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Post by cato on Jun 10, 2017 9:08:45 GMT
I am from an ulster background and have two protestant sister in laws. My great grandmother was a convert from from presbyterianism who became a catholic and was shunned by her family. I am very concious of this legacy. I was a Sinn Fein supporter and attempted in the past to justify atrocities like Enniskillen. I have also experienced shocking anti protestant biogotry in private of course from a small minority of republicans . It is a factor in sectarianism just as orange bigotry is. We just pretend none of us on the side of the green angels are bigoted.
Why can't we use violence when others do? Very good question. I have evolved quite radically. Republicans have ignored elements of clear church teaching interpreting it as being pro British. Maybe modern theological dissent is a lot older than the crisis over humanae vitae? In our local context it is counter productive and we as the majority community need to draw a line under it and stop it. Thus far and no further!
I see the quest for Irish freedom as a noble courageous one but for too long it ignored patronised or villified Irish unionism. Very few Republicans ever really engaged with the main real objection to a 32 county free Ireland - The real tough sometimes unpleasant (to us) unionist people and not an aunt polly make believe version .To be a faithful catholic a nationalist and someone respectful to all Irishmen and women is logically to be committed to the principles of the Belfast agreement imperfect as it is.
Yes. We have the benefit and luxury of hindsight but sometimes I think we non unionists still lack the real generousity needed to reconcile and unite. Sinn Fein has never apologised for its' war . The UVF did.
In our Irish local family context violence is wrong just as domestic violence is clearly wrong.The Church clearly to its' credit taught this clearly during the troubles. Love and hate can't co-exist. There. My inner liberal is emerging !
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Post by dunsscotus on Jun 12, 2017 15:06:35 GMT
Personally I feel that the Easter Rising was justifiable.
There was no legitimate civil authority in Ireland. The British government was a tyrannical government that maintained its control and authority by military coercion. It presence in Ireland was contributing to the economic and cultural annihilation of Ireland.
The British government was not serving the common good of the Irish people. If you want to argue that it was a legitimate government it was governing for illegtimate ends. Ireland's temporal good was subject to City of London interests. Socially the British government worked to undermine the very character of Irish culture and nationhood by enforcing an educational model to turn Irishmen in to good little Englishmen, eradicating the native character, to supply for the massive civil service and beauracracy that it used to subject Irish interests.
There was no reasonable hope of correcting these evils by parliamentary and peaceful means. This had been demonstrated time and time again. And with the advent of the World War and impending conscription again the common good of the Irish people was to be subject to British imperial interests. I believe militarily the Rising could have been successful even after the countermanding orders by MacNeill.
They were brave men who did what was necessary.
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Post by cato on Jun 12, 2017 17:07:18 GMT
All christian churches including the catholic accepted the legitimacy of British rule in 1916. All Irish political parties that had representation in parliament accepted the basic legitimacy of the British presence in 1916. Despite wartime restrictions the UK was one of the most advanced democracies in the world in 1916. To describe this as a tyranny is nonsense. Inconvenient facts. Things radically changed due to the revolutionary attempted coup in 1916 .That revolution gave us our present formal independence and guaranteed a divided Ireland.
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Post by dunsscotus on Jun 12, 2017 17:37:03 GMT
That the Church recognised the British government did not make it legitimate. It made the Church in Ireland complicit with the illegitimate occupation of Ireland. A particular state's legitimacy is not a matter of divine revelation. And how informed the Church of Rome was of Irish matters is debatable. See for instance Cardinal Manning's commentary on Leo XIII's intervention on the Land Movement.
The Irish political representation in Westminster does not confer legitimacy. What politic was represented in Ireland? The Home Rule movement and the repeal of the Act of Union movement. There was an attempt, no several attempts, by the Irish polity to attain their political goal using peaceful means which went so far as collaboration with Westminster. And each time political representatives collaborated with the Parliamentarian system they were frustrated. Political means of undoing the wrongs committed against Ireland had been exhausted. Even the Redmonite exodus to World War I, an imperialist war which ravaged Europe so unnecessarily, could not accomplish what the Easter Rising did. The futility of Irish participation in the British political system had to end.
To blame the Easter Rising for the division and partition of Ireland is ludicrous. The Ulster Protestants had already armed themselves and sworn in covenant to oppose the separation of Ulster from the UK. The Ulster Volunteers took up arms before the Irish Volunteers. In fact the Irish Volunteers came in to being due to the existences of the Ulster Volunteers. They were using a threat of military coercion to hold to ransom the national aspirations of the Irish people. Even with the Home Rule Bill passed with the War it made exceptions for Ulster. This was before 1916. Partition was a product of British Toryism, Anglo-Saxon racism, and Protestant sectarianism.
We saw how much the British democracy cared about the will of the people in 1918 didn't we?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 12, 2017 17:46:42 GMT
It should also be noted that the response of the Irish bishops to the Rising was restrained and far from the denunciation Dublin Castle asked for.
I think your last point is the most telling. If British rule was not tyranny the War of Independence would not have happened. The mandate for independence was undeniable.
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Post by dunsscotus on Jun 12, 2017 17:55:54 GMT
I apologise for the double post here.
Cato, what I would like to add though is in comment to your above post stating that we have to look at the tough questions, deal generously with northern Unionists and work with the Belfast Agreement however imperfect it is.
I actually agree. I don't believe that the Easter Rising can be made the foundation of the modern Irish nation. I argue in its defence from a purely moral and historical perspective. It happened in the past, and it belongs in the past and cannot be employed now in the national narrative and mythology of the nation. I believe those men were right, and I believe they died heroes and are now enjoying the beatific vision with God (how many died with the Sacraments!).
