Positive legacy of British rule?

jonniebgood1

LordSutch wrote: »

Which takes us back to proximity, can a neighbouring island within the same group of islands claim colonial status with the colonial masters being the island next door? (in our case Britain), which I have already pointed as being only twelve miles away from us! Does distance/ proximity play a part in the meaning of the word colony? (I say it does), therefore Ireland was not a colony in the true sense of the word 'colony'. I think the word is being misused in realtion to our relationship with the island next door (which is not even 300 miles away, never mind 3000 miles away).

The distance point is good but I don't think it stands up. I was trying to rack my brain for an alternative 'next door' colony and I thought of one. The former spanish colony of Tetouan (Known as a protectorate of Morocco). The distance between them is 13 miles at the narrowest point.

Theres a better map here but it is to big when pasted: http://www.worldstatesmen.org/colonial_moroc.jpg

The colonial decades: AD 1912-1956

The French and Spanish colonial administrations, reinforced by an influx of about half a million Europeans (many with useful specialist skills), make considerable material progress in fields such as transport, education and health. But there is constant resistance to foreign rule - most notably, in the early stages, in the five-year rebellion of Abd-el-Krim.

Abd-el-Krim wins a sensational victory at Anual, in 1921, over a Spanish army of 20,000. Thereafter he wins control of the Rif (the mountainous coastal area from Tetouan to Melilla) until his final defeat in 1926 by a massive joint French and Spanish force, numbering some 250,000 men.

Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac97#3150#ixzz1fnQhqU2P

LordSutch

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The distance point is good but I don't think it stands up. I was trying to rack my brain for an alternative 'next door' colony and I thought of one. The former spanish colony of Tetouan (Known as a protectorate of Morocco). The distance between them is 13 miles at the narrowest point.

Yes, but its hardly part of a closely knit group of islands is it! > We are a small group of islands off the coast of mainland Europe, we are connected by genes, culture, family, traditions, and everything else you would expect within a closely knit group of islands, who are to all intents & purposes a 'Family of islands'. I therefore say yet again that the use of the word colony in relation to us & Britain is incorrect, and which stretches the use of the word 'colony' into something it doesnt really mean, in the long standing & traditional sense of the word.

I suppose we better get back on topic "Positive legacy of British rule"?

Positive legacy of British rule; Many things really, which would include much of our Architecture, our Law system, our Canals, our Ports & Harbours, Train lines, our Culture, (regional variations granted within this group of islands), our social outlook, Many of our Cities, our use of the English language, Some of our finest Universities, Many of our Hospitals, Associations, Stately Homes, Cathedrals, Museums, Bridges, Parks, Hotels, Annual traditions, Youth movements (Sea Scouts etc), and even many of our Genes can be put down to so called British rule! One of these two islands was always going to be the larger & stronger, and Britain has, & will always be our bigger brother (thanks to geography & a massive population) which is something we can do absolutely nothing about, unless she sinks )

And if we hadn't left the UK in 1922 we might also have an Underground train line in Dublin (similar to Glasgow's)? to add to the positive legacy of British rule . . .

robp

London is closer to Paris than it is to Dublin.

You list off many cultural connections that exist presently but few of these predate English military involvement on Irish soil. It is the intention of any colony to produce such cultural links. Perhaps your opinion reflects the fact from a colonial perspective the Ireland was usually successful. The cultural gulf between Ireland and England has disappeared to an extent many have forgotten it existed at all. We can see this in Elizabethan accounts of Ireland

that `like brutish Indians, these wylde Irish live

Richard Boyle newly arrived in cork marveled at being dropped into a new world .

Language and conquest in early modern Ireland:English Renaissance literature and Elizabethan imperial expansion

Dubhthach has already mentioned how to a certain extent this reflects propaganda to justify their actions, but none the less the planters of this period saw themselves as on a civilising mission. That is the classic mindset of colonist.
The Irish language is only the tip of the iceberg in difference in the seventeenth century and earlier. We can look to the different legal system, land inheritance, the Irish fusion of pre-christian religion and Catholicism. The list goes on.

slowburner

The problem here is not so much, was Ireland a colony of Britain?
It is a question of when was it a colony, or part of a Union, or part of the Kingdom? It has been all of these things at various times.

