shaped the past 400 years of Irish history to an extent equalled only by the Irish loss of the Nine Years War and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. As such, it is one of the three critical events which shape the two major political communities in Ireland in 2009. Crucially, the winners and losers of the Plantation are still firmly in place, with the descendants of the losers still living under British rule in Derry, Armagh, Antrim and Tyrone, and the descendants of the losers in the colonised (but not Plantation) areas of Antrim and Down similarly living under British rule today.

So, maybe come back in 2032AD and start a thread about the "dark era" initiated by the arrival of Christianity. In the meantime it's 2009, four hundred years since the Plantation in 1609. And this thread is about that particular Plantation.

Rebelheart

According to Nigel Cawthorne's book, The Strange Laws of Old England (London, 2004), if somebody puts a stamp (bearing the monarch's head) upside down on a letter in the UK today they are guilty of treason.

Hmmm.

tomED

I personally think it's an absolute disgrace that An Post feel it's a good idea to commemorate the Plantation of Ulster.

The fact that people in the republic aren't in uproar over this shows how little they care about our history and those that died to give us what we have today.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Wait til people on here find out that the Irish taxpayer is funding the Orange Order. That'll really piss people off.
Oops....... :pac:

And on the above point - I don't think enough people even know this!

Dudess

lego wrote: »

some westbrits say that we should let bygones be bygones.

A lot of provo apologists think we should let bygones be bygones too though.

lego

Most of An Post's previous stamps were bland and unimaginative, now they've gone from bland to deeply offensive.

While An Post are at it, they may aswell issue a stamp commemorating the actions of the british soilders on Bloody Sunday.

Greyfox

tomED wrote: »

The fact that people in the republic aren't in uproar over this shows how little they care about our history and those that died to give us what we have today.

True, we don't care, but that's because when I think of ulster I think of the 6 counties in Northern Ireland that have nothing to do with my country!

Rebelheart

Greyfox wrote: »

True, we don't care, but that's because when I think of ulster I think of the 6 counties in Northern Ireland that have nothing to do with my country!

Yeah, well, in fairness to TomEd as you've just demonstrated every society must contend with its underclass - the "we" in question.

tomED

Greyfox wrote: »

True, we don't care, but that's because when I think of ulster I think of the 6 counties in Northern Ireland that have nothing to do with my country!

But it is your country and it has a lot to do with you.

And on that point - if you feel it's not your country, why should YOUR country celebrate something that is not in your country?

This is the problem - too many people are ignorant to it all. They just don't care...

philologos

I don't see what is so offensive about having a stamp to recall an event that happened in Irish history. If people want to live in denial that's fine, but if it is to recall what has happened in the past I don't think there is any legitimate grounds for offence. It is likely that by this stage many of us are actually descended from many of the planters. It happened and that's pretty much it, we can't do anything to turn back the clock.

In relation to Northern Ireland, some westbrits say that we should let bygones be bygones.

Perhaps we should. What possible value does it give us moaning about it?

tomED

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't see what is so offensive about having a stamp to recall an event that happened in Irish history. If people want to live in denial that's fine, but if it is to recall what has happened in the past I don't think there is any legitimate grounds for offence. It is likely that by this stage many of us are actually descended from many of the planters. It happened and that's pretty much it, we can't do anything to turn back the clock.?

And that's the ignorance I'm talking about. Ignore the vicious tirade enforced upon our ancestors? Seriously, can you ever see Royal post commemorating the IRA for the Omagh Bombing???

I have no problem with a stamp that commemorates those that lost their lives in the plantation of ulster - but I definitely have a problem with a stamp that commemorates the victory of the British regardless of whether it was part of our history or not. That's not being a republican - that's out of pure respect for those that give their lives for the republic I live in.

Jakkass wrote: »

Perhaps we should. What possible value does it give us moaning about it?

I don't think anyone moans about it and I think most people have let bygones be bygones. But that doesn't mean we should forget - we remember it and we have learned from it. If we ignore what happened, it will leave us open to it happening again.

philologos

tomED wrote: »

And that's the ignorance I'm talking about. Ignore the vicious tirade enforced upon our ancestors? Seriously, can you ever see Royal post commemorating the IRA for the Omagh Bombing???

Plantation is a rather different thing than bombing altogether. Yes, there may have been serious human rights abuses in doing so, but it isn't comparable to doing something with the explicit intent of taking peoples lives.

As for "our ancestors". I recognise that I probably am a mix of different groups which arrived in Ireland at different times genetically. I think the term "our ancestors" isn't very helpful as it is conceivable that some of our ancestors could be the very planters who came.

Then again, I'm not particularly nationalistic in any respect.

tomED wrote: »

I have no problem with a stamp that commemorates those that lost their lives in the plantation of ulster - but I definitely have a problem with a stamp that commemorates the victory of the British regardless of whether it was part of our history or not. That's not being a republican - that's out of pure respect for those that give their lives for the republic I live in.

I think it's not the worst thing to recall the Plantations for what they brought to Ireland, and how Ireland changed because of it.

tomED wrote: »

I don't think anyone moans about it and I think most people have let bygones be bygones. But that doesn't mean we should forget - we remember it and we have learned from it. If we ignore what happened, it will leave us open to it happening again.

Of course we shouldn't forget what happened, considering that it changed Ireland forever. However, I think people need to review what happened during the Plantation and try to see where other people come from in respect to it. I don't think it should be held as something that happened many years ago. This stamp isn't something that particularly angers me.