What was Irelands lowest moment?

banie01 · 14-06-2013 1:52pm

Noreen1 wrote: »

Relax! You're as Irish as I am.

Like it or lump it, though (and I don't like it!) - there is a political division that exists.

There is also, unfortunately, as a result of that political division - an enormous difference in the reality of daily life for people on both sides of the border.
Less so, now, than before the Good Friday agreement - but a difference, nevertheless.

That doesn't make you any less Irish than me - it just means that I was fortunate enough to grow up in a peaceful society, where the violence in the North was very far removed from my daily life, and if it weren't for occasional shopping trips there, it would have been hard to believe that this violence was happening a 90 minute drive out the road.

Just to point out your psychic powers of nationality prediction are a little off....
Assuming that I'm as Irish as you are?
Because you somehow have the idea I'm from somewhere up North?
I ain't, I'm from Munster, but great to see ya leaping to ill-informed conclusions!

The rest of the nonsense you posted there about a ''peaceful society'' only serves to reiterate the view that your post perpetuates, that anyone from north isn't ''Irish'' and those problems have no place being discussed in an ''Irelands lowest point'' thread....
That reply smacks of Nimbyism....
It didn't affect you so it doesn't actually matter....
Yet in earlier post you made on this thread, you discounted the effect of the Omagh bombing as a person's perceived low point in comparison to Cromwell...
How did the Cromwellian invasion affect you personally then?

The fact remains that those ''northern problems'' while a whole 90mins away from your goodself(and even further away from me) were in our back yard and are\were an Irish problem.

banie01 · 14-06-2013 2:06pm

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Ireland wasn't a dominion after the enactment of the '37 constitution. The Republic of Ireland act was only to give further clarity to the situation.

Yes it was a Dominion.
Granted from 37-49 we no longer had a Governer general appointed by the crown.
The fact remains that a massive amount of ambiguity about who was the head of state, king or president existed until 1949.

Dominion status ended with our declaration of the Republic, and our exiting of the Commonwealth in 1949.
Being part of the Commonwealth cemented recognition as a Dominion.
As Republics could not be part of the commonwealth prior to the passage of the Westminister, Ireland Act 1949 which offered Ireland the chance to Retain commonwealth status(but was drafted to accomodate India).

There's plenty of links and info regarding the government acts, and such that will confirm end of Dominion\Commonwealth status.
Defacto is not actual independence.

Noreen1 · 14-06-2013 2:54pm

banie01 wrote: »

Just to point out your psychic powers of nationality prediction are a little off....
Assuming that I'm as Irish as you are?
Because you somehow have the idea I'm from somewhere up North?
I ain't, I'm from Munster, but great to see ya leaping to ill-informed conclusions!

The rest of the nonsense you posted there about a ''peaceful society'' only serves to reiterate the view that your post perpetuates, that anyone from north isn't ''Irish'' and those problems have no place being discussed in an ''Irelands lowest point'' thread....
That reply smacks of Nimbyism....
It didn't affect you so it doesn't actually matter....
Yet in earlier post you made on this thread, you discounted the effect of the Omagh bombing as a person's perceived low point in comparison to Cromwell...
How did the Cromwellian invasion affect you personally then?

The fact remains that those ''northern problems'' while a whole 90mins away from your goodself(and even further away from me) were in our back yard and are\were an Irish problem.

Actually, if you were familiar with my posting history, you might just have a very vague idea just how wrong your accusations are - given that I've stated frequently on this very forum that Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland are Irish - and that, for the life of me, I can't understand how Unionists from the North, whose families have lived here for four hundred years, can deny any Irish heritage.

I do apologise for assuming you're from the North - apart from that, I'll stand over everything I said.

Note that if you can show me - in any post I've ever written on Boards - where I've said that people from the North aren't Irish - I'll apologise unreservedly to the people of Northern Ireland.
The problem for you, is that you will find no such post.

I merely pointed out that the "troubles" in the North weren't reflective of Ireland as a whole. They weren't. The other assumptions are entirely your own.