Thomas Halloran sums it up here
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/halloran1.html

The Irish national consciousness has long seen itself as oppressed by its English colonizer and despite differences between the types of oppression in other colonies, Ireland will always maintain a history that includes the story of British oppression. Ireland's politics, from the Act of Union, through de Valera's economic war, has centred around the Irish-English relationship that had until 1922 been voiced in Westminster. Even Irish independence has failed to distance the nation's identity questions. The nationalist movement that lead to independence, that created the Free State, also refined the nation's political interests to those that shared a confining nationalist and religious position, effectively based on a converse of English rule yet strangely mimicking it. Furthermore, Ireland since the English arrival has seen unprecedented transformations in culture. Perhaps only the Caribbean colonies have seen greater changes and more forced hybridism than Ireland. Although not all of these changes in Irish culture can be attributed to colonialism, the changes began with colonialism.

dubhthach

slowburner wrote: »

The problem here is not so much, was Ireland a colony of Britain?
It is a question of when was it a colony, or part of a Union, or part of the Kingdom? It has been all of these things at various times.

Thomas Halloran sums it up here
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/halloran1.html

Well I would argue that the likes of the Plantation and the "Pale" reflects a "colonial stage" . Many have argued that the lessons from the Plantation of Ulster were applied in the American colonies during the 17th/18th century. Of course it helps that large amount of migrants into 18th century colonial america were "Scotch-Irish" descendants of these planters.

Even after the Act of Union it's arguable that Ireland's position in the UK was somewhat anomolous compared to the rest of the "Union". Eg. The Dublin Castle administration with a Viceroy/Lord Lieutenant. Likewise the position of the RIC as a quasi-military police force compared to the civil forces in the rest of the UK. This can even be seen in use of terminology such as Barracks, the fact that they were armed and did military drilling.

Forces such as the RCMP (Mounties) were patented after the RIC, as oppose to standard police forces within Britain.

Enkidu

LordSutch wrote: »

We are a small group of islands off the coast of mainland Europe, we are connected by genes, culture, family, traditions

To reiterate the points of others, this may be true now, but it would be a post-colonial fact. Gaelic Ireland was not related to Britain, especially England, via family, traditions and culture. The traditions and culture was almost entirely alien. I think in asking if Ireland was a colony or not, it is more relevant to look at pre-Plantation Gaelic Ireland, rather than Ireland today.

slowburner

dubhthach wrote: »

Well I would argue that the likes of the Plantation and the "Pale" reflects a "colonial stage" . Many have argued that the lessons from the Plantation of Ulster were applied in the American colonies during the 17th/18th century. Of course it helps that large amount of migrants into 18th century colonial america were "Scotch-Irish" descendants of these planters.

Even after the Act of Union it's arguable that Ireland's position in the UK was somewhat anomolous compared to the rest of the "Union". Eg. The Dublin Castle administration with a Viceroy/Lord Lieutenant. Likewise the position of the RIC as a quasi-military police force compared to the civil forces in the rest of the UK. This can even be seen in use of terminology such as Barracks, the fact that they were armed and did military drilling.

Forces such as the RCMP (Mounties) were patented after the RIC, as oppose to standard police forces within Britain.

I think the word 'Plantation' is an indicator of the peculiar position of Ireland in relation to Britain. It hints at a reluctance to use the word 'colony' - almost as if a new term had to be invented to accommodate us troublesome but likeable neighbours.
Any ideas as to the origin of the word?

pedroeibar1

Latin, colere, to cultivate, thence colonus, a settler.

