RIC Commemoration

Purple said:
All that being said they were, on balance, all great men who died to make me free.
I'm glad they all did what they did and I get to live free in a republic and not in what would be in impoverished region of the UK.
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Purple I'll rise to that bait. Ostensibly we do appear to be in a better place than say NI but there have been some big serendipities. For over half a century post independence we were a complete basket case. Three game changers have occurred in recent decades.
1. We joined the EU and, ironically, our basket case notorety meant we enjoyed immense charity at a time when it really was a rich man's club.
2, Charlie Haughey's cute hoorism in establishing the IFSC and running rings round the spirit of the rules of the European community, a culture which survives and serves us to this day.
3. The RC church shot itself in the foot leading to a rapid secularistion of our society.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Yes indeed but if we are to apply different standards to those different times, we should do so to all the players.
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But we do don't we? Nobody is saying that the British Police would send a version of the Black and Tans to Bermuda if they suddenly rose up and tried to break away from the Empire in 2020. But that doesn't mean we can't judge events and actions from both the IRA and the British forces at the time. For example, I always found the idea of the IRA chopping a woman's hair off in public to be hugely demeaning and a form of psychological warfare on civilian population. The Black and Tans burnt and sacked entire towns in retribution on civilian population.
 
This flare-up had highlighted for me that I am wholly ignorant of this part of Irish History. I wonder did I just not focus on it for Leaving Cert history, or was it not then (1980-82) part of the curriculum ?

If my family has history, then it's not talked about. One grandfather had a farm is SW Kerry and the other was a teacher in Donegal. I have always assumed that my family were one of those who had no active involvement.

My wife's maternal grandparents were, on the other other, up to their necks in it. Her grandmother was interned on Spike Island with Constance Markievicz.
 

At the risk of sounding like Gerry Adams, those executed by the squad were combatants. The punters playing/watching the game were not.

Voting for it after the fact - was that not ratifying it? Anyway, the majority wanted it is the main conclusion we can draw.

Dev could have continued to negotiate the treaty - aside from the caricature of the film - I've always felt "he done Collins up like a kipper". Then he wanted to go "wading through rivers of Irish blood" So without his incendiary influence after his negotiating cowardice the civil war would have been a much more muted affair.
 
1. We did, but if we were still ruled by the English (like the Scot's and Welsh are) we'd be as poor as them, maybe even as poor as the Nordies.
2. Good old CJ, he did the country some service...
3. Yep, probably wouldn't have happened either if we were still under the English Yoke or, worse, dominated by an Irish Protestant Ascendency (AKA West-Brits).
 
Betsy Og said:
At the risk of sounding like Gerry Adams, those executed by the squad were combatants. The punters playing/watching the game were not.
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They were in their pyjamas, shot in front of their families.

Betsy Og said:
Voting for it after the fact - was that not ratifying it? Anyway, the majority wanted it is the main conclusion we can draw.
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Collins didn't know that when he disobeyed his government and President.

Betsy Og said:
Dev could have continued to negotiate the treaty - aside from the caricature of the film - I've always felt "he done Collins up like a kipper".
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No he couldn't. Once Collins signed the Treaty Civil War was inevitable. He knew that. As for "he done Collins up like a kipper", other than that rubbish from Neil Jordan I haven't read anything (worth reading) to substantiate such an accusation.

Betsy Og said:
Then he wanted to go "wading through rivers of Irish blood" So without his incendiary influence after his negotiating cowardice the civil war would have been a much more muted affair.
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Collins was the one who was comfortable wading through blood. I say that as someone who is glad he signed the treaty. I just don't accept the revisionist, childish position that Collins was the hero and Dev was a snivelling coward. As I said already, Collins's legacy was guaranteed when he was killed.
 
Purple said:
They were in their pyjamas, shot in front of their families.
No he couldn't. Once Collins signed the Treaty Civil War was inevitable.
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Well the Tans would probably have shot the entire family.... war is a dirty business, no 2 ways about it.
Sure Dev was doing all the negotiation, legendary cut and thrust with Lloyd George, described Dev as trying to pick up mercury with a fork (i.e. Dev was doing well - I never said he was an eejit). BUT Dev saw the writing on the wall, he knew the only deal that could be done was something along the lines of the treaty. So low and behold he insists Collins go and he not go, then he cannot be contacted at the crunch time, and just to put the tin hat on it he totally hangs Collins out to dry. Sly dog.
 