While we're at it - what makes you assume that the troubles in the North didn't affect me personally?
Your psychic powers are astonishing - unfortunately, they're also 100% incorrect.

Neither, for the record, is my opinion that thousands of deaths, together with the displacement of thousands of others, is not a lower point in Irelands history than the death of 29 people in Omagh -as tragic as those 29 deaths were - in any way either invalid, or disrespectful to those who died in Omagh.

Before you reply, might I respectfully suggest that you read back over some of my posts on Northern Ireland.
They might just give you a more informed opinion of what I think about Northern Ireland than the assumptions that you are making, that make you appear so angry!

banie01 · 14-06-2013 4:10pm

Noreen1 wrote: »

Actually, if you were familiar with my posting history, you might just have a very vague idea just how wrong your accusations are - given that I've stated frequently on this very forum that Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland are Irish - and that, for the life of me, I can't understand how Unionists from the North, whose families have lived here for four hundred years, can deny any Irish heritage.

I do apologise for assuming you're from the North - apart from that, I'll stand over everything I said.

Note that if you can show me - in any post I've ever written on Boards - where I've said that people from the North aren't Irish - I'll apologise unreservedly to the people of Northern Ireland.
The problem for you, is that you will find no such post.

I merely pointed out that the "troubles" in the North weren't reflective of Ireland as a whole. They weren't. The other assumptions are entirely your own.

While we're at it - what makes you assume that the troubles in the North didn't affect me personally?
Your psychic powers are astonishing - unfortunately, they're also 100% incorrect.

Neither, for the record, is my opinion that thousands of deaths, together with the displacement of thousands of others, is not a lower point in Irelands history than the death of 29 people in Omagh -as tragic as those 29 deaths were - in any way either invalid, or disrespectful to those who died in Omagh.

Before you reply, might I respectfully suggest that you read back over some of my posts on Northern Ireland.
They might just give you a more informed opinion of what I think about Northern Ireland than the assumptions that you are making, that make you appear so angry!

Your posting history outside this thread is irrelevant to me as I've not interacted with you anywhere else.
Nor am I angry.
As for reading over your posting history to gauge what your feelings are in general towards the north, I don't really care.
I based my response to you on your statements on this thread.
Statements like this one

Seriously? The loss of 29 lives, as tragic as it was, is worse than the deaths of tens of thousands?
Your sense of perspective is, er, unusual.

An unusual sense of perspective?
Your perspective is that an event 360 years ago is worse than events ongoing for 40yrs + 90mins away and ?(being conservative and taking the civil rights issues as the start point of this particular bout of the troubles)
Granted in bodycount yes it does top it....
But in terms of actual visceral impact?
Of people having 1st hand knowledge of the events and personal stories to share about?
Which is what I qualified my own OP, with....

Of all the event's that stand out in my own lifetimes memory...

Cromwells rape of Ireland wasn't shown worldwide across multiple media outlets with the Tagline, ''Religious tensions and terrorism in Ireland''
The events I referenced were...
As was Omagh.

I didn't discount or belittle someone elses interpretation of the question based on their unusual sense of perspective, because the events of our recent past are often a personal memory and a lot fresher to them than a history book.
That which can shake the world, can matter not a jot to someone close at hand yet not involved.
But when it hits the media and that is how your country is displayed to the world.
Then I think it qualifies as mighty low.

Cromwell bad and all as he was isn't how many people in the wider world got presented with their 1st glimpse of Ireland.
And as for the events I referenced not affecting most of Ireland because you lived in a peaceful area....
So did I, but...
And this is important to note, you said yourself earlier

where the violence in the North was very far removed from my daily life, and if it weren't for occasional shopping trips there, it would have been hard to believe that this violence was happening a 90 minute drive out the road.

