Queen Elizabeth II to visit Ireland.

Pride Fighter wrote: »

The Queen of the UK has been invited to visit Ireland and a state visit expected pretty soon. Personally I am opposed to this, the idea of monarchy and one person just as a result of genealogy and primogeniture being a ruler of a country is sickening to me as a democrat. I'd feel the same if it was the the Dutch Queen or any other hereditary ruler. Thoughts?

There is the link http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0623/politics.html

How the UK chooses their head of state is their problem, it is not for us to judge. If the Queen visits Ireland on an official visit as a representative of her country why wouldn't we welcome her.

I'd rather she stayed where she is.

Who cares if she comes, makes no difference to the Joe on the street as long as it doesnt cost the Taxpayer..

I've no objection to the Queen visiting but I can imagine a few regular posters on this forum will be apoplectic. The English are proud of their monarchy and its heritage, why should it bother us how they choose them?

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

careful now or you might endup being labelled a west-brit

My main reservation about the proposed visit is a security one and a worry about the long term consequences for Irish tourism if there are significant protests. Already SF have come out against the visit and they are in the tame camp! I don't think that given the increasing level of dissident republican activity it would be safe for the visit to take place in the foreseeable future.

As an aside, I heard a vox pop on Newstalk this morning amongst which was the classic comment by someone with a heavy Dublin accent who said 'I'm against everything British'. The said same individual probably reads the 'Irish' Sun, drinks Bass and supports Man.United. I despair.

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Make the lady welcome, and show them that we have matured as a state, and are a confident people going forward.

any more clichés?

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

wtf has that got to do with anything? they are voted in by people :rolleyes: typical nonsense

djpbarry wrote: »

It's a perfectly valid comparison - Ireland has one form of government, the UK has another, each of which may be changed by the people within those countries, if they so wish. What part of that is ridiculous?

please answer how often do they vote to retain the royal family?

This post has been deleted.

While we as Irish had a bad experience with hereditary forms of government other countries such as Japan and the UK seem to feel the need for a living embodiment of the nation state, a king.

It can be seen in history that the English had a very bad experience with representative democratic government, the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640's.

This was such a repressive regime where forms of entertainment such as dancing, theatre, banqueting were banned by the Puritans and enemies of the State were killed just as ruthlessly as the more infamous wars against the Catholic and Royalist Irish in 1641.

The English restored the Monarchy in limited form in 1660 with Charles II and have been progressively and gradually limiting the powers of the Monarchy since then.

It is possible that the House of Lords will be abolished in its present form and the Monarchy could be reduced in size and scope to something resembling the Swedish setup where the King goes around in a normal car and lives in an apartment very much more middle class than the British setup.

Our own experience of Republicanism has resulted in years of stagnation, child abuse, neglect of voiceless sectors of society, and too much reliance on a corrupt and careless church and is far from perfect.

If the English prefer a different system to our own we should accommodate them in it without approving or endorsing the crimes of the past. History shows the the English,Scots and Welsh suffered as much as the Irish from tyrannical rule in the past, with Transportation, land clearances, bad factory working conditions, Press Gangs for forced enlistment in the Navy, barbaric forms of Capital Punishment etc be meted out to the English just as much as to the Irish.

The big difference was the Famine, a huge economic and structural political disaster which in no small part led to the radicalisation of a substantial part of the Irish population and the eventual separation of the two countries.

There are processes in place which it is hoped will eventually lead to a closer link between the two Island nations, if the British were to allow the possibility of a Roman Catholic Prime Minister by abolishing remaining traces of Laws forbidding Roman Catholics to hold the post and other remaining prohibitions and restrictions to public office then we might get to the stage of having normal good relations with Britain.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

ahh so it has never been held? unlike here where we vote for our TDs every 5 years, right i see. thanks for clearing that up. moving on....

If the justification for the monarchy was purely on tourism grounds it would be worth retaining - a pity our own presidential system isn't as big an attraction. Even in the French Republic there is plenty of pomp & circumstance surrounding the presidency - it could be the same here - bring back the Blue Hussars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hussars. Let's have less begrudgery it shows what a major inferiority complex some people have.