What was the worst event in modern Irish history?

jjbrien

The reemergence of Finna Fail since the last general election. Do people never learn

whitey1

Mayo competing in 7 All Ireland Finals and winning none in the past 25 years.

All codding aside, I think the following tragedies helped shape modern Ireland

Anne Lovett tragedy-I recently reread the reports.....truly heartbreaking and a seminal moment in the evolution of modern Ireland

Omagh bombing.....the sheer depravity of it rattled the "dissident movement" to the point of insignificance in modern Ireland

Events surrounding the Gibraltar tragedy, especially the murder of the 2 british soldiers by a mob.

CrabRevolution

Muahahaha wrote: »

That's mad, I just never get the mentality and then people go out and vote along those lines. It is completely insane to choose to vote for a candidate in 2014 based on events that happened in the 1920's.



In fairness to Haughey he did stand up to the Church with the Succession Act, before that widowed women had no rights to property of their deceased husband, the Church got the house and land after the widow was allowed to live in it for the rest of her days. That was a big thing because it meant that the Church stopped accumulating land so easily and it gave women rights to land that they never had before. In fairness to Haughey I'd say he came under immense pressure from the Bishops not to do it but he went ahead anyway, it was one of the few ballsy moves against the Church that legislators have ever implemented.

But all that was a good 15 years before became Taoiseach for the first of three stints. He was a completely different animal by that stage, I think it was historian Diarmuid Ferriter who said that the beginnings of his career were very dynamic but from the 1970s onwards it was all about one thing- himself and enriching himself as much as possible.

Why would all property have gone to the church? If that was the case then the church would have owned the property of everyone who died from the 20s till the 60s, which it clearly didnt. As much as the early state loved the RCC, I doubt they set up a system where eventually all the land in the country would have ended up in the hands of the church, paying no rates/tax etc.

I have heard stories however of wives/daughters/sons being shafted where the land was left to the church in the man's will and they were left with nothing. Another problem was widows/other children being left with nothing and the estate going entirely to the eldest son.

The Master

Harry cheating on Delores

diomed

Schillaci goal against Ireland in Italia 90. The end of a dream.

Ash.J.Williams

whitey1 wrote: »

Mayo competing in 7 All Ireland Finals and winning none in the past 25 years.

All codding aside, I think the following tragedies helped shape modern Ireland

Anne Lovett tragedy-I recently reread the reports.....truly heartbreaking and a seminal moment in the evolution of modern Ireland

Omagh bombing.....the sheer depravity of it rattled the "dissident movement" to the point of insignificance in modern Ireland

Events surrounding the Gibraltar tragedy, especially the murder of the 2 british soldiers by a mob.

THe guys that supported the Omagh bomb have their own wing in Portlaoise and have marches and the like in prison ...surely we could treat them a little worse? They also seem to pick and choose who can stay on their wing.

Ash.J.Williams

whitey1 wrote: »

Mayo competing in 7 All Ireland Finals and winning none in the past 25 years.

All codding aside, I think the following tragedies helped shape modern Ireland

Anne Lovett tragedy-I recently reread the reports.....truly heartbreaking and a seminal moment in the evolution of modern Ireland

Omagh bombing.....the sheer depravity of it rattled the "dissident movement" to the point of insignificance in modern Ireland

Events surrounding the Gibraltar tragedy, especially the murder of the 2 british soldiers by a mob.

It's a real life nightmare ....imagine being in the British army and finding yourself in the middle of an angry funeral mob.....that was an awful death

padd b1975

lazygal wrote: »

The passing of the eighth amendment. As a woman I feel as though my rights are always subservient to those of a foetus.

As I was once a foetus I disagree.

vitani

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

It's a real life nightmare ....imagine being in the British army and finding yourself in the middle of an angry funeral mob.....that was an awful death

True - it was horrific. The video of the mob and the photo of Fr Alec Reid giving one of the soldiers his last rites are two things I'll never forget.