That's one of many ways to look at it.

Oh, and the Auxiliaries were worse than the Tan's, at least according to my Great Uncle who used to tell stories about the ones he "plugged" with his revolver. He was shot during the War of Independence and the Civil War (he was in the Fours Courts regiment so he actually started the thing).
 
Given the times were popular with dictatorships in Europe I often wondered if Collins had lived would he have become a dictator. He was popular from both sides of the civil war factions
 
Purple said:
Oh, and the Auxiliaries were worse than the Tan's
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Yep, heard a historian on radio explaining the same thing about a year ago.

It's all about branding guys, even back then, like the "Sinn Fein rising" which wasn't even a SF rising, but the London newspaper editors just went with it. (*all risings were created in a grim looking Chinese factory and just packaged differently on the way out the door & priced solely on the basis of branding)
 
No, they were different parts of the brutal forces of occupation. I also detect underlying confusion between the RIC and DMP (Dublin Metropolitan Police) whose G Division, or G Men, was highly politicised, brutal killers and torturers. Collins is on record as instructing his operatives to try to recruit RIC members as spies and informers and that they were not to be killed. With the Cairo gang of imported British intelligence officers and operatives (MI5/MI6 or MI9 military intelligence) he ordered their execution. With the DMP, run from Dublin Castle, he ordered that they be warned about their professional activities as a first stage and that attempts be made to turn them into moles for Collins and his men. The consequences of continuing in their work were made clear to them.

The notion that the RIC should be commemorated nationally was ludicrous and guaranteed to resurrect Civil war politics. Flanagan needs to go as does his boss.
 
A spectacular FG "own goal" in the end stages of their government.... couldn't have been better timed.
 
Gorteen said:
A spectacular FG "own goal" in the end stages of their government.... couldn't have been better timed.
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It's that arrogance that's Leo's undoing. Pride meant he couldn't just give it up as a bad job, the people are the problem sez he.....
 
Can anybody here tell the difference between IRA actions in the War of Independence and the pointless terrorist campaign of the slow learners. The chair of the PAC sees them both as equivalent glorious events.
The usual apology is simply not good enough. He should make it clear that he sees no moral parallel between the two.
 
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the apology was the ultimate in hypocrisy given the fact that the 2021 calander on the Sinn Fein website shop has hunger strikers and Tom Barry on the cover
 
Peanuts20 said:
the apology was the ultimate in hypocrisy given the fact that the 2021 calander on the Sinn Fein website shop has hunger strikers and Tom Barry on the cover
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And now the Chair seems to have made very homophobic remarks about Leo.
Strange that the child killers think that a judge should be removed from office for breaking public health guidelines but supporting terrorists is fine.

I heard Mary Lou getting another armchair ride of an interview on RTE the other day. She said that there should be no hierarchy among those who died during the troubles and within a minute said that it was okay to celebrate the deaths of members of the parachute because of their history during the conflict.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Can anybody here tell the difference between IRA actions in the War of Independence and the pointless terrorist campaign of the slow learners.
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Yea, the IRA of the 1920's didn't plant bombs in supermarkets in Wallington or pubs in birmingham or murder two grandfathers for the "crime" of installing windows in an office used by the RUC. The Child Killers are perfectly fine with all of those acts.
 
Stanley's comment was stupid.
In a historical context, on the anniversary of Kilmichael, he is totally within his right to make a comparison between the Kilmichael ambush and Warrenpoint insofar that the partition of Ireland was not the solution to end our troubles on this island.

The manner in which he made his comparison was stupid, in tweet form and with an obvious dig at the British while lording over the graves of the dead.

It is all the more regrettable that it may have detracted somewhat from the abhorrent and insulting decision of the British government not hold a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane.

In scenes echoing the events of Collins Squad on Bloody Sunday, Finucanes front door was smashed down and shot twice and as he lay on the floor another 12 bullets were fired into his face from close range.

All in front of his family.
 
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