Should the Queen Have apologised to the Irish?

[MMI]

Throughout the past 4 days, Queen Elizabeth has been visiting the Irish Republic - the first British monarch to have been to that part of the island for 100 years. The visit has been a considerable success, despite a couple of bombs planted by nationalist terrorists (safely destroyed), and streets being closed rather than thronged with people, and at enormous expense to a virtually bankrupt nation. Since King George V visited Dublin in 1911 much blood has been shed as the Irish struggled to free themselves from Britain, and at one point the Queen laid a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance in memory of those who died fighting for independence. Everyone - even Gerry Adams - recognisesthis as a positive step in normalising relations between the two countries, but should she have gone further and apologised for the British actions against the Irish freedom fighters - the Easter Rising, Croke Park, the Great Famine, Oliver Cromwell, the Tudor invasion, and so on back into the mists of time?

And if she did, should the Irish accept it?

[thir]

What is the point of these appologies?

[MMI]

You might well ask.

Perhaps to assuage a sense of injustice; perhaps to help "normalise" relations between the two nations; perhaps to make religious/nationalist terrorism less acceptable to the Irish; perhaps to enhance trade opportunities.

Or perhaps it is to follow a modern trend of apologising for past hurts by people who did not commit those acts to people who did not suffer from them in the interests of political correctness.

[denuseri]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

[Thorne]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

Yeah, I can agree to a point. Except that a lot of the problems which have been ongoing in Ireland have happened during Elizabeth's reign.

Then, too, a lot of the problems can be laid right at the feet of the IRA. Maybe when the Irish apologize for the bombings in London, or the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen can worry about apologizing for British abuses.

[IAN 2411]

Throughout the past 4 days, Queen Elizabeth has been visiting the Irish Republic - the first British monarch to have been to that part of the island for 100 years. The visit has been a considerable success. At one point the Queen laid a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance in memory of those who died fighting for independence.

Now she should stand on that Balcony at Buck/House and apologise to all the British Soldiers wives, Children and relations that have lost their loved ones to the sound of the Thomson and Armour-light rifle. She had no damn right to honour the fallen IRA, she should be severely reprimanded by her Generals an behalf of the armed forces.

Everyone - even Gerry Adams - recognises this as a positive step in normalising relations between the two countries, but should she have gone further and apologised for the British actions against the Irish freedom fighters - the Easter Rising, Croke Park, the Great Famine, Oliver Cromwell, the Tudor invasion, and so on back into the mists of time?

And if she did, should the Irish accept it?

Where do you get Irish freedom fighters from? They were no better than Irish Mafia, killers of children, pregnant women, invalids that could not escape their bombs in time....get real. What did the people of Omagh Northern Ireland do to deserve the damage and death that was dealt them? Taking people off the street because they dared to steal and knee-capping them, [For all those that don’t know, knee-capping is being tied to a chair and having a electric drill pushed through your knee-cap while awake]. What army in the free world that is fighting for freedom does that? They must have learnt that from the Nazis when they invited them over there during the war. Gerry Adams wouldn’t recognise a good thing if it was done to him personally, as he is now and always was the political wing of the IRA. He must have went back home, and played with himself after seeing that. While I was over in the Province he was but a hairs breadth away from ending up in Long-Kesh prison.

You might well ask.

Perhaps to assuage a sense of injustice; perhaps to help "normalise" relations between the two nations; perhaps to make religious/nationalist terrorism less acceptable to the Irish; perhaps to enhance trade opportunities.

Or perhaps it is to follow a modern trend of apologising for past hurts by people who did not commit those acts to people who did not suffer from them in the interests of political correctness.

Or maybe to just to say the British are weak and spineless, sorry Paddy, old King Billy should not have done what he did. Now that you know what really nice people we are, you can send the Real IRA over to give the British more of the same, because just like the Provisional IRA they are bloody minded killers with less intelligence than that of a plant.