That 90 minute drive was less than many people I worked with at the time spent commuting to the office.
90 minutes was a world away for you, for the folks who saw these things on the news and then looked at a map....
Its all the same place.
Those people dont realise that the whole country wasn't like that, that the vast majority of us live quiet lives, in a relatively non violent country.
And that is why I chose what I did as a low point, at the dawn of instant communication, and 24hr news Ireland was portrayed around the world as being like France during the hugoenot repression or Germany during the 30yrs war.
And what was worse is that those images displayed the brutalisation of children.
That is why I chose that particular event, because of how it displayed Ireland to the world.
While it was far away from us, to the average Yank\European....
We are all one and the same.

Cromwell is an easy target.
Yes he caused huge privations in Ireland yes and whats more he did while ramming puritanical liturgy down the throats of the poor Irish catholic....
All while he stabled horses in a cathedral...
He would be a much less reviled figure if he left religion out of it ;)sword and stabled horses in a church....
He became a bogey man that the church could trot out to instill fear and control, and to inspire in remembered pain.

In terms of destruction of the Gael-Irish culture Cromwell pales into insignifigance compared to the Elizabethen and Jamesian plantations broke the power of the Irish lords and were a major causal factor in the Cromwellian invasion in the 1st place as the still extant Irish lords hoped that by rallying to the Royalist cause they could regain that which they's lost in the plantations
But in reality blaming Cromwell in isolation is akin to discounting the effect that ww1 and Versailles had in leading to the ww2...
Without 1, we would not have had the other...
Without the Elizabethen and Jamesian Land grab and imposition of English more's on Ireland and the displacement of the Hiberno-Norman and Gaelic nobility.
The situation whereby Cromwell needed to come to Ireland would never have arisen.
The plantations and the need to break the Hiberno-Norman/Gaelic power(which was hugely diminished long before Cromwell) were and are a causal factor in much of whats gone wrong on this little rock of ours.
You can rightly extrapolate the 9 years war,Cromwell,the Williamite wars, The Penal Laws and the current divided state of ulster along with a myriad other problems all originating in the Plantations

As for pointing out where you said the people of Northern Ireland weren't Irish, well you didn't in so many words.
But you left yourself very open to interpretation that way when you quoted me in bold

banie01 wrote: »

That, those images were Ireland, thats what we as a people were!

and replied that

Noreen1 wrote: »

You're confusing Northern Ireland with the Island of Ireland, tbf.

Implying that somehow they aren't so Irish after all(Compared to rest of us at least),
But like I said its a matter of context and interpretation rather than anything you actually said.

tayto lover · 14-06-2013 4:27pm

Home Tax is the lowest moment.
Making the country's under-pressure home owners pay for the elite millionaires.

Grayson · 14-06-2013 4:48pm

quasimoron wrote: »

Their babies being sold to Americans.The lack of rights for women in general.

On that note. 100,000 march against the war in iraq and irish involvement. Bertie didn't even pause for breath in his rush to offer shannon to the US.

wallycharlo · 14-06-2013 4:53pm

Fade Street?

Grudaire · 14-06-2013 5:07pm

tayto lover wrote: »

Home Tax is the lowest moment.
Making the country's under-pressure home owners pay for the elite millionaires.

In fairness Ireland paying for the rich elite for many years before this..

Heck there was a tax on the number of windows!

Galwayguy35 · 14-06-2013 7:11pm

K-9 wrote: »

Kerry babies case, just a single case that I think finally broke the stigma of unmarried mothers in Ireland, and maybe in some way eventually led to more people speaking up about different church/state scandals in a small, insular state. People finally thought about what brings a woman to do something like that, hide the shame from an "illegitimate" birth, rather than think well, "she did something shameful, she was right to cover it up".

The sadness is it took something like that to be the nadir.

Just on the DeV thing, no fan of him, but his defence of Irish and other countries neutrality was his highest moment. He stood up to bullying from Churchill and that informed Irish opinion in the UN in the 50's on African independence and sovereignty. There used to be a time Ireland used to play an important part in the U.N, you'd need to be about 80 to remember it.

I remember that case being all over the news at the time, don't think the full facts of what happened ever really came out TBH.

When you look back that year was indeed a sad one considering that it was also the year that Anne Lovett tragically died.

