For Lefties too Stubborn to Quit
Saw this via a thread on P.ie. A Ruth Dudley Edwards classic. You simply must admire the sheer perversity of thought that can come up with such a column.
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RDE states with regards to Pearse’s sexuality that he ‘was attracted sexually only by boys.’
Is there any actual evidence for this?
A fantastic example of her having her cake and eating it. So she’s not pillorying Pearse… except she is. And she’s not giving out about Jackson. Except… logically she is. And she’s giving out about King… but logically she shouldn’t be, or at least not to the extent that she is.
And AFAIK Dr. X, no, there is no evidence.
As I thought. Mind you, I do recall the most fluent speaker of The Gaelic that I know, who happens to be a gay, working class protestant, saying something in Lavery’s Gin Palace one night about some descendant of a Pearse-era brothel keeper saying that his relative had Pearse as a customer. Pearse’s predilections – according to this Man in a Pub Story – were to dress in tight tweed clothing and read gaelic myths and legends to young boys. Which while testing the boundaries of the appropriate, is not what RDE seems to be alleging.
They always quote the poem cited here
http://www.politics.ie/history/78541-paedo-no-what-pearse-poem-about-if-not-kissing-wee-boys.html
but no, there is no evidence of him ever having had sex of any sort as far as I know.
Of course Pearse was the only person in pre-WWI Europe obsessed with the moral and physical health of young boys, and their beauty, strength and vitality. Oh wait,…
Someone has just posted the original text of the poem on this thread on p.ie
http://www.politics.ie/gaeilge/85622-mhic-bhig-na-gcleas.html
I’m not sure which is more degrading: reading Ruth Dudley Edwards, or reading politics.ie. Either way, I need a shower.
His behaviour may have been perverse, at times creepy, but at least Michael Jackson never wrote for the Sunday Independent.
I know that I’ve asked this before, but I’m still interested in the answer: does anyone know what this pillar of the Southern Unuionist set has to say about Connolly in her “biography”? What’s the RDE line of attack for crippled socialists who ended up tied to chairs and then executed by the glorious British Empire?
By the way, anyone know her thoughts on that Victorian innovation of the Empire (and contemporary movement of Pearse’s Fianna), the Boy Scouts? Interesting to find out.
Because there’s no paedo associations attached to scouting?
I’d always assumed, from what I’ve read, that Pearse was a little too fond of the young fellahs for comfort, and that the defence for the man’s good name was more framed by the sort of kneejerk deification that applies to denial of Casement’s sexuality, than actual evidence. But paedo or chaste admirer of youthful masculity, or whatever he was, he still comes across as a sick puppy, with some pretty bizarre attitudes to the value of life, nationalism, and democracy.
I think Alastair that his attitudes were much more typical of Europeans of his time than people now like to admit. I’m not really sure what was wrong with his attitude to democracy. he was hardly opposed to votes for women, unlike say the IPP.
The bould RDE strikes again!It’s great to see she’s so concerned about little boys.She’ll soon write up an article on the boys that were butchered and maimed in WW1 all for…for what actually?
‘And he is dead who will not fight, and who dies fighting has increase’.
The words not of Pearse but of (if memory serves) Rupert Brooke. That’s as much an evocation of rebirth and renewal through violence as anything Pearse wrote.
Because there’s no paedo associations attached to scouting?
I’m going to charitably assume here that you’re using irony.
he still comes across as a sick puppy, with some pretty bizarre attitudes to the value of life, nationalism, and democracy.
Are you really unaware of the nationalistic, religious, militaristic and often racist underpinnings of the various scouting movements which came into existence at that particular time? Curious.
Baden-Powell’s ‘Scouting for Boys’ (need you more of a picture?) was directly inspired by the Boer war, was it not?
Baden-Powell’s ‘Scouting for Boys’ (need you more of a picture?) was directly inspired by the Boer war, was it not?
Correct. He had used young boys as scouts (and ‘native’ troops as disposable cannon fodder) during a famous siege in that war. The idea which occurred to him was to as a matter of policy catch ‘em young, and teach them the proper skills and attitude to become good soldiers for the Empire once they were old enough.