The modern trend for the IRA whether Real/Provisional is to go out to Libya or the Middle East and train Al-Qeada. Will Obama apologise for the bombing of Iraq, killing all those civilians in the name of WOMD, that never existed except in the warped minds of Bush/Blair?

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

I am with you on that one denu, I suppose while the Queen is in the mood for apologising she might as well include, India, Africa, Australia, the West Indies, and others in the old British Empire.

Yeah, I can agree to a point. Except that a lot of the problems which have been ongoing in Ireland have happened during Elizabeth's reign.

Bullshit....The problems lasted so long in Elizabeth’s time because the Irish Americans could not keep their nose out of the Province. They were sending the IRA weapons to fight for the cause, because the IRA had more Armour light rifles and Thomson Machine Guns to fight with than your own National Guard. The IRA was receiving Millions of dollars every month to kill the British soldier. It makes me wonder at times what the hell this Brit/Am special relationship is all about. I was out there for two tours with the Special Forces, and every paddy that was shot while sniping the soldiers, had an American Rifle in his hand, and American Explosives were also found in the IRA safe houses. Be lucky because I don’t dislike the Americans, only their weird sense of values when it comes to talking about Ireland, and how they supposedly brought about the peace. Over 1200 brave men were killed out there, and they were not looking after the Loyalists, but looking after the Catholics that were hell bent on killing them.

Then, too, a lot of the problems can be laid right at the feet of the IRA. Maybe when the Irish apologize for the bombings in London, or the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen can worry about apologizing for British abuses.

No, because as I have just said, most of the problem came from over the pond, if they never had the weapons and money peace would have come faster.

Just one other point I would like to mention and that is I am not anti Irish but i am bitter, and you could not pay me enough to holiday there. It is no good stating the history of Ireland, if you are not going to state the intelligence that was gathered and passed out to the forces on the ground and the Brits on the mainland.

Be well IAN 2411

[thir]

Isn't that a litle silly, like getting the current head of Italy to apologize to France for what the Romans did when they invaded Gual?

Well, no. This history is recent, and better relations may deflect new terrorrism. Ireland has a lot of reason to hate England.

[thir]

Yeah, I can agree to a point. Except that a lot of the problems which have been ongoing in Ireland have happened during Elizabeth's reign.

Then, too, a lot of the problems can be laid right at the feet of the IRA. Maybe when the Irish apologize for the bombings in London, or the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen can worry about apologizing for British abuses.

We could get into a lot of discussion here about Irish history and whether or not people who try get an occupational force out are terrorists or freedom fighters. Maybe we shouldn't.

Suffice it to say that the problems started when England took Ireland as a colony. Violence breeds violence.

"The coming of Cambro-Norman mercenaries under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed Strongbow, in 1169 marked the beginning of more than 700 years of direct Norman and, later, English involvement in Ireland. The English crown did not begin asserting full control of the island until after the English Reformation, when questions over the loyalty of Irish vassals provided the initial impetus for a series of military campaigns between 1534 and 1691. This period was also marked by an English policy of plantation which led to the arrival of thousands of English and Scottish Protestant settlers. As the military and political defeat of Gaelic Ireland became more clear in the early seventeenth century, the role of religion as a new division in Ireland became more pronounced. From this period on, sectarian conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history."

Wikipedia

[thir]

You might well ask.

Perhaps to assuage a sense of injustice; perhaps to help "normalise" relations between the two nations; perhaps to make religious/nationalist terrorism less acceptable to the Irish; perhaps to enhance trade opportunities.

Or perhaps it is to follow a modern trend of apologising for past hurts by people who did not commit those acts to people who did not suffer from them in the interests of political correctness.

Good answers.

