John Mitchell’s
Named after a slaver
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Yes
Wasn’t a member of one of the clubs named after him racially abusing Ian Wright on twitter recently
Oola is a ridiculous name
It’s worth it for the one time I heard a yank trying to say it
Yes
Ah, the old zero zero LA job,yeah?
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No. That’s better
It was oh oh la. Like cola
Revisionism is a dangerous thing
I’m not sure being against slavery falls under revisionism.
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It wasn’t exactly grey either. He was fairly vehement about it
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Putting 21st century values to play against a man who lived at a time and in a country when slavery was legal is revisionism.
I’m sure he was a pig of a man, very few who survive in history and memory are any different.
He fought for good causes too, though.
A hypothetical, if you’ll indulge me, let’s say whatever set of values they have in 200 years, they look back and decide anyone that was pro abortion was a monster and should be written out of history
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Pro greyhound racing
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Fuck off you
You want to compare slavery to a hypothetical?
Do you think slavery should be considered wrong? Do you think those who practised slavery should be praised or condemned or treated with indifference? Do you only get judged by your contemporaries?
Anyway, he was very controversial at the time in Ireland. And it was only “revisionism” that turned a blind eye and got him celebrated again in the 20th Century.
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I think slavery is wrong, 100%.
The hypothetical is more to make a point about the values rather than the act.
Do you think condemning a man, 200 years after the fact for something that was legal in his lifetime, is right?
Would you chisel the faces of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington off Mt. Rushmore because they were slave owners?
Yes. Not always but sometimes. In this case it is. I certainly don’t think the man should be celebrated. I don’t think there is much balance in the pro-/anti-slavery debate.
Have you seen the DIY thread? I’d make a right fuck up of that job.
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He isn’t being celebrated for slavery though is he? He’s being celebrated for illegally wanting freedom for his country (at that time). That’s the peculiarity of history. Hes condemned now for performing a legal act in his time and celebrated for performing an illegal one
In the eyes of the law at the time most of our Irish heroes were criminals, should we stop celebrating them too? Most of the GAA teams in the country would need a new name.
My point is where do you stop? Tear down small statues not big ones? The U.S.A was founded by slave owners, should they scrap it and start again?
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I don’t think legality has anything to do with it.
In short, we want to honour people we can be some bit proud of. And people will have flaws so there is a scale to these things. I don’t really like Daniel O’Connell. He was a bit of a religious fanatic, much to friendly with the establishment and has very dubious credentials on the famine. But I can see that he did some good, was a leading figure for a period of time and no harm in commemorating him.
But that’s a long way from endorsing a man who preached incessantly about slaves, about the inferiority of black people and who said, wrote and did acts that I don’t believe are defensible.
Do I think it’s acceptable or healthy for a sports club to be named after such a racist figure? Absolutely not.
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Ben Elton touches on this in his satirical novel Identity Crisis (which is excellent) where long dead people are prosecuted for crimes they have committed.