Calibos

Independence wasn't a mistake in and of itself. 90 years later we are better off than most of the rest of the UK. Èven as we try to recover from our economic woes of the last 6 or 7 years we are still much better off than the regions of the UK that stayed in. ie. Wales, Scotland, N.I and even parts of England itself such as the North. The myriad of mistakes we made since the 20's didn't make it that we would have been better of remaining in the UK. The myriad mistakes made it that we are only somewhat better off than a great swathe of the UK. Had we not made the mistakes we could have been substantially better off.

RandomName2

Hmm... it's funny. There's basically 4 types of post in this thread:

• Worst event was when Dustin the Turkey colluded with Jedward to stop our success in da football
• God-damn bankers and Fianna Fáil. Bankers and fianna fail... Fianker Báil!
• The long night; shadow of gunmen; civil strife; and the spectre of the Catholic Church -workhouses, industrial schools, and poverty.
• Up da Ra.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

RandomName2 wrote: »

Hmm... it's funny. There's basically 4 types of post in this thread:

• Worst event was when Dustin the Turkey colluded with Jedward to stop our success in da football
• God-damn bankers and Fianna Fáil. Bankers and fianna fail... Fianker Báil!
• The long night; shadow of gunmen; civil strife; and the spectre of the Catholic Church -workhouses, industrial schools, and poverty.
• Up da Ra.

It's reminding me a lot of this http://the-toast.net/2014/06/30/every-irish-novel-ever/

LostBoy101

FatherTed wrote: »

Dev getting power. Really fked up the country in so many ways especially giving free reign to the church to chart the course of the country. Still paying for it. If someine else became leader long term e.g. Collins maybe the country would have ended up more secular.

Agreed. If Collins just told Dev to **** off with his meeting in Cork he would of told the church the same.

riffmongous

It's interesting how the Omagh bombing gets mentioned twice as often as the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in this thread, while I appreciate that most people would only have been alive for one (in that boat myself) I would have expected D/M would figure as much as Omagh

BorneTobyWilde

Roy Keane leaving World Cup.

Ash.J.Williams

riffmongous wrote: »

It's interesting how the Omagh bombing gets mentioned twice as often as the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in this thread, while I appreciate that most people would only have been alive for one (in that boat myself) I would have expected D/M would figure as much as Omagh

Just educating myself on the d/m bombings now, horrific. With hindsight when you have an area such NI where the army/police are there to serve a portion of the population with a shared mindset, it's obvious, expected and normal to assume there was military expertise involved in the bombing.

Sam Kade

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Roy Keane leaving World Cup.

How can you call a hissy fit an event?

ToddyDoody

Glenroe getting cancelled

Gmol

The shooting of Veronica Guerin and Jerry MacCabe

sabat

Adamantium wrote: »

The bones of 800 babies dumped in a septic tank in Tuam and who knows how many other sites around the country...

...The congnitive dissonance ...


...Amazing how quickly that receded in the news.

Maybe because it was a load of sensationalist internet bollox in a slow news week? There were about 20 skeletons in a converted disused septic tank. The story that the country was impoverished and conditions in these homes were bad is nothing new.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-tuam-tank-another-myth-about-evil-ireland/15140#.U9AFoKMapIU

Galwayguy35

RoadhouseBlues wrote: »

The Omagh bombing. I was coming back from England on the ferry when the report came on the television. I sat in a quiet corner and didn't speak because I didn't want anyone to hear my accent. I was ashamed to be Irish that day.

Why?
You didn't plant a bomb so there is no need to be ashamed of your nationality.

Galwayguy35

The Famine

The Black and Tans

Dublin/ Monaghan bombings.

Henry Ford III

All the serious one have been well covered, so could I suggest.....

The birth of Daniel O'Donnell?

Remmy

Adamantium wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2c5v8IZNA

jesus christ this is brutal

porsche boy

Garth Brooks

Dick phelan

Wow some posts are way off

The shooting of a journalist the worst event in the states history
The X case fiasco
The Economic crisis.

The Famine is clearly the worst event ever in Ireland, christ 1m dead and another million emigrating how could you seriously say that isn't the worst event in Irish history?

bitemeluis

Dick phelan wrote: »

Wow some posts are way off

The shooting of a journalist the worst event in the states history
The X case fiasco
The Economic crisis.