[MMI]

Thank-you Ian. Although I do not agree with your attitude, I am on your side in this debate. You state quite clearly why the Queen should not have apologised. Feelings among Unionists and the Army are still too raw to allow it. The Irish might blame England for 800 years of oppression, but that's only because they have slanted their history to suit their current political purposes. They blame the English for callous murders of their people in the 20th century - Bloody Sunday is often cited, and David Cameron has issued an apology to the British people who were affected by this, but the soldiers involved, wrongly or rightly believed they were dealing with armed terrorists; Croke Park is often cited, but Croke Park was a misguided act of revenge for the greater act of murder committed by Michael Collins and his gang just hours earlier; the Easter Rising is often cited, but that was an open rebellion against the lawful government, and Pearse and his followers were committing treason in just the same way that the French Revolutionaries, the American Rebels or the Bolsheviks were in their time. I would venture to suggest that most acts of "suppression" by the English were carried out in order to preserve law and order in Ireland: it was violence and disorder they wished to suppress, not the Irish. Violence that the Irish are still committing against each other.

The Great Famine is often cited, too. The British did not cause the potato blight. In all probability, it was imported from the USA. And when the blight came to Ireland, it came to the rest of Europe too. To be fair, when pressed on the point, the Irish blame God the blight, but England for the Famine, which was worse in Ireland than anywhere else. While plentiful crops of corn were growing on Ireland's richer soils, England was importing that harvest for its own consumption, leaving the peasants to live off the poorer lands where only potatoes could grow. That England knew of the plight of the peasants in Ireland stands to its eternal shame, but it can plead in mitigation that, because of the very strong lobby of Irish landowners in the British Parliament at the time, the political will or the strength to do anything about it did not exist. Britain could have imported all the corn it needed from anywhere in the Empire - or the world, for that matter - but the Irish earls and lesser landowners of that country were making very nice profits by exporting corn to England and it was they, the Irish ruling classes, that ensured that this would continue to happen, rather than to be used to relieve their starving countrymen.

I offer no excuse for Cromwell other than that he - a traitor himself - was intent of suppressing any Royalist threat from Catholic Ireland. His decimation of the population cannot be justified, and Irish hatred for him - still alive - can be well understood. However, Cromwell's activities cannot be used to justify Irish terrorism today (nor are they, I hasten to add).

Events before that - the Tudor invasion, the Norman forces (Normandy was a viking state in France, by the way, which not only invaded Ireland, but conquered England too) are surely too far back to be relevant, just as the Irish invasions of Western England and Wales, where they plundered villages and churches and kidnapped people to be sold into slavery, including a certain Patrick from Wales, are no longer actions that the Irish should apologise for.

So I contend that England has only to apologise for failing to ensure that Ireland's great landowners put the well being of their tenants before profit. All of the rest, the Irish brought on themselves. That apology would never be accepted, for the Irish state is built on the myth of English oppression (like other nations I could mention) and an acceptance would be admission of the lies they base their legitimacy upon.

[MMI]

Well, no. This history is recent, and better relations may deflect new terrorrism. Ireland has a lot of reason to hate England.

My previous post might now be added to the number of those reasons, but Irish memories are as long as they are selective. An apology by the Queen would not be acceptable to Unionists nor accepted by Nationalists for reasons stretching back years, tens of years and centuries.

[MMI]

A side issue: President Obama is visiting Ireland now. Why is it that all but one of America's Presidents since Kennedy, even the black one, find it necessary to emphasis their Irish antecedents ... even if, like Clinton, they didn't have any? And isn't it also a little bit concerning?

[thir]

A side issue: President Obama is visiting Ireland now. Why is it that all but one of America's Presidents since Kennedy, even the black one, find it necessary to emphasis their Irish antecedents ... even if, like Clinton, they didn't have any? And isn't it also a little bit concerning?

I have absolutely no idea why!

Why might it be a concern?

[MMI]

An unexplained bias?

[IAN 2411]

A side issue: President Obama is visiting Ireland now. Why is it that all but one of America's Presidents since Kennedy, even the black one, find it necessary to emphasis their Irish antecedents ... even if, like Clinton, they didn't have any? And isn't it also a little bit concerning?

I have absolutely no idea why!

Why might it be a concern?

