Mary McAleese Exemplifies the James Connolly Tradition of Ireland Meaning Nothing to Me without its People December 27, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Film and Television.trackback
Three guesses who said that on what can only be described as the stupidest TV show of this – or indeed any other – year.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Tell me about it but @ least we’re the most charitble nation in europe ??
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Is Eamon Gilmore the answer?
The real live James Connolly denounced against the visit to Ireland of Queen Elizabeth II’s ancestor, Queen Victoria :
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/xx/qundimnd.htm
“the Irish Socialist Republican Party – which, from its inception, has never hesitated to proclaim its unswerving hostility to the British Crown, and to the political and social order of which in these islands that Crown is but the symbol – takes this opportunity of hurling at the heads of all the courtly mummers who grovel at the shrine of royalty the contempt and hatred of the Irish Revolutionary Democracy. We, at least, are not loyal men; we confess to having more respect and honour for the raggedest child of the poorest labourer in Ireland today than for any, even the most virtuous, descendant of the long array of murderers, adulterers and madmen who have sat upon the throne of England.”
2011 “courtly mummers who grovel at the shrine of royalty” may not be coming up with a bright idea when they praise James Connolly.
Lots of grovellers from the Irish establishment, led by then President McAleese, welcomed Elizabeth II during her 2011 visit to Ireland – and Connolly’s words damn them.
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Curiosity got the better of me – where did that Connolly quote about Ireland without its people come from? When you read the quotation, in context, the attempt to link it with support for a British Royal visit to Ireland is truly laughable :
“The Coming Generation.
Last week we witnessed in Dublin the first political parade of the coming generation.
Between twenty-five and thirty thousand children turned out and walked in processional order through the streets of the city, to show the world that British Imperialism had cast no glamour over their young minds.
And that in the person of Her Britannic Majesty they recognised only a woman – no better than the mothers who bore them, if as good.
It was a great sight to see the little rebels taking possession of the city – a sight more promising for the future of the country than any we can remember.
Well, the children did their duty. Now are you prepared to do your duty to the children? Listen, my patriotic friend! Every child in that army of processionists – being the children of the poor as they all were, for it is only in the veins of such the stream of patriotism flows pure and undefiled – is destined to become, if it lives, the slave of a master, and will grow up in a world which nowhere recognises its right to life, except on the supposition that it will make a profit for a master.
You rear your child up to love its country, and you support a social system which declares that the child has no right to the country, but must pay for permission to live on it as it is the property of private individuals.
You shout for liberty, and you surrender your children to the mercies of capitalism which will seize them as soon as they leave school, and will devote their little bones, muscles and undeveloped brains to the task of grinding out profits for a boss.
Are you doing your duty? Love Ireland! Yes, if by ‘Ireland’ you mean not only the earth and the waters, but the men and the women, the boys and the girls – the people of Ireland, in fact.
Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for ‘Ireland’, and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements which he is pleased to call ‘Ireland’….”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1900/07/comingen.htm#irl
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