Locke has already said his grandfather was a mercenary driven by money and money alone
Better to do it for money than to be anyway loyal to the brits
You donât recall correctly, they had already sold the pass on Home Rule after the Curragh mutiny. Home Rule wasnât an option after the Ulster Unionists asserted themselves. Of course Redmond, the cunt, thought that shovelling 70,000 of his countrymen into the murder machine including his own brother Willie, might help him achieve his objective of being Prime Minister of Ireland, but the poor man was delusional.
Could Redmond, or anyone else for that matter, have anticipated the scale of the slaughter in Europe in 1914?
Yes plenty of people did WtB. Donât take my word for it. Read Max Hastings work Catastrophe for confirmation that the notion that it would be a quick war was just spin and that plenty of people on all sides knew that the war was going to be a long haul.
World War One started in a manner reminiscent of âgentlemenâ playing games. Ambassadors physically delivering declarations of war etc.
the poor were simply regarded as cannon fodder. Good show on last night about welfare state in UK after ww2 introduced in response to threat of communism
At what level was it known? Redmond was only a puppet.
Great grandfather chief. Ffs, keep up
Ireland didnât exist in 1914 as a separate nation state so once Britain was at war Ireland was at war - united. Talk of Irishmen joining the British army is fanciful. It was one country. Will revisionists talk of Scotsmen joining the British army in times to come if Scotland vote for independence.
I donât disagree. But nobody in their right mind should have expected a quick result from a war between powers who were broadly equal in manpower and technology.
There was no conscription in Ireland, so joining up was a matter of free will.
No conscription in Britain until 1916. Be interesting to see how volunteer numbers tailed away as horror of war became apparent rather than it being a nationalist thing.
Just read the Telegraphâs review of that book, Fagan. They suggest that one of his âadversariesâ in the book is âthe poetâs view of the warâ. Presumably that means he attacks the war poetâs contention that the war was morally unjustifiable? How does he make that argument?
I donât think he does to be honest. He is quite clear that the pretext of protecting little Belgium was at best spurious. Werenât there plenty of poets in favour of the war?
The ranks of the IRA surged due to the threat of conscription, Another thing that is largely glossed over when talking about this period. There wasnât this sudden awakening of Irish patriotism, or nationalism, just a lot of young men looking to escape going to the front.
Those that had initially went with Redmond and all the propaganda of going to war for Ireland etc came home and found that they were now the enemy. It must have been bizarre.
[quote=âMark Renton, post: 860235, member: 1796â]The ranks of the IRA surged due to the threat of conscription, Another thing that is largely glossed over when talking about this period. There wasnât this sudden awakening of Irish patriotism, or nationalism, just a lot of young men looking to escape going to the front.
Those that had initially went with Redmond and all the propaganda of going to war for Ireland etc came home and found that they were now the enemy. It must have been bizarre.[/quote]
Not necessarily. Tom Barry joined the British Army and fought in Tobruk.
Agreed. Most of these men just wanted an adventure/change of scene. At least Barry soaked up plenty of knowledge & fucked off once he saw the cunts for what they were.
A fair few like Tom made the crossover, but the majority didnât. But Iâm really talking about the change they came home to. It was all Danny boy, Itâs a long way to Tipp and home rule as many left. They came home to a group of largely thugs telling them they are now the enemy.
[quote=âMark Renton, post: 860242, member: 1796â]They came home to a group of largely thugs telling them they are now the enemy.[/quote] Uh?
The Telegraph spins that completely differently. They say that his perspective is if Britain going to war in response to the Naziâs actions was justified, them going to war in defence of Belgiumâs civilians was too. It is the Telegraph though.
Yes, there were a lot of Rudyard Kipling types in full song at the beginning of the war, but the term âthe war poetsâ refers to a very specific group and genre.
Kipling changed his tune as well after his own son was consumed in the glorious game.
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?