# Irish political history



## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Starting this thread off with a continuation of the discussion Victor Romeo and I were having on the Elections thread in the British Influences Forum, which clearly was not really the correct place for it, but the side-discussion started, garnered some interest there and is still of interest. So here we go:



VictorRomeo said:


> The difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are not so much based in ideology - as both ideologies are intermingled. A lot of it is steeped in history and the Civil War. Generations voted on the side their families fought for. My family was Fianna Fail, though my Father bucked that trend as being a Labour man. I joined Fine Gael as today I view them as the more honest and ethical political group (a contradiction in terms perhaps!). It is my belief that FG leader and Taioseach(PM) Garret Fitzgerald was the most principaled and honest politician we've ever had.


While it is true that one strand of poltiical allegiance in Ireland was for a long time connected to who did what prior to, during and after the Civil War, another equally important strand for voters used to be the class issue prior to 1916. In other words what class or social grouping one belonged to and that view still continued long into the late 20th century.

Earlier in the Election thread someone mentioned land owners. 
Well, there are two things to consider here.

First of all the Ascendancy and absentee landlords voted for the party in Westminster that best represented their interests both in Ireland and in England. Whereas Irish landowners were stuck between a rock and a hard place in that many of them couldn't be seen to be voting for the same party as the Anglo-Irish. That said, some of the Irish landowners were true West Brits and had no qualms at all about voting for "English" parties.

The second thing is that after the second Dail was ratified in 1922, "English" parties and right wing parties no longer had a place in Irish politics....until of course the Army Comrades Association for ex IFS soldiers, later named the National Guard and then the Blueshirts completely lost the plot in the 1930s and became fully fledged fascists, supporting Franco.

So there are many things that come into play in Irish politics that can't be assigned to left, centre or right wing ideologies, as VR said, family allegiances, historical injustices and so on.

To give you an example, when I first voted aged 18, one of the most important things I should take with me, according to my Republican father, to the polling station was not to vote liberal. Why? Because of Lloyd George's handling of the Treaty in 1922. I didn't vote liberal and never have done. I voted Labour.

The Irish have long memories.

One common denominator that runs through all Irish politics is the difference between a Nationalist and a Republican. During the 70s and 80s The British media always did a good bodge job of mixing them up and using them as synonyms. But they are very different things.
Once an outsider has learned the difference between those two then he has a good chance of understanding the rest.

The split in the IRA which slowly occurred from between 69 and 72 lead to the Catholic Republican abstentionist paramilitary traditionalists becoming known as the Provisional IRA - The Provos.
And the Atheist Socialist non-abstentionist political romantics becoming known as the Official IRA - The Stickies.

The three main charcteristics that then separated them were: 
1. PIRA contiuned with abstentionism i.e. not recognizing the rule of Parliament over Northern Ireland and thus not sending its Sinn Fein politicians to Westminster. This was the true spirt of the IRA which introduced abstentionism with the First Dail in 1918.

2. OIRA wanted a united Ireland to be a socialist republic. PIRA wanted the Brits out and to annex NI to the existing republic.

3. As a general rule of thumb most of the top men in OIRA in the 60s and 70s were socialist atheists. Whereas in 1972, for example, most of the top men in PIRA's Belfast Brigade were devout Catholics and far from socialist.

Two different subjects there in one post, but plenty to get your teeth into.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Part II. 
Facts about the so called "Famine" or as the Irish correctly call it "The Great Hunger" (An Gorta Mor) that you might not know about.

Now I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by going over the historical facts again, about the millions that starved and the more than a million that migrated to North America because everyone here in my experience is well clued up on most things. Here though on wiki if you want to read them: ).

Suffice to say that the potato blight left the Irish people starving, dead, homeless, and stateless in the 1840s.

The facts that aren't well known are those related to why a people should starve simply because one food item the potato was not available.
Or the fact that the people weren't allowed to speak their own language, Irish, or teach it in schools. Or to wear their traditional clothes. Or to vote. Or to own property.

As Sinéad O'Connor sang in her song "Famine" "...about the fact that there never really was one." That said, I don't buy into the idea that it was a genocide attempt by the British either. Simply landowner greed.

The fact of the matter is that it was pure and simple British colonialist resource stripping driven by capitalistic greed. 
The blight first hit Ireland in 1844. The great hunger occurred between 1845-49 peaking in 1847.
The Irish workers were only allowed to eat the potato, they had no access to grain or meat. 
Why? Because all grain, veg and meat was shipped to England.
During the famine, while people were trying to survive by eating grass and then suffering death by starvation, warehouses in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Belfast were full of grain and meat waiting for ships to England.

Was it an attempt at genocide by the landowners, was it a signal of political muscle towards Irish revolutionaries, or was it simply greed blinding the English to their humanitarian duty to offer food to the Irish people deprived of their staple diet, the potato? Whatever it was, one thing is certain, that an enforced and easily avoidable disaster of stravation is not by definition a famine! Something which many Africans today and in 1847 would sadly attest to.

Sinead's lyrics: Live original version: 



OK, I want to talk about Ireland 
Specifically I want to talk about the "famine" 
About the fact that there never really was one 
There was no "famine" 
See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes 
All of the other food 
Meat fish vegetables 
Were shipped out of the country under armed guard 
To England while the Irish people starved 
And then on the middle of all this 
They gave us money not to teach our children Irish 
And so we lost our history 
And this is what I think is still hurting me 
See we're like a child that's been battered 
Has to drive itself out of it's head because it's frightened 
Still feels all the painful feelings 
But they lose contact with the memory 
And this leads to massive self-destruction 
alcoholism, drug adiction 
All desperate attempts at running 
And in it's worst form 
Becomes actual killing 
And if there ever is gonna be healing 
There has to be remembering 
And then grieving 
So that there then can be forgiving 
There has to be knowledge and understanding 
All the lonely people 
where do they all come from 
An American army regulation Says you mustn't kill more than 10% of a nation 
'Cos to do so causes permanent "psychological damage" 
It's not permanent but they didn't know that 
Anyway during the supposed "famine" 
We lost a lot more than 10% of our nation 
Through deaths on land or on ships of emigration 
But what finally broke us was not starvation 
but it's use in the controlling of our education 
Schools go on about "Black 47" 
On and on about "The terrible famine" 
But what they don't say is in truth 
There really never was one 
(Excuse me) 
All the lonely people 
(I'm sorry, excuse me) 
Where do they all come from 
(that I can tell you in one word) 
All the lonely people 
where do they all belong 
So let's take a look shall we 
The highest statistics of child abuse in the EEC 
And we say we're a Christian country 
But we've lost contact with our history 
See we used to worship God as a mother 
We're sufferin from post traumatic stress disorder 
Look at all our old men in the pubs 
Look at all our young people on drugs 
We used to worship God as a mother 
Now look at what we're doing to each other 
We've even made killers of ourselves 
The most child-like trusting people in the Universe 
And this is what's wrong with us 
Our history books the parent figures lied to us 
I see the Irish 
As a race like a child 
That got itself basned in the face 
And if there ever is gonna be healing 
There has to be remembering 
And then grieving 
So that there then can be forgiving 
There has to be knowledge and understanding 
All the lonely people 
Where do they all come from 
All the lonely people 
Where do they all come from


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## ZachGranstrom (Mar 11, 2010)

I find this thread to be very interesting. Thanks.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Thanks, you're welcome.
Part III coming soon.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Earl, I sit here in quiet admiriation for this posting..... I eagerly anticipate part three.....


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## Country Irish (Nov 10, 2005)

I look forward to part 3. While you are careful to phrase some ideas as questions, the underlying truth shines through. It gives the reader a starting point which will allow further pursuit of facts other than the inventions of the English.


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

This is not an attempt to hi jack the Earl's thread but I think in view of the political and social implications of the politics being examined I think it would be an interesting adjunct to this thread would be the impact of the Irish Dysphoria the first was the Potato Famine and the second was the Catholic post Great War. My Great Great Grandfather on my mothers, I have a photograph of my Great Great Grandmother taken in 1861, side came to Australia via a stint in the Indian Frontier Army in 1856.

THe wife's fathers story is fascinating who as a 16 year old from Dublin took the Kings shilling and fought for the English at the Somme. Upon returning home he was spurned by family members, even though he believed that he was fighting for Irish independence, for his service to the King. And in 1922 was told he had to leave or else and eventually he ended up in Australia.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

ajo said:


> This is not an attempt to hi jack the Earl's thread but I think in view of the political and social implications of the politics being examined I think it would be an interesting adjunct to this thread would be the impact of the Irish Dysphoria the first was the Potato Famine and the second was the Catholic post Great War. My Great Great Grandfather on my mothers, I have a photograph of my Great Great Grandmother taken in 1861, side came to Australia via a stint in the Indian Frontier Army in 1856.
> 
> THe wife's fathers story is fascinating who as a 16 year old from Dublin took the Kings shilling and fought for the English at the Somme. Upon returning home he was spurned by family members, even though he believed that he was fighting for Irish independence, for his service to the King. And in 1922 was told he had to leave or else and eventually he ended up in Australia.


Thank you Ajo, there then is the topic for Part III - The trials & tribulations of Ireland and the Irish during the Great War.

Part III - a taster. More later.
You father-in-law's story is similar to that of my paternal grandfather. Probably about 20 years old when in about 1915 or 1916, he joined a British cavalry unit and was shipped off to France. Partially blinded by mustard gas, spent some time in an injured soldiers home in Brighton (I think) where he learned the trade of an osier (weaving baskets, chairs etc. from willow), returned to Waterford in about 1917. I learned from my father (born 1936) that as he and his siblings were growing up in the 20s and 30s they had problems accepting that their father had fought for the British, as a volunteer. Conscription, which came in to force in Britain in 1916 only came into force in Ireland in 1918. Which in itself is a testmony to the htousands upon thousands of young Irishmen who volunteered for Britain's cause. 
What is often forgotten is that Ireland before 1916 was a very different place to the Ireland of post-1916. 
The Irish people pre-1916 were for the most part if not pro-British at least accepting of their status as part of Britain, and the people for the most part were proud of the efforts of young Irishmen in numerous Irish regiments in Flanders and France.

Much more of this later, about the mutinies in the trenches when news of the Easter Uprising reached the front, the tragic affair of Irish soldiers in Dublin in 1916 during the Uprising having to fire on their own brothers and sisters in the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Fein, the new IRA, and the Cumann na mBan, to name but a few of the Irish nationalist and republican organisations involved.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

"Or the fact that the people weren't allowed to speak their own language, Irish, or teach it in schools. Or to wear their traditional clothes. Or to vote. Or to own property. "
To be blunt, b%^&*(ks. Give us some History, rather than a half-baked regurgitation of Nationalist applied history.
The language wasn't banned, neither was the national dress, certainly not in the Nineteenth century! As many people in Ireland, in terms of social groups, as could vote in England, viz literate property owners. Irish people could own property, even under the Penal Laws! 

"The Irish workers were only allowed to eat the potato, they had no access to grain or meat. Why? Because all grain, veg and meat was shipped to England."
Again, nonsense. They ate the potato because it was nutricious and easily available. Indeed, the massive over-population in Ireland was because of the availability of potatoes. They were never "only allowed" to eat the potato. They tended not to eat meat etc because they couldn't afford it in a subsistence economy. The Irish peasant paid his rent by raising pigs, or cattle, to sell. 

