Esteem March 31, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Telling how combative Arlene Foster is in relation to 1916, as reported today in the IT.
“I think a lot of them were egotistical [and] were doing it to bring glory upon themselves.
“They had no democratic backing. I don’t see them as selfless individuals at all.”
But in all that is going on never got around to discussing this from the President at the weekend:
She also rejected the President’s call for a review of militarist imperialism.
Mr Higgins, who was speaking at a symposium at the Mansion House in Dublin, said “while the long shadow cast by what has been called the Troubles in Northern Ireland has led to a scrutiny of the Irish republican tradition of physical violence, a similar review of supremacist and militarist imperialism remains to be fully achieved”.
Foster, of course, misses the point when she says:
“I think he needs to re-examine what he is saying because, for a lot of us, the legacy of 1916 has been continued violence”.
And it’s not difficult to see contradictions in her stance as expressed here:
She declined to attend the commemorations in Dublin because she said she viewed the Rising as “a violent act that killed many hundreds of Irish people.”
But the President’s point is well made.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
The (Dublin) Rising had a heap of current and ex-Dublin city councillors and aldermen from Sinn Féin and Labour associated with it, at the time the pre-eminent Irish elected body and who had all been elected on a much more democratic franchise than that for Westminster. So much for Arlene’s ‘no democratic backing’.
I’ll bet she turns up (with bells and whistles on) for the Somme, though. Remind me again how many died in that, and for a p***ing contest between two royal cousins?
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I saw a bit of Higgins’s address in the Irish Voice and thought it was remarkable – you’re lucky to have a head of state like him.
(Yes but violence! Think of all that violence that was committed by the violent men of violence! Ah, shut up.)
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“When we decide to address the issue of violence, let us speak of the violence of empire, the violence of state, the violence of insurrection,”
“Let’s do it all – this is the challenge that people are not rising to.
“Having spent decades revising nationalism, where is the evidence that there is as much energy put into addressing the issue of empire?
“As empires came to establishing their stamp on neighbouring countries, what was the consequences of that?”-President Higgins.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-35899900
‘On its colonies the sun never set, but the blood never dried’
-Ernest Jones, Chartist.
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looking for the full version of that video interview
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If Arlene really believed this surely in July for the Somme, we would read in the IT –
She declined to attend the commemorations in the Somme because she said she viewed the World War One as “a violent act that killed tens of thousands of Irish people.”
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While I had no vote in the presidential election,if I had Michael D would have got my no 2 vote and I was glad to see him elected.
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He would have had my number one, but I’m disappointed he’s allowed himself to be no-platformed.
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The dam must be manned, regardless of the widening cracks.
Keep an eye on Foster and the education initiative. They are desperately trying to do away with the Catholic sector and integrate the schools. This is purely so that all children in NI will get the Unionist version of history. In the hopes that this will be sufficient to peel just enough voters off re-unification and secure the union.
But to the larger point about hypocrisy – Iraq should be all the response required.
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‘In a splendidly provocative talk, Professor Foster did not shy from exploring our own recent contested history by finding controversial analogies to elucidate the past – including comparing 1916 revolutionaries to jihadists and likening De Valera’s whitewashing of his childhood to Gerry Adams’ similar exercise in his memoirs.’
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/events/details/2015/2015-11-03whofearstospeak.php
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Different ‘Foster’, but again showing how only one side has decommissioned in this debate.
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Urghhhh…….
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“Irish historians have advanced gingerly to a place where nuance is allowed, where sheep and goats might mingle”
No thanks to you Roy, no thanks to you. Ironically, it was Colm Toibin who skewered Foster’s pretentions to scientific, professional objectivity a couple of decades ago in a piece for the LRB (vastly better than his latest offering on 1916). Foster’s pose as the serious academic historian who’s merely trying to tell the truth in the fact of hidebound dogmatists is so threadbare at this stage, it wouldn’t suffice to cover his little toe. But he still foists it upon us.
“In the subsequent Q&A, the audience proved as enthusiastically provocative as the speaker, with questions on whether Catholics in Northern Ireland have any reason to celebrate the Rising, and whether we concentrate on 1916 because we can’t face the worse horrors of the War of Independence.”
Sweet Jesus. Oh to be a revisionist, you can spend your life telling yourself and your pals comforting stories, massaging each other’s egos while assuring yourself that you’re a daring maverick asking the questions nobody else will ask. No matter how many op-eds, documentaries, books, conferences, former Taoiseachs you are given to articulate your clapped-out, poorly researched and long discredited opinions, and no matter how blatantly you refuse to engage with all of the serious critiques that have been published dealing with your ideological standpoint, you can still cling on to the self-image of a bold non-conformist. Pass the sick bucket.
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This Toibin piece?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n22/colm-toibin/new-ways-of-killing-your-father
I thought his recent article on 1916 was very good, especially for a talk aimed at a non-Irish audience.
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It’s calibrated to impress his intended audience in the UK. Who presumably aren’t aware that Yeats ended as an old Fascist who had driven O’Casey to finally emigrate by so emphatically rejecting ‘The Silver Tassie’ (funny how both those parts get left out in IT pieces).
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Sounds like the Trinity I recall from last millennium. A bastion of D4 and OxCam rejects scorning the culchies at UCD.
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A bastion of D4 and OxCam rejects scorning the culchies at UCD.
I’ll have you know that particular one’s clearly considered the height of hilarious zingers in Phil debates.
(I went along to such a meeting, once. The horror.)
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Not surprised. Still tossers then. Some things don’t change 😉
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I come across IRA = sectarian murderers = ISIS/AQ from time to time in the US. Peter King being a particular bete noir of the left seems to aggravate it.
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When I first heard Peter Robinson advocating integrated education,alarm bells started ringing.
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Michael D. Higgins has to pull out of Belfast City Hall dinner to mark the Rising: the DUP had announced that they wouldn’t show up (breaking an apparent agreement to respect each others’ bug events this year).
http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2016/03/31/news/michael-d-higgins-pulls-out-of-civic-dinner-at-belfast-city-hall-470123/?param=ds441rif44T
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Big events, even. Though I imagine that Arlene will be down for any Somme-related nosh.
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Violence is rife in the Free State as it is in the north of Ireland our citizins still suffer ,homeless,destitute,the proclamtion that was so elegantly read out for the commeration is not worth the paper it was written on ,unless the guardians of such proclamtion stop lining thier own pockets,treat all the children of the nation equal,what a joke,call the south a republic if you want to its a gombeen state,once ruled by the Brits,now a wee bit of Ireland at the E.E.C. back and call James Connoly would be doing somersaults in his grave,and sorry he ever left Scotland
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Those of us who have grown tired of Kieran Mulvey’s calls for ‘compromise’ and ‘reason’ over the years -and how SIPTU in particular have served that agenda -might find this spat somewhere in between humorous and notable….
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/jack-o-connor-calls-on-kieran-mulvey-to-resign-over-luas-comments-1.2594942?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fireland%2Firish-news%2Fjack-o-connor-calls-on-kieran-mulvey-to-resign-over-luas-comments-1.2594942
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Sorry – wrong thread. And I see somebody has started that discussion already on WYWTS
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