Curly Judge · 14-06-2013 9:03pm

The Spike.
Both of them!

K-9 · 14-06-2013 11:54pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

And it's predecessor the League of Nations. Sean Lester was the LoN's governor of Danzig from 1934 to 1936 before becoming Secretary General. A candidate for fledgling Ireland's proudest moment perhaps?

Interesting fact, never knew that, makes a good counter balance to Dev's isolationism on so many other topics.

With this level of exposure on the world stage, it does beg the question why Ireland chose not to get involved, especially with the links to Danzig. BUT, in hindsight, I think Dev did the right thing although signing a book of condolence for Hitler was a bizarre thing to do.

It seems very odd now all right, but I do remember reading that James Dillion, who resigned from FG because of his anti-neutrality stance, agreed DeV did the diplomatically correct thing. Dillon later became FG leader.

Frank Aiken was the Irish representative at the UN during the 50's, fascinating character, very divisive though.

Noreen1 · 15-06-2013 12:41pm

banie01 wrote: »

Your posting history outside this thread is irrelevant to me as I've not interacted with you anywhere else.
Nor am I angry.
As for reading over your posting history to gauge what your feelings are in general towards the north, I don't really care.
I based my response to you on your statements on this thread.
Statements like this one

Actually, you based your assumptions on your interpretation of what I said.

banie01 wrote: »

An unusual sense of perspective?
Your perspective is that an event 360 years ago is worse than events ongoing for 40yrs + 90mins away and ?(being conservative and taking the civil rights issues as the start point of this particular bout of the troubles)
Granted in bodycount yes it does top it....
But in terms of actual visceral impact?
Of people having 1st hand knowledge of the events and personal stories to share about?
Which is what I qualified my own OP, with....
Cromwells rape of Ireland wasn't shown worldwide across multiple media outlets with the Tagline, ''Religious tensions and terrorism in Ireland''
The events I referenced were...
As was Omagh.

I didn't discount or belittle someone elses interpretation of the question based on their unusual sense of perspective, because the events of our recent past are often a personal memory and a lot fresher to them than a history book.
That which can shake the world, can matter not a jot to someone close at hand yet not involved.
But when it hits the media and that is how your country is displayed to the world.
Then I think it qualifies as mighty low.

I think you'll find the thread title is "What was Irelands lowest moment" not "What contribution did the "troubles" make to Irelands image abroad"

banie01 wrote: »

Cromwell bad and all as he was isn't how many people in the wider world got presented with their 1st glimpse of Ireland.
And as for the events I referenced not affecting most of Ireland because you lived in a peaceful area....
So did I, but...
And this is important to note, you said yourself earlier
That 90 minute drive was less than many people I worked with at the time spent commuting to the office.
90 minutes was a world away for you, for the folks who saw these things on the news and then looked at a map....
Its all the same place.
Those people dont realise that the whole country wasn't like that, that the vast majority of us live quiet lives, in a relatively non violent country.
And that is why I chose what I did as a low point, at the dawn of instant communication, and 24hr news Ireland was portrayed around the world as being like France during the hugoenot repression or Germany during the 30yrs war.
And what was worse is that those images displayed the brutalisation of children.
That is why I chose that particular event, because of how it displayed Ireland to the world.
While it was far away from us, to the average Yank\European....
We are all one and the same.

Yes. But you are concentrating on the Worlds perception of Ireland - and I'm concentrating on the History of the Country as a whole.

banie01 wrote: »

Cromwell is an easy target.
Yes he caused huge privations in Ireland yes and whats more he did while ramming puritanical liturgy down the throats of the poor Irish catholic....
All while he stabled horses in a cathedral...
He would be a much less reviled figure if he left religion out of it ;)sword and stabled horses in a church....
He became a bogey man that the church could trot out to instill fear and control, and to inspire in remembered pain.

