Positive legacy of British rule?

slowburner

When you sit down today to your turkey and ham dinner - bear in mind the positive legacy of British rule - this meal is a purely Victorian English concoction.

jonniebgood1

Seanchai wrote: »

Like what, precisely? You listed an entire post, but curiously enough didn't list any problems with the post which talks about "you and your buddies". Why?

I'm still waiting for your friend to support his nonsense claim about the Irish language in the sixteenth century. I, on the other hand, am dealing in solid verifiable history. Does this intimidate you? Is your purpose in interfering in this to deflect from his undoubted inability to answer this challenge to his fairly stupid claim?(oh, calling somebody's claim "stupid" is not the same as calling the person stupid. It's sad that this needs to be pointed out. Try familiarising yourself with ad rem v ad hominem before banning people who disagree with your view.)

You have'nt been infracted let alone banned so you should chill out a bit.
The comments that are not acceptable were:

Seanchai wrote: »

Why don't you join them?

Reason- adds nothing to debate.

Seanchai wrote: »

If I were looking for an intelligent debate on Irish history, I won't be going near you. See above for reasons.

Reason- same as above.
I could go into more detail but there is no need. You should heed the warning and stick to the topic but that is your choice.

I would ask you if you are aware of any positive that has come from British involvement in Ireland? It is a diliberately challenging question given our history.

Beir Bua

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

You have'nt been infracted let alone banned so you should chill out a bit.
The comments that are not acceptable were:

Reason- adds nothing to debate.


Reason- same as above.
I could go into more detail but there is no need. You should heed the warning and stick to the topic but that is your choice.

I would ask you if you are aware of any positive that has come from British involvement in Ireland? It is a diliberately challenging question given our history.

Perhaps a better, and even more challenging question would be if anyone can think of any positives of British rule that the Irish could not have achieved by themselves? I'm talking about something unique which could and would not have come about whatsoever if it had not been for the occupation.



BB

Fratton Fred

Beir Bua wrote: »

Perhaps a better, and even more challenging question would be if anyone can think of any positives of British rule that the Irish could not have achieved by themselves? I'm talking about something unique which could and would not have come about whatsoever if it had not been for the occupation.



BB

Would not is probably better than could not.

There is nothing preventing the Irish flying to Mars ( and in Seanchai's case that would be moat welcome). However, they will not be doing that anytime soon.

slowburner

Beir Bua wrote: »

Perhaps a better, and even more challenging question would be if anyone can think of any positives of British rule that the Irish could not have achieved by themselves? I'm talking about something unique which could and would not have come about whatsoever if it had not been for the occupation.



BB

The primary language in use in Ireland.
Of course, it is a matter of personal opinion whether this is a positive or negative.

And as stated previously, the first Ordnance Survey - we simply did not have the facilities, resources or reasons for conducting one.

Beir Bua

slowburner wrote: »

The primary language in use in Ireland.
Of course, it is a matter of personal opinion whether this is a positive or negative.

Its only a positive in the minds of shoneens I've found.

And as stated previously, the first Ordnance Survey - we simply did not have the facilities, resources or reasons for conducting one.

Are you honestly of the opinion that the native Irish would not have drawn up detailed maps of their own land? Other small countries which did not have the misfortune of being subjugated to centuries of British rule must not have drawn up OS maps?


BB

slowburner

Beir Bua wrote: »

Its only a positive in the minds of shoneens I've found.

As said - a matter of personal opinion.
By the way, where did you find the shoneens?

Are you honestly of the opinion that the native Irish would not have drawn up detailed maps of their own land?

Yes.

Other small countries which did not have the misfortune of being subjugated to centuries of British rule must not have drawn up OS maps?
BB

Not as far as I know, but will happily stand corrected if needs be.

Fratton Fred

Beir Bua wrote: »

Its only a positive in the minds of shoneens I've found.

How is anyone going to take anything you say seriously when you start with that?

dubhthach

slowburner wrote: »

Not as far as I know, but will happily stand corrected if needs be.

I can think of several European states with populations lesser or equivalent to Ireland who managed a full cartographic survey during the 19th century. Some of these believe it or not were technically poorer per capita GDP then Ireland at the time.

• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Norway (personal union with Sweden)
• Sweden (personal union with Norway)
• Switzerland
• Greece

That's ignoring the many other smaller states in Europe which got assumed into larger entities in the 1870's (unification of Italy and unification of Germany)

The decline of Irish doesn't start in the 16th century, it's only with the end of the williamite war do you see the end of Irish as an "elite language" spoken by the landed classes. In the period 1760-80 about 2/3rds of the population were Irish speaking. English only exceed 50% around 1800 (act of union timeframe). If Irish had truly been fragmented or in isolated areas then Daniel O'Connel wouldn't have engaged in his calls for people to abandon the language.

Here are some maps, the first is based off Garrett Fitzgearld analysis of 1911 census to determine Irish speaking areas in per-famine period



Another one based on post famine census of 1851


Finally the famous "red" map of 1871

slowburner

I stand corrected on the question of smaller states carrying out their own cartography in the 19th C.
I wonder if their maps were as detailed as the first OSI 6" survey in Ireland, I couldn't find any which compare in quality, online.

Beir Bua

Very interesting Dubhthach, the Dundalk/Carlingford area seems to be an anomalous region of Irish speaking peoples on the east coast, any idea why this was?

Fratton Fred wrote: »

How is anyone going to take anything you say seriously when you start with that?

It's the truth I've found, perhaps I have just been unlucky in the fact that the majority of people I've found who derogate the Irish language and thank the fantastic English for civilizing us with with theirs tend to be shoneens. Ah well, hardly a big deal in terms of this discussion, lets agree to disagree about your native tongue (it appears from your other posts you are a Brit? If not, mea cupla.)


BB

Ozymandiaz

Let me jump in here to contribute my tuppence worth.

It is simply silly to argue that had the British/English not colonised/conquered Ireland we would not have developed more or less along the lines we did. It would no doubt have been slower but it would have happened. The big difference would, I think, be langauge. The benefits (there were also disadvantages) of British domination of Ireland are usually exemplified as infrastructure, trade commerce civil legal administration, and now the Ordnance Survey of the country. Does anyone think for one moment that without the British influence we would have had no mapping of the country, no systems of governace, no legal administration, no roads or canals, no ports or railways, no lines of communication, etc., etc.. We would have established or evolved our own developments in these area.

As to the Irish language, it was the majority language in the country up to the Great Famine.

ejmaztec

Ozymandiaz wrote: »

Let me jump in here to contribute my tuppence worth.

It is simply silly to argue that had the British/English not colonised/conquered Ireland we would not have developed more or less along the lines we did. It would no doubt have been slower but it would have happened. The big difference would, I think, be langauge. The benefits (there were also disadvantages) of British domination of Ireland are usually exemplified as infrastructure, trade commerce civil legal administration, and now the Ordnance Survey of the country. Does anyone think for one moment that without the British influence we would have had no mapping of the country, no systems of governace, no legal administration, no roads or canals, no ports or railways, no lines of communication, etc., etc.. We would have established or evolved our own developments in these area.

As to the Irish language, it was the majority language in the country up to the Great Famine.

Had Ireland been an independent state from day one, I think that a sizeable number of people would have still needed a working knowledge of English to carry out trade with the nearest neighbours, and no doubt some of the neighbours would have had a working knowledge of Irish.

I think the end result would have been a lot more people here fluent in both languages, but the Irish language would still be the one in everyday use now, and not English.

Feel free to tear this idea apart.

Ozymandiaz

ejmaztec wrote: »

Had Ireland been an independent state from day one, I think that a sizeable number of people would have still needed a working knowledge of English to carry out trade with the nearest neighbours, and no doubt some of the neighbours would have had a working knowledge of Irish.

I think the end result would have been a lot more people here fluent in both languages, but the Irish language would still be the one in everyday use now, and not English.

Feel free to tear this idea apart.

That is my thinking also and I could not have expressed it better myself.

dubhthach

slowburner wrote: »

I stand corrected on the question of smaller states carrying out their own cartography in the 19th C.
I wonder if their maps were as detailed as the first OSI 6" survey in Ireland, I couldn't find any which compare in quality, online.

No doubt part of the issue is due to lack of writings about European mapping in the English language. I imagine if I could speak Dutch, French or Dainish it would be easy enough to find some information.