The Famine is clearly the worst event ever in Ireland, christ 1m dead and another million emigrating how could you seriously say that isn't the worst event in Irish history?

"modern" Irish history - watch ye dont fall getting down off that equine

blueser

Dick phelan wrote: »

Wow some posts are way off

The shooting of a journalist the worst event in the states history
The X case fiasco
The Economic crisis.

The Famine is clearly the worst event ever in Ireland, christ 1m dead and another million emigrating how could you seriously say that isn't the worst event in Irish history?

What part of ''modern'' don't you understand?

BarryLyndon

StudentDad wrote: »

The 'rising' of 1916 which didn't have popular support. Leading to the overreaction of the govt. Which led to the war of independence and formation of the Free State. Following on from those actions this little country went from being one of the wealthiest in Europe to an economic, social and religious gulag.
I read somewhere that during the 50's the govt. here toyed with the idea of ringing London and asking if we could rejoin the UK. Absolute madness.

Thank god we joined the EEC when we did.

SD

How are the fruits of Empire working out for the people of Dundee and Humberside nowadays?

Calibos

BarryLyndon wrote: »

How are the fruits of Empire working out for the people of Dundee and Humberside nowadays?

Much the same point as I made. I was actually very recently in the "Should hand back the keys to Westminster with an apology" camp myself till a thread here a few months ago where someone made the point infinitely more eloquently and comprehensively that I.

Basically, we fcuked up, we fcuked up regularily and we fcuked up big but even despite that we are still better off now than we would be if we were still part of the UK.

As someone pointed out earlier there are 8 million Irish and children of Irish parents outside the country. Had we not made so many screw ups those 8 Million would be living here. Imagine how dynamic a nation we could be with 12 million people without that brain and labour drain and larger domestic demand. Yet despite everything we're still better off than if we had remained in the UK. But imagine what it could have been like with fewer screwups and 12 million native Irish!!

comongethappy

Calibos wrote: »

Much the same point as I made. I was actually very recently in the "Should hand back the keys to Westminster with an apology" camp myself till a thread here a few months ago where someone made the point infinitely more eloquently and comprehensively that I.

Basically, we fcuked up, we fcuked up regularily and we fcuked up big but even despite that we are still better off now than we would be if we were still part of the UK.

As someone pointed out earlier there are 8 million Irish and children of Irish parents outside the country. Had we not made so many screw ups those 8 Million would be living here. Imagine how dynamic a nation we could be with 12 million people without that brain and labour drain and larger domestic demand. Yet despite everything we're still better off than if we had remained in the UK. But imagine what it could have been like with fewer screwups and 12 million native Irish!!

Is it statistically possible for 8 million Irish citizens to be alive abroad?

(Emigration being 30k per year or much lower for the bulk of the last 2 decades).

tomwaterford

comongethappy wrote: »

Is it statistically possible for 8 million Irish citizens to be alive abroad?

(Emigration being 30k per year or much lower for the bulk of the last 2 decades).

yes as afaik...your children can get a passport

comongethappy

tomwaterford wrote: »

yes as afaik...your children can get a passport

Taking average western birthrates of about 1.8 kids per couple, that 15-20% of people never have kids.... plus 10%+ people here aren't Irish.... You are looking at around 2 Irish born people living abroad for every 3 in Ireland itself.

Doesn't seem possible.

tomwaterford

comongethappy wrote: »

Taking average western birthrates of about 1.8 kids per couple, that 15-20% of people never have kids.... plus 10%+ people here aren't Irish.... You are looking at around 2 Irish born people living abroad for every 3 in Ireland itself.

Doesn't seem possible.

it is apparently....a lot of them would be very old as there was horrendous emigration in the late 50s (dunno deos this apply to modern history though)

Calibos

I presumed the person who mentioned it earlier in the thread meant emigree's and their progeny since Independence, so the statistic seemed plausible.

citytillidie

cerberos wrote: »

The birth of the Provos...............the civil rights movement would have prevailed in the end (through US and public opinion) and lots of lives saved.

Birth of the Provos was caused by the British after they destroyed the civil rights in Derry other wise know as Bloody Sunday

StudentDad

BarryLyndon wrote: »

How are the fruits of Empire working out for the people of Dundee and Humberside nowadays?