"Whatever it was, one thing is certain, that an enforced and easily avoidable disaster of stravation is not by definition a famine! "
How was it easily avoided? how was it enforced? There was famine in Prussia, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands as well. Laissez Faire politics, that of the free market, in Britain meant that the government didn't see it as their duty to intervene, although they did, and many private individuals did much to help, as the Wikipedia article sited suggests. Indeed the government did assist, but the assistance wasn't effective. That is not the same as enforcing famine! 
Attempted genocide by landowners? An attempt to use the famine to rid their lands of unprofitable tenants, probably. As the Wiki article suggests, many of the, mostly Irish, landowners did use the famine in that way, but they hardly started the blight! 

I thought that your "History" might have been of interest, but it seems to be the usual nationalist deliberate misinterpretation; using "History" as a quarry from which to mine justifications for attitudes, rather than as an objective view. If all you're going to peddle is Irish heroism and victimhood, rather than an objective view of History, I'd rather not bother.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Facts are facts - the use of the Irish language was banned by law.
Fact- the teaching of it was banned by law
Fact- traditional dress was banned by law 
Fact- the Irish rural populatin did not have access to meat,fish, or other veg.
Maybe you should try reading some historical facts about Ireland instead of spouting off Tory propoganda! 

Thanks for one thing though, when you wrote "but it seems to be the usual nationalist deliberate misinterpretation" 
you confirmed very nicely what I wrote in an earlier post on this thread about the English not knowing the difference between a Nationalist and a Republican. You clearly don't know the difference.


Objective view of history??? LOL! You are joking, did you as an Englishman really just write that - pot-kettle-black ---- greenhouse-stones.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Perhaps I'll interject with some clarity for the benefit of Mr.Chouan.

_"To be blunt, b%^&*(ks. Give us some History, rather than a half-baked regurgitation of Nationalist applied history._
_The language wasn't banned, neither was the national dress, certainly not in the Nineteenth century! As many people in Ireland, in terms of social groups, as could vote_ _in England, viz literate property owners. Irish people could own property, even under the Penal Laws!"_

You are of course correct. The Irish could enjoy the liberties and freedoms you describe.

If they were Protestant.

If there were Catholic, they felt the full weight of the Penal Laws square upon their shoulders.

Let me be precise.

The resulting Penal Laws stripped Irish Catholics of their rights including; the ability to serve as an officer in the British Army or Navy, hold any government office, vote, buy land, practice law, attend school, serve an apprenticeship, possess weapons, and practice their religion. The Catholic Church was outlawed. The Gaelic language was banned. Export trade was forbidden as Irish commerce and industry were deliberately destroyed.

With 80 percent of Ireland being Catholic, the Penal Laws were intended to degrade the Irish so severely that they would never again be in a position to seriously threaten Protestant rule. In 1600, Protestants had owned just 10 percent of Ireland's land. By 1778, Protestants owned 95 percent of the land. When a Catholic landowner died, the estate was divide up equally among all of his sons, diluting the value. However, if any son renounced Catholicism and became a Protestant, he automatically inherited all of his father's property.

Various Penal Laws remained in effect for 140 years until Catholic Emancipation occurred in 1829, largely through the efforts of Daniel O'Connell. But by the time of Emancipation, Irish Catholics were a people laid low. When famine struck, they had little or no chance.

The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote: "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the ***** in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."

In deciding their course of action during the Famine, British government officials and administrators rigidly adhered to the popular theory of the day, known as laissez-faire (meaning let it be), which advocated a hands-off policy in the belief that all problems would eventually be solved on their own through 'natural means.'

Great efforts were thus made to sidestep social problems and avoid any interference with private enterprise or the rights of property owners. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British government would never provide massive food aid to Ireland under the assumption that English landowners and private businesses would have been unfairly harmed by resulting food price fluctuations.

In adhering to laissez-faire, the British government also did not interfere with the English-controlled export business in Irish-grown grains. Throughout the Famine years, large quantities of native-grown wheat, barley, oats and oatmeal sailed out of places such as Limerick and Waterford for England, even though local Irish were dying of starvation. Irish farmers, desperate for cash, routinely sold the grain to the British in order to pay the rent on their farms and thus avoid eviction.

In the first year of the Famine, deaths from starvation were kept down due to imports of Indian corn (in itself led to much misery) and survival of about half the original potato crop. Poor Irish survived the first year by selling off their livestock and pawning their meagre possessions whenever necessary to buy food. Some borrowed money at high interest from petty money-lenders (Earl has educated me to learn that these chaps were called Gombeens!). They also fell behind on their rents.

The potato crop in Ireland had never failed for two consecutive years. Everyone was counting on the next harvest to be blight-free. But the blight was here to stay and three of the following four years would be potato crop disasters, with catastrophic consequences for Ireland.

So, I believe you have learned something here today Mr.Chouan. First, what you call "b%^&*(ks" is a nations tragedy.

Second, what you call "b%^&*(ks" is empirical historical fact - absent from revisionism and recognised as so by academia.

Finally, what you call "b%^&*(ks" is perhaps one of the greatest stains on the gorged belly of British colonialism. It is my belief that the social, cultural and economical tensions so prevalent in Britain today is a long, hard hangover from those days gone by.

The Earl of Ormonde once said - " The Irish have long memories".....

So, pleased don't try an dismiss an Irishman's history as "b%^&*(ks" when you so clearly don't know how to read History objectively.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Blair's 1997 apology to the Irish people for Britain's negligence during the "famine" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/blair-issues-apology-for-irish-potato-famine-1253790.html


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

To both of you. I'm English am I? Do you know that, or is it your bias and prejudice showing? I live in England, and was educated in England, but my family and heritage is that of County Galway. Just because I don't subscribe to the populist rubbish peddled in Irish schools and perpetuated by the Irish school of victimhood, doesn't necessarily make me English. I've read History, rather than been told it, and the self-pitying "we've been repressed" nonsense I find as offensive as any Tory rubbish about Englishness.
Grow up and learn some real History, rather than wallowing in the self-serving rubbish that's kept you in ignorance. The Irish hae long memories, and especially selective memories.


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## Wildblue (Oct 11, 2009)

I'm quite interested in Irish history, and how a lot of it is under quite different circumstances than exist today, and from what I've seen as I've personally visited the country several times myself. I don't know enough of Irish history yet to be able to come to an educated conclusion about if any particular conditions are over-or-under-eggagerated, but I am certain enough that travesties have happened with the country.

I have seen certain dramatic movies, such as "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and "In the Name of the Father", and I wonder how accurate they really are. But they do rile up my emotions, and I wonder how those sorts of things could really have happened to such a wonderful place as I've experienced in my own travels to Ireland.


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## Svenn (Sep 10, 2009)

Odd how the ripples from the Anglo-Saxon invasions 1500 years ago are still being felt today. We Americans don't really differentiate between northern Europeans at all, so the divisions between the seemingly identical people on the Isle has always interested me. I've learned from other parts of the world though that it's not helpful to overgeneralize strifes like this as between two, clearly monolithic 'English' vs. 'Irish' or what have you. Genetically you guys are all about the same whether Celtic or Germanic, and most of the English language, spoken in Wales, Scotland, etc not out of oppression but for commercial convenience, is just French anyway!


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

While on the subject of Irish history two names which should not be forgotten or forgiven. Oliver Cromwell and John Milton, there are abundant sources on the web and in libraries on their nefarious behaviour towards the populace of Ireland.

As for Easter 1916 The Irish Rebellion by Charles Townshend is a very good account, albeit some what dry and academic, of that particular episode.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Well, you won't be surprised to know that I neither believe you are of Irish heritage nor that you've read history. I do believe though that you are very anti-Irish and will take every opportunity to attack Ireland and the Irish, for exampe, "populist rubbish peddled in Irish schools" How would you know that? You didn't go to Irish schools. Everything you write is based on your own prejudices. But you carry on with your attempts to ruin this thread for those of us that are enjoying "READING" about Irish history, which again, no matter how belligerantly you want to put it is something you've clearly never done. And if you truly are of Irish heritage, I don't know how you can live with yourself, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and I hope your parents never have to listen to your anti-Irish rants.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Well, you won't be surprised to know that I neither believe you are of Irish heritage nor that you've read history. I do believe though that you are very anti-Irish and will take every opportunity to attack Ireland and the Irish, for exampe, "populist rubbish peddled in Irish schools" How would you know that? You didn't go to Irish schools. Everything you write is based on your own prejudices. But you carry on with your attempts to ruin this thread for those of us that are enjoying "READING" about Irish history, which again, no matter how belligerantly you want to put it is something you've clearly never done. And if you truly are of Irish heritage, I don't know how you can live with yourself, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and I hope your parents never have to listen to your anti-Irish rants.


Sorry, I wasn't aware of an anti-Irish rant. An anti-ignorance rant perhaps. As far as Irish schools are concerned, I have many cousins who were educated in Ireland, whose History curriculum left a lot to be desired. I'm also qualified to teach in Ireland, and know what the Irish History curriculum is, and was. It is, I beleive, much improved.
I'll take your advice though, and I'll leave you to wallow in self-pity and to continue to justify your own ignorant biased views.
Perhaps you should retitle the thread, or add a sub-title to the effect that only those who agree with me and my myths may contribute.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Please, you're only making your bias more and more visible. I have absolutly nothing against any Englishman or woman. Some of my best suits are English( I was going for friends and while true, this reads better). My sisters are English.

My parents emigrated from Dublin to Liverpool in the late 50's - probably around the time of your parents, Earl. My two sisters were born there - making them English by birth - so, there you go - you're not alone in diaspora. I however, was born here - when my family returned in 1970. 

I present a perfectly calm, unemotional and reasoned post with regard to the facts of British rule in Ireland and the damage the Penal Laws caused. All you can do is counterclaim that myself and Earl are somehow biased and peddle self-pitying victimhood is really quite pathetic. Your mocking of my education is insulting and yet insightful - you were educated in England - how do you know I was peddled populist rubbish? What, you just know better? However to suggest we neither know our history or how to read it, understand it and learn from it is just laughable. The attiture you purvey here is the same attitude that has existed in Britain for hundreds of years - that Irish Catholics are uneducated, ignorant, muck swilling baby makers - and only worth of an Englishmans derision.

Once again you've taken a perfectly good, intelligent and informative thread and your provocative trolling has almost derailled it. With that said, please to continue to present your opinions - just don't expect such politeness next time.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Just a final comment, could you, any of you point out where I've been anti-Irish. I'd love to know!


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

You have not said it directly, but the tone and content of your posts provideds an insight into how superior you feel about this topic and how dismissive you are towards the sensitivties of a Nation. Your display of provocation, lack of tact and poor subject knowledge, one can only draw certain conclusions. Your first post on this thread is the crux of this argument. It was, to repeat, provocative, tactless and utterly untrue. You were - to coin a phrase - "called out" when presented with a straighforward factual response so you shut down and resorted to throwing stones in frustration. 

You know, just because you are a teacher does not make you a subject matter expert on any given topic.