Surely the status of ‘colony’ assumes acceptance of the rule of the colonial power, which did not happen in many areas of Ireland, and, as pointed out by Dubhtach above, the writ of English law did not extend much beyond the Pale. Could it not be argued that the several attempts to colonize Ireland all ended in failure to a greater extent? We constantly hear of ‘colonizers’ becoming ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. ‘Surrender and Re-grant’ was to a large extent a ploy, after which the Gaelic Lord returned to his old ways and periodically went to London to say sorry and re-swear fealty. Even in the Cromwellian land-grab, it was predominantly the big landowners who were transplanted – although several brought their servants with them, the majority of the Irish (tenant farmers under the old system) remained in situ and assumed a similar role under the new landlords. It made little difference to their lives, with the possible exception of tithes.

The RIC was a military organization because its main function was not policework; it was used as an enforcement arm of the Administration, for evictions, tithe collection, etc. The policing of the two islands was totally different because level of violence in Ireland was considerably higher and much more frequent (1798, Ribbonmen, faction fighting, Land Wars, etc). In England there was no need for periodic Coercion Acts and the suspension of habeas corpus. The Belfast Police was ineffective against their local violence, was closed and replaced by the RIC.

As for America, the English ruling class called it a colony, but those who went were primarily refugees, initially politico - religious extremists (such as Puritans, Levellers, Anabaptists) and dissenters such as the Quakers and later the Presbyterian Scots-Irish. They saw America as their new god-given home, not a colony; hence they viewed their war as one of Independence and not a civil war. Many American Loyalists were forced to leave or left voluntarily, for Texas, Florida or Canada.

My ancestry is from a Cromwellian family, but by 1720 there had been several converts to Catholicism and by 1800 most of the extended family were Catholic. By the mid 1800s the senior branch contained active Fenians (described as such in the newspapers) and later was involved in the IRB, the IRA and the foundation of the new State. Does that make me Irish or a colonist?

Rs
P.

Nitochris

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Latin, colere, to cultivate, thence colonus, a settler.

Surely the status of ‘colony’ assumes acceptance of the rule of the colonial power, which did not happen in many areas of Ireland, and, as pointed out by Dubhtach above, the writ of English law did not extend much beyond the Pale. Could it not be argued that the several attempts to colonize Ireland all ended in failure to a greater extent? We constantly hear of ‘colonizers’ becoming ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. ‘Surrender and Re-grant’ was to a large extent a ploy, after which the Gaelic Lord returned to his old ways and periodically went to London to say sorry and re-swear fealty. Even in the Cromwellian land-grab, it was predominantly the big landowners who were transplanted – although several brought their servants with them, the majority of the Irish (tenant farmers under the old system) remained in situ and assumed a similar role under the new landlords. It made little difference to their lives, with the possible exception of tithes.

The RIC was a military organization because its main function was not policework; it was used as an enforcement arm of the Administration, for evictions, tithe collection, etc. The policing of the two islands was totally different because level of violence in Ireland was considerably higher and much more frequent (1798, Ribbonmen, faction fighting, Land Wars, etc). In England there was no need for periodic Coercion Acts and the suspension of habeas corpus. The Belfast Police was ineffective against their local violence, was closed and replaced by the RIC.

As for America, the English ruling class called it a colony, but those who went were primarily refugees, initially politico - religious extremists (such as Puritans, Levellers, Anabaptists) and dissenters such as the Quakers and later the Presbyterian Scots-Irish. They saw America as their new god-given home, not a colony; hence they viewed their war as one of Independence and not a civil war. Many American Loyalists were forced to leave or left voluntarily, for Texas, Florida or Canada.

My ancestry is from a Cromwellian family, but by 1720 there had been several converts to Catholicism and by 1800 most of the extended family were Catholic. By the mid 1800s the senior branch contained active Fenians (described as such in the newspapers) and later was involved in the IRB, the IRA and the foundation of the new State. Does that make me Irish or a colonist?

Rs
P.

It makes you Irish since Molyneux wrote The Case of Ireland. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

dubhthach

slowburner wrote: »

I think the word 'Plantation' is an indicator of the peculiar position of Ireland in relation to Britain. It hints at a reluctance to use the word 'colony' - almost as if a new term had to be invented to accommodate us troublesome but likeable neighbours.
Any ideas as to the origin of the word?