Really? You think the internecine crap, death, sectarianism, economic collapse, emigration, social stagnation, corruption, govt. ineptitude, religious fascism etc etc was worth it?

This little country didn't begin to come out of the Irish dark ages until we joined the EEC. As it stands we're still facing a rump of ultra conservatives in this country who'd happily drag us back to the 1930's.

SD

Son Of A Vidic

cerberos wrote: »

The birth of the Provos...............the civil rights movement would have prevailed in the end.

Nope, Burntollet bridge was the nail in the coffin for the Civil Rights movement. Savagely crushing and oppressing the voice of a people through brutality, inevitably leads them to armed resistance.

Sir Arthur Daley

The death of the isuzu trooper.

Muahahaha

riffmongous wrote: »

It's interesting how the Omagh bombing gets mentioned twice as often as the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in this thread, while I appreciate that most people would only have been alive for one (in that boat myself) I would have expected D/M would figure as much as Omagh

Yeah it is interesting though perhaps as you say it's because most people posting here weren't alive when the Dublin Monaghan bombings occurred but were for Omagh. I think though it might be a media thing too, there is a certain cover up the media don't seem prepared to talk about in relation to the DM bombings, on the other hand Omagh can be used as a tool to remind people not to vote Sinn Fein and certain media outlets have been working full time on that agenda of late.

StudentDad wrote: »

Really? You think the internecine crap, death, sectarianism, economic collapse, emigration, social stagnation, corruption, govt. ineptitude, religious fascism etc etc was worth it?

This little country didn't begin to come out of the Irish dark ages until we joined the EEC. As it stands we're still facing a rump of ultra conservatives in this country who'd happily drag us back to the 1930's.

SD

As much as I complain about the EU most of our more liberalising laws have come from it. It was illegal to be a homosexual in Ireland in the 1990s and even after David Norris won his discrimination case in Europe (after losing it in the Irish Supreme Court and appealing to the higher European Court of Human Rights), even after all that and all the infamy Ireland gained internationally for being a backward theocracy on the edge of Europe our government still didn't change the law on criminalising homosexuals for several years later. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the EU to do it. In fact if we weren't a member of the EU Norris would never had a higher court to appeal to and it's actually a good possibility that being gay in Ireland could still be illegal to this very day. As mad as that sounds if it wasn't for the European Court of Human rights overruling the Irish Supreme Court it could very well still be illegal.

Muahahaha

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Why would all property have gone to the church? If that was the case then the church would have owned the property of everyone who died from the 20s till the 60s, which it clearly didnt. As much as the early state loved the RCC, I doubt they set up a system where eventually all the land in the country would have ended up in the hands of the church, paying no rates/tax etc.

I have heard stories however of wives/daughters/sons being shafted where the land was left to the church in the man's will and they were left with nothing. Another problems was widows/other children being left with nothing and the estate going entirely to the eldest son.

It wasn't that the system was set up for property to end up in the hands of the Church- however it was structured in a way that it often happened and women were left by the side of the road in many instances. In some deals they got a life estate but the house/land reverted to the Church on their death. We're talking about deepest darkest 1920s-1965 Ireland here where the men in black held the keys to heaven and women's opinions counted for nothing. It's not hard to see how priests had a valuable opportunity to increase the worth of their parish by having an input into the estate of their parishioners. People at that time were God fearing and I guess did irrational things.

There's a lot to criticise Haughey about but in fairness to him bringing in that piece of legislation advanced women's rights and security tenfold. And I've no doubt he had to do it with Archbishops telling him he was going to hell for doing it. It took balls at a time in Ireland where standing up to the Church was virtually unheard of.

Muahahaha

Just as an aside and on reflection of all the events mentioned the more I think of the emigration thing the more I think it is probably is the most tragic event in modern Irish history. Except we don't see emigration as 'an event', more of a constant daily occurrence.