Incidentally, the policy of fetishising dead soldiers through elaborate ceremony and ‘remembrance’ was a product of the same generation of the British elite…
I’m going to charitably assume here that you’re using irony.
And I’ll charitably assume that you normally have less difficulty with recognising irony.
Once again I’m given pause to wonder at those who employ whataboutery to defend the indefensible. Rupert Brooke or Baden Powell didn’t come around and beat Pearse over the head to advocate a nice bit of sacrificial blood-letting or train up kids for a nationalist militia.
It’s hardly whataboutery if you point out that instead of Pearse being a singular nutter he was representative of several extremely prominent and important trends in the Europe of his time.
Also, the wider acceptance of revisionism in popular consciousness in the 26 counties was started by the (justified) revulsion against the tactics and strategy of the PIRA. The PIRA’s actions seemed to call into question the very foundations of conventional Irish nationalist thought. It no longer appeared to be ethically acceptable to cleave to anything remotely akin to ‘blood sacrifice’, be it in the GPO in 1916 or in Birmingham in 1974.
What is equally unacceptable, and unacceptable on the same ethical grounds, is the open and naked admiration for the British Empire in certain revisionist circles: that empire was responsible for more innocent deaths than Irish republicanism could even dream of.
Spot on Dr. X.
Oh, and a happy Bastille day to all who ride for the Cedar brand.
As you’ll note Dr. X, great minds think alike.
It’s hardly whataboutery if you point out that instead of Pearse being a singular nutter he was representative of several extremely prominent and important trends in the Europe of his time.
Ah – that make it alright then. My mistake.
It makes him very close to being normal as opposed to being nuts.
And as Dr. X has pointed out, the real question of militarism and wasted lives in this era is the question of imperialism, which Pearse opposed. Unlike the Irish Parliamentary Party and various other “peaceful” groups, that openly advocated the occupation of other countries and happily advised people to go and fight in the war for the Empire. When I see Myers, RDE et al address that question, then I might consider listening to what they have to say about Pearse.
And one other thing. How many decades had Ireland had a home rule majority for? People taking up arms when the votes of the people are ignored is considered acceptable practice today, no?
It makes him very close to being normal as opposed to being nuts.
Not quite. How do you imagine that would work then? That Pearse was a nutter is quite apparent from the obvious concerns of his contemporaries – who didn’t seem to think that similar deluded notions from Brooke or whoever made him any more ‘normal’. ‘Blood sacrifice’ carried little appeal to the man on the street then, as now – it was/is the domain of the sociopath.
Like I say – the whataboutery argument is no excuse.
People taking up arms when the votes of the people are ignored is considered acceptable practice today, no?
No. It’s not.
You seem to be mistaking whataboutery for context.
As for the idea that the man in the street saw no appeal in blood sacrifice. The enthusastic response from people in the street across Europe to WWI would suggest otherwise.
As for taking up arms when the votes of the people being ignored. Of course it is. If Brown or Cowen lose the next election and decide to stay in government, what do you think would happen? They would be declared tyrants and overthrown. You mightn’t find it acceptable, but that’s you.
You seem to be mistaking the views of a small minority for context.
Most people, on both sides of the conflict, expected fighting to be short-lived and relatively free of a ’sacrificial’ requirement. There’s good reason that conscription was required to sustain the military campaign.
And let’s say that the tories win the next election. Is that an acceptable basis for Scottish armed insurgence, insofar as their local electoral mandate is ignored/overridden? I think not.
The war may well have sapped that enthusiasm, but there is no doubt that popular opinion throughout Europe welcomed the war, and for huge numbers of people – and not a small minority – this was because they saw a war as necessary to defend their country’s honour etc. All perfectly in line with Pearse.
If Scotland votes for independence at the next election, and the Tories ignore it, then yes of course it is good grounds for insurgency. And you mightn’t think so but there you go.
All perfectly in line with Pearse.
Not at all. There’s a wide gulf between a desire to defend your country’s interests in a time of conflict, and ‘The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields’ – see any distinction there?
If Scotland votes for independence at the next election, and the Tories ignore it, then yes of course it is good grounds for insurgency. And you mightn’t think so but there you go.