Well it was also used in context of America. For example the full title of Rhode Island is: the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Wikipedia mentions the following:

In 1644, Roger Williams secured a land patent establishing "the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay," under the authority of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, head of the Commission for Foreign Plantations. The patent covered much of the territory that would eventually make up the State of Rhode Island and specifically included the English towns of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport

Interesting Wikipedia article on the Board of Trade mentions following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trade

In 1621, King James I directed the Privy Council to establish a temporary committee to investigate the causes of a decline in trade and consequent financial difficulties. The Board's formal title remains The Lords of the Committee of Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations.

Dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson (1768, 3rd edition) specifically says:

"3. A colony"
http://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP652#v=onepage&q&f=false

goose2005

Enkidu wrote: »

To reiterate the points of others, this may be true now, but it would be a post-colonial fact. Gaelic Ireland was not related to Britain, especially England, via family, traditions and culture. The traditions and culture was almost entirely alien. I think in asking if Ireland was a colony or not, it is more relevant to look at pre-Plantation Gaelic Ireland, rather than Ireland today.

But you have to go back centuries, to a time when the nation and the state were very different ideas to what they were in 2011. If Ireland is a colony, then so too is Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. And maybe Northumbria. And the Channel Islands. And the old Danelaw. And maybe everywhere beyond the Home Counties.

slowburner

This is from the 1977 3rd edition Concise Oxford English Dictionary which I think gives a reliable and fuller definition of 'colony'.
(Typed by hand, forgive any errors.)

I. After Roman use. 2. Applied to a Roman colonia, i.e. a settlement of Roman citizens in a hostile or newly conquered territory

II. In modern use. 1. A settlement in a new country; a body of settlers, forming a community politically connected with their parent state: the community so formed as long as the connection lasts ....

I think this phrase "A settlement in a new country" is the crux of the definition.
Ireland probably was a colony when the settlement was thought to be in a 'new' country. But you have to ask, when was Ireland ever a new country to the British?


In addition, there is a significant footnote;

1. The British colonies are divided into three classes: Crown colonies; colonies with representative government, in which the crown partly controls the legislature and has the right of veto on local legislation; colonies with responsible governments, the crown having only the right of veto.

slowburner

From the '77 OED again a definition of plantation;


4. A settlement in a new or conquered country; a colony.

Again we have the use of the word new.

There is another definition of plantation which might be more appropriate for the Narragansett settlement

5. An estate or farm, esp. in a tropical country on which cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, coffee, or other crops are cultivated, formerly chiefly by servile labour.

Nitochris

goose2005 wrote: »

But you have to go back centuries, to a time when the nation and the state were very different ideas to what they were in 2011. If Ireland is a colony, then so too is Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. And maybe Northumbria. And the Channel Islands. And the old Danelaw. And maybe everywhere beyond the Home Counties.

John Stuart Mill in his Considerations on Representative Government? (1861):

When proper allowance has been made for geographical exigencies, another more purely moral and social consideration offers itself. Experience proves that it is possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption is greatly to its advantage. Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial to a Breton, or a Basque of French Navarre, to be brought into the current of the ideas and feelings of a highly civilised and cultivated people...
than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world. The same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation.

Note Ireland is excluded from this inclusion of Celts in the British nation, as pointed out by Luke Gibbons (2003) this not accidental. It certainly supports the idea that Ireland was at the point in time, when it was under British rule, not considered part of the British nation proper having not been merged and absorbed.

Enkidu

goose2005 wrote: »

But you have to go back centuries, to a time when the nation and the state were very different ideas to what they were in 2011.

Of course though. If you apply the question to modern day Ireland it's immediately false that Ireland is a colony, because its an independent sovereign state. You can only apply it, I think, to the time period when the invasions, e.t.c. occurred and the century or so following that. Otherwise even Mexico wouldn't be a colony.

Beir Bua

Positive legacies of British rule? There are pitifully few and those which there is an argument for are dwarfed by the long lasting negative legacy of British rule in Ireland. The most obvious and serious example of this horrible legacy is partition and all the baggage that goes along with it.