I fully agree with the other poster who mentioned how we could be today if we had 12m people and our very brightest and best working and contributing to Irish society. You only have to look at the stats to see how well Irish people do abroad, in the UK the Irish directors are the most represented nationality on company boards, take a scan across Fortune 500 companies and you'll see lots of Irish pop up there too in proportions far above our numbers. Many of these people emigrated in the 1980s and if they didn't come back during the Celtic Tiger then there isn't a snowballs chance in hell they will ever now. They're doing great for themselves but the real tragedy is that they should be doing great for themselves here and creating jobs here. But they aren't because they now see Ireland as a great place to visit but also have a recognition that Ireland is well below the standard of living for the level of taxation you're expected to pay. And the health service is in a mess too, education not great either.

The other side of having a large population of 10m and over is that services can be delivered cheaper as you get economies of scale on everything from energy to pharma. Also at that population level the possibilities in the sporting arena are raised considerably. Holland only has around 13m citizens but from those 6.5m odd males they have consistently produced football teams that get to World Cup finals (even if they haven't won one yet!). At the London Olympics they brought home 22 medals across a large range of sports, both team and individual. We brought home three from boxing and one from a previously disgraced drugs cheat. If Ireland had a population of c10m I really do think we could do some marvellous things in the sporting arena.

The other tragedy of emigration though is the splitting up of families. Two close friends of mine have emigrated with young children whose relationship with their grandparents is now defined by Skype calls and one yearly visits. That's sad really, it's sadder to think that none of them wanted to go but they couldn't see a future here for them of their kids. So they had to make the heart wrenching decision of taking their kids away from their grandparents who had been waiting a long time to actually have grand kids. There's stories like that up and down the country, we have all experienced it or know someone who has. It makes me angry to see good people feeling forced out of the country because of the clusterfcuk our politicians have delivered to us over the past few decades.

feargale

Not the worst in the overall scale of things, but not great either: Dustin in Eurovision. " Being the sports that we are, since we can't win the game anymore we'll puncture the ball." Every cloud has a silver lining. Maybe the crash has made us a little bit humbler.

harry Bailey esq

well the 'famine' would stand out,even though there was more than enough food grown and produced in Ireland to feed the populace.It wasn't a famine,It was basically genocide.In more recent history the omagh bombings and the cold blooded murder of Veronica geurin were dark days.The Irish civil war was another dark chapter in the history of our little nation.

PopePalpatine

Muahahaha wrote: »

In fairness Brian Cowen sounded very hungover on the radio that morning. It was revealed that Cowen and most of his ministers were up till 3am and it's pretty unlikely they weren't drinking.

That aside it was pretty much an open secret around Leinster House that Cowen had hit the bottle hard as the economy crumbled further and further. I remember myself seeing him staggering out of Doheny &Nesbitt on Baggot St at 10pm on a Thursday, he was having trouble walking he was that bad. A poster here at the time also told a story of how he was at a lock in in Offaly around this time and had sent his Garda driver home. At 5am he realised he was due in Dublin and one of the pub regulars who was sober had to drive him up to work- locked.

I need to see that thread.

Ghost Buster

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Sending that turkey puppet to the Eurovision.

Yet for many that was a high light. I maintain that we should send Dustin ever year until we bludgeon the feckers into submission

Muahahaha

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I need to see that thread.

It was a few years back now and I can't recall if it was on here on politics.ie Unconfirmed of course and just what a poster said they saw happen with their own eyes but it made for a funny story, AFAIR it was a funeral in Offaly somewhere and Cowen stayed in the pub till all hours before going directly to work in Dublin (most likely bed tbh).

That aside as I said anyone who drank in the Baggot Street area from 2009-2011 would have been well aware of the drinking Brian Cowen was doing at the time, people were whispering and comparing notes on when and where they'd seen him. A sister of mine who is a GP remarked about how much his skin had changed over the time he was Taoiseach and she doesn't even follow politics and knows little about the man.

Calibos

Muahahaha wrote: »

Just as an aside and on reflection of all the events mentioned the more I think of the emigration thing the more I think it is probably is the most tragic event in modern Irish history. Except we don't see emigration as 'an event', more of a constant daily occurrence.