Shifting the goalposts there a tad?
Ireland had voted for home rule and it had been granted (where a majority wanted it) on the back of the electoral process. No-one voted for independence, so there was no electoral/popular mandate for an armed uprising in support of independence.
it hadn’t been granted Alastair as you well know. It had been suspended until the end of the war while contradictory promises were made. It was quite clear that the HR Act as passed was never going to be implemented.
On top of that what about the decades before? There was no reason to believe in British good faith. Now you can argue that 1916 is wrong. You cannot argue that the British state in Ireland had any democratic legitimacy by our standards, or even those of the day. It didn’t. So to attack Pearse for not having a mandate is to compare apples and oranges.
As for that thing about the heart of the earth. This was the era of social darwinism etc. That fed the hysteria for war. You can see the militarism and the need to assert yourself in battle from near enough any country in Europe.
Not shifting the goalposts at all. You shifted them from my original point was what if a government refused to acknowledge the result of an election and stayed in power. I shifted back to my original point using your example.
(where a majority wanted it)
What about Tyrone, Derry etc.The blood stuff was correctly criticised by Pearse. That nonsense was very common in pre WW1 Europe.Pearse went for surrender when he saw a family come out of a pub with white flags and being mowen down by the British. The Rising prevented conscription and saved Irish lives.
A further problem with aspects of Alastair’s argument – and the revisionist set more generally – is the position of the loyalist/unionist nexus prior to WW1.
It’s a counter-factual, and therefore of limited value, but what would have happened if a) the 1916 rising did not take place; b) the war ended in 1918 and home rule was introduced soon after? Based on the stated positions, and actions, of the loyalist/unionist groups we’d have had a civil conflict/war that would, in all likelihood, have dwarfed the Rising, the War of Independence and the subsequent civil war. Something the revisionists never, never seem willing to address…..
The context is everything if one wants to critique Pearse and his statements, many of them, I’d agreed, range from the creepy to the deeply disturbing.
On the subject of blood sacrifice and the mores of early 20th century: did not the members of the UVF (or similar organisations) sign some declaration, in their thousands, with their own blood in 1913/14. That, to me at least, surpasses in creepiness any of the blood themes in Pearse’s writings etc.
But the, I suppose, Unionists are sane, sensible angels and republicans and their antecedents are devils to a man and woman…
Ireland had voted for home rule and it had been granted (where a majority wanted it) on the back of the electoral process.
Maybe someone forgot to tell Gladstone that (or, more to the point, the Ulster Unionists, their allies in the Conservatives and co-conspirators in the British Army who were ready to fight their own British government rather than see Home Rule).
And another thing. Pearse was for a while a Home Ruler himself, who only came to see an uprising as the way to go as it became cleaqr that there was never going to be a proper Home Rule allowed (I know that this doesn’t fit Alastair’s worldview, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t rub his nose in it).
“The blood stuff was correctly criticised by Pearse. ”
I meant Connolly.
Do people feel that Britain would have easily let go. The only reason they let a bit go was the exhaustion caused by WW1 and the war of independence. Healy who became Governor General felt that 1916 won more than 40 years of Westminister.
“Do people feel that Britain would have easily let go.”
not only that Jim, some people seem to believe that Sinn Fein was the Home Rule party. Someone should tell UCC ‘cos they’ve gone and put the Sinn Fein manifesto from 1918 up on the web, but instead of saying that Sinn Fein stood for Home Rule in the election where they won close to 80% of the vote, they gone and typed that the manifesto says:
“Sinn Féin gives Ireland the opportunity of vindicating her honour and pursuing with renewed confidence the path of national salvation by rallying to the flag of the Irish Republic. Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic”
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E900009/index.html
Do these bloody amateurs in UCC not know that
“No-one voted for independence, so there was no electoral/popular mandate for an armed uprising in support of independence.”
I blame the education system. A friend of mine has recently finished marking around 200 junior cert scripts for the history exam, and NOT ONE knew who the Citizen Army were.
A few years from now those student will probably be leaving anonymous comments on websites with stuff like Sinn Fein stood for Home Rule, or that Pearse invented blood sacrifice some day in 1911 in a classroom in Rathfarnham.