Right, now that that's behind us perhaps we can move forward.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> You have not said it directly, but the tone and content of your posts provideds an insight into how superior you feel about this topic and how dismissive you are towards the sensitivties of a Nation. Your display of provocation, lack of tact and poor subject knowledge, one can only draw certain conclusions. Your first post on this thread is the crux of this argument. It was, to repeat, provocative, tactless and utterly untrue. You were - to coin a phrase - "called out" when presented with a straighforward factual response so you shut down and resorted to throwing stones in frustration.
> 
> You know, just because you are a teacher does not make you a subject matter expert on any given topic.
> 
> Right, now that that's behind us perhaps we can move forward.


Sensitivities of a Nation, eh. Whose Nation? Yours? Mine? Why so sensitive? Poor subject knowledge? or rejection of myth? What factual response? All I saw was the re-repeating of myths? There was nothing factual to respond to!
Just for the record, my secondary education was by Marist Fathers, at St.Mary's College in Middlesbrough. You can look it up if you like.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

No factual response? Are you blind? The facts are in front of you. Anyone who considers the reporting of historical fact as ignorance and myth as you have done clearly isn't in a postiion to discuss anything, let alone history. And anyone who dismisses acknowledged fact in such an ignorant and offensive manner clearly isn't worth arguing with anyway. 
The fact that you claim to be a teacher proves nothing, in fact like most academics who claim to know better it just makes me believe you even less and to consider you even less likely to know the truth about Irish history. So you claim to be qualified to teach in Ireland do you? In which case, An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

You are utterly wrong and I find myself questioning your assertions of Irish heritage and openness to learning, regardless of your educational background. I really don't like thinking things like this about an individual, particularly as I don't know you from Adam and can only accept a man at his word. In all honesty, your posts on this subject betray your assertions. I find it absolutly incredible that you think this way, that you see no merit of fact in what I post - that you rebuke what I say in my post as myth. So, my conclusion about you stands firm in my mind.

If you're happy to live with your version of Irish History, well so be it. Good luck to you.

But, why so sensitive? I'll tell you one last, concise time (ad nauseum).

Over one million of "my" ancestors died. A million more were forced to emigrate to escape the atrocious conditions at home, conditions which could have been tackled by a government committed to serving the Irish people, as was done during a similar period during the 1780s when the Irish parliament shut off all grain exports in order to make sure the people were fed. By 1845, the Act of Union was in full swing and as Ireland had no self government or voice at Westminster and suffered accordingly.

Hence, I'm damn well going to learn, study and understand what was a defining event in my Nation's history, a truly catastrophic one which came perilously close to destroying it. Without the paddywhackery and "An Béal Bocht", I might add. I'm a smart enough fellow to know what's fact, De Valera propoganda and British Revisionism.

I'm also a smart enough fellow to know that the time for blame has long since passed, the time for remembrance however certainly has not - this country will never forget. If nothing else, we owe it to the people that died to remember their suffering, and why they so needlessly died.

To quote you - and if this is truly how you feel about the history of Ireland over the past 300 years - "_If all you're going to peddle is Irish heroism and victimhood, rather than an objective view of History, I'd rather not bother" -_ Well I'd prefer if you didn't bother too.


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## ZachGranstrom (Mar 11, 2010)

Good job on this very insightful thread. I definitely have enjoyed reading about the history of Ireland,( well, except Chouan posts) so thank- you.


(Now I actually wish my history classes would discuss more about this history, than the sugar coated one we were told about)


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

ZachGranstrom said:


> Good job on this very insightful thread. I definitely have enjoyed reading about the history of Ireland,( well, except Chouan posts) so thank- you.
> 
> (Now I actually wish my history classes would discuss more about this history, than the sugar coated one we were told about)


Hi Zach, tune in later this evening (I'm GMT +1) when I'll be posting an introduciton to Part III, which I started on yesterday & have been adding to & fine tuning today. And then later Part III proper.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Wildblue said:


> I have seen certain dramatic movies, such as "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and "In the Name of the Father", and I wonder how accurate they really are.


Hi, the findings of the Saville Report have still to be made public. )


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Here is my essay for Part III on the Great War and the Easter Rising

*PART III - The Great War and the Easter Rising*

*INTRODUCTION TO PART III*
Before I start Part III proper, a couple of texts are needed to put it into perspective. First a text I was asked to write for a Swedish forum about a year ago providing the basic facts of the resolution of almost 800 years (1169) of English rule, hence the very nuts & bolts style of it, but it serves the purpose well:

_*1919 and all that!*_
1919 was the year of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was rightfully made by the representatives of the first Irish government voted for in free suffrage by the Irish people, i.e. the first free election for Irish people to vote for their own Irish representatives in Ireland, as opposed to Anglos in Ireland voting for other Anglos in Westminster to represent Ireland. 

Interestingly, all men and WOMEN of the whole of the island of Ireland of voting age were allowed to vote. Also interesting because Irish women had the vote several years before the women of Britain. Also of interest, something which most British history books won't tell you, is that the first woman MP elected to Parliament at Westminster was NOT Lady Astor but was in fact Countess Markiewicz representing a seat in Ireland - although as a Sinn Fein member she never attended Westminster to physically take her seat, because of the Sinn Fein policy of abstentionism.
This Proclamation of the Republic and thus of independence was the start of the Irish War of Independence with Britain which ended in the Truce and Treaty at the end of 1921. 

The Irish Civil War from early 1922 to 1923 followed on directly afterwards between Michael Collins' Irish Free State army & the Irregulars (Both sides had been the ICA, IRB, IRA and other voluntary organisations fighting the British up to 1921 - which is why neither side during the Civil War could solely be referred to as the IRA... because they all were! All of them were more or less individuals that had fought as the IRA against the British in the War of Independence!).
The Irregulars wanted to hold out for a full Republic (which finally came in the late 40s) but Collins agreed to the Irish Free State under a form of almost UK Dominion status, hence the Civil War. 

Now another text is also needed before Part III also add to context and to illustrate the tensions and build-up to 1916, especially the escalation of arms and militias as a result of Home Rule, welcomed by one side, feared by the other. This is a chronological list of relevant legislation, organisations formed, rebellions and uprisings up to 1916. I've compiled it from my own library, mostly from the 1989 seminal work "The Oxford History of Ireland", edited by R.F.Foster. But also from the "Atlas of Irish history", (1997) general editor Seán Duffy; "Ireland in the Twentieth Century" (1975) by John A. Murphy; "The Modernisation of Irish Society" (1973) by Joseph Lee; "Ireland - From Grattan's Parliament to The Great Famine" (1949), by James Carty; and from the seminal book on the subject, from 1962, "The Great Hunger - Ireland 1845-1849" by Cecil Woodham-Smith (who despite the name is a woman) 

*Chronology 1690 to 1915*

1690 William III defeats King James' forces at the Battle of the Boyne
1695 Fourteen per cent of Irish land held by Catholics. Acts restricting rights of Catholics in education, arms bearing, and horse-owning; Catholic clergy banished.
1699 Acts restricting Irish woolen exports
1704 Legislation restricting rights of Catholics in landholding and public offices (by means of 'tests')
1719 Toleration Act for Protestant Dissenters
1728 Act removing franchise from Catholics
1772 Relief Act allows Catholics to lease bogland
1791 Wolfe Tone's _Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland_. Tone was a Protestant who founded the United Irishmen in Belfast and later in Dublin to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter (Presbyterians and Catholics were both discriminated against). 
1792 Relief Act admits Catholics to the practice of the law
1793 Volunteers suppressed and arms movements restricted. Relief Act admits Catholics to parliamentary franchise.
1794 Dublin United Irishmen suppressed
1796 Insurrection Act (Mar.) and suspension of habeas corpus (Oct.) Tone's French invasion force in Bantry Bay (Dec.)
1796-98 United Irishmen plotting rebellion
1798 Martial law imposed (Mar.); rebellion in Wexford (May); Humbert lands in Killala (Aug.); Tone arrested and dies (Nov.)
1800 Act of Union
1803 Robert Emmet's rising, trial and execution
1823 Catholic Association founded, led by Daniel O'Connell
1829 Catholic Emancipation Act passed, permits Catholics to sit in parliament; forty-shilling freeholders disenfranchised
1843 O'Connell's 'Monster Meetings' for Repeal of the Union 
1845 Blight in the potato harvest. Beginning of Great Famine 1845-49
1846 Repeal of Corn Law; the new Whig government decide not to intervene in Irish Grain market
1847 Founding of Irish Confederation 
1856 Phoenix Society (a precursor of the Fenian movement) founded.
1858 After James Stephens returns from France he establishes the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). 
1859 Fenian Brotherhood, a sister organization, established in the USA
1867 Attempted Fenian rising
1869 Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland by W.E. Gladstone
1870 Gladstone's first Land Act
1873 Home Rule League founded
1879 Threat of famine in Ireland. Irish National Land League founded
1881 Ladies' Land League founded
1882 Irish National League replaces proscribed Land League
1884 Franchise extended by 'Mud Cabin Act'
1885 Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union founded (1891: Irish Unionist Alliance) 
1891 Anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation formed
1893 Second Home Rule Bill. Gaelic League founded; second Government of Ireland bill defeated in Lords
1894 Foundation of Irish Agricultural Organization Society and Irish Trades Union Congress
1896 Women qualified as poor law electors 
1898 United Irish League founded
1900 John Redmond elected chairman of Irish Parliamentary Party and United Irish League
1903 Formation of Griffith's National Council and Sloan's Independent Orange Order
1904 Irish Reform Association founded to promote 'devolution'
1905 Formation of Ulster Unionist Council
1907 Dockers' strike and riots in Belfast
1908 Foundation of Irish TGWU and Griffith's Sinn Fein
1910 O'Brien's All-For-Ireland League founded
1912 Catholic workers expelled from Belfast shipyards. Asquith's introduction of third Government of Ireland bill
1913 Successive formations of Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Irish Citizens Army (ICA), and Irish (National) Volunteers; Dublin strikes and lock-out
1914 Illegal importation of arms by Ulster Volunteers (Apr.) and Irish Volunteers (July,Aug.); Redmond's futile attempts to reconstitute Irish Volunteers as home defence force (Aug.) and Irish Division (Sept.), followed by creation of 36th (Ulster) Division formed into Ulster Volunteers, enactment and suspension of Home Rule (Sept.); split in Irish Volunteers, and first plans for rising
1915 Reorganisation of Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and Military Council formed. 