When thinking of Britain's legacy in Ireland I am reminded of this quote by James Connolly;

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs."

Enkidu wrote: »

However most of the positives that people mention in these discussions aren't really positives and often require imagining us being incapable of doing the things other small European countries managed to do without the intervention of the British Empire.

Excellent point, the two things mentioned that got the most traction are that they drew up maps and installed some post boxes. I dare say the Irish could have done those things themselves without British help.


BB

Fratton Fred

Beir Bua wrote: »

Positive legacies of British rule? There are pitifully few and those which there is an argument for are dwarfed by the long lasting negative legacy of British rule in Ireland. The most obvious and serious example of this horrible legacy is partition and all the baggage that goes along with it.

When thinking of Britain's legacy in Ireland I am reminded of this quote by James Connolly;

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs."



Excellent point, the two things mentioned that got the most traction are that they drew up maps and installed some post boxes. I dare say the Irish could have done those things themselves without British help.


BB

That's a political opinion, not a historical fact.

Beir Bua

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's a political opinion, not a historical fact.

I would regard the partition of Ireland and the resulting British legacy of institutionalized discrimination and sectarianism in the north as a negative legacy of British rule. This was done by design.

You are free of course to disagree and regard that as a positive or something somewhere in between. However I have little interest in debating the merits of partition, in my opinion it was a thoroughly negative legacy which sowed the seeds for decades of war. There is little point in getting too deep into a discussion on partition, the debate would rage forever, those discussions are very rarely productive. I've given my opinion, (yes, opinion. A great deal of history is really opinion you know, hardly a cardinal sin giving my opinion in a thread like this which asked what I 'think' about Britains legacy) sin é.


BB

jonniebgood1

A look at what Connolly wanted (as per post 77) as against what was achieved is a very interesting topic but not for this thread. Feel free to start a thread on that.

It is potentially emotive to look at positives of British rule and the thread has been interesting so far so keep it on topic here please.

Thanks

Beir Bua

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

A look at what Connolly wanted (as per post 77) as against what was achieved is a very interesting topic but not for this thread. Feel free to start a thread on that.

It is potentially emotive to look at positives of British rule and the thread has been interesting so far so keep it on topic here please.

Thanks

Respectfully, it was on topic you asked in the OP would negative legacies forever taint any positives. Connolly foresaw a negative legacy if British rule were not overthrown in its entirety, its a very apt quote considering the financial state we are in now. I've found in conversations such as this (well a few years ago, in the current climate perhaps not) the monetary and banking system we use are cited as a positive legacy of British rule, I would think the opposite as in all probability James Connolly, one of the signatories of the declaration, would also.

BB

Snickers Man

"When the British Empire finally disappears below the tide of history, it's only lasting legacies will be the word f**k and the game of Association Football."

Dennis Healy MP. Although I think he was quoting somebody else.

So that's two fairly important things then!

slowburner

Beir Bua wrote: »

Positive legacies of British rule? There are pitifully few and those which there is an argument for are dwarfed by the long lasting negative legacy of British rule in Ireland. The most obvious and serious example of this horrible legacy is partition and all the baggage that goes along with it.

When thinking of Britain's legacy in Ireland I am reminded of this quote by James Connolly;

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs."



Excellent point, the two things mentioned that got the most traction are that they drew up maps and installed some post boxes. I dare say the Irish could have done those things themselves without British help.


BB

I very much doubt that we Irish could have successfully mapped Ireland as successfully as the first Ordnance Survey.
We simply did not have the resources to do it.
Nor did we have a reason to do it.

Rebelheart

slowburner wrote: »

I very much doubt that we Irish could have successfully mapped Ireland as successfully as the first Ordnance Survey.

Of course "we" couldn't because we're, well, thick Paddies? Just what innate inferiority are you implying the Irish people have that would have made them incapable of mere cartography?