I blame the education system. A friend of mine has recently finished marking around 200 junior cert scripts for the history exam, and NOT ONE knew who the Citizen Army were.
Can you point out what candidate, standing on a platform of Irish indpendence, was elected in the 1910 general election? The ICA didn’t even exist at that point, so I’m not sure how anyone was in a position to vote for them.
And another thing. Pearse was for a while a Home Ruler himself, who only came to see an uprising as the way to go as it became cleaqr that there was never going to be a proper Home Rule allowed (I know that this doesn’t fit Alastair’s worldview, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t rub his nose in it).
How exactly does that change the facts on the ground? People voted overwhelmingly for Home Rule, got a commitment to Home Rule, and Pearse’s opinions on that matter, as with everything else, are his own. You don’t have to agree with the man, and he had no crystal ball that I’m aware of.
Nope they got a commitment to Home Rule that was promptly shattered. A broken promise doesn’t mean very much. And it didn’t take a crystal ball. London had already made clear it was going to renege on the Home Rule Act.
it hadn’t been granted Alastair as you well know. It had been suspended until the end of the war while contradictory promises were made
It had been granted – in the 1914 act. That’s a legal commitment. The ‘contradictory promises’ stemmed from the very dynamic of popular opposition to government legislation that you claim as legitimate – except that you probably didn’t like the unionist claim to legitimacy in fighting home rule.
Ah well you see. I am claiming opposition is legitimate once the democratically-expressed wishes have been ignored. Taking 9 or 6 counties on their own was itself an anti-democratic move. Having said that, the unionists could make a case for democratic legitimacy. Unlike the failure to enact home rule over four decades, and then to lie about the plans that were going to be introduced.
The reality is that we cannot simply apply simple precepts from our time to back then. So we should stop trying.
Nope they got a commitment to Home Rule that was promptly shattered.
A formally enacted bill, suspended for the duration of the war, isn’t a ’shattered’ commitment . That was certainly the view of Redmond, who carried the popular electoral mandate of the day.
Taking 9 or 6 counties on their own was itself an anti-democratic move.
How so? Would you say the same for the Welsh – who only amount to 13 electoral counties?
Depends on whether you think there ought to be any territorial congruity between ‘nations’ and ’states’ I guess.
“The ICA didn’t even exist at that point, so I’m not sure how anyone was in a position to vote for them.”
you didn’t get the point I was making. (no surprise there.) It was about education standards, especially with regard to Irish history. something we take for granted – that is, knowledge of the Irish Citizen Army – is being lost on a generation of Irish students. It was an example from a recent conversation with a friend of mine – the context of which I already explained, but because you missed it the last time I have to restate it in order to hold your hand through this – and yet you’ve somehow construed that as meaning that I’m saying that the UCA stood in elections in 1910. Is that how your logic works, Alastair?
“Can you point out what candidate, standing on a platform of Irish indpendence, was elected in the 1910 general election? ”
your point was about mandates for violent insurrection, no? And to make the point that Irish people were generally happy with the 1914 Home Rule Act you’re now citing the 1910 election – and also claiming that the election was essentially a pacifist election with no mandate for anything more than a pacifist acceptance of Home Rule. and yet, from 1911 onwards Ireland was arming itself for a fight. and not just on the margins either, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of men. The head of the nationalist armed force was also head of the Home Rule party – for a series of reasons, but, really, no mandate for insurrection should it come to that? and that’s before we even get into the bleeding obvious fact that 1916 wasn’t 1910 – f**k, 1914 wasn’t even 1916. And by 1918 we have a situation whereby a party that is standing for a Republic, with candidates who had fought in the 1916 rising being elected as representatives to a breakway parliament.
