2016 Commemoration - how was it for you?

On the topic of the Sherwood Foresters, I think there should be a memorial of some type to them on Mount Street. They were as much victims of the Rising as anyone else and a testament to the incompetence and heartlessness of General Low.
 

I don't think the English even know they get a bad rep as their lack of knowledge of the world outside their own little island can be appalling. I lived there in the 90s and I lost count how many times I was asked "was that where the bombs go off" when I told people what part of Ireland I'm from. I'm from Cork . Back home now but I'd say at least 3 or 4 times a year I have to send an email to someone telling them I can't implement a policy as their legislation doesn't apply over here, normally the response I get is something along the lines of "really??" An English friend of mine freely admits he didn't get Ireland being different until he was over on a business trip, had an afternoon off and went to Kilmainham prison.
 
Purple said:
On the topic of the Sherwood Foresters, I think there should be a memorial of some type to them on Mount Street. They were as much victims of the Rising as anyone else and a testament to the incompetence and heartlessness of General Low.
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I can see the current Lord Mayoress of Dublin being first in the queue to unveil that !!
 
Sophrosyne said:
I watched Centenary on Monday night and again last night. I thought it was excellent from beginning to end.
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...............
Was very pleasantly surprised at the (un-gingoism )that was presented.
From my view (narrow maybe!) I had thought it would have been a flag waving rehash of half -truths with a lot of back slapping .
It turned out as a more nuanced Commentary of times past, linked to a new understanding of where we are.

We accept we only now have 3 and two thirds of the Green Fields .A project still in progress.
We accept that the (cult) of violent Republicanism is of another era.
We accept that 6 counties voted British/Irish. .
We accept difference.
We accept that up to now our efforts at Nationhood was (well) mixed?eg immigration; today, homes.
We know we can and will do better.

In short ; an honest appraisal.
 
thedaddyman.

You reckoned an Englishman couldn,t fathom our difference from them. Understandable enough.

A few times (and once was from a Cork dealer )people down south of Donegal; namely everywhere, asked me for the Northern Irish Code for phone calls ! to me.
 
Look, I'll have to admit that the rising was a partial success. It gained us about 70 years freedom from contraception, divorce, dodgy books and films and made immoral women slaves. But Anglo American cultural imperialism has swept all these gains away. Was a mere 70 years of Holy Catholic Bliss really worth the blood sacrifice?
 
From a ruined nest
The starling builds afresh
The Hawthorn, The Oak, The Ash
Will flourish again
...

Let's engineer a new civility
... Our main cause is to rejoice 100 years a nation.

(Paul Muldoon - one Hundred Years a Nation)

Marion
 
At least it didn't make us cynical...
 
Their knowledge of what's outside their own little island isn't bad. We just have to realise we are tiny and utterly irrelevant on the world stage. Why would an English person know much about us any more that we would know about Faroe Islands.
 
Gerry Canning said:
...............

We accept we only now have 3 and two thirds of the Green Fields .A project still in progress.
We accept that 6 counties voted British/Irish. .
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Just curious, when you say 3 2/3 of the 4, are you referring to 4 of the 6 counties being majority green (all bar Antrim and Down I take it??).

When did the 6 counties vote?, sure barring a few minor adjustments (bet they wish they floated off a chunk of South Armagh...) didnt the Boundary Commission leave the border more or less as it was, and I dont remember reading that there was a vote on it (maybe I'm wrong). Unless you're referring to the GFA/Belfast Agreement?

Tbh I dont think that talk of a united Ireland interests to many people beyond SF. It could get hugely interesting if UK votes to leave EU, Scotland re-runs its independence referendum as they have said they will (& they seem to want to be in the EU). The 6 counties could start to look very isolated. But then, as a "Free Stater", could I really be doing with the hassle??
 
Fair play to Michael D. He is boycotting the Belfast City Council centenary dinner coz the unionists want nothing to do with it.
 

OK, a serious reply to your post.

In 1900 Dublin was the second city of the biggest, richest and most powerful empire in the world.

It also had the worst slums and the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world. This was simply a symptom of a country which was run for the exclusive benefit of the top 50’000 or so people who constituted the Anglo-Irish ascendency. In that we were alike any other colony of the Empire. Ireland didn’t thrive and would never thrive under the rule of Britain. For all our faults as a nation we are far better off today than we would ever have been if we had remained a glorified British colony. We have had to grow up as a nation and each succeeding generation has done a better job than the last. I think and expect that the generation which is currently in their early 20’s will learn from the greed and stupidity of their parent and grandparents and finally bring turn this country into what it can be.
 
