The Irish Civil War 1922-23

61

Again that’s all very well now. However the vast majority of the population were quite content to cede control of large tracts of State policy to the Church until well into the 1990s. Particularly in Health and Education. And I think it is fair to say that there is no great evidence that the secularists are doing a better job running the parts of these sectors that have been ceded back to them than the religious did before them.

Moreover we pride ourselves on having a spectacularly good education system. It’s one of the things the IDA consistently bang on about. The great majority of the people who have passed through that system have been educated in religious controlled schools

62

Our education system is a joke. Maths and science are lagging miles behind other countries. Mary Immaculate, one of the biggest teacher training colleges in the country, doesn’t even address science.

Non national kids from Europe piss all over Irish kids results wise and don’t even get me started with the state on first year college kids after six years of spoon feeding, not an ounce of independent or critical thinking. That’s the legacy of your religious run schools. No engagement with life, minimum critical thinking, just shut up and listen.

63

Jaysus I remember it well. Still have the uniform at home.

64

Is that a personal observation or do you have the stats to back this up?

65

At the height of the Celtic Tiger boom, Ireland had the fourth lowest education spending in the OECD. I think only Italy, Czech Republic, and Slovakia were worse than us. The education talk is largely empty rhetoric, and even the rhetoric is starting to disappear at this stage.

On the subject of the WOI though, one of the things that the Sindo ‘revisionists’ always like to say is that Irish people were happy with British rule before Sinn Fein started stirring up trouble, and that the ‘shinners’ were fringe extremists who went against the will of the population at large. The love to trumpet on about how Irish people supported the empire and saw themselves as being part of it.

There may be elements of truth in this, but on the whole they gloriously miss the point. British rule may have been supported, but what they never acknowledge was that it didn’t matter if it was supported or not. Britain ruled the Irish people with or without their consent. If people wanted to give them that consent, fine, but they were going to rule the place one way or the other. That’s what imperialism was, and that’s why a military campaign for self-determination was legitimate, unless you believe that people should be ruled without their consent which is the same as supporting tyranny.

66

Science is a sham mate. Rick Santorum knows the score.

67

Much of those claims are based on Royal visits which really don’t stand up to criticism. Most of those displaying loyalty were doing so under instruction from employers, or children led astray with the promise of sweets etc. As you touched on earlier most people were too wrapped up in the land issue to be concerned with who ruled what. As the peasantry were cleared and large farmers took control then it became an issue.

68

Can we please stick to rhetoric and the glofication of the pursuit for Irish freedom. Less of this half baked mumbo jumbo you read in a book your uncle stole from Trinity.

69

+1

I doubt those workers affected by the lock out in 1913 would have been too supportive of British rule. Maybe the donations from british trade unions, but I doubt even they would have been supportive of british rule in Ireland either.

70

It’s actually quite ironic as well that some of the more pacifist revolutionaries were the ones with biggest convictions while those who were militant hardliners were some of the first to sell out. I always find this quite surprising.

71

When reading the Indo, you’d do well to remember that this is the paper that published an impassioned editorial calling for James Connolly to be executed.

72

That’s if you can ever look past the fact that it was the paper of William Martin Murphy

73

Not to mention how Larkin and the workers were demonised during the lockout. The funny thing is that it’s exactly the same today, and people just as readily swallow their bullshit.

74

Michael Collins was gay apparently, according to David Norris at least. When you think about it every documentation of his life, in both print and film, places great emphasis on his passion for ‘wrestling’ with his male friends.

75

Diarmuid Ferriter pooh poohed this suggestion in a rather you wish kind of a way in yesterday’s Sunday Times.

With regards to the Civil War itself there was a good informative piece on the History Show on RTE 1 last night about the 77 extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the Free State to bring the Civil War to an end. Ferriter also contributed here. When Dessie O Malley first went for election for FF in 1968 one of his supporters went around painting 77 on the FG posters.

76

Bobby Ballagh setting a few things straight in today’s Irish Times.

THE GOVERNMENT plan to balance the commemoration of those who fought in the Easter Rising and the War of Independence with an honouring of the “imperialist slaughter” of the first World War does a disservice to those whose sacrifice led to Irish freedom, according to artist Robert Ballagh.