But, here I am wasting my time trying to give the briefest of outlines of history to someone who doesn’t need it ‘cos he’s got wikipedia and google in his pocket.
now, I don’t know who you are, Alaistair. I don’t know your background, or what you do, or even what your beliefs are, as most of the comments you leave here can appear sometime to be just old-school baiting. Now, personally, I believe you’re just baiting, and if that’s the case, well, good luck with that. The fact that you leave comments anonymously, and I don’t, puts me at a disadvantage with regard to your baiting. I could try to carry on with some restraint – which is one of the advantages of people using their real name, (there’s comeback when they come up with stuff akin to claiming that they invented the question mark or stating that chestnuts are lazy, or that 1910 exists in an historical bubble outside of the arming of the Ulster covenant, the arming of the volunteers, class war in 1913, 1916 rising,1918 election, the fall of empires, inflation, food riots in Dublin, etc) – but I would have to wonder what is the point when you yourself don’t even have enough faith in your comments to use your real name. Anonymous is one thing, but anonymous baiting? You can put that with your wonderfully inept analysis of the Irish education system in the nineteenth century that you made a few weeks back.
Tell you what. I’ll log off as Conor, and when I come back I’ll log on anonymously, and then we can trade-off on the revisionist debate, all cottoned-up with anonymity. ‘cos let me tell you straight. You are talking shite, my friend, and thing is, I think you know it.
your point was about mandates for violent insurrection, no?
That, and the more fundemental electoral mandate for national independence – which simply didn’t exist at the time.
to make the point that Irish people were generally happy with the 1914 Home Rule Act you’re now citing the 1910 election
Which they were – bar those from the unionist tradition.
and also claiming that the election was essentially a pacifist election with no mandate for anything more than a pacifist acceptance of Home Rule.
Um – not sure where you summoned this up from, but the 1910 election wasn’t violent, and the vote for home rule wasn’t built around any threat of insurrection – the subsequent establishment of militias was after the fact of the vote.
yet, from 1911 onwards Ireland was arming itself for a fight. and not just on the margins either, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of men.
Sure – but how many of those armed groups saw their role as gaining independence through insurrection?
the bleeding obvious fact that 1916 wasn’t 1910 – f**k, 1914 wasn’t even 1916.
That is rather obvious. But I’m still not seeing the mandate for insurrction on 1916.
by 1918 we have a situation whereby a party that is standing for a Republic, with candidates who had fought in the 1916 rising being elected as representatives to a breakway parliament.
Indeed, but that’s after the elected government imposing martial law on the populace, executing a bunch of political figures, and generally behaving in a cack-handed manner for a couple of years. That doesn’t impart any electoral mandate back in 1916.
The fact that you leave comments anonymously, and I don’t, puts me at a disadvantage with regard to your baiting.
It does? I’ve never bothered to click on your name, so presumably I’ve been operating under the same ‘disadvantage’?
Oh and I use my real name – but cheers for the thought.
The idea that you can conjure up 1910 as some form of bulwark against the events of 1916 and subsequent is an ahistorical point. it is meaningless. It is exactly the same argument the Provos with regard to the first Dáil. Exactly the same, and also meaningless. you’re saying the 1910 election negates the insurrection – which is in itself a weird way of seeing things as the dynamic in 1916 is different to what was going on in 1910. No sense of trying to analyse the events in motion.
and it’s because your points are ahistorical, that is why I came to the conclusion that you are simply baiting, because the idea of using an ahistorical argument to make an historical point is just daft. Seems I was wrong. You actually believe an ahistorical argument such as the one you are putting forward carries any weight.
History is not a set of butterflies we pin to a notice board and then observe in a static way. It is a dynamic.
So. you’re not baiting, and you’re not anonymous. you actually believe this stuff your saying. Wow!
I mean, take this:
“Indeed, but that’s after the elected government imposing martial law on the populace, executing a bunch of political figures, and generally behaving in a cack-handed manner for a couple of years.”
Again you’re giving a republican analysis, that the events of 1916 led to 1918.
The reality is a lot more complicated, involving the continued suspension of the Home Rule Act and the huge revolt in Ireland against conscription, involving a general strike and a withdrawal of Home Rule MPs from Westminster.
Alaister, it wasn’t “sympathy· that led to Sinn Féin’s victory in 1918, although Sinn Fein today and indeed the IRA would have you believe that it were so.
Again, apologies for thinking that you were anaonymous or that you were baiting. It’s just that your points are so out there that I assumed that was what was going on.
By the way, you never got back on to me over education in the nineteenth century.