And maybe if we Irish hadn't our country under foreign occupation, we would not be going around anglicising the placenames of this country to make them intelligible to our colonial rulers, and in the process helping them strip Ireland of its Irishness and represent it as English. Yet another "great" achievement of this supposedly benign and selfless British mapping of Ireland in the 19th century.

slowburner wrote: »

We simply did not have the resources to do it.

Largely because, well, the nice British robbed them. Will we next have a revisionist paean to the great civic act which the Books of Survey and Distribution were, rather than an acceptance that they, too, were about knowing who owned what in order to know what the British were robbing to pay their "adventurers"?

slowburner wrote: »

Nor did we have a reason to do it.

So, is this an implicit admission that the real reason the British established the Ordnance Survey Office was for colonial, military and tax reasons? Because the way you're talking you'd swear the British were going around mapping the place for the benefit of the natives, rather than for valuing the land so they could know who to tax etc.

slowburner

Rebelheart wrote: »

Of course "we" couldn't because we're, well, thick Paddies?

No we were not 'thick Paddies' - we just did not have the resources. The first Ordnance survey was carried out by two sappers who walked the boundaries of every townland in this country. It was a military operation - we didn't have a military organisation capable of such an operation, on such a scale, at that time.

Just what innate inferiority are you implying the Irish people have that would have made them incapable of mere cartography?

None.
'Mere cartography' it was not. The first Ordnance survey is still unparalleled in its detail - without it, tens of thousand of national antiquities would have gone unrecorded. It is still a remarkable work of cartography.

And maybe if we Irish hadn't our country under foreign occupation, we would not be going around anglicising the placenames of this country to make them intelligible to our colonial rulers, and in the process helping them strip Ireland of its Irishness and represent it as English.

This is a separate issue.

Yet another "great" achievement of this supposedly benign and selfless British mapping of Ireland in the 19th century.

Who used the words 'benign' and 'selfless'?

Largely because, well, the nice British robbed them. Will we next have a revisionist paean to the great civic act which the Books of Survey and Distribution were, rather than an acceptance that they, too, were about knowing who owned what in order to know what the British were robbing to pay their "adventurers"?

This is probably true to a large extent - but does this mean we should reject the outcome of the work.

So, is this an implicit admission that the real reason the British established the Ordnance Survey Office was for colonial, military and tax reasons? Because the way you're talking you'd swear the British were going around mapping the place for the benefit of the natives, rather than for valuing the land so they could know who to tax etc.

I have no idea what you mean about the way I'm talking. You completely misrepresent what I have said.
I said "Nor did we have a reason to do it."
I doubt anyone would regard the motivation for the survey as being anything other than part of the process of subduing the Irish.
This does not detract from the quality of the work.

What would you have us do?
Burn all the maps and the Ordnance Survey offices because they are the work of the British?
Let's repeat the burning of the Four Courts and all records that are in any way connected to British Imperialism - that was clever.
While you're at it, sure why not destroy everything which is in any way connected to British Imperialism in Ireland, letterboxes and all?

pedroeibar1

Rebelheart wrote: »

And maybe if we Irish hadn't our country under foreign occupation, we would not be going around anglicising the placenames of this country to make them intelligible to our colonial rulers, and in the process helping them strip Ireland of its Irishness and represent it as English. Yet another "great" achievement of this supposedly benign and selfless British mapping of Ireland in the 19th century. .

When I hear the expression ‘our country under foreign occupation’ I usually turn off as what follows inevitably is either emotive, ignorance or both. You should know that Irish was spoken only in small pockets of the country in the early 1800s. Should you care to look into the history of mapping in Ireland, you would learn that
From 1830, Irish civilians were employed by the survey for the purpose of deciding a suitable English language spelling for each name which had not already an accepted standardised English orthographic form.
The vast majority of the names originated in the Irish language and the standardised forms were to be anglicisations. The rise of Nationalism in the 1900’s led to renewed interest in the Irish language. The Gaelic League published a book in 1905, called Post-Sheanchas and it gave the Irish language form of the names of the Post Offices in Ireland.

from http://www.osi.ie/en/alist/senior2.aspx?article=6754fcdb-4d0c-40b1-9378-30a41bcf5f5d
P.