*PART III - The Great War and the Easter Rising*
For me the two most important things to remember when considering Ireland and the Irish during the war are, firstly, as I wrote before, that the Irish population prior to 1916 were not pleased about Irelands position, but most were generally resigned to the fact, for the time being, after many failed uprisings, that they were going to remain "British" until they could break free .So seeing Irishmen signing up was for most people a natural thing, just as it was for people watching men sign up in England, Wales and Scotland; and not forgetting the economic aspect. A few quotes from David Fitzpatrick's 'Ireland Since 1870' (1992) explain several aspects of the zeitgeist perfectly: 

_"&#8230;Irish popular response to hostilities was level-headed, and some weeks passed before recruits in great numbers began to join the 50,000 Irish regular soldiers and reservists automatically mobilized on 4 August"_

_"&#8230;It is significant that in Belfast in 1915, Catholics were actually more likely than Protestants to join the army: economics rather than politics or religion best explain the variations in Irish as in British recruitment. Those with insecure employment had least to lose by trading safety for free food, lodging, and foreign travel, a fraternal structure well adapted to Irish preferences, and 'separation allowances' for wives. Ireland's response to war was remarkable not for the fervour of its patriotism or disloyalty, but for its hard-headed readiness to accept the king's shilling"_

_"&#8230;.Soon however, those who had expected war to revive Irish hostility towards the empire began to despair. Military recruitment, prosperity, and the nominal achievement of Home Rule all suggested closerrather than declining common interest between Ireland and Britain." _

The second fact is that several weeks after war broke out in August 1914 the government suspended the implementation of Home Rule for six months directly after enactment. This raised suspicions, fears, mistrust, and hopes; all of which were justified as it remained suspended for the duration of the war. But the events of 1916 made the measures of Home Rule an irrelevance anyway.

Like the rest of Europe the 'Great War' had far reaching consequences for Ireland. The human dimension alone was huge; with over 270,000 men (40% of the adult male population of Ireland) serving in the British armed forces, and many thousands more working in the new munitions factories. Irish front line soldiers suffered the same horrifying conditions as other combatants, and casualties reached the same obscene levels - hardly a single Irish village came through the war years without the loss of at least one local young man, with particularly savage losses being inflicted at the Somme in July 1916. 

Now even here at the outset there is an important political dimension to consider in that many of the large number of nationalists who enlisted voluntarily (don't forget conscription only came into legal force in Ireland in 1918, however it was never used) did so because they felt that their actions would help to guarantee the suspended Home Rule for Ireland; conversely members of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) who volunteered felt that their sacrifices would be enough to ensure the defeat of Home Rule. That the British government preferred the claims of the UVF added to the sense of discontent within the ranks of radical nationalist opinion, which became obvious with the events of the Easter Rising. The British government also rejected all initiatives by Redmond to offer divisions of Irishmen as a home defence force in the event of the invasion of Ireland. 

In a nut shell the British government saw a propaganda nightmare emerging and would not relinquish control of anything, and as such they did not want Irish nationalists organising themselves in defence of the realm and by so doing gaining more British support (there was already a good deal of British support for the Irish cause and Home Rule) for valiant and voluntary war efforts, while English, Scottish and Welsh soldiers were being conscripted. 

The Easter Rising, which Griffiths, Pearse, Connolly and others had been planning since the outbreak of the war, seeing England's trouble as Ireland's opportunity, lasted less than a week and was fatally hindered by terrible planning, inappropriate tactics, and sheer bad luck. As a result of divisions within the leadership of the movement the Rising, which was originally supposed to cover the whole country was concentrated almost exclusively in the centre of Dublin. The Rising wasn't a single organisation affair, it included republicans, nationalists, socialists, workers groups, farmers groups, and womens' groups, Anglo-Irish aristocracy, and as well as Catholics also Protestants. During points in its history the IRA had had Protestant units. This massive all-encompassing call to arms of course made planning and leadership very difficult.

A quote from Gabriel Doherty's 'Modern Ireland' (1997): 
_"In spite of the personal bravery shown by many of the insurgents, the outcome of the drama was never really in doubt and so on Saturday 29th April an unconditional surrender was signed by the leaders of the Volunteers, after a mere six days of fighting."_

In military terms the Rising was a total disaster, but the actions of people like Pearse and Connolly gave birth to a militancy that would not be satisfied by the Home Rule framework. And so it was the Rising that was the determining factor in Irish politics over the next seven years.

The immediate consequences of the Rising are equally important. Starting with the booing and jeering the Volunteers experienced as they were led from the GPO by British troops.
The Dublin populace saw the Volunteers as unwelcome rabble rousers, just taking advantage of Britain's war time problems . 
However, the British overplayed their hand when they executed the leaders of the Rising, in that they gave the Movement its most important martyrs and its greatest success to date. From the moment of the executions the British had lost the Irish population's support for ever.

Two other events/consequences of the Rising are also worthy of note, firstly, as I mentioned earlier, Irish soldiers of Irish regiments waiting on the quayside for ships to France were marched back into the city to quell the Rising, so occurred the tragic events of Irish soldiers, many from Dublin firing on their own brothers and sisters in the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Fein, the new IRA, and the Cumann na mBan,to name just a few of the organisations involved. 

The other event of course was that when Irish soldiers in the trenches heard of the rising and the execution of the leaders via newspapers and the taunting of English, Scottish and Welsh soldiers (let's not pretend there was any Celtic solidarity back then, because there wasn't) there were many small mutinies and some soldiers simply downed arms and walked off, which of course resulted in several on the spot executions for desertion. 

The events of the Rising and the war from the Irish soldiers' viewpoint are covered very well in Sebastian Barry's great book from 2005 'A Long Way Home'. 

A review : "One of the most vivid and realized characters of recent fiction, Willie Dunne is the innocent hero of Sebastian Barry's highly acclaimed novel. Leaving Dublin to fight for the Allied cause as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he finds himself caught between the war playing out on foreign fields and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising. Profoundly moving, intimate and epic, _A Long Way Home _charts and evokes a terrible coming of age, one too often written out of history."

Another knock-on effect of the Rising was that more Irishmen went over to fight for the Germans. The Germans already had Irish troops prior to the Rising. The Irish solider got everywhere, the Tsar even had an armoured car company of Irishmen, who wanted to fight the Germans but not wanting to do so in a British uniform. An example, Sir Roger Casement, late of British consular service was sent to Germany by the Movement to raise an Irish Brigade consisting of prisoners of war who would accompany a shipment of German arms to Ireland. The shipment was intercepted, Casement arrested and later executed. 

In conclusion what the Great War and the Easter Rising achieved was the solidifying of Irish opinion against British rule. The Irish military and workers organisations expanded and reorganized in response and the end was nigh. 
James Butler - May 2010


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Part IV - Ireland during "The Emergency"

I haven't written it yet, but stay tuned!


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## Wildblue (Oct 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Hi, the findings of the Saville Report have still to be made public. )


Yeah, sheesh, they started over a decade ago! Are they just still not done yet, or is it being withheld from the public for political reasons?

Thanks so much for the link. That's very useful.

On a related note, my all-time favorite band is U2. I've been interested in the subject for a long time, and if I ever get a chance to meet a meber of the U2 band in person, the one question I want to ask them is, "How does it make you feel, when crowds always cheer wildly to 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', when it is a deep song written about such a horrible, horrible, event? Do you feel that any of us understand the song?" As an American, if I were to write some sort of song like, "The Deaths of 9/11", and then the public cheered and clapped wildly every time I played it, I'd be so disgusted/disappointed.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

This _IS_ a rebel song..... Straight from the War of Independence.

I was born on a Dublin street where the royal drums did beat
And the loving English feet walked all over us,
And every single night when me father'd come home tight
He'd invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:

Oh, come out you Black and Tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.

Come tell us how you slew
Them ol' Arabs two by two
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows,
How you bravely faced each one
With your sixteen pounder gun
And you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.

Oh, come out you Black and Tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.

Come let us hear you tell
How you slandered great Parnell,
When you thought him well and truly persecuted,
Where are the sneers and jeers
That you bravely let us hear
When our heroes of sixteen were executed.

Oh, come out you Black and Tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.

The day is coming fast
And the time is here at last,
When each shoneen will be cast aside before us,
And if there be a need
Sure my kids will sing, "Godspeed!"
With a bar or two of Stephen Behan's chorus.

Oh, come out you Black and Tans,
Come out and fight me like a man
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders
Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away,
From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

And one of my absolute favourites. Some Friday evenings I sing in a pub and play bodhran and tin whistle with the pub's guvnor while he plays guitar and sings. And I really give it some when it comes to the chorus, especially "Oh, come out you Black and Tans, Come out and fight me like a man"

On the subject of songs, did you know it was Behan's uncle Peadar Kearney who wrote the lyrics to A Soldier's Song? 
For those who don't know, Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier's Song) is the Irish national anthem. 
Here you can read the lyrics in both Irish and English and hear a bit of the tune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amhr%C3%A1n_na_bhFiann


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

_*Part IV - Ireland during The Emergency.*_

Growing up my parents and indeed many of my relatives in Ireland and England often, but not always, referred to the Second World War as "The Emergency" Then when I started reading Irish history many years ago as a young boy, I discovered that the books written by some Irish historians also referred to it as The Emergency. 

_*1939 and all that*_

In 1931 the IRA was banned in the IFS. 
In 1932 Eamon de Valera's Fianna Fail (which he had founded in 26) won the general election. 

In 1933 the National Guard (the para-military Blueshirts) was formed. And the United Ireland Party (Fine Gael) formed under none other than O'Duffy, the leader of the Blueshirts!

In 1936 the IFS (Irish Free State)Senate was abolished; and the IRA was proscribed by de Valera. The post of Governor-General (British representative) eliminated under the Constitution Act; and links with the Crown were further weakened by the External Relations Act. 

1936 - The Spanish Civil War, IRA and Socialists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Socialist_Volunteers_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War
The Irish Brigade (***basically the banned Blueshirts): ) (then click on the "Did you mean..." link) 

(***By this point O'Duffy's semi-fascist Blueshirts and the openly fascist Greenshirts had been banned by the Govt)
 

In 1936 as the "Irish Brigade" of Nationalist Catholics set sail they were blessed by Catholic priests on the quayside, which was one blessing more than the IRA, and other Irish republicans, socialists, syndicalists farmers, workers, and other Irish men and women received prior to setting sail to assist the Fifth International Brigade, La Quinta Brigada. 

In 1937 the constitution of Eire replaced the IFS constitution of 1922. 

In 1939 the now illegal IRA commenced a bombing campaign in Great Britain during World War II.
Eire was neutral during the war, this was bascially one of de Valera's many ways of further forcing home the point that Eire was now and would always be a sovereign state independent of the UK.

However, that view wasn't shared it seemed by any large percentage of the population, and so it didn't stop thousands upon thousands of Irish men and women travelling to GB or across the border into Northern Ireland to enlist voluntarily in the Britsh armed forces.

During the war some misguided individuals (my opinion) who had fought with O'Duffy's middle and upper class, right-wing, ultra-Catholic Blueshirts on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War now travelled to Germany and joined the German armed forces. Their hatred of both communism and Britain and the growing socialism amongst the Irish working classes was far greater than anything negative they felt about Germany or the German people. 

The HUGE IRONY here is that your average working class Irishman supported the British cause during the war and thousands enlisted, wheras your average middle/upper class Nationalist Irishman didn't and like the Duke of Windsor was sympathetic to the German cause. 

(Trivia fact: during the First World War the Tsar & later the Soviets had an Irish Armoured Car Company manned solely by Irish volunteers fighting against the Germans. I mentioned this in part III. Irishmen who hated the Germans but couldn't bring themselves to wear a British uniform) 

A good deal of German propaganda was aimed at the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and various colonial soliders, calling them cannon-fodder and labouring as slaves under the yoke of English imperialism (or words to that effect). The Irish were volunteers though & took little notice (conscription had been introduced in 1918 in Ireland but never used) and their hatred of nazis, facists, and O'Duffy's upper class Irish was solid! And like the majority of Irish and British people then knew that even after 1919-1921, Ireland and Britain and the Irish and British had far too much in common culturally to let a foreign country, Germany, place them against each other; which was one of the main reasons de Valera lost the election in 48. Becasue much of the country had been against neutrality & hated Hitler. de Valera had not made himself popular during the War by refusing aid to Britian in keeping Eire neutral. 

