Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?
No, I’m sure he isn’t, but I wasn’t referring specifically to him in my previous post. And in any case, I don’t believe you have answered my point by making such a dismissive remark. Your contention is that if people behaved in accordance with the times they lived in, they are not to be criticised. Thus the Irish are not to be criticised for their murderous raids on mainland Britain during the Roman occupation.

Yet, although many European nations - and even the United States of America – have built empires in the more recent past, Britain alone is to be faulted for doing so.

As for Martin Sheen, I think Ian’s remarks above will suffice.

[The Irish] have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.
Which is how it appears from your perspective...just like Hezbollah justifies its actions and beliefs...the only perspective that matters is their own...
I agree that we have different perspectives, but I don’t think my views can be summarily disregarded simply because they do not fit in with your uncritical absorbtion of the American/Irish Nationalist version of history; and I am quite unsure that your experience of violence in Lebanon enables you to empathise with Irish Republicans. (Why not with the Loyalists, who are also Irish?)

I am sure Brittan is just like the Jedi coming in to free Naboo...all peace loving and only wanting to help and the bad meanie Irish are then just like the Sith...at least from the English perspective. I am sure that perspective is flipped around for the Irish however.


You tell me you’re a historian, yet here you are comparing British Imperialism and Irish Nationalists with a Hollywood film! I can assure you, the problem is far more complicated than that and deserves to be considered more thoughtfully. I note you have already made a similar point earlier in this thread.

The first thing you need to understand is that the problem is not what the British did to the Irish, but what the Irish did – and are still doing - to each other. When you look at things from that perspective, you will see that Britain’s actions are almost irrelevant.

All it takes is one soldier getting caught pissing on a dead body of an occupied countries "terrorist/freedom fighter) and ten plus years of goodwill goes out the window like so much slop.
I’m not aware of this incident. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Why do African Americans, Jews, People of India, Arabs, etc etc all still complain or comment on what their "oppressors" did too them so many years ago? I will tell you why: Perceptions of injustices resonate just as strongly sometimes as the actual acts that fostered them in the first place real or imagined.


Perceptions of injustice can be – and in this instance, I submit, are – self-delusional; and it would be wrong to pander to such self-deception when trying to understand history.

As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.


No more so than I accuse any other nation of such fickle historical sophistry when it suits them or they don't like the way some thing about themselves or their ancestors sounds. Remember our discussions on the American Revolution? Brittan taught their version to you and your peers in school...while American children were taught their own version. Who had the "truth"...who had the "right" of it? Did Herodotus malign the Persians in favor of his countrymen in his works? Did Livy favor the Romans over all others in his histories?
As the Irish version of history is one-sided and in many places fallacious, I wonder where the sophistry truly resides.

The British educational system – at least when I was at school – spent perhaps one lesson on the American Revolution - two or three if you count the colonial period and events in Canada: it was just one small theatre in a world-wide war and not important enough to bother justifying or apologising for.

But this is a side-issue and we don’t want to start that argument all over again!

Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.

Nor the Irish cause either right?. Not if one is to truly be objective that is. Which I doubt is happening when we discuss things that are very close to one's home. (not mine I was born in beyrut..its the Jew/Arab thingy that should strike close too me)
No-one is allowed to forget the Nationalist view, so that particular question doesn’t arise. They even glory in their atrocities. When, on the other hand, have you heard anyone seriously argue against the Irish “Truth”?

Your opinion is your opinion. I just think its a bit biased is all.


… and therefore invalid? What makes you think that? Simply because I interpret historical events differently from you?

Enviroment imho shapes us in some ways.


Is that an oblique way of making Britain responsible for things like the Plague or potato blight?

Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people ...


The sole reason? There is never a sole reason. But it has happened several times. Starting with a series of Norman right on through Elizabethian times. The reasons given by the invaders however...will be documented as self justifing however...that much is pretty much garenteed. Oh I was invited to "help" but now that I am here I am staying...like it or not etc.
Never simply to oppress, then, but to help or protect Ireland, or to prevent Ireland becoming a staging post for England’s enemies.

I’ll make it simpler: when was oppression of the Irish people one of the stated aims of any British invader?

I ... quoted like a whole page of historical notes way earlier in the thread. I just think you were rather subjectivly one sided in your interpetation is all, which is understadable.


Yes, I read and commented upon those notes. I said they did not demonstrate English oppression, but, rather, the opposite. Instead of patronising me by “understanding” my prejudices, please point out the events mentioned that clearly demonstrate England invaded Ireland to suppress the population as a whole (as opposed to rebels in particular).

Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.


I am certian that from the Crown's point of view thats precisely whats going on.
So why do you doubt and deny it?


Seriously...why do you think the bigots are being so bloody bigoted?


Because the other bigots are killing them! One Irishman against another.

Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.


At least from England's point of view.
No. From a detached and dispassionate point of view.

Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.


To the English it certiantly does.
If you deny it, explain?

… just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!


Yeah must be why they came up with that nifty new form of government that worked so dam well to limit tyranny and all instead of declaring themselves pirate kings (at least for a time...its a bit tattered now days if you ask me).
They replaced a benign tyranny (if you must call it tyranny) with a weak confederacy, run by self-interested smugglers, land-grabbers and other disreputable blackguards, that began its life by reneging on the first international treaty it signed, and planned to turn on its allies (the French and Spanish – who won the American war for them) in order to take over New France and Florida once the English had been ejected.

As for “new”, what about the Licchavi, or Rome or Lucca?

There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.


If the shoe were on the other foot I wonder what you would say then?
I would say the same thing: there is a difference.