So. you’re not baiting, and you’re not anonymous. you actually believe this stuff your saying. Wow!
I’m certain that there was no electoral support for the 1916 insurrectionists – sure. That fact is laid bare by the vote of 1910, and of the weight of the split in the Volunteers, and for all the ‘ahistorical’ bluster and putting words in my mouth (‘the 1910 election negates the insurrection’ – where’s that coming from?), you still can’t point to any evidence of any sort of electoral or popular mandate for independence/the insurgents in 1916.
Again you’re giving a republican analysis, that the events of 1916 led to 1918.
A republican analysis eh? Strange bedfellows you’re imposing on me. I’ve no problem in accepting that conscription played a major role in the 1918 vote – but that simply props up my position that you can’t apply the outcomes of the 1918 vote on 1916 – for whatever reasons, the political ground had shifted on governance, and what was true of the popular mandate in 1916 was no longer true in those changed post-1916 circumstances. Conversely, there’s ample evidence that the popular attitudes to home rule (outside unionism) hadn’t altered to any significant degree between 1910 and 1916. That’s why Redmond was so successful in selling the notion of military service as an obligation in the cause of home rule.
Again Alastair, the point is not whether there had been a vote in favour if full independence, which there hadn’t. The point is that if we are going to talk about this period in terms of democratic mandates we must recognise that the state didn’t have one either. And nor had it enjoyed one given that for four decades it had ignored the wishes of the voters of Ireland for Home Rule. In those circumstances, the question of mandates is a pointless one.
alastair, the major problem with your analysis is that London resiled from the terms of the HR Bill from 1912 onwards. Near everything else flows from that. Was it undemocratic of Pearse to be involved in a Rising? Hard to say in a way.
I don’t really regard the UK at that point in time as a particularly exemplary democracy – certainly the Proclaimation was a vastly more progressive document in social and democratic terms that the socio-political structures of the UK. The context of Britain in Ireland in terms of administration etc was profoundly undemocratic whatever else it might be. That the UK resiled was a further undemocratic step heaped on top. I think then given all else including the armed and insurrectionary intransigence of Unionism, the War, the delays and the clear shifts from what was voted on in 1913 and so forth there’s at least half a case that only a response along the lines of the Rising was viable. But even that is to distance oneself from what it was like at the time, not here almost a century later, when the memory of state repression, Famine, etc were much more clearly in mind and when the legitimacy of the British state in Ireland was much more open to question.
As for the idea Pearse was a sociopath or abusive (in thought if not in deed), I doubt it. The fact he didn’t champion armed insurrection from the start but actually came to Republicanism late in his life (relatively speaking) suggests otherwise. His thoughts on education alone indicate a serious and, given his overall political position, quite radical thinker.
You should read Fitzpatrick, definitely not a republian apologist. By 1916 the war fervour had reversed. Recruiting was unpopular and the tide had turned. 1916 meant that it turned to the Republicans.The Home Rule party was a busted fluish by 1916.
The mandate for the Home Rule party had expired.
Redmond definitely had no mandate for his pledge at Woodenbridge, done afaik, without consulting his own party. I think Dillon at least had reservations.
There was a real threat of conscription in 1916. In fact McNeill wanted to wait until it was explicit and then rise. The Republicans realised that that would be too late and they would be in Jail.
Pearse saw slighlty earlier than the mass of the people that Redmond was been taken for a ride. From 1916 until 1918 the rest of the people were catching up on him.
Ranor Lysaght wrote an interesting pamphlet taking up te anti republican line on mandates.
My own opinion.
Home Rule was what the Irish People though was the maximum they could get given the realpolitic. The Republic was what they really wanted.
In the North the Nationalist population are settling for the promise of equality for now, what they want is unification and independence.
I feel that commentators sometimes think that the mimimum is the maximum.
But looking for electoral mandates for 1916 – either for or against – in the 1910 election is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. The ahistorical point is not bluster, although you can treat it as such if you want. It has to do with the methodology you’re applying here, which is to take one event out of its historical reality and apply it in relation to another historical reality. If you’re going to do that, you might as well discuss whether the Taliban would win in a fight against the IRA.
and as far as the strange bedfellows, I find it very interesting that you are using republican cliches in your analysis. There are parallels between holding the viewpoint that the 1910 election can in any way impose or deny a mandate on 1916, with the Provo viewpoint that the failure of the first dail to officially dissolve projects a mandate on the bombing campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s. It’s a viewpoint still held by Republican Sinn Fein today.