For the same reason that most people in the UK are asking the same Question, what ties the American President to a Country that has not renounced violence even after the peace treaty? Come to think of it apart from Kennedy why does Ireland mean so much to the other Presidents? Paddy O’Bama as he is known over here [Read the English Forums] now mentioned a special relationship with the Irish, and I along with others can only take a guess at what he could be referring to, but let’s not go there. Instead of talking about blood ties he should be talking of them disowning the Real IRA that is still active.

Be well IAN 2411

[thir]

The main thing is very simple: The English took over Ireland, which it had no business doing, in order to 'civilize' it, though Ireland at the time was one of the most civilized countries in the world. (A topic for the civilization disucussion, btw.) They crushed their culuture and changed their self-sufficient ways, made them a colony and a suppressed people, in the end dependent on potatoes - in the long course of their reign there.

Lest you think I am riding the moral horse there, Denmark did much the same thing with Greenland, broke up and crushed a well functioning society perfectly adapted to its hostile surroundings, in order to 'civilize' and Christianise it. And we are still there! No apologies will come forth in the foreseable future, though they are entitled if any are, and, more importantly, they are not allowed the right to the natural resources of their own land.

And Norse vikings sat on Ireland for about 400 years, as an Irish person rather drily pointed out when I complainted about the English!

So, my point is that once you try to subdue another country, violence will follow as sure as night follows day and you cannot very well complain about it. People do not take kindly to being invaded.

[QUOTE=MMI;928160]Thank-you Ian.
They blame the English for callous murders of their people in the 20th century - Bloody Sunday is often cited, and David Cameron has issued an apology to the British people who were affected by this, but the soldiers involved, wrongly or rightly believed they were dealing with armed terrorists;
[quote]

Leo9 has promised to comment here in a seperate post which concerns the complex situation in Northern Ireland. Enough to say here that that situation, too, did not come from nothing.

Croke Park is often cited,

Let's see:
"Bloody Sunday (Irish: Domhnach na Fola) was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed – fourteen British, fourteen Irish civilians and three republican prisoners.

The day began with an Irish Republican Army (IRA) operation to assassinate the ‘Cairo Gang’, a team of undercover British agents working and living in Dublin. Twelve were British Army officers, one a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary and lastly a single civilian informant.

Later that afternoon, the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians. That evening, three IRA suspects in Dublin Castle were beaten and killed by their British captors, allegedly while trying to escape.[1]" (Wikepedia.)

So, a terrorist action performed by British soliders upon fotballers and spectators.

but Croke Park was a misguided act of revenge for the greater act of murder committed by Michael Collins and his gang just hours earlier;

Ireland was at war with Britain. The targeted persons were at least part of that war.

The Great Famine is often cited, too. <> While plentiful crops of corn were growing on Ireland's richer soils, England was importing that harvest for its own consumption, leaving the peasants to live off the poorer lands where only potatoes could grow. That England knew of the plight of the peasants in Ireland stands to its eternal shame, but it can plead in mitigation that, because of the very strong lobby of Irish landowners in the British Parliament at the time, the political will or the strength to do anything about it did not exist. Britain could have imported all the corn it needed from anywhere in the Empire - or the world, for that matter - but the Irish earls and lesser landowners of that country were making very nice profits by exporting corn to England and it was they, the Irish ruling classes, that ensured that this would continue to happen, rather than to be used to relieve their starving countrymen.

1) If the Brits had not taken over Ireland and changed the self-suficient economy, there would have been no potatoes and no famine.

2) The landowners constisted of some Irish who had sided with the English, and anglo-english landowners. I think you are right that neither felt compelled to do anything about the situation - other than make sure it did not cause them loss!

3) Ireland argued that if they are part of Britain as stated, they should recieve help as did other parts of Britain in a like situation. But they did not, which confirms their actual status as a colony no-one was responsible for.

I offer no excuse for Cromwell other than that he - a traitor himself - was intent of suppressing any Royalist threat from Catholic Ireland. His decimation of the population cannot be justified, and Irish hatred for him - still alive - can be well understood. However, Cromwell's activities cannot be used to justify Irish terrorism today (nor are they, I hasten to add).