I fully agree with the other poster who mentioned how we could be today if we had 12m people and our very brightest and best working and contributing to Irish society. You only have to look at the stats to see how well Irish people do abroad, in the UK the Irish directors are the most represented nationality on company boards, take a scan across Fortune 500 companies and you'll see lots of Irish pop up there too in proportions far above our numbers. Many of these people emigrated in the 1980s and if they didn't come back during the Celtic Tiger then there isn't a snowballs chance in hell they will ever now. They're doing great for themselves but the real tragedy is that they should be doing great for themselves here and creating jobs here. But they aren't because they now see Ireland as a great place to visit but also have a recognition that Ireland is well below the standard of living for the level of taxation you're expected to pay. And the health service is in a mess too, education not great either.

The other side of having a large population of 10m and over is that services can be delivered cheaper as you get economies of scale on everything from energy to pharma. Also at that population level the possibilities in the sporting arena are raised considerably. Holland only has around 13m citizens but from those 6.5m odd males they have consistently produced football teams that get to World Cup finals (even if they haven't won one yet!). At the London Olympics they brought home 22 medals across a large range of sports, both team and individual. We brought home three from boxing and one from a previously disgraced drugs cheat. If Ireland had a population of c10m I really do think we could do some marvellous things in the sporting arena.

The other tragedy of emigration though is the splitting up of families. Two close friends of mine have emigrated with young children whose relationship with their grandparents is now defined by Skype calls and one yearly visits. That's sad really, it's sadder to think that none of them wanted to go but they couldn't see a future here for them of their kids. So they had to make the heart wrenching decision of taking their kids away from their grandparents who had been waiting a long time to actually have grand kids. There's stories like that up and down the country, we have all experienced it or know someone who has. It makes me angry to see good people feeling forced out of the country because of the clusterfcuk our politicians have delivered to us over the past few decades.

Wind the clock back even further and erase the famine deaths and resulting emigration and you'd end up with a current Irish population of between 30 or 40 million. In 1845 there were 8 million Irish and about 15 million English. Now there are 60-70 million English.

Uriel.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah it is interesting though perhaps as you say it's because most people posting here weren't alive when the Dublin Monaghan bombings occurred but were for Omagh. I think though it might be a media thing too, there is a certain cover up the media don't seem prepared to talk about in relation to the DM bombings, on the other hand Omagh can be used as a tool to remind people not to vote Sinn Fein and certain media outlets have been working full time on that agenda of late.



As much as I complain about the EU most of our more liberalising laws have come from it. It was illegal to be a homosexual in Ireland in the 1990s and even after David Norris won his discrimination case in Europe (after losing it in the Irish Supreme Court and appealing to the higher European Court of Human Rights), even after all that and all the infamy Ireland gained internationally for being a backward theocracy on the edge of Europe our government still didn't change the law on criminalising homosexuals for several years later. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the EU to do it. In fact if we weren't a member of the EU Norris would never had a higher court to appeal to and it's actually a good possibility that being gay in Ireland could still be illegal to this very day. As mad as that sounds if it wasn't for the European Court of Human rights overruling the Irish Supreme Court it could very well still be illegal.

Although the ECHR is not an institute or product of the EU as such, rather it was established by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Muahahaha

Calibos wrote: »

Wind the clock back even further and erase the famine deaths and resulting emigration and you'd end up with a current Irish population of between 30 or 40 million. In 1845 there were 8 million Irish and about 15 million English. Now there are 60-70 million English.

True that. But within that current 70-80 million is also contained immigrants from over 40 Commonwealth nations and also just general immigration from the 70s and 80s when border controls were lax any determined person could find a way to the UK and set up a life there. In fairness to the UK they had a lot more experience of immigration than most other EU nations before free movement of EU citizens came in. But I take your point for sure, the results of the famine devastated the Irish population. I'd say if the country was run in a decent way that people had confidence in and we didn't have the mass emigration that we did then we'd likely be back to around 8m by now.

Uriel. wrote: »

Although the ECHR is not an institute or product of the EU as such, rather it was established by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Just glad we have it. I could never understand our government letting the Norris case go that far. The bishops must have had them by the balls because at the time the rest of Europe were flabbergasted that we had a law criminalising gay men and not only that, our government was fighting to keep it and willing to go all the way to Europe to do so.