Then, when talking about the 1918 election, you brought up the Republican cliche of sympathy – that it was the executions and British response to the 1916 rebellion that led to the 1918 victory for Sinn Fein.
I’m not making a point for or against 1910 bestowing on 1916 a mandate or otherwise, but you are.
My point is that is it meaningless. It is bereft of anything approaching historical analysis. You might as well ask would Martin McGuinness win against Michael Collins in a knife-fight.
But yeah, republican cliches. They seem to work for you anyway.
If you’re going to do that, you might as well discuss whether the Taliban would win in a fight against the IRA.
I thought that debate was done and dusted. They would – with their framethowers and catapults providing the strategic advantage.
Well, at least you’re back on your home ground.
Conor(comment 37)
“I blame the education system” for children not knowing about the Citizens’ army.So do I!But isn’t it doing a wonderful job.Generations of cap-tipping consumers ready to go out and bat for Ireland Inc.
to take one event out of its historical reality and apply it in relation to another historical reality.
Not at all. I’m taking the chronology of events, and readings of electoral support, at face value. The sentiment towards home rule, the legitimacy of governance, were clearly different from 1910 in 1918, but not so much in 1914, or pre-rising in 1916.
Now you can argue that Pearse read this shift ahead of the curve, or you can argue that the rising, it’s consequences, or the renewed threat of conscription brought about this shift, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise – it doesn’t really matter – the point is that Pearse acted without a popular mandate for his actions.
The notion that the British government circa 1916 doesn’t stand up well against current democratic measures, or that the stated goals of the proclamation looked great in comparison (‘gallant allies’ notwithstanding), or that they were slow about engaging with the movement for Irish home rule don’t really impart a mandate on the insurrection. How many years did it take the democratic Irish Republic to forego a constitutional claim against Northern Ireland, despite the majority electoral mandate against Irish unification there? The British government took a long time to commit to home rule, but commit they did (eventually).
Well, at least you’re back on your home ground.
You were saying something about civility?
From my experience, it’s not that the children don’t know, the bloody teachers don’t know. Hell, you ask most history docs about labour history and they’ll name-drop larkin and connolly and quickly change the subject.
The CAO results are out in a few weeks time, and it’s be interesting to see the change in points for subjects after that. Everyone’s expecting a rush for arts and teaching – two years ago it was all Gordan Gecko and HELL YEAH!!s.
As soon as they committed? It took a generation if not more to get them to commit, actually more since they’d done away with HR with the Act of Union, they then effectively decommitted. I’m not certain that in that sort of a context a popular mandate is absolutely necessary. I think that one could reasonably impute profound bad faith to British actions in Ireland during the first decade and a half of the century that when added to all else makes the idea that they had an unquestionable legitimacy a bit dubious. And that’s before we even examine salient facts such as the use of property restrictions to the franchise until the mid 1880s, etc. And let’s consider how that was very much an issue of class…etc.
“Now you can argue that Pearse read this shift ahead of the curve, or you can argue that the rising, it’s consequences, or the renewed threat of conscription brought about this shift, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise – it doesn’t really matter – the point is that Pearse acted without a popular mandate for his actions.”
you’re not taking any notice of what I am saying, are you? It is meaningless from an historical analysis point of view to use the 1910 election to detract from, or add to, the 1916 rising. Meaningless. That’s my point. I’m not arguing that Pearse read a curve or not, or that Pearse acted with a mandate or not, I’m saying that the way you are using historical facts is up there with Deadliest Warrior.
What’s more, your reliance on Republican assumptions about Irish history is bizarre given the arguments you are making.
As for taking the chronology of events and readings of electoral support at face value – first of all, you haven’t given a chronology of events, all you said was 1910 and mandate and 1916, bamn – but, even with that, do you believe that historical analysis is a sequence of “and then” moments with an election thrown in?