Two (or gods know how many) wrongs do not make a right.

But the word 'terrorist' is too freely used in many situations to mean 'the people we do not like'. Who are freedom fighters and who not? What methods can justify the end when a country is oppressed?

So I contend that England has only to apologise for failing to ensure that Ireland's great landowners put the well being of their tenants before profit. All of the rest, the Irish brought on themselves. That apology would never be accepted, for the Irish state is built on the myth of English oppression (like other nations I could mention) and an acceptance would be admission of the lies they base their legitimacy upon.

Before the Normans Ireland had one the world's best educational and legal systems, with lawyers studying for years at the university. We are talking 800 something here, or earlier. Many countries sent people to their univeresities. When Ireland got Christianised, the new faith and the old ones existed peacefully for many years. They had poems and music famous still. They also had squabbles between the various lesser kings, but, I think, no more than in other places and of necessity on a smaller scale.

The Normans came to Ireland after their conquest and brutal reorganisations of England, but the situation here was different, while they initially took over Ireland as well, made it more feudal, introduced more brutal laws and money, their areas shrank to around Dublin and apparently they did not have a real hard impact on the country.

As far as I know, things went rather peacfully for centuries right up to the Reformation. In the 16th century the protestants came and the trouble between protestants and catholics started.

King Henry the 8th saw Ireland (now self governed) as a threat, and started to retake it rather brutally, which continued under Elisabeth the 1. In spite of uprisings which were put down by among other things induced famine, Ireland became a real colony under James the 1, complete with plantations and loss of any rights. I think it is from this time it went really bad, roughly the last 400 years

wikipedia:
"From the mid-16th and into the early 17th century, crown governments carried out a policy of colonisation known as Plantations. Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists ..."

"These settlers, who had a British and Protestant identity, would form the ruling class of future British administrations in Ireland."
However, Ireland wasn't a popular place to live for these people and they were "absentee landlords" leaving the administrations of the plantations to the bailifss, who were accountable to noone. Obviously the result of such a system was a lot of poverty and sufffering.

A series of Penal Laws discriminated against all Christian faiths other than the established (Anglican) Church of Ireland."

The penal laws:
After the surrender of Limerick in 1691, the treaty which promised religious freedom to the Catholics was grossly violated, and they were made subject to the action of severe "penal laws", passed in the Irish parliament, an assembly composed of Protestant lords, and of members returned for boroughs controlled by the crown or by patrons or by close corporations, and for counties dominated in election affairs by great proprietors of land. Catholics were not permitted to keep school; to go beyond seas, or to send others thither, for education in the Romish religion. Intermarriage with Protestants was disallowed, in case of the possession of an estate in Ireland. Children of mixed marriages were always to be brought up in the Protestant faith.

A "Papist" could not be guardian to any child, nor hold land, nor possess arms. He could not hold a commission in the army or navy, or be a private soldier. No Catholic could hold any office of honour or emolument in the state, or be a member of any corporation, or vote for members of the Commons, or, if he were a peer, sit or vote in the Lords. Almost all these personal disabilities were equally enforced by law against any Protestant who married a Catholic wife. It was a felony, with transportation, to teach the Catholic religion, and treason, as a capital offence, to convert a Protestant to the Catholic faith. The legislation devised for the Irish Catholics in that evil time was described by Burke as "a machine as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man".

http://www.libraryireland.com/articl...Penal-Laws.php

We have seen the result of that system up til today.

I do not see the Irish as angels or saints, nor the British as devils incarnate. But the result of such systems is inescapeable, and you reap what you sow.

[IAN 2411]

But where is this strong American conection? Surely not in the Irish American vote when the time comes, as you say you only reep what you sow. [in advance of not being able to do so at a later date.]

