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Destruction of the Four Courts/proi
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01-11-2012 2:52am#1There is a view that the destruction of the Four Courts was an "unfortunate accident", and one which could have been prevented, if only......(insert argument).
This is probably a natural result of the "official history" taught in school.
The is an opposing one
The irregulars didn't happen to randomly choose the Four Courts, nor did they randomly place explosives.
It was a strategic move which coincided with the ongoing class struggle which was a fundamental to the revolution (to all revolutions).
Similar types of 'audit trail' destruction occurred at the collapse of the Nazi Regime, and to a lesser extent at the collapse of the socialist regime in East Germany, the Communist Regime in Poland, at the collapse of the Soviet Union , Yugoslavia etc.
Many Germans/Jews are now able to reclaim property which was confiscated by the Nazi/Communist regimes in East Germany, due to the meticulous records kept by the Nazis.http://generalmichaelcollins.com/monthly_newsletters/Sept_2012.html
The deliberate destruction of national libraries, museums, and cultural artifacts in war is now seen as a war crime under the The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Not that this stops such destruction - 400 years of civil records were destroyed deliberately with the setting fire of Oriental Institute in Sarajevo in May 1992. In the National Library in the city in August 1992, 90% of the collection, over one million objects, was destroyed in a deliberate attack during the Siege of Sarajevo, wiping out priceless and irreplaceable records.
Historians who met members of the Anti-Treaty IRA garrison in the Four Courts years later were told unambiguously that the blame did rest with the Anti-Treaty side. The said that
The anti-Treaty IRA, in an appallingly reckless act, stored gelignite in among the archives,
Two enormous mines were placed in the PROI and two in the Land Registry Office, to be set off if attacked.
Leaders of the garrison ordered that the PROI be mined for possible destruction.
That priceless documents and ledgers, including the 1821 census, the oldest complete census then in existence in Ireland, were ordered to be used to block up windows in the Four Courts and to be used to by the Anti-Treaty IRA side to fire from, along with mediaeval manuscripts. The few surviving documents were bullet-scarred.
That before the surrender of the garrison the mines in the building were set off deliberately, possibly to create confusion that would allow the anti-treatyite garrison to escape, or else lead to deaths among Free State soldiers.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/bullet.html
What are people's thoughts?0
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