Purple said:
I think and expect that the generation which is currently in their early 20’s will learn from the greed and stupidity of their parent and grandparents and finally bring turn this country into what it can be.
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Unfortunately, I wouldn't bet on it - it's not a dig on the youth of today, more...plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
 
Purple said:
For all our faults as a nation we are far better off today than we would ever have been if we had remained a glorified British colony.
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Possibly so, but it is highly unlikely that we would be still glorified British colony. Let us look at some comparatives of the time. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales (I leave out the underdeveloped members of the then British Empire, and not through racist reasons). The first three of these gained full independence (without partition) by completely peaceful means and rank amongst the highest in the World in HDI. We too could have trodden that route if we had kept our protestant brethren on board which would have put a brake on the suffocation of the De Valera style RC theocracy that the Rising ultimately bequeathed. Possibly we might have finished up as Scotland or Wales who, these days, remain "colonies" of their own choice. So I don't buy the "far better off" counterfactual, sorry.
 
Betsy Og,

1. I was talking of 9 Ulster Counties ie we in Roi have 3 of them , hence we have 3 and one third provinces.
( I suppose I was asking why commemorate a job unfinished)
2. I was referring to Good FRiday Agreement.
3. The wish for an Ireland as one unit, is a logical step for our small island.
eg. If we are one island, issues such as Brexit wouldn,t be so awkward,.
Placing politics aside , umpteen reports have shown ongoing benefits to having Ireland as one (trading) unit.

Purple .
Tend to disagree (each succeeding generation has done a better job than the last)
From my reading, Ireland was unique in having a decreasing population up to the 1960,s.
WE turned leaving our fair isle, into a national norm !
(All my uncles/aunts left at one time or another,
3 of my brothers left .)
I observe that our new generation, neither have, nor accept the baggage of previous generations, I am optimistic for them.
 
Mise Eire by that young wan knocked the ball outta de pitch - and, perhaps we now have a long overdue replacement to the worn-out Riverdance. Well, as long as no one translates it into English; particularly the lines:
"Great my shame: My own children who sold their mother."
 

I'm not so sure. I think our geographical proximity to Britain would make our situation very different from the Canada, Australia, New Zealand experience.

We also had at least three national identities in Ireland, the Unionists, the Anglo-Irish and what I like to think of as the people who base their sense of identity fully in Ireland. That is much less the case in Scotland and hardly exists in Wales.

How the church hijacked the new state is something I would like to better understand.
 
Canada, Australia, NZ had the advantage of being new. Apart from the convicts in Australia, most of the new settlers were probably 'on message' in terms of the empire providing support to them, and werent they getting free land, why would they grumble about the empire? Of course a few generations on and the historical ties seemed weak (especially given how remote from the motherland), but there was never any great reason to hate the empire (not like those unruly yankees not wanting to pay tax and dumping tea !!).

Whereas in Ireland it was our land ever before the Saxon invasion ........(I could rant on, but you get the point). So there was definitely the sense of a disenfranchised people, how could the Irish peasant be happy to think they were fattening up Downton Abbey types. I think the severe strain of religion practised in Scotland and later Norn Iron was another distinguishing feature. We had assimilated celts, vikings, normans but now we had a group hell bent on segregation & being united with "the mainland" for that purpose. So I think Ireland doesnt compare well with the new colonies, & partition was/is all but inevitable.
 
Point taken Betsy Og ,that partition was nearly inevitable, so violent uprising for a United ALL Ireland was a false premise and spawned warped justification for Troubles..
Still a shame to have such a small place split.
 
Not sure United Ireland was a major factor in the troubles, or at least it was well down the list of:

Civil rights denial
Rampant sectarianism, fuelled by religious fervour
Atrocious government/army response to civil rights.
I think the United Ireland thing was just wrapping a tricolour around it (agreeing with your 'warped justification' point) and/or a view that to long term guarantee equality and fair play you needed a united Ireland - post GFA I hope that isnt still the view, though I gather the sectarianism on the ground is more or less as bad as ever.
 
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