I came across following reference in JSTOR, it's only the front page of an article published in 1975
The Large Scale Mapping of Belgium, 1800-1850
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1150568

Likewise on Denmark I came across the following:
http://www.codex99.com/cartography/6.html

1841 mapping on scale of 1:20,000 (cm) (5cm to 1km) that works out basically at 8" 8cm to the mile or 3.14" to mile, so it would be slightly higher detailed less detailed then Irish 6" OS maps of the 1830's/40's. The mapping in Belgium was also 1:20000 as well as 1:14400 (be equivalent to 12"/1mile 12cm/1mile eg. 4.72"/mile map)

*edit* -- My bad on conversions of metric to imperial etc.

dubhthach

ejmaztec wrote: »

Had Ireland been an independent state from day one, I think that a sizeable number of people would have still needed a working knowledge of English to carry out trade with the nearest neighbours, and no doubt some of the neighbours would have had a working knowledge of Irish.

I think the end result would have been a lot more people here fluent in both languages, but the Irish language would still be the one in everyday use now, and not English.

Feel free to tear this idea apart.

Depending on when Independence was achieved you would probably get a situation like Belgium particualy if the French had landed in Bantry bay you would probably have seen a situation where the state had two official languages which reflected the situation on the ground.

I do think in such a scenario when it comes to language teaching/acquistion we would probably be more like what happens on continent today where people often have 3-4 languages. At the moment I would think the bulk of Irish population are at 1.25 languages (where .25 = Irish + other European language)

slowburner

dubhthach wrote: »

No doubt part of the issue is due to lack of writings about European mapping in the English language. I imagine if I could speak Dutch, French or Dainish it would be easy enough to find some information.

I came across following reference in JSTOR, it's only the front page of an article published in 1975
The Large Scale Mapping of Belgium, 1800-1850
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1150568

Likewise on Denmark I came across the following:
http://www.codex99.com/cartography/6.html

1841 mapping on scale of 1:20,000 (cm) (5cm to 1km) that works out basically at 8" 8cm to the mile or 3.14" to mile, so it would be slightly higher detailed less detailed then Irish 6" OS maps of the 1830's/40's. The mapping in Belgium was also 1:20000 as well as 1:14400 (be equivalent to 12"/1mile 12cm/1mile eg. 4.72"/mile map)

*edit* -- My bad on conversions of metric to imperial etc.

Interesting that both the Belgian and Danish mapping were military ventures.

ejmaztec

dubhthach wrote: »

Depending on when Independence was achieved you would probably get a situation like Belgium particualy if the French had landed in Bantry bay you would probably have seen a situation where the state had two official languages which reflected the situation on the ground.

I do think in such a scenario when it comes to language teaching/acquistion we would probably be more like what happens on continent today where people often have 3-4 languages. At the moment I would think the bulk of Irish population are at 1.25 languages (where .25 = Irish + other European language)

I wouldn't expect that to be widespread outside of the border areas though, because the further people are away from those areas, the less they need to communicate with the neighbours on a day to day basis. I don't know how foreign language teaching fits into the education systems on Mainland Europe, but it seems logical that whatever languages are learned at school, fluency is lost if they don't get used afterwards.

To add to my previous post, on a "neighbours" basis, French and Spanish would be thrown into the mix as well, but not on as large a scale as English.

pedroeibar1

[Quote
Interesting that both the Belgian and Danish mapping were military ventures.[/Quote]
All mapping started with the military - think about the math, trajectories, bearings, etc.
Rs
P

slowburner

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Interesting that both the Belgian and Danish mapping were military ventures.
All mapping started with the military - think about the math, trajectories, bearings, etc.
Rs
P

And did the Irish have access to the technology for those cartographic methods?
Highly unlikely - and that is why we could not have carried out the first 6" OS survey.

dubhthach

slowburner wrote: »

And did the Irish have access to the technology for those cartographic methods?
Highly unlikely - and that is why we could not have carried out the first 6" OS survey.

That's a bit presumptous surely? After all there are at least two manuscripts in the University of Cambridge collection in the Irish language from the 18th century that contain discussion about Trigonometry which is one of most important parts of modern Cartography.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=lMPfI8yMRhkC&lpg=PA66&ots=YAm-m9Y140&dq=trigonometry%20in%20irish%20manuscript&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Either way modern cartography doesn't originate in Britain but on the continent. There's no reason to not assume modern methodology/techniques wouldn't have reached Ireland just as they reached every other European country.

Students studying in any of the Irish Colleges on the continent in the 17th and 18th century would have been exposed to what was going on in the field of Mathematics.