In terms of destruction of the Gael-Irish culture Cromwell pales into insignifigance compared to the Elizabethen and Jamesian plantations broke the power of the Irish lords and were a major causal factor in the Cromwellian invasion in the 1st place as the still extant Irish lords hoped that by rallying to the Royalist cause they could regain that which they's lost in the plantations
But in reality blaming Cromwell in isolation is akin to discounting the effect that ww1 and Versailles had in leading to the ww2...
Without 1, we would not have had the other...
Without the Elizabethen and Jamesian Land grab and imposition of English more's on Ireland and the displacement of the Hiberno-Norman and Gaelic nobility.
The situation whereby Cromwell needed to come to Ireland would never have arisen.
The plantations and the need to break the Hiberno-Norman/Gaelic power(which was hugely diminished long before Cromwell) were and are a causal factor in much of whats gone wrong on this little rock of ours.
You can rightly extrapolate the 9 years war,Cromwell,the Williamite wars, The Penal Laws and the current divided state of ulster along with a myriad other problems all originating in the Plantations

I wouldn't say Cromwell was an easy target, though much of what you said is true. I've made a similar point, though with reference to the planters, as opposed to Cromwell, recently, myself.

Without the British monarchies lust for power and riches, there would have been considerably fewer deaths in Ireland.
Mind you, without Cromwells sectarian inclinations, it could be argued that there would also have been a different outcome.
As far as I'm concerned, the majority of the blame lies with the instigators, ie. The British monarchy, but that doesn't exonerate Cromwell for his cruelty, either.
The one needed the other to be effective.

banie01 wrote: »

As for pointing out where you said the people of Northern Ireland weren't Irish, well you didn't in so many words.
But you left yourself very open to interpretation that way when you quoted me in bold

and replied that

Implying that somehow they aren't so Irish after all(Compared to rest of us at least),
But like I said its a matter of context and interpretation rather than anything you actually said.

Actually, I view the people of Northern Ireland as Irish. Every bit as Irish as you, or me.

I merely wanted to make the point that all of Ireland doesn't, and didn't, at that time, engage in sectarianism.

I'm inclined to wonder have you spent much time in Northern Ireland?
I don't mean that in an offensive way - it's just that you'd be amazed how many times I've come across genuine fear from (some) Loyalists in the North, just because I'm Irish, together with amazement when they're told that Protestants and Catholics get on perfectly well as friends and neighbours on this side of the Border.
There is a perception among some people in the North that sectarianism existed to the same level in the Republic (though plenty of others holiday here frequently). It's less apparent now than ten or twenty years ago, but tensions do still run beneath the surface, and are, imo , sometimes exploited for political reasons, from time to time.

It was in that context that I posted what I did - not what you interpreted my post to mean.

Chinasea · 15-06-2013 2:07pm

When the Green Party got into bed with FF and wrecked 30 years of progress that they had achieved

Kersh · 15-06-2013 2:18pm

downonthefarm wrote: »

when scilachii scored in italia 90

Absolutely . . the horror

Singularity 1 · 19-06-2013 9:59pm

When Dustin entered the Eurovision.

blade1 · 19-06-2013 10:07pm

ColeTrain wrote: »

Personally I would have went for something like this

The car or the wig?

ColeTrain · 19-06-2013 10:19pm

blade1 wrote: »

The car or the wig?

Both

jugger0 · 20-06-2013 1:30am

fryup wrote: »

a hate group by the name of the IRA who plant bombs and kill innocent people

The IRA secured our country's independence ya whingey west brit, and they were the only ones who defended the nationalists in the north while the cowardly south stood by and did nothing. They never would of existed if it wasn't for the British treating us like **** in our own country.

Agent Smith · 21-06-2013 12:58am

This

I blame the teachers....

ColeTrain · 21-06-2013 1:02am

Agent Smith wrote: »

This

I blame the teachers....

That picture was staged apparently!