Be well IAN 2411

[thir]

[QUOTE=IAN 2411;927312}
Taking people off the street because they dared to steal and knee-capping them, [For all those that don’t know, knee-capping is being tied to a chair and having a electric drill pushed through your knee-cap while awake.
[/quote]

If memory serves, after the independence some of these people turned didn't wan tto let go of the arms and turned a kind of gangsters. I do not know if that is right - but so it is said.

The modern trend for the IRA whether Real/Provisional is to go out to Libya or the Middle East and train Al-Qeada. Will Obama apologise for the bombing of Iraq, killing all those civilians in the name of WOMD, that never existed except in the warped minds of Bush/Blair?

If it healed anything, would not be a bad idea.

I am with you on that one denu, I suppose while the Queen is in the mood for apologising she might as well include, India, Africa, Australia, the West Indies, and others in the old British Empire.

They are owed!

Just one other point I would like to mention and that is I am not anti Irish but i am bitter, and you could not pay me enough to holiday there. It is no good stating the history of Ireland, if you are not going to state the intelligence that was gathered and passed out to the forces on the ground and the Brits on the mainland.
Be well IAN 2411

Come again?

[thir]

- the Easter Rising is often cited, but that was an open rebellion against the lawful government, and Pearse and his followers were committing treason in just the same way that the French Revolutionaries, the American Rebels or the Bolsheviks were in their time.

'Legal' is actually one of those very interesting words. What makes something legal?
Because the lawmakers say so. What makes the lawmakers legal? Because they say so.

Was the Norman invasion of Ireland legal? And if so, what made it so?

Well, an English pope declared it legal for Henry the Second to invade Ireland, to convert it from the Celtic church to Roman catholic. Does that make it legal?

The other kings, and queen Elisabeth, simply wanted it. They were the (legal?) rulers but not over Ireland, so what made it legal? We stole it ourselves, so now it is ours?

America - was already occupied. Was it legal for the settlers to take it from the Indians? Was it legal for the Britsh to simply declare it theirs? With what right?

How long does it take for something to have lasted long enough to make it legal, by force of habit?
Or is it legal by consensus?
By force and arms?

I would venture to suggest that most acts of "suppression" by the English were carried out in order to preserve law and order in Ireland: it was violence and disorder they wished to suppress, not the Irish.

Law and order was what they had, more so than many countries. Violence and disorder is what you get when your force yourself on another culture and change it with violence.

[IAN 2411]

Come again?

I have a lot of Irish freinds in the UK, I give them the same respect that i give everyone. The Country? I am sorry but it gives me the creeps. I never like looking over my shoulder and I dont think I could help myself.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

If memory serves, after the independence some of these people turned didn't wan tto let go of the arms and turned a kind of gangsters. I do not know if that is right - but so it is said.

It is a fact that the IRA just cannot get that Shit out of their system.. If you are born to be a killer and torturer then most probably you will die still doing it.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Thir's post could be given a detailed, and therefore necessarily a long response. However, I shall limit this message to what I think give an essential reply to the points she makes.

England has never tried to civilise Ireland. It was happy for the bogtrotters to do as they pleased so long as its writ ran in Dublin. However, it had very good reasons to be there (when it was there). England was first invited into Ireland to help a dispossessed Irish kingling recover his lands, taken by other Irish kinglings. England obliged and thereby gained an ally in Ireland. In return for his help, the English King became Lord of All Ireland (later King of Ireland). and established an Irish Parliament , where the Irish aristocracy would rule Ireland by themselves.

At times, the various Irish factions, in their internecine feuds would mount insurrections necessitating the English to subdue them by force. In other words, the English were obliged to suppress rebel movements in order to maintain the King's Peace, and, in fact, the presence of English/British troops on that island has almost always since then been to suppress rebellions against law and order, and attempted revolutions against the Crown. Never has England sent troops into Ireland on an unprovoked orgy of blood letting as Hiberno/American versions of history would have you believe - not even in Cromwell's time.