1941 saw the most destructive German air raids on Dublin and Belfast, and caused a rapid increase in Irish volunteers on both sides of the border.

In 1948, the Irish Republic was enacted after the repeal of the External Relations Act. Fianna Fail lost the election and so de Valera was out of office after 16 years. 

The Ireland Act of 1949 stated that partition would be perpetual. This finally settled the clause in the 1921 Treaty that the partition was a temporary solution. Of course the expected and actual result was that the IRA came back into action and started attacks in Armagh in 1954.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Great post. In fact it reminded me of a great book really worth a read if you've not done so already...

"In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939-45" by the great Robert Fisk.

It also reminded me of an article he wrote for The Irish Independent/London Independent some time back. Tales from this period always struck a chord with me as my father was a boy growing up in the Dublin suburbs (Clonskeagh) in the late 30s and 40s. I will always remember his tales of observing dogfights between the RAF & Luftwaffe that sometimes spilled into Irish airspace.

There are also stories that the Luftwaffe would steer their dogfights over Irish airspace that if they lost out and had to parachute to safety, the Irish camps were much more pleasent to be interred to. In fact there were many Germans that chose to remain in Ireland after the war and set up trade here. The part of the city where I work became something as a hub for Germans for example - and set up shop as butchers - names like Heinz, Hoffner and Steins still trade today.

Here the article....

_THE GUILT-STRICKEN confession of an ex-Luftwaffe pilot, the schoolboy memories of an Irish-born British army officer and a pile of 50-year-old intelligence files have conspired to re-open the great mystery of Irish neutrality in the Second World War: why did Germany bomb the "open" city of Dublin on the night of 31 May 1941?_

_The attack on the North Strand in Dublin killed 34 Irish civilians and wounded 90, prompting apologies from Nazi Germany and claims by the British that de Valera's neutral Ireland was at last paying the price for "sitting on the fence" during the war against the Third Reich. After the war, Germany paid compensation to the Irish Republic for what it described as a military error, while British intelligence officers suggested that the German aircraft - en route to a target in the United Kingdom - had been deliberately steered towards Dublin by RAF experts who had "bent" the Luftwaffe direction-finding radio beams._

_Now an elderly German - living in Canada and calling himself only Heinrich, but insisting he was one of the Luftwaffe pathfinder pilots on the night of the Dublin bombing - has broadcast an appeal for forgiveness over RTE, Irish state radio. He was asked to bomb Belfast, he said, but his two squadrons of 30 aircraft approached Dublin by mistake. "Please forgive me for this mistake which was beyond our control," Heinrich told reporter Micheal Holmes. "There was no wrongdoing on our side. Everybody was upset, not only the members of the [German] air force, but politically as well."_

_Heinrich, however, muddied the moral waters by expressing admiration for Hitler - "I thought him quite a guy," he said. "I was impressed because he let me criticise my boss [Air Minister] Goering. I thought he was a very kind man. I say he was a weakling because he was too kind." And Heinrich did not express any sorrow for the people of Belfast, supposedly the real target that night, who endured two terrible nights of Luftwaffe raids the previous month in which almost 1,000 Protestant and Catholic civilians were slaughtered by hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers._

_Enter, then, Colonel Edward Flynn, second cousin of neutral Ireland's Minister for Coordination of Defensive Measures, one-time British army officer and former special adviser to the Bahraini government. "I was home in Ireland from my boarding school in England and I remember hearing a broadcast by William Joyce [Lord Haw Haw] in which he warned that Amiens Street railway station in Dublin might be bombed," he said. According to Colonel Flynn, Joyce took exception to the large number of Belfast bombing refugees arriving by the hundred at Amiens Street. The station, now called Connolly after one of the the executed leaders of the 1916 rising, was only a few hundred yards from North Strand, where the German bombs exploded._

_"I also remember Joyce complaining that the Irish were shipping cattle to Britain from the docks at Dundalk and threatened that it would be bombed if this continued," Colonel Flynn said. "And my father and I were in Dundalk the night a German aircraft bombed the quayside there a few days later. It was a clear night and we actually saw the plane coming in from the north." Dundalk, a tiny port on the Irish east coast, was indeed shipping cattle to Britain during the war._

_A contemporary issue of the Irish Independent reported, under heavy censorship, that the aircraft's origins were "unknown", but a spokesman for the Irish army's Archives in Dublin explained last week that intelligence files compiled after the attack on George's Quay, Dundalk, in the early hours of 4 July 1941, noted that the aircraft had approached from the north (as Flynn described it) and that a **** fragment bore "the imprint of the German eagle"._

_Histories of the Luftwaffe's Blitz on Britain later suggested that in their efforts to deflect the bombers, British scientists had "bent" the German radio direction beams - the Knickebein or "crooked leg" system of navigation - and sent German aircraft in the direction of neutral Ireland. In fact, the British could not "bend" the beams, which were sent out from occupied France and Norway. But they could interfere with the radio signals and force aircraft to lose their way._

_An intriguing series of reports from the once secret intelligence files of the Irish army suggest that this had already happened on 28 May 1941 - two days before the Dublin bombing - when large numbers of aircraft, almost certainly German, flew up the Irish coast and then became confused when they reached the Irish capital. Many of them were then heard to drop their bombs over the sea after presumably realising they were not over a UK target._

_Irish neutrality has thrown up many myths. Churchill, outraged that the Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera refused to loan Britain three former Royal Navy ports which the pre-war British government had handed back to Ireland, believed that de Valera was secretly allowing U-boats to refuel in west of Ireland ports and their crews to come ashore - a claim later proved to be false. The British were obsessed that the German legation in Dublin would radio prior information about the D-Day landings to Germany, even though Irish army intelligence had already removed the Germans' radio set. Almost every German spy parachuted into Ireland was captured at once._

_But the bombing of Dublin remains one of the great mysteries. Did Berlin wish to punish de Valera for sending his fire brigades north to help Belfast after the April bombings in Northern Ireland? Did Germany wish to warn Ireland against sympathising too greatly with Belfast victims of the Blitz? Or were the Germans angry at Ireland's trade with Britain?_

_Oddly, a German broadcast three weeks before the Dublin bombings warned that "to gain their ends, the British intend to bomb Eire and then declare that this crime was carried out by Germany". But the bomb fragments, Germany's apology and now Heinrich's admission make it clear that the Luftwaffe was to blame. Had the bombers been misled by the British? Quite probably, although they would not have been able to redirect the planes. But given Churchill's state of suppressed fury with de Valera, the British would probably not have been upset if they had sent the Luftwaffe off to bomb Dublin._


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Fascinating article Victor thanks for posting it. I've read other Fisk stuff of course, especially on the Middle East but I haven't come across this one before.

At the moment I'm reading a very absorbing book, "The Provisional IRA" by Patrick Bishop & Eamonn Mallie from 1987.
They don't romanticise or glorify the subject at all. Very objectively written. It starts where you'd expect it to start with the roots pf republicanism and works through the 19th and 20th centuries. Of great interest is a lot of the interaction between IRA men and journalists over the years. As well as the details of IRA reports. And the details of little known meetings between top IRA men and top British politicians. And all the names you'd expect to see are in it. Goulding, O'Connaill, O'Bradaigh, Adams, McGuinness, McKee, MacStiofan, McMillen etc. Also in great detail of course are the actions of all sides during The Troubles from 1968 onwards, but even covering the roots of the Troubles in the 50s with the burning out of hundreds of Catholics and hundreds of Catholics being physically expelled from their jobs in the shipyards.


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## NorthShorer (Apr 17, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> So there are many things that come into play in Irish politics that can't be assigned to left, centre or right wing ideologies, as VR said, family allegiances, historical injustices and so on.


So what do you do in an election where you are hacked off with the incumbent government and you want to "send a message"? What about in a by-election? Do you have swinging voters?

Genuine questions - I'm just intrigued about a culture where you vote because of how your family fought in a war. I've been raised in a culturally Irish-Australian background (Presentation Sisters, Christian Brothers, some extended family have taken vocations) but I'd sooner fly to the moon than base my vote on ancestors. It's just a strange concept for me. Elections are about public service delivery and policy direction (to me anyway).

Horses for courses I guess.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

NorthShorer said:


> So what do you do in an election where you are hacked off with the incumbent government and you want to "send a message"? What about in a by-election? Do you have swinging voters?


To what degree it exists nowadays I don't know. Victor would be passed suited to answering this.

I can tell you this though whenever I've spoken to relatives in Ireland about votng in electins, whether it was 5 years ago or 30 years ago, the one constant was always the clarity with which they could tell me the parties they would never vote for and why. Who they were going to vote for seemed less important. And the same was true of my family and Irish relatives in England. Every election my father said "I can't vote for the Liberals after what they did in 1922" Seems funny even to me, but I think it's an Irish thing...again, like I said before, long cultural memories.

Think of it like this, would a German or Austiran Jew today vote for a CD party or any populist right leaning party? Unlikely.


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

NorthShorer said:


> So what do you do in an election where you are hacked off with the incumbent government and you want to "send a message"? What about in a by-election? Do you have swinging voters?
> 
> Genuine questions - I'm just intrigued about a culture where you vote because of how your family fought in a war. I've been raised in a culturally Irish-Australian background (Presentation Sisters, Christian Brothers, some extended family have taken vocations) but I'd sooner fly to the moon than base my vote on ancestors. It's just a strange concept for me. Elections are about public service delivery and policy direction (to me anyway).
> 
> Horses for courses I guess.


Like you I have that Irish Catholic (working class) background. In my family and others I know we were brought up ALP. The DLP were traitorous turncoats who split the ALP vote and kept them out of power for 23 years. The Liberals were the enemy. Traditional notions of class and politics are still very alive in Australia. I have friends, Rural NSW, who would only ever vote National.

I think cultural conditioning does play a large part in peoples voting intentions. But then middle class welfare played a large part in maintaining our pervious Government in office for years.

As for the present if the Greens could get their act together and display some intelligent well formulated policies then I would seriously consider them. All they do is split the center right and left vote which only furthers the machinations of the Liberal party ( and just an aside the Liberal party is not liberal at all its Tory conservative) who stands to gain from the impact of the Greens on the Labor vote.


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## NorthShorer (Apr 17, 2009)

Mine weren't working class - the political culture I grew up in is very different to the ones you mentioned! ;-)

Notwithstanding the fact that lots of people vote for all sorts of reasons, Greens in Australian politics usually struggle to attract a socially conservative vote - an observant RC may at times fall in this category, I suggest. Not many ardent churchgoers in Fitzroy or Balmain....


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

NorthShorer said:


> Not many ardent churchgoers in Fitzroy or Balmain....


Yes I know they all live in Collingwood and Bondi.:devil:


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## Karl89 (Feb 20, 2005)

Gents,

Ireland didn'y particularly acquititself well in WW2. Especially de Valera, who chose to extend condolences to the German minister in Dublin upon Hitlr's death.