ToddyDoody · 21-06-2013 1:03am

Technically, Ireland's lowest moment was during its worst recorded flood. -.-

hatrickpatrick · 21-06-2013 1:56am

The day the troika landed in Dublin while our Taoiseach proclaimed on TV "We're not getting a bailout lads"

old hippy · 23-06-2013 6:27pm

jugger0 wrote: »

The IRA secured our country's independence ya whingey west brit, and they were the only ones who defended the nationalists in the north while the cowardly south stood by and did nothing. They never would of existed if it wasn't for the British treating us like **** in our own country.

Most of us from the "cowardly south" don't really want a separate country like the 6 counties/NI foisted on us by a bunch of eejits there.

We have a Republic of Ireland. The nation is whole again. Move along.

losthorizon · 23-06-2013 7:28pm

mango salsa wrote: »

Actually 2007 was even more shameful given that we knew so much more about the antics of Bertie and Ray Burke and Charlie Haughie and Pee Flynn and Liam Lawlor and Bev Flynn and Ivor Callelly and Denis Foley

You think that's bad - most recent polls in the Irish Times FF is the most popular party in the state again.

- Crazy. Irish people never learn.

super_furry · 23-06-2013 7:29pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZYQluJW-dM

Duggys Housemate · 23-06-2013 7:32pm

tayto lover wrote: »

Home Tax is the lowest moment.
Making the country's under-pressure home owners pay for the elite millionaires.

God knows the millionaires are living in ditches these days.

.jacksparrow. · 23-06-2013 7:38pm

old hippy wrote: »

Most of us from the "cowardly south" don't really want a separate country like the 6 counties/NI foisted on us by a bunch of eejits there.

We have a Republic of Ireland. The nation is whole again. Move along.

Speak for yourself.

Mr Guinness. · 23-06-2013 7:42pm

Ends kenny

old hippy · 23-06-2013 9:09pm

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Speak for yourself.

Well, it's better than blowing things up in my name.

kyote00 · 23-06-2013 9:16pm

Our neutrality stance in WW2 ....

Have a read of Operation Kathleen, 2nd paragraph below ---- its very funny.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6rtz

But Ireland was a backward, xenophobic place then.... oh wait

du Maurier · 23-06-2013 9:17pm

Fr. Neill Horan.

feargale · 23-06-2013 9:28pm

ColeTrain wrote: »

Probably that alright.
New question then, What was Ireland's lowest moment besides The Famine?

The Cromwellian wars and subsequent transplantations and enslavements.

Singularity 1 · 23-06-2013 9:50pm

Introducing the reversing around the corner into the driving test. Fecking stupid yoke.

rolliepoley · 23-06-2013 10:01pm

When the Irishman got a real taste of money and power.

mewe · 23-06-2013 10:13pm

When we pulled down our trousers,bent over and voted yes to the eu fiscal treaty.

markomuscle · 26-06-2013 12:21am

The Treaty of Mellifont 1603 after the loss of the nine years war, in my opinion.

Ten of Swords · 26-06-2013 12:30am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executions_during_the_Irish_Civil_War#The_Ballyseedy_Massacre_and_its_aftermath

March 1923, nine Republican prisoners were taken from Ballymullen barracks in Tralee to Ballyseedy crossroads and tied to a landmine which was then detonated, after which the survivors were machine-gunned. One of the prisoners, Stephen Fuller, was blown to safety by the blast of the explosion. He was taken in at the nearby home of Michael and Hannah Curran. They cared for him and, although badly injured, he survived. The Free State troops in nearby Tralee had prepared nine coffins and were surprised to find only eight bodies on the scene

Corvo Attano · 26-06-2013 1:05am

For me its probably the fact that Fianna Fáil are back on top of the opinion polls.

I would sooner kill myself than see another Fianna Fáil Taoiseach take power by my vote. If they are in power in 4 years time I will emigrate. The voting public have short memories if they believe to the promises of Fianna Fáil so soon after their corruptness and blatant laziness brought my country to her knees.

It was not the acceptance of the bailout or the fiscal treaty. It was what came immediately before it. The in-your-face lies and blunders and choices purely for personal gain.

It sickens me to hear their hypocrisy in the Dáil or to hear that the public want them back in power.

What was Irelands lowest moment?

Comments