In addition to rebellions and revolutions, Catholic Ireland represented an open back door for an invasion of England by its enemies, and England was unwilling to give Irish revolutionaries the freedom to invite foreign invaders to start their campaigns there. For this reason English troops drove French and Spanish troops out of Ireland on different occasions to ensure their own safety.

So, far from having no business to be in Ireland, England was there by invitation, or as a peace-keeping force, or to suppress rebellions and revolutions against the established order, or to repel foreign invaders allowed in by treacherous Irishmen.

Until its union with Great Britain in 1801, Ireland has always had Home Rule in one form or another, except when it became ungovernable. Immediately upon union,
agitators began to call for independence and advocated violent methods to secure it. Thus, once again, the authorities had to quell violent uprisings and were obliged to use force to do so.


England is just one part of the geographical area known as the British Isles. Ireland is another. So is Scotland and Wales, not to mention the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and so on. England occupies the greatest proportion of land within the British Isles. It is, and always has been, the most densely populated area, with more inhabitants then all of the other nations in the British Isles put together. On a purely utilitarian basis of the greatest good for the greatest number, the interest of the English should come before those of the rest: certainly not the other way round.

England is not and never has been utilitarian in its foreign policies. It is selfish and self-interested. For that reason, the English King saw himself as the Overlord of all the other nations, and if he couldn't completely conquer them all, he could at least make sure they did not represent a significant threat to England. Scotland had a formal alliance with France. The Irish rebels had an informal one. The national security of England demanded that these threats be neutralised, and England took steps to do so in both cases.

Croke Park was not a terrorist act, it was an act of blind hatred and revenge by people who should have known better, but didn't. They killed British subjects, not Irish civilians, and it was totally reprehensible. What a master stroke it was of Collins to hide amongst those people and goad the British military into committing that atrocity. A masterful, cowardly act, committed after an equally horrendous atrocity by his own squad hours before.


Ireland was not at war with Britain: it was part of Britain. Collins was British subject and a violent revolutionary traitor: the targeted persons were there to maintain law and order and to prevent sedition. They were killed because they were doing their job too well.

1) If the Brits had not taken over Ireland and changed the self-suficient economy, there would have been no potatoes and no famine.

False. Ireland was not self-sufficient. It exported grain in return for manufactured goods. Potatos and oats were grown by subsistence farmers on land that was not good enough for other use.

Britain did not cause the famine. The weather/potato blight caused it, depending on which famine you mean. Both famines spread across the whole of Europe and many people died as a result of crop failure.

2) The landowners constisted of some Irish who had sided with the English, and anglo-english landowners. I think you are right that neither felt compelled to do anything about the situation - other than make sure it did not cause them loss!

My point was that it was in the power of the wealthy Irish landowners to give food and work to the peasantry, but they chose not to (with some notable exceptions), preferring to send their produce abroad where greater profits lay. They represented a powerful lobby in the British Parliament which was thereby prevented from providing relief.

3) Ireland argued that if they are part of Britain as stated, they should recieve help as did other parts of Britain in a like situation. But they did not, which confirms their actual status as a colony no-one was responsible for.

My reading of that particular part of history was that the Irish refused suggestions that aid be sent directly, preferring to trade their way out of their difficulties. However, the money from that trade did not get used to relieve the starving. It simply lined the pockets of the wealthy Irish.

But the word 'terrorist' is too freely used in many situations to mean 'the people we do not like'. Who are freedom fighters and who not? What methods can justify the end when a country is oppressed?

Do you deny the Irish Republic was born out of terrorism and that terrorist activities are still being employed to force Ulster into the Republic?

Is there a difference between England seeking to absorb the whole of Ireland and Ireland seeking to absorb Ulster?

Before the Normans Ireland had one the world's best educational and legal systems, with lawyers studying for years at the university. We are talking 800 something here, or earlier. Many countries sent people to their univeresities. When Ireland got Christianised, the new faith and the old ones existed peacefully for many years. They had poems and music famous still. They also had squabbles between the various lesser kings, but, I think, no more than in other places and of necessity on a smaller scale.