Regards,

Karl


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

Karl89 said:


> Gents,
> 
> Ireland didn'y particularly acquititself well in WW2. Especially de Valera, who chose to extend condolences to the German minister in Dublin upon Hitlr's death.
> 
> ...


Many in Ireland also supported Argentina in the Falkland/Malvinas war. In some ways, this seems to be a little like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Considering the history of Britain in Ireland, I would say that Britain didn't particularly acquit itself very well in Ireland.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

_"Many in Ireland also supported Argentina"_

I still do.....


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## Wildblue (Oct 11, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> _"Many in Ireland also supported Argentina"_
> 
> I still do.....


V, you really caught my attention there. I'm interested as to why--is it based just on the Argentinian position in the conflict, or relating Britain to its history with Ireland? I'm not judging either way, just am curious to know.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

To put it simply I believe that no nation has the right to exert territorial control over another land (so) removed from its natural boundaries.

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that a foreign power exerts territorial control over part of the island on which I live. However, I do also appreciate the compexities involved today. I accept that the British can't just up and leave and leave it all to ourselves to figure out. I would like a united Ireland.

With that said and given the history involved, the Falklands are so far removed from Britian, I find myself time and time again asking why? Well today it's an easy answer.

I abhor forceful colonialism and the motivations behind it - it serves to strip away natural resourses of a nation with little or any of the profits returned. By and large it destroys countries for generations and the loss of human capital is beyond criminal. It's the antithesis of democracy and broadly speaking, it's the root cause of most of the problems the world experiences today. It also still happens today - under different guises of course - economic and security and it offends me just as much.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Karl89 said:


> Gents,
> 
> Ireland didn'y particularly acquititself well in WW2. l


These countries were officially neutral during the Second World War:


Eire (Republic if Ireland)
Sweden
Switzerland
Spain
Afghanistan
Portugal

"Based on the War Office calculation that 22 men served for every one who died, she estimates that 99,997 Irishmen volunteered, with the number divided almost evenly between the North and the South."
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/3749629.stm
Oh, the irony, that percentage wise (per capita) more Irishmen enlisted from the small population of Ireland voluntarily than those who enlisted voluntarily in the UK!!!! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

Even if we say that half of the almost 50,000 who enlisted in the north considered themselves Irish rather than British that means that about 75,000 Irish Irishmen from Ireland as a whole volunteered to fight for Britain! You can also put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

Mind you don't choke it on though! I've heard bitter tobacco can be quite treacherous.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

*The Potato Famine*

I've found this thread very interesting - clearly there is little chance of the Irish forgetting their history, so perhaps it follows that they need not be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, supposedly the fate of those with imperfect memories? Is there a danger however that the past becomes more important than the future?

Without wishing to stir up pointless controversy, some of the comments about the Irish potato famine, to the effect that the English were supposedly removing all grain and beef from Ireland while the Irish starved, reminded me about something I was taught at school, and I've been doing some reading on the matter as well. 

My teacher had an alternative explanation of the famine, based an Malthusian principles, which would have allowed much less scope for such trenchantly anti-English sentiments. 

The introduction of the potato by Sir Walter Raleigh was followed by improvements in agriculture that allowed the Irish population to increase greatly, to the point that it outstripped production: from 1.25 million in 1700 to 4.5 million in 1800 and over 8 million in 1841 (it's now around 6 million). Irish political leaders favoured the subdivision of land (contrary to the policy of British governments). The conditions of most land workers were miserable.

Despite the distribution of £9 million worth of grain by the British government (at then current prices), and supplies of grain also from the United States, the terrible consequences of the potato blight were that close to a million died and 1.5 million emigrated from the over-populated island. Simple peasant farmers many of them, it was natural that they should blame the catastrophe on either God or some other supervening entity, and for this they chose the English.

The misery of the Irish gave strength to the Home Rule movement. It is not true however to say that the Irish were not fairly represented in the British Parliament - in 1914, 103 Irish MPs compared to 567 MPs for England, Scotland and Wales, while the population ratio of Ireland to Great Britain was 1 to 10, so if anything they were over-represented.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

However, the facts acknowledged by experts remain the facts.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

"Facts" in history are constantly changing as we find out more. Besides, as I've mentioned elsewhere, much history is written by people who wish to further an agenda, rather than to tell the objective truth. Consequently, they leave out the bits that doesn't agree with their view.
Irish nationalist history has its own agenda, so suggestions that Britain did anything to alleviate the famine, or that Irish landowners were responsible for evictions, are not part of that history, even if true.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

It always makes me laugh when I read crap like this. In essence - you're saying - "what did the Irish expect with their crazy baby making ways". And, once again your post shows a complete reluctance to recognise the balatant apartheid that exisited back then. Sure, there were plenty of Irish (predominantly absentsee Protestant landowners) in Parliament, but the vast majority of them could hardly care less about the plight of Irish Catholics - who were of course the vast majority of the population. Of course I'm not shying from the fact that some of Ireland's greatest heros were Protestant. 

You can revise and spin all you want. You can choose your words with hidden meaning, post untruths and patronise 'till the cows come home as nobody(bar one or two) here buys it.

To repeat EoO, "the facts acknowledged by experts remain the facts".


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> It always makes me laugh when I read crap like this. In essence - you're saying - "what did the Irish expect with their crazy baby making ways". And, once again your post shows a complete reluctance to recognise the balatant apartheid that exisited back then. Sure, there were plenty of Irish (predominantly absentsee Protestant landowners) in Parliament, but the vast majority of them could hardly care less about the plight of Irish Catholics - who were of course the vast majority of the population. Of course I'm not shying from the fact that some of Ireland's greatest heros were Protestant.
> 
> You can revise and spin all you want. You can choose your words with hidden meaning, post untruths and patronise 'till the cows come home as nobody(bar one or two) here buys it.
> 
> To repeat EoO, "the facts acknowledged by experts remain the facts".


Fine, you beleive what you want to. Nobody's denying that the famine happened, all that is being said is that it wasn't as simple, and as black and white as it is usually portrayed. Neither are the "facts" as absolute as you suggest. 
Just because you don't like the fact that many Catholic Irish landlords, often if not always tenants themselves, evicted their tenants during and immediately after the famine, doesn't make it untrue, no matter how much you want it to be. Because the fact that many British charitable organisations, as well as the government itself, and government agencies, such as the Coast Guards, and the armed forces, assisted with famine relief doesn't fit in wit the the received wisdom of Irish Nationalist History doesn't mean that it didn't happen. One could argue that, in terms of government poor relief, the British government did less for the British poor than it did for the Irish famine victims. By the same terms, the Russian and Prussian governments, for example, did no more for the victims of the potato famine in Russia and Prussia than Britain did in Ireland.
Nobody has denied the tragedy of the Famine, nor have they denied that the British government's response was inadequate. However to deny facts because they don't fit in with a favoured view isn't good history, but merely using biased historical stories to support a modern agenda.
Next thing we'll be hearing that the Americans went to war with Spain to liberate the Phillipines, rather like an account that I was reading last night that Bonaparte was only trying to create a peaceful federalist europe.....


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

VictorRomeo said:


> It always makes me laugh when I read crap like this


You have an elegant turn of phrase, Victor. I'm sorry if my post runs counter to your preconceptions or prejudices - it's best to stick with factual content in discussions about the past, I think.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Centaur said:


> it's best to stick with factual content in discussions about the past, I think.


Well please do that then.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Centaur said:


> Without wishing to stir up pointless controversy,




That's EXACTLY what you want to do, because that's exactly what you've just done!


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> That's EXACTLY what you want to do, because that's exactly what you've just done!


 Good intentions and all that.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

VictorRomeo said:


> your post shows a complete reluctance to recognise the balatant apartheid that exisited back then.


Do you really imagine it was very different in England at that time? There were rich and poor (very poor in fact), and some of the poor went hungry and starved, and had to emigrate, just as in Ireland. That's just how it was then, in many countries. The Irish potato famine was not unique, nor was it caused by greedy Englishmen gorging themselves on Irish beef.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

_"Without wishing to stir up pointless controversy" _

Indeed.

Me thinks you're the one who struggles with factual content. And as for my scatalogical turn of phrase... If that's the best you can do - to mock my use of "crap", well....

....let's see who can figure this one out..... (bet Earl can for sure!)

_"Oh flip oh gosh oh golly gee
We really shocked the local rock disc jock
Oh crumbs oh boy oh sugar me
The poor bloke nearly went right off his block
We only told him what we did and didn't like
And then we used that word and he jumped on the mike"_

Now...

I'm going to repost content already posted on page one of this thread - just to try and make it as clear as I can for you. What I posted are the facts and facts that are accepted as so - not just in Ireland but internationally - and without spin and revisionism.

Now I'm asking you to read and if you take umbridge with any thing I've said below, if you think I'm lying or making it all up, take the time to point out where and offer counter-argument.

The Irish Famine in a Nutshell - cause and effect....

_...the Penal Laws stripped Irish Catholics of their rights including; the ability to serve as an officer in the British Army or Navy, hold any government office, vote, buy land, practice law, attend school, serve an apprenticeship, possess weapons, and practice their religion. The Catholic Church was outlawed. The Gaelic language was banned. Export trade was forbidden as Irish commerce and industry were deliberately destroyed.

With 80 percent of Ireland being Catholic, the Penal Laws were intended to degrade the Irish so severely that they would never again be in a position to seriously threaten Protestant rule. In 1600, Protestants had owned just 10 percent of Ireland's land. By 1778, Protestants owned 95 percent of the land. When a Catholic landowner died, the estate was divide up equally among all of his sons, diluting the value. However, if any son renounced Catholicism and became a Protestant, he automatically inherited all of his father's property.

Various Penal Laws remained in effect for 140 years until Catholic Emancipation occurred in 1829, largely through the efforts of Daniel O'Connell. But by the time of Emancipation, Irish Catholics were a people laid low. When famine struck, they had little or no chance.

The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote: "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the ***** in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."

In deciding their course of action during the Famine, British government officials and administrators rigidly adhered to the popular theory of the day, known as laissez-faire (meaning let it be), which advocated a hands-off policy in the belief that all problems would eventually be solved on their own through 'natural means.'

Great efforts were thus made to sidestep social problems and avoid any interference with private enterprise or the rights of property owners. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British government would never provide massive food aid to Ireland under the assumption that British landowners and private businesses would have been unfairly harmed by resulting food price fluctuations.

In adhering to laissez-faire, the British government also did not interfere with the London-controlled export business in Irish-grown grains. Throughout the Famine years, large quantities of native-grown wheat, barley, oats and oatmeal sailed out of places such as Limerick and Waterford for England, even though local Irish were dying of starvation. Irish farmers, desperate for cash, routinely sold the grain to the British in order to pay the rent on their farms and thus avoid eviction.

In the first year of the Famine, deaths from starvation were kept down due to imports of Indian corn (in itself led to much misery) and survival of about half the original potato crop. Poor Irish survived the first year by selling off their livestock and pawning their meagre possessions whenever necessary to buy food. Some borrowed money at high interest from petty money-lenders (Earl has educated me to learn that these chaps were called Gombeens!). They also fell behind on their rents.