Ireland was very much tied into the Continent both on an intellectual and trade point of view from fairly early on, you can see this with Middle-Irish manuscripts on astronomy etc.

ejmaztec

Ireland would have had its own military and naval capability, and all of the technology to go with it. It wouldn't have just had to rely on the ideas of foreign powers to equip itself, and would have no doubt contributed to the international knowledge pool in the same way that other countries did.

It's crazy to assume otherwise.

slowburner

dubhthach wrote: »

That's a bit presumptous surely? After all there are at least two manuscripts in the University of Cambridge collection in the Irish language from the 18th century that contain discussion about Trigonometry which is one of most important parts of modern Cartography.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=lMPfI8yMRhkC&lpg=PA66&ots=YAm-m9Y140&dq=trigonometry%20in%20irish%20manuscript&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Either way modern cartography doesn't originate in Britain but on the continent. There's no reason to not assume modern methodology/techniques wouldn't have reached Ireland just as they reached every other European country.

Students studying in any of the Irish Colleges on the continent in the 17th and 18th century would have been exposed to what was going on in the field of Mathematics.


Ireland was very much tied into the Continent both on an intellectual and trade point of view from fairly early on, you can see this with Middle-Irish manuscripts on astronomy etc.

It probably was presumptuous. But what I said was, that I guessed that Irish people wouldn't have had access to the "technology for those cartographic methods" in the first half of the 19th C.
Or did they? I don't know.
I most certainly was not doubting their intellectual capacity.

slowburner

ejmaztec wrote: »

Ireland would have had its own military and naval capability, and all of the technology to go with it. It wouldn't have just had to rely on the ideas of foreign powers to equip itself, and would have no doubt contributed to the international knowledge pool in the same way that other countries did.

It's crazy to assume otherwise.

Ireland had its own military and naval capability around 1840?
I didn't know that. Can you tell me more?

Ozymandiaz

Ireland had no armed forces of its own in the 19th century for obvious reasons. Figures vary but approx 20-30% of British army/navy were Irish. There were also considerable numbers of Irish in Continental armies and navies. Irishman frequently fought each other in opposing forces at various times since the Flight of the Wild Geese. In the 1790s the British government were going to establish 6 regiments of Irish refugees from the French regime.

Many Irish were trained and educated on the Continent and learned Maths, trigonometry and navigation. They would have been more than capable of mapping the country if the need and opportunity arose. The lands confiscated by the Cromwellian regime were mapped in the 1650s by William Petty and, of course, landowners have always mapped their own lands.

ejmaztec

slowburner wrote: »

Ireland had its own military and naval capability around 1840?
I didn't know that. Can you tell me more?

There's a bit of "what if" going on in the thread, suggesting that whatever positive aspects there were of British rule, these were meaningless because they would have happened even if the British weren't here.

dubhthach

Well personally I do think our concept of modern Parlimentary Democracy is derived from what developed in Westminster in the 17th-19th century. Likewise an emphasis on constitutionality, even though of course the British do not have a "written Consitution" themselves.

Of course the other thing that they could be given credit for is the creation of a centralised unitary state. What we have now (aside from partition) is basically built on the foundation of the 18th century.

slowburner

ejmaztec wrote: »

There's a bit of "what if" going on in the thread, suggesting that whatever positive aspects there were of British rule, these were meaningless because they would have happened even if the British weren't here.

Too true.

pedroeibar1

slowburner wrote: »

When you sit down today to your turkey and ham dinner - bear in mind the positive legacy of British rule - this meal is a purely Victorian English concoction.

Not quite, turkey is more a 16thc dish, and among the poorer classes it is late Victorian at best. Goose was traditional in Ireland, turkey was for wealthier folk. It was given that name because it was exotic, at a time when anything exotic in England came from Turkey. In France, anything exotic came from India, so they called it d’Inde, today dinde.

dubhthach wrote: »

Depending on when Independence was achieved you would probably get a situation like Belgium particualy if the French had landed in Bantry bay you would probably have seen a situation where the state had two official languages which reflected the situation on the ground.

I cannot agree with that. The French went to great lengths to wipe out Breton, Occitan and other regional dialects long after WW2. The teaching of Breton was banned in schools, etc and those who sided with the Nazis in Brittany during WW2 suffered enormously and indeed several, persecuted by deGaulle ,sought and found refuge in Ireland, aided by the Celts surrounding DeValera.

dubhthach wrote: »

I do think in such a scenario when it comes to language teaching/acquistion we would probably be more like what happens on continent today where people often have 3-4 languages. At the moment I would think the bulk of Irish population are at 1.25 languages (where .25 = Irish + other European language)

That amazes me. I have lived and worked (French multinational) in France and at a push most colleagues spoke French and broken (v.poor) English or German. Most Italians misguidedly believe that they can speak French. The Dutch speak English and their own language so can also have a ‘stab’ at German, but that usually is it. The Germans probably are better, mainly with French and English but most refuse to speak either because they do not wish to make a grammatical error.

dubhthach wrote: »

Well personally I do think our concept of modern Parlimentary Democracy is derived from what developed in Westminster in the 17th-19th century.