I don't know where you got that nonsense from. Ireland is and always has been a violent place. Isolated monasteries might have provided a theological education to a handful of second sons of the clan chiefs in the 9th century, but they did not amount to universities. Otherwise the Rector of the University of Bologna has some adjustments to make and some explaining to do. The differences between pagans and Christians were the same in Ireland as they were elsewhere and there were many Irish martyrs, as I'm sure you realise.


I think your synopsis of Irish history between the Tudor period until the Jacobite uprisings is a little too brief to give a fair picture. I think the main problem in these times was not the Catholic/Protestant divide (sometimes they made common cause), although that played a part, but the rival Hanoverian and Jacobean claims to the British and Irish Crowns.

In summary, then, England/Britain has and always has had a legitimate interest in the affairs of Ireland, and it has only used violence as a means of suppressing insurrections. The levels of violence were probably no greater than would have been expected at the time.

On the other hand, the IRA has never had a legitimate reason to bomb people living in Belfast, Londonderry, or Omagh, nor in London, Brighton, or Manchester.

[IAN 2411]

Interesting MMI, I learn something new every day, thank you for that brief.

One of those history lessons I often wondered about but to lazy/busy to look up.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

See comments below:-

'Legal' is actually one of those very interesting words. What makes something legal?
Because the lawmakers say so. What makes the lawmakers legal? Because they say so.

No argument there

Was the Norman invasion of Ireland legal? And if so, what made it so

Debatable. The Norman "invasion" was by invitation, but the person who issued the invitation was a dispossessed king.

Well, an English pope declared it legal for Henry the Second to invade Ireland, to convert it from the Celtic church to Roman catholic. Does that make it legal?

Except Henry II didn't bother: he dropped the idea completely.

The other kings, and queen Elisabeth, simply wanted it. They were the (legal?) rulers but not over Ireland, so what made it legal? We stole it ourselves, so now it is ours?

The thing about kings and queens is that they often reign over more than one kingdom at the same time. Here, English monarchs were also Lords or Kings/Queen of Ireland: they did not want Ireland - they already had it. They didn't steal Ireland, they ruled it with an independent Parliament (initially and latterly) with the consent of the aristocracy and the clans ... except when individual aristocrats and chiefs fell out of favour, they rebelled in the name of the Irish.

America - was already occupied. Was it legal for the settlers to take it from the Indians? Was it legal for the Britsh to simply declare it theirs? With what right?

Was it illegal to settle America?

How long does it take for something to have lasted long enough to make it legal, by force of habit?
Or is it legal by consensus?
By force and arms?

All of those things. Here are a few dates:

1241 - English Parliament formed
1297 - Irish Parliament formed
1788 - Federal government of USA founded
1849 - Danish Rigsdagen formed
1937 - Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland formed
1953 - Danish Folketing established (out of Rigsdagen)

I don't think there's any doubt as to the legitimacy of Danish laws, is there?

Thomas Jefferson said, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." I see no reason to disagree (although I deny that withdrawal of consent justifies rebellion).

Law and order was what they had, more so than many countries. Violence and disorder is what you get when your force yourself on another culture and change it with violence.

For reasons already given, I disagree that the Irish brehon laws made Ireland a civilised country: Early Irish Law concerned itself with how a man might improve his status, and how much he might have to pay for killing or wounding someone - which varied according to the status of the victim. I believe the early Danes had similar systems before they were Christianised.

Brehon law had no judges or courts: it was pronounced by the local chief or wise man who would interpret it as he saw fit; and it would be enforced by the people affected - the mob.

The Irish were always violent. Clan feuds were routine and frequently bloody. When not fighting among themselves, the early Irish would raid South West England (cf Tristan & Iseult), Wales (whence came St Patrick), Isle of Man and Scotland (or Pictland - which they colonised by creating Dal Riada and progressively eliminated or absorbed the native Picts).

I don't think anyone has shown me where England "forced" itself on the Irish