Seanchai

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

When I hear the expression ‘our country under foreign occupation’

So, are you denying all of Ireland was under foreign occupation? Please do enlighten us. And are you British?

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I usually turn off as what follows inevitably is either emotive, ignorance or both.

In this post, you're doing exquisitely well on these two fronts yourself.

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

You should know that Irish was spoken only in small pockets of the country in the early 1800s.

This is a lie, for starters. I didn't bother reading any more of your apologia for British colonialism in Ireland. But suffice to say that your little excerpt offers no support whatsoever for your claims.

pedroeibar1

Seanchai wrote: »

So, are you denying all of Ireland was under foreign occupation? Please do enlighten us. And are you British?

In this post, you're doing exquisitely well on these two fronts yourself.

This is a lie, for starters. I didn't bother reading any more of your apologia for British colonialism in Ireland. But suffice to say that your little excerpt offers no support whatsoever for your claims.

Most people who post here do so with courtesy, avoiding emotive language, invective and name-calling. They also avoid generalisations. You appear to have missed all that. It is a historical fact that the Irish language went into decline in the 16th century and continued its downward spiral – by the time of the Famine, Irish speakers consisted almost entirely of an impoverished rural population which was decimated through death and emigration.
http://www.theirishstory.com/2010/09/14/the-irish-language-part-i-decline/#.TvY__laa98E
You and your buddies appear to be looking for a fight rather than a debate, so go play with yourselves.:rolleyes:

Seanchai

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Most people who post here do so with courtesy, avoiding emotive language, invective and name-calling.

Why don't you join them?

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

They also avoid generalisations. You appear to have missed all that.

Indeed, tell us again about your generalisations about the Irish language?

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

It is a historical fact that the Irish language went into decline in the 16th century

Forget everything else: present us with one single fact supporting this utter ignorance. Please, now. There is not a single historian who has ever lived who would agree with your supposedly expert analysis. In fact, all known sixteenth-century commentators would say precisely the opposite about the Irish language. Stanihurst? Sidney? Moryson? Spenser? So go on, do please tell us the source of your extraordinary claims. I'm waiting.

Again: tell us you're not Irish.

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

You and your buddies appear to be looking for a fight rather than a debate, so go play with yourselves.:rolleyes:

If I were looking for an intelligent debate on Irish history, I won't be going near you. See above for reasons.

jonniebgood1

Seanchai wrote: »

Why don't you join them?

Indeed, tell us again about your generalisations about the Irish language?

Forget everything else: present us with one single fact supporting this utter ignorance. Please, now. There is not a single historian who has ever lived who would agree with your supposedly expert analysis. In fact, all known sixteenth-century commentators would say precisely the opposite about the Irish language. Stanihurst? Sidney? Moryson? Spenser? So go on, do please tell us the source of your extraordinary claims. I'm waiting.

Again: tell us you're not Irish.

If I were looking for an intelligent debate on Irish history, I won't be going near you. See above for reasons.

Comments like this are not welcome on this forum. It does not in any way add to the discussion. They are also out of keeping with the thread. You are free to challenge the opinions expressed but not to abuse the people making them. I would prefer if you take this on board but that is up to you. Any more comments that abuse other posters in the way that the one quoted does will result in an infraction. Please heed this warning. If you have a problem with this PM me to discuss.

Moderator.

Seanchai

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Comments like this are not welcome on this forum.

Like what, precisely? You listed an entire post, but curiously enough didn't list any problems with the post which talks about "you and your buddies". Why?

I'm still waiting for your friend to support his nonsense claim about the Irish language in the sixteenth century. I, on the other hand, am dealing in solid verifiable history. Does this intimidate you? Is your purpose in interfering in this to deflect from his undoubted inability to answer this challenge to his fairly stupid claim?(oh, calling somebody's claim "stupid" is not the same as calling the person stupid. It's sad that this needs to be pointed out. Try familiarising yourself with ad rem v ad hominem before banning people who disagree with your view.)