Which is why Oliver Cromwell is celebrated with a large statue outside Westminster.

dubhthach wrote: »

Here are some maps, the first is based off Garrett Fitzgearld analysis of 1911 census to determine Irish speaking areas in per-famine period

As for the decline of Irish, I stand over my comments. The simple fact of the matter is that those native Irish speakers who lived 1825-1850 in Ireland were marginalized, not sufficiently educated nor did they have the position in authority to carry out a large scale mapping operation. In today’s terms I would not expect to go to Ballinskelligs or Leitir Mor to have a microchip designed.
The US branch of Conradh na Gaeilge here http://www.gaeilge.org/irish.html has the following:- The events of the later sixteenth century and of the seventeenth century for the first time undermined the status of Irish as a major language. The Tudor and Stuart conquests and plantations (1534-1610), the Cromwellian settlement (1654), and the Williamite war (1689-91) followed by the enactment of the Penal Laws (1695), had the cumulative effect of eliminating the Irish-speaking ruling classes and of destroying their cultural institutions. These native chieftains — and the learned class — were forced either to emigrate or go into hiding, and for many people, education continued only in the illegal hedgeschools in fields, barns and sheds. The Irish-speaking nobility of Ireland were replaced by a new ruling class, or Ascendancy, whose language was English, and thereafter English was the sole language of government and public institutions.
Garret F’s study is like Garret (one T btw, he was fussy about that) – fine in theory. The give-away is that the study is based on those aged over 60 in 1911 and extrapolated to pre-Famine times. What is filled in on a Census form and what is ‘reality’ are two very different things. Anyone who has recruited staff would confirm that CVs containing ‘Fluent French’ – Spanish – German / whatever are inevitably very very far from the truth. If occupational returns are to be believed we have several hundred thousand accountants, most of whom are not accountants but clerks in an accounting office. Additionally, that Census would be skewed by the rise in Nationalism – look for example at the change in numbers of families with a plain surname to one preceded by ‘O’ or ‘Mac’ as nationalism increased. Many respondents in the 1911 Census (including some of my own ancestors) put in ‘Irish & English’ when it is known that they would have had a hard job to find more than a couple of words of Irish to rub together.
As for what we could achieve on our own, all one has to do is look at the Dail – and back a few decades – the leadership we have /had in office and in opposition is dominated by the progeny of the ‘Freedom’ fighters of the early 1900s. And just look at what they have achieved! (and of course the family hero was part of the destruction of the pre1901 records in the Four Courts in an heroic act of Nationalism, so we can never prove much on this topic.
P.

dubhthach

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I cannot agree with that. The French went to great lengths to wipe out Breton, Occitan and other regional dialects long after WW2. The teaching of Breton was banned in schools, etc and those who sided with the Nazis in Brittany during WW2 suffered enormously and indeed several, persecuted by deGaulle ,sought and found refuge in Ireland, aided by the Celts surrounding DeValera.

French domestic linguistic policy after the rise of the Third Republic in 1880 is hardly relevant to a discussion about the 1790's. Especially given that the bulk of campaign against Breton dates from the 1920's onwards. My post wasn't about the incorporation of Ireland into the "French Republic" but over theorizing bout a successful United Irishmen revolution aided by French arms. (Akin to what happened 12 years previous on other side of Atlantic)

Which is why Oliver Cromwell is celebrated with a large statue outside Westminster.

Why do you think he has a statue? Simple really for his actions with regards to Charles I helped set the primacy of Parliament over the Monarch. Which was sealed even more so with the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 which put paid to concept of "Absolute Monarchy" in terms of British history and confirmed the ascendancy of Parliament over the Monarch.

Do I like the fact that such a statue exists? No of course not, however like your rant about French language policy it's not particulary relevant. And it doesn't negate the fact that our culture of parliamentary democracy is a linear descendant of what developed in Westminister in the 17th/18th century.