The potato crop in Ireland had never failed for two consecutive years. Everyone was counting on the next harvest to be blight-free. But the blight was here to stay and three of the following four years would be potato crop disasters, with catastrophic consequences for Ireland...._

Now, nowhere in any of my postings have I stated that the English got fat eating Irish beef, and nowhere did I mention that the 'English' were only to blame. There were many many people not affected by the famine - those in Cities and large towns. I'm not ignorant to that. I'm also not ignorant to the hackneyed and distorted view that Irish nationalists took/take - I'm not one of those.

But to put simply, Ireland could not self govern. Ireland could not legislate to protect her people. Ireland was subjected to some very poor decision making by her political masters in London and suffered the consequences accordingly.

There you go. The Irish Potato Famine. Pick apart if you can.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Excellent post Victor. It cannot be stressed enough that Protestants owned 95% of ALL land in Ireland at the time. Therefore the rural Irish did not own or have access to what was agronomically produced from grain to fish to poultry to meat and to several sorts of fruti and vegetables.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

That's a nice Sunday school essay Vic. It betrays a rather weird obsession with religion and a strange admiration for self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune. I asked earlier whether you imagined life for the English was much different then, but clearly such concerns seem to lie far beyond your horizon.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Ah, I see what my problem is. I doff my cap to a higher intellect. And there was me thinking I could persuade you into sensible debate. Sure why bother when it's all a fairy tale. Perhaps teacher might give me a star for good effort.

Now just to be clear, this thread is about Irish political history.

If you wish to engage in a debate entitled "Life for the ordinary Englishman during the Great Famine", go create such a thread. Knock yourself out. I'll pitch in. I read Oliver Twist you know. And saw The Muppet Christmas Carol too. See, I know all about life in England during the 19th century! Go on! It'll be fun. But I'll tell you one thing we won't be talking about there; how 1/8+ of England's population died from starvation and how 1/8+ were displaced.

Now, perhaps you might take some time to read this.... Or is it too fictional for your tastes....?

https://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

It's an interesting article, Vic - a secondary source, of course, and the writers betray a remarkable level of bias in the matter. You're a slippery customer, you have evaded most of the points I made earlier; I get the feeling you're quite comfortable with your prejudices so I'll leave you to them.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Excellent post Victor. It cannot be stressed enough that Protestants owned 95% of ALL land in Ireland at the time. Therefore the rural Irish did not own or have access to what was agronomically produced from grain to fish to poultry to meat and to several sorts of fruti and vegetables.


True, but most tenants with sub-tenants were catholics, and it was the tenants with unprofitable sub-tenants who were most keen to rid themselves of their burden and replace them with profitable sheep, in order to allow themselves to develop economically.
They also refused to eat fish or any kind of seafood, despite the abundance thereof in the West. What they wanted was what they were used to, as would we all.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

VictorRomeo said:


> _"Without wishing to stir up pointless controversy" _
> 
> I'm going to repost content already posted on page one of this thread - just to try and make it as clear as I can for you. What I posted are the facts and facts that are accepted as so - not just in Ireland but internationally - and without spin and revisionism.


These aren't universally accepted as facts, this is the "popular" story, there are texts in print now, by Irish authors, which suggest that this "history" is indeed a story told to further an agenda, not the objective truth.



VictorRomeo said:


> _...the Penal Laws stripped Irish Catholics of their rights including; the ability to serve as an officer in the British Army or Navy, hold any government office, vote, buy land, practice law, attend school, serve an apprenticeship, possess weapons, and practice their religion. The Catholic Church was outlawed. The Gaelic language was banned. Export trade was forbidden as Irish commerce and industry were deliberately destroyed._


_Except that by the later part of the 18th century the Penal Laws were effectively being ignored by the government. Many of them had never been followed at all. Gaelic had never actually been banned in reality, de jure, yes, de facto, no. You'll find if you look at Oulart Hill, 1n 1798, for example, that the Yeomanry killed there by the "United Irishmen" were Gaelic speaking catholics from Galway. So much for the language being banned, and for catholics being prevented from owning weapons._
_Whatever the Penal Laws, passed in the 1680's at the insistence of the Ulster Protestants, were supposed to achieve, they were increasingly rarely actually applied._

_


VictorRomeo said:



The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote: "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the ***** in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."

Click to expand...

__Quite. The Irish population had increased dramtically with the introduction of the potato. Land that under conventional agriculture couldn't support a family could when planted with potatoes. Hence an unsustainably swollen population dependent upon one crop. There you have the recipe for disaster._

_


VictorRomeo said:



In deciding their course of action during the Famine, British government officials and administrators rigidly adhered to the popular theory of the day, known as laissez-faire (meaning let it be), which advocated a hands-off policy in the belief that all problems would eventually be solved on their own through 'natural means.'

Click to expand...

_


VictorRomeo said:


> _Great efforts were thus made to sidestep social problems and avoid any interference with private enterprise or the rights of property owners. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British government would never provide massive food aid to Ireland under the assumption that British landowners and private businesses would have been unfairly harmed by resulting food price fluctuations._
> 
> _In adhering to laissez-faire, the British government also did not interfere with the London-controlled export business in Irish-grown grains. Throughout the Famine years, large quantities of native-grown wheat, barley, oats and oatmeal sailed out of places such as Limerick and Waterford for England, *even though local Irish were dying of starvation. Irish farmers, desperate for cash, routinely sold the grain to the British in order to pay the rent on their farms and thus avoid eviction*.._


_Quite. Nobody is arguing with this. Please note the highlighted part._

_


VictorRomeo said:



In the first year of the Famine, deaths from starvation were kept down due to imports of Indian corn (in itself led to much misery) and survival of about half the original potato crop. Poor Irish survived the first year by selling off their livestock and pawning their meagre possessions whenever necessary to buy food. Some borrowed money at high interest from petty money-lenders (Earl has educated me to learn that these chaps were called Gombeens!). They also fell behind on their rents..

Click to expand...

__They were also Irish catholics, those who had risen above the economic norm of subsistence farming._

_


VictorRomeo said:



The potato crop in Ireland had never failed for two consecutive years. Everyone was counting on the next harvest to be blight-free. But the blight was here to stay and three of the following four years would be potato crop disasters, with catastrophic consequences for Ireland....

Click to expand...

_


VictorRomeo said:


> Now, nowhere in any of my postings have I stated that the English got fat eating Irish beef, and nowhere did I mention that the 'English' were only to blame. There were many many people not affected by the famine - those in Cities and large towns. I'm not ignorant to that. I'm also not ignorant to the hackneyed and distorted view that Irish nationalists took/take - I'm not one of those.
> 
> But to put simply, Ireland could not self govern. Ireland could not legislate to protect her people. Ireland was subjected to some very poor decision making by her political masters in London and suffered the consequences accordingly.


Do you honestly believe that the Irish elites, by which I mean those Irishmen of whichever confession living in Ireland at the time, whether land-owners or tenants or lease-holders, or merchants in towns, would have had the necessary modern political viewpoint that they would have passed legislation against the principles of "Laissez Faire"? No government in Europe at that time would have, or, indeed, did, intervene in such a way, whether in Prussia, Russia, Finland, Portugal, or Sweden, which did little to alleviate the near famine in Norway at the same time. The problems experienced in Norway were exactly the same as those of Ireland. Over-dependence upon potatoes and population explosion due to the availability of cheap food; the potato. Norway was self-governing, under the Swedish crown at the time, with the right to carry out its own legislation, but did nothing.
The article that you provide a link to isn't anything new, or an "acknowledged truth", but is from a Education Department's plan, which is dedicated to the maintenance of the Irish nationalist "truth".
Try this one as well:


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Finally!!! 

Chouan, I just want to thank you for engaging in some sensible discussion wrt this topic (I'm being genuine here).

I've no time to get into what you say right now as I'm heading to the airport - but I will later.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

I hope you have a good trip. I booked my ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghire last night and was horrified at the cost!
Still, I've got to come home at least once a year otherwise I start pining for the fiords, as it were....


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Chouan said:


> True, but most tenants with sub-tenants were catholics, and it was the tenants with unprofitable sub-tenants who were most keen to rid themselves of their burden and replace them with profitable sheep, in order to allow themselves to develop economically.
> They also refused to eat fish or any kind of seafood, despite the abundance thereof in the West. What they wanted was what they were used to, as would we all.


Actually, you take up a good point I was going to bring up myself, but didn't want to stray too far off topic. The point aobut unprofitable tenants. However, those unprofitable Catholic tenants had no recourse in law when they were evicted by Protestant landowners. Hence the massive increase in homelessness in the late 1840s.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Centaur said:


> That's a nice Sunday school essay Vic. It betrays a rather weird obsession with religion and a strange admiration for self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune. I asked earlier whether you imagined life for the English was much different then, but clearly such concerns seem to lie far beyond your horizon.


So what, you're now referring to the recollection of historical fact as "self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune" ?

You're starting to remind me of various types of historical deniers and revisionists, also those who deny the Jewish holocaust.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Actually, you take up a good point I was going to bring up myself, but didn't want to stray too far off topic. The point aobut unprofitable tenants. However, those unprofitable Catholic tenants had no recourse in law when they were evicted by Protestant landowners. Hence the massive increase in homelessness in the late 1840s.


But my point was that most of the evictions were carried out by, or on the behalf of, the catholic tenants of the mostly protestant landlords, of their catholic sub-tenants and sub-sub-tenants, rather than by the landlords themselves, as the tenants were those who had most to gain, directly, from the evictions.


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## Douglas Brisbane Gray (Jun 7, 2010)

Interesting read, My mother is related to the United Irishman William Orr, Freemason and Radical executed by the crown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Orr https://www.orange-order.co.uk/chronicle/forum/viewtopic.php?id=13945

I know a link from the Orange Order may not be to everyones taste but it is well written if unsourced in some info.


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## Douglas Brisbane Gray (Jun 7, 2010)

Centaur said:


> That's a nice Sunday school essay Vic. It betrays a rather weird obsession with religion and a strange admiration for self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune. I asked earlier whether you imagined life for the English was much different then, but clearly such concerns seem to lie far beyond your horizon.


I know there was a potato blight in Scotland before it hit Ireland (I believe it first manifested in the Low countries around a doxen years before) but famine relief was quickly set up. I think the neighbours did not want hordes of ginger haired haridans and their families marauding across the border in search of fried foods and booze.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> So what, you're now referring to the recollection of historical fact as "self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune" ?
> 
> You're starting to remind me of various types of historical deniers and revisionists, also those who deny the Jewish holocaust.


But it isn't "historical fact", it is an interpretation, indeed, a biased interpretation, of history.
Try the work of Cormac O Grada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_%C3%93_Gr%C3%A1da for a more balanced view, or Robert Kee.

I repeat, nobody denies that the Famine occurred; it is the way that the Famine was used by Irish Nationalists for their own agenda that is the problem. In the later 19th century the UK government poured vast amounts of money into Ireland in an attempt to solve the socio-economic problems found there; vastly more than was spent to solve England's own socio-economic problems. Schools, infra-structure, legislation against evictions etc. were all established in Ireland at government cost, whereas in mainland Britain "laissez faire" was continued until the early 20th century. But this, of course, is always absent from the popular History, as it undermines the Nationalist agenda.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> So what, you're now referring to the recollection of historical fact as "self-pity, victimisation and the capacity to wallow in misfortune" ?
> 
> You're starting to remind me of various types of historical deniers and revisionists, also those who deny the Jewish holocaust.