God.
And that’s before we even examine salient facts such as the use of property restrictions to the franchise until the mid 1880s, etc. And let’s consider how that was very much an issue of class…etc.
And jut as some here (with justification) bemoan the loss of passing on knowledge of what labour had to fight for in order to get us to today, I’ll add the downgrading of the Land War (the absence of teaching of which, among other things, opens the door to the fashionable revisionism these days about the Famine being something ‘we’ did to ourselves).
WTF? They’ve stopped teaching the Land War? How can you not teach the Land War?
Yeah, that’s a real problem. So what we get left with is individual events as explicatory steps in and of themselves rather than processes and dynamics that fed into those events and many others.
I must go and have a look at the curriculum there. But certainly and there are many reasons for this certain events are given greater prominence and others lesser.
It might also be worth pointing out that by 1915 the Conservatives and Unionists (including Bonar Law, Walter Long and Carson) were in a coalition government in London – one that would last until 1922.
The chances of the Home Rule Act – even in its diluted eventual form – being reneged on were not minute.
It is meaningless from an historical analysis point of view to use the 1910 election to detract from, or add to, the 1916 rising. Meaningless.
Detract? Add to?
The electoral vote in 910 is a matter of record.
The split in the Volunteers in 1914 is also a matter of record – more than a ten to one ratio in favour of Redmond and the IPP line.
The fact that Pearse and his IRB cohorts needed to secretly manipulate the Irish Volunteers into insurgency in 1916 speaks volumes for the support for that campaign inside the IV, let alone the wider public.
Sinn Fein couldn’t get arrested electorally right up to the rising, but had a rapid turnaround afterwards. A turnaround reflected in their membership numbers. In their own words in 1915 “on the rocks”, but by 1917 revived and winning elections.
Michael Laffan (no advocate of ‘republican cliches’ he) provides many examples of the public attitudinal changes to the insurgents and their goals pre and post rising.
Yeah, that’s a real problem. So what we get left with is individual events as explicatory steps in and of themselves rather than processes and dynamics that fed into those events and many others
I had to fight hard to resist the urge to throw stuff at the TV a week or two back during RTÉ’s ‘documentary’ on Lemass (Lemass was ‘for’ the EU even in the Thirties? Please). Even the billing in the advertising was offensive – something along the lines of “the remarkable journey of a gunman into a statesman”. As if soldiers hadn’t turned their hands to politics before, as if Eamon-frakking-de Valera hadn’t himself been a “gunman” before becoming a politician.
It feels to me as though Harris/CCO’B-era revisionism is still alive and well in Montrose (and mention of CCO’B is apt in the context of the deliberate dumbing-down of the teaching of Irish history). Did the ‘Irish Times’ southern liberal unionist set lose the war of independence, but win the peace?
Conor McCabe’s analysis is essentially correct. The Home Rule Bill is a red herring as it would never have passed anyway.
But, aside from the matter of dates, surely there was something intrinsically wrong about the form of government for Ireland being in the gift of the House of Commons and House of Lords in the first place. This is what, if my memory serves me correctly, was known as imperialism. Which is something you can’t condone unless you think of Ireland as being just another region of the United Kingdom, like Lancashire or the Shetlands.
EWI,
I think that is unfair on O’Brien’s abilities as a historian.
I think that is unfair on O’Brien’s abilities as a historian.
I was thinking more of CCO’B’s career as a politician, and Section 31 and all the rest. Haven’t read any of the Cruiser’s academic stuff, but all too familiar with the double standards of his opinion writing.
He wrote a superb book on Parnell and His Party. But some of the more polemical/political stuff is exactly as you say.
I still regard “Writers and Politics” as an excellent book. I have
wondered though….CCO’B was critical of aspects of Orwell
and Camus there which he percieved as reactionary.
But as he got older and more conservative
he became much more supportive of them. Did CCO’B still see them
as right-wing writers, only now he was on what he saw as
“their” side now?
I’m not hugely familiar with CCO’B’s academic stuff either, although I liked Katanga etcetera which was donkey’s before his latter day incarnation… but Jesus, his opinion pieces? I’d tend to be one with EWI on that.