Speaking at a commemoration at Fitzgerald Park in Cork to remember War of Independence guerilla leader Tom Barry, Ballagh said Barry and his comrades were not motivated by some abstract notion of freedom but by a desire to create a genuine republic.

He said he had great concerns about the programme being drawn up by the Government to mark “the decade of commemoration”, as he believed it was aimed at diminishing the events upon which the modern Irish State was founded, such as the Easter Rising and the War of Independence.

“They talk of ‘balancing’ the 1916 Rising with the battle of the Somme’s imperialist slaughter in a genuine spirit of partnership. As a citizen of the Irish Republic, I know of no other self-respecting republic whose government would seek to diminish the foundation stone of that republic,” he said.

“Can you imagine any US president or French president calling for the proud republican commemorations of the 4th of July or Bastille Day on the 14th of July to be muted or balanced by commemorations of North American loyalism or the Bourbon dynasty ?

“This republic can only honour its own War of Independence, not the imperialist Great War,” said Ballagh, adding that those Irish who died in foreign wars were already properly and rightly remembered in the National Day of Commemoration each July.

He quoted Cumann na nGaedheal minister for justice Kevin O’Higgins, whom he described as “hardly the darling of Republicans”, to support his view that the Irish Government should not officially commemorate the first World War. “Notwithstanding that his own brother, Michael, had perished in Flanders in a British army uniform, the Cumann na nGaedheal minister for justice proclaimed the following in the Dáil in 1927,” Ballagh told the 100-strong gathering, before quoting O’Higgins.

“‘No one denies the sacrifice and no one denies the patriotic motives which induced the vast majority of these men to join the British army to take part in the Great War, and yet it is not on their sacrifice that this State is based and I have no desire to see it suggested that it is,” he quoted.

He suggested Ireland would be be better advised to look towards Tom Barry and his comrades, whose sacrifices were aimed at creating a republic based on the principles enunciated in the 1916 proclamation and the democratic programme of the first Dáil.

“We would be well served to acknowledge and learn from the vision and bravery and sacrifice of heroes like Tom Barry rather than seek to mute their achievement and balance it with other historical events which played no part in our struggle for freedom,” he added.

77

This is a very good thread, as someone asked above can anyone recommend a couple of good books on the era? It seems with Irish history every author has a slant.

My own impression has always been that the republicans who continued to fight were too brutalised by what they’d been through to do anything but keep fighting.

78

Tom Barry’s Gureilla Days & Dan Breens books are worth a look Glas.

79

Cheers. I’d be a bit wary of them though, fellas don’t be inclined to be impartial when writing about themselves…

80

A poem about the Irish Civil War

Our glorious Civil War heroes
They fought so proudly together
They said “we’ll always be brothers”
Until they reached the end of their tether

Some said “I’m signing the Treaty”
Others said “if you sign you’re a traitor”
Then they said to each other “it’s war, now!”
And it’s time to meet your creator

These heroes they took out their rifles
And fired them straight at each other
They fought together for Ireland
But now brother was killing his brother

T’was always a clean fight with honour
To the depths, our young men would not descend
At least that’s what Paddy would tell you
Before he blew the head off his best friend

So let us remember a story
About two childhood friends, they were besties
They swore they would never be enemies
Until Johnny cut off Paddy’s testes

Then Johnny raped poor Paddy’s woman
He said that he didn’t regret it
Because Paddy had murdered his brother
And Johnny could never forget it

Then Johnny burned poor Paddy’s house down
Paddy’s mother and father inside it
When the war crimes tribunal came calling
Our Johnny, he went and denied it

In the village they ne’er spoke about it
The best cure they said it was silence
But 100 years later, we honour
All the bloodlust and hatred and violence

We celebrate killing Mick Collins
Ah sure of course he deserved it
A traitor he was to oul’ Ireland
To our cause he went and deserted

Noble acts, there were so many of them
We celebrate oul’ Ballyseedy
Where they tied ten men to a landmine
Would be 20 men had they been greedy

More than Britain they hated each other
Civil war was an Irish production
A glorious blow for our freedom
Except for the death and destruction

Such heroes are never forgotten
The brightest, the best and the bravest
Our founding fathers were killers
Oh Jaysus, Lord bless us and save us