There is endless 'fact' that can be selected from, dressed up and presented by anyone wishing to put forward this or that interpretation of what happened and why.

Irish history in particular seems to be subject to that tendency, and my own personal view is that we have been subjected for far too long (and I don't just mean here on this forum) to a rather sickening partisan interpretation which exaggerates the injustices suffered by the rural Irish during the Protestant ascendancy, while turning a totally blind eye to the inconvenient fact that many of those injustices were shared by the rural English/Scottish/Welsh and continental Europeans (not to mention Indians, Chinese, Africans and even Icelanders) (and the working classes living in towns and cities were hardly any better off either).

Those partisans seek to portray the harsh poverty suffered in Ireland, even including the potato famine, as a cruel aberration, something that was 'inflicted' on them externally (i.e. from England), when in reality such circumstances, even including famines and starvation, were a more or less ever-present fact of life for most poor people in most countries at that time. One-sided semi-feudal systems of land tenure, over-population, discrimination on grounds of class and religion, and scarcity of food were not peculiar to Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[Thank you to Chouan for pointing out some of the good things Britain did for Ireland.]


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Chouan said:


> But my point was that most of the evictions were carried out by, or on the behalf of, the catholic tenants of the mostly protestant landlords, of their catholic sub-tenants and sub-sub-tenants, rather than by the landlords themselves, as the tenants were those who had most to gain, directly, from the evictions.


Oh I know that, and accept that, no argument there. 
I was more focusing on the poor sods at the end of the chain, out on their ear, nowhere to live. Another vital aspect is that workers can't work without food. And if there is no food for the workers they can't be expected to work. But they were still evicted.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Oh I know that, and accept that, no argument there.
> I was more focusing on the poor sods at the end of the chain, out on their ear, nowhere to live. Another vital aspect is that workers can't work without food. And if there is no food for the workers they can't be expected to work. But they were still evicted.


A tragedy, without doubt. Yet in modern Ireland the descendants of those poor sods are still despised as "Tinkers"; both my father and my wife's father, both from rural Galway and both now no longer with us, expressed nothing but contempt for them, whilst knowing their origin. Such, I suppose, is the power of the owning of land; one cannot but despise those that don't, for whatever reason. The Irish government effectively solved the traveller "problem" in Ireland. They made conditions so harsh for them that they nearly all are now in England.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Chouan said:


> A tragedy, without doubt. Yet in modern Ireland the descendants of those poor sods are still despised as "Tinkers"; both my father and my wife's father, both from rural Galway and both now no longer with us, expressed nothing but contempt for them, whilst knowing their origin. Such, I suppose, is the power of the owning of land; one cannot but despise those that don't, for whatever reason. The Irish government effectively solved the traveller "problem" in Ireland. They made conditions so harsh for them that they nearly all are now in England.


Sometimes also referred to as Bog Irish, Black Irish and other disparaging names. In more recent times of course as you point out Travellers.

Would you beleive that my county in Sweden is now having a problem with Irish Travellers. A whole gang of them came into Church last week during High Mass. I thought they were related of the Polish Christening that was going on. But I then saw the short stout "black Irish" matriarch and knew straightaway that they were Travellers. Huge expensive UK registered 4 x 4s to pull their caravans. All through the week they had been "plying their trade" in my home town, selling dodgy goods and offering to do work. One drunken Gombeen got arrested for trying to strangle a local woman. They left rubbish everywhere including the contents of their latrines before they moved on. The police moved them on from a piece of common land. They were about 20-30 mobiles homes/caravans in total.

Then 2 days ago a gang of their children got into some trouble in a town about an hour's drive north of me, where they settled last week. The kids aged 8-14 threateened to burn down a school & to do other unsavoury things to teachers when they were denied access to the playground of a primary school. The local papers in the last few days have contained letters from "Irish" residents in my town explaining what type of people these Travellers are & that they are not representative of the Irish on the whole.

My mother (Mayo) & father (Waterford -deceased) are/were exactly the same as your people "expressing nothing but contmept for them". My mother never one to hold her tongue or her opinions to herself (it rubbed off on me ) says things about them out loud, for example, in Sainsburys like "Would you look at her, sure she's a right diddycoy" (that was the word I couldn't remember a few weeks ago when we were discussing Travellers) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diddycoy


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Chouan said:


> But it isn't "historical fact", it is an interpretation, indeed, a biased interpretation, of history.
> Try the work of Cormac O Grada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_%C3%93_Gr%C3%A1da for a more balanced view, or Robert Kee.


Of course I've read some Robert Kee, but I find him far from balanced, in fact I find him quite biased. I think we'll just have to remain in disagreement on the issue.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

See this cartoon for what Lloyd George's intentions were......
https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://www.punchcartoons.com/images/T/1920.03.10.191.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.punchcartoons.com/History-and-Politics-Ireland-Cartoons/c273_351/index.html%3Fpage%3D2&usg=__MoC0BjUX4zoLO45wt_1rNukHffg=&h=160&w=123&sz=6&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ubkrRo6XtO6phM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=75&prev=/images%3Fq%3DThe%2BKindest%2BCut%2Bof%2Ball%2BLLoyd%2BGeorge%2BPunch%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1

5th row down on the left, click on it to enlarge the image.


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## Douglas Brisbane Gray (Jun 7, 2010)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> _*Part IV - Ireland during The Emergency.*_
> 
> Growing up my parents and indeed many of my relatives in Ireland and England often, but not always, referred to the Second World War as "The Emergency" Then when I started reading Irish history many years ago as a young boy, I discovered that the books written by some Irish historians also referred to it as The Emergency.
> 
> ...


you missed out the Nazi Bombing Raid on Dundalk on the 4th of July probably in retaliation for Ireland selling cattle to the UK during the war. Dundalk was the main livetstock market at the time.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Douglas Brisbane Gray said:


> you missed out the Nazi Bombing Raid on Dundalk on the 4th of July probably in retaliation for Ireland selling cattle to the UK during the war. Dundalk was the main livetstock market at the time.


Apparently, I've read that Germany apologsed for that quite soon afterwards saying it was a mistake. That the German pilots had flown off course. Some of the pilots ditched in the sea as soon as they realised they were over Ireland.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Chouan said:


> See this cartoon for what Lloyd George's intentions were......
> https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://www.punchcartoons.com/images/T/1920.03.10.191.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.punchcartoons.com/History-and-Politics-Ireland-Cartoons/c273_351/index.html%3Fpage%3D2&usg=__MoC0BjUX4zoLO45wt_1rNukHffg=&h=160&w=123&sz=6&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ubkrRo6XtO6phM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=75&prev=/images%3Fq%3DThe%2BKindest%2BCut%2Bof%2Ball%2BLLoyd%2BGeorge%2BPunch%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1
> 
> 5th row down on the left, click on it to enlarge the image.


 Is it just me or does the Welsh Wizard not bear a remarkable resemblance to Harold Wilson?


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## Karl89 (Feb 20, 2005)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> These countries were officially neutral during the Second World War:
> 
> 
> Eire (Republic if Ireland)
> ...


Remind me if the head of state of any of the above neutrals paid a condolence call to the German embassy upon the death of Hitler. And note De Valera did not extend that courtesy to the US when FDR died. Spain and Portugal were fascist dictatorships and hardly shining examples, and while not excusing the Swiss or the Swedes they faces a more more imminent Axis threat than Ireland did.

Your tortured statistical conclusions are realy meaningless.

Clearly Irish sympathies were in the Allied camp but De Valera's behavior was shameful.

Your tortured


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Karl89 said:


> Remind me if the head of state of any of the above neutrals paid a condolence call to the German embassy upon the death of Hitler. And note De Valera did not extend that courtesy to the US when FDR died. Spain and Portugal were fascist dictatorships and hardly shining examples, and while not excusing the Swiss or the Swedes they faces a more more imminent Axis threat than Ireland did.
> 
> Your tortured statistical conclusions are realy meaningless.
> 
> ...


What on earth are you on about? "your tortured" what? 
In reply to your query, "Remind me if the head of state of any of the above neutrals paid a condolence call to the German embassy upon the death of Hitler." The answer is in your query, i.e. neutrals. Why Should de Valera have shown any interest in or sympathy for the cause of Britain after the way he and Ireland had been treated by the British up to 1921.

You are clearly of the same mind set of those British of the 1940s who would not and could not accept that Ireland as a soveriegn state had the right to do what it wanted during the war. And de Valera rammed that point home effectivley after Churchill tired to bully him into lending Irish sea ports to the Royal Navy.

"Your tortured statistical conclusions are realy meaningless" No, those are proven statistical facts!


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## Karl89 (Feb 20, 2005)

First of all your stats include those in Northern Ireland ho wee technically subjects of the United Kingdom, and second the fact that ny in the UK were conscripted rather than having volunteered hardly diminishes their service.

And would you really have us believe that despite all the injustice that Ireland suffered at the hands of Britain that Irish interests would have been better served in a Nazi dominated Europe? 

And if De Valera and Ireland were not to show any sympathy towards the UK, that what about Poland Belgium or the Netherlands? Your argument is beyond silly and we won't take it seriously any longer.


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

Karl89 said:


> First of all your stats include those in Northern Ireland ho wee technically subjects of the United Kingdom, and second the fact that ny in the UK were conscripted rather than having volunteered hardly diminishes their service.
> 
> And would you really have us believe that despite all the injustice that Ireland suffered at the hands of Britain that Irish interests would have been better served in a Nazi dominated Europe?
> 
> And if De Valera and Ireland were not to show any sympathy towards the UK, that what about Poland Belgium or the Netherlands? Your argument is beyond silly and .


As Earl asked - what on earth are you on about?

I'm not interested in debating DeValera or stats.... but an awful lot of men from the entire island went off to fight in the British Army - still do in fact. Just as Earl himself. He was one of them.

Oh, and keep me out of your "we won't take it seriously any longer" nonsense.....


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Karl89 said:


> First of all your stats include those in Northern Ireland ho wee technically subjects of the United Kingdom, and second the fact that ny in the UK were conscripted rather than having volunteered hardly diminishes their service.
> 
> And would you really have us believe that despite all the injustice that Ireland suffered at the hands of Britain that Irish interests would have been better served in a Nazi dominated Europe?
> 
> And if De Valera and Ireland were not to show any sympathy towards the UK, that what about Poland Belgium or the Netherlands? Your argument is beyond silly and we won't take it seriously any longer.


Read the whole thread then perhaps you'll understand the context and won't continue crowding it with irrelevant points. I have neither the interest nor the energy to explain all your miscomprehensions for you.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

Karl89 said:


> Your tortured


It's true, De Valera was no great friend of the British - made clear in many small ways. Somehow, it didn't change the course of the war - amazing really, when you come to think about it ...


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Centaur said:


> It's true, De Valera was no great friend of the British - made clear in many small ways. Somehow, it didn't change the course of the war - amazing really, when you come to think about it ...


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