There has been several evolutions in the psyche of Ireland over the past generations. One of the biggest issues we're facing is that many Ulster Protestants do not even identify with being Irish any more. Even Ian Paisley would say he was Irish albeit British too. I think that today the grounds exist for us to reach a peaceful conclusion to this sad story. A united, independent Ireland can be achieved in the current framework we have through dialogue and mutual contributions from both communities. We have to demonstrate clearly why it would serve the interests of the people of Ulster to want a united Ireland. Bread and butter issues will save the day.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 12, 2017 18:42:32 GMT
I can totally understand why horror at the Troubles (which I completely share) would lead one to question the 1916 Rising, but I don't think you can equate the two. This I will concede, that Irish nationalists in 1916 (and before and after) seemed extraordinarily naive when it came to the unionist population. I think they just expected them to cave in when it came to it.
Personally I have no keen desire to see a united Ireland any time soon, as I fear a re-eruption of the Troubles. There is also the question of whether our national identity, already sufficiently watered down, would be watered down even more to placate the unionist community. But who knows? Given this latest election result, perhaps the Protestant community in the six counties would be allies in seeking to preserve our Christian heritage.
I agree with Duns Scotus that we shouldn't base our policy regarding Northern Ireland on 1916, but I do think it is still very much part of "the narrative and mythology" of the nation, and should be. It doesn't mean we have to make the mistakes of the past, though.
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Post by cato on Jun 12, 2017 19:22:49 GMT
Can I deal briefly Dunsscotus with your last post first? I agree largely with all you say in that post except I do think the 1916 rising is the founding event or founding myth for better or worse of the Irish state.
Much of what I have attempted to argue is conjecture but I suspect we both believe in historical choices and free will. History is not determined by laws be they marxist or nationalist. "What if ..." historical questioning is regarded as being largely a right wing conservative approach and is normally dismissed by leftists who like to invoke "the right side of history"as if there are never alternatives.
My basic problem with the militant approach to Irish freedom is that once that genie was unleashed any militant minority could claim the legitimacy of the dead generations and ignore the actual wishes of the living believing they too will eventually come around to the noble cause of violent revolution . And they did this .Again and again. There is a deep contradiction in fighting for unity often killing fellow Irish people you claim to wish to free.
I think the cult of violence is much wider than Ireland. The leaders of 1916 were inspired by a wider malign European early 20th century attitude to revolutionary transformative violence that also influenced the Bolsheviks and later the Fascists. It also influenced the warring powers and the formation of the UVF
Our revolutionary violence as you said didn't cause partition but it certainly copperfastened it and created more fear and strenghtened the siege mentality of Ulster unionists. I ll respond to some of your other comments tomorrow. Thanks.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 12, 2017 19:34:57 GMT
Cato, I think your point about international violence is a good one, and this is the one I would make against the whole "genie" critique of 1916.
Nationalist and ethnic uprisings have been a feature of human history through the centuries. (Please, no tiresome arguments that "nationalism is an invention of the nineteenth century, blah blah blah2. They happened in Ireland before 1916. There is nothing unique about 1916. Nobody really needed 1916 to justify anything.
When I was younger, I was anti-1916 because I thought it had led to the Northern Irish Troubles. But, the older I got and the more I read, the better I understood that the Northern Irish Troubles were not inspired by romantic nationalism-- they were inspired by a bitter tribal feud which would probably have erupted with or without the 1916 Rising. People like Bobby Sands were radicalised by personal experience, not by reading accounts of 1916. The appeal to 1916 was, in my view, purely opportunistic.
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Post by dunsscotus on Jun 12, 2017 20:07:34 GMT
Oh I definitely think that the men of 1916 were being influenced by wider movements within Europe at the time. However I think you mischaracterise the movement as being "a wider malign European early 20th century attitude to revolutionary transformative violence that also influenced the Bolsheviks and later the Fascists." Elaine Sisson in her book Pearse's Patriots: St Enda's and the Cult of Boyhood delves into this very issue and describes much of the philosophy behind the cultural nationalists' actions as being an attempt to reclaim masculinity in an Irish context. Throughout Germany and England there was this growing concern amongst some sectors of society that men were just not men any more. You had the development of Wagner's works and in England the Boy Scout movement.
In Ireland however there was the Anglo-colonialst narrative of the effeminate and feminine Celtic Irishman. Oh, some Celticists lauded the Irish for this, but it was a narrative that led them to firmly believe that Ireland needed the firm, strong, masculine hand of England to steer its destiny. Pearse is often accused of having a lust for blood, a fetish for sacrifice. I think it wholly wrong to see it as such. He rather had a love for masculinity and the virtue of masculinity.
There's so much to this particular discussion that I can only refer anyone who is interested to Mrs Sisson's work.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 12, 2017 20:48:51 GMT
Futurist art and the writings of A.E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling and William Ernest Henley are more examples of this phenomenon. Chesterton said that some writers believed in the British Empire at this time because they had nothing else to believe in.
Much as I admire Pearse, I do feel his Irish nationalism sometimes reached the point of idolatry, especially saying that the grave of Wolfe Tone was holier than that of St. Patrick.
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Post by cato on Jun 13, 2017 10:03:15 GMT
I read the Sisson book after it was published. There is no contradiction in having a cult of masculinity and what was a much bigger wider cultural phenomena historically - a desire and a passion for war bordering on the bloodthirsty. Western civilisation did appear to have a collective death wish in 1914. War is a deeply masculine pursuit probably the most manly thing possible.
Pearse's personal relationship with his boys seems affectionate and nuturing promoting a love of nature and of good English literature but it also involved training them to shed blood. Some of the pictures from St Enda's of little boys in pseudo celtic kilts look very girly . His infamous poem 'little lad of the tricks' shows Pearse's darker emotions which he seems to have sucessfully repressed and did not act out . His promotion of youthful masculinity was complex and conflicted.
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