100 year anniversary of 1916...

Jacob T

Not long until a full century passing since easter rising, needless to say the country is a very different place. A quote from Sean MacDermott before he was executed in 1916 "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!"

This struck a chord with me when I read it today. What we have now, 97 years later is political traitors freely walking the streets with huge pensions and lump sum payoffs, German/French/British governments and institutions controlling our country's finances, Irish citizens living in fear due to crime levels spiralling out of control, mass emigration, unemployment, etc.

Personally I can't see a whole lot changing in the next 3 years. So I would like to ask you, people of AH - is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the easter rising hypocritical considering these men are probably rolling in their graves now? "Discuss"

Cookie_Monster

it's not really 100 years though, the current state as we know it only appeared in 1937

The_Gatsby

For most, it's another excuse for a piss up...

Max Power

Hopefully there's a bank holiday for it to go on a session, I'm sure that's what Sean would have wanted.

WoollyRedHat

Padraic Pearse was not just a figure of the 1916 rising, but also a poet. When he was in jail, he composed this, The Wayfarer.
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/PadraicPearse.html

GRMA

Jacob T wrote: »

Not long until a full century passing since easter rising, needless to say the country is a very different place. A quote from Sean MacDermott before he was executed in 1916 "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!"

This struck a chord with me when I read it today. What we have now, 97 years later is political traitors freely walking the streets with huge pensions and lump sum payoffs, German/French/British governments and institutions controlling our country's finances, Irish citizens living in fear due to crime levels spiralling out of control, mass emigration, unemployment, etc.

Personally I can't see a whole lot changing in the next 3 years. So I would like to ask you, people of AH - is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the easter rising hypocritical considering these men are probably rolling in their graves now? "Discuss"

The centenary should be a time to examine what these men where about and for a renewed push to establish what they fought and died for. I'm not talking about a united Ireland necessarily but one based on the 1916 proclamation, the ideas they had, Connolly etc and the democratic program of the first Dáil

I dont think it should be "celebrated" but it sure as hell should be remembered!

Although Enda Kenney and other gobsh!te politicians who never in a million years have done anything to bring a true Irish republic about should fcuk off. and not be allowed to talk sh!te and say they are continuing their work, or to invoke their names when doing stuff they would never have stood for.

admiralofthefleet

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it's not really 100 years though, the current state as we know it only appeared in 1937

was it not later? like 1948

Pompey Magnus

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Padraic Pearse was not just a figure of the 1916 rising, but also a poet. When he was in jail, he composed this, The Wayfarer.
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/PadraicPearse.html

Mise Eire (I Am Ireland)
by Padraic Pearse

I am Ireland,
I am older than the old woman of Beare.

Great is my glory,
I who gave birth to Cuchulainn the brave.

Great is my shame,
My own children have sold their mother.

I am Ireland
I am lonelier than the old woman of Beare.

Cookie_Monster

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

was it not later? like 1948

I just went from the constitution being implemented.

take your pick:

1937 Constitution

On 29 December 1937, the new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) came into force, which replaced the Constitution of the Irish Free State and called the state Ireland, or Éire in Irish.[21] The former Irish Free State government had taken steps to formally abolish the Office of Governor-General some months before the new Constitution came into force.[22] Although the Constitution established the office of President of Ireland, the question over whether Ireland was a republic remained open. Diplomats were accredited to the King, but the President exercised the internal functions of a Head of State.[23] For instance, the President gave assent to new laws with his own authority, without reference to King George VI. George VI was only an "organ", that was provided for by statute law.

Ireland remained neutral during World War II, a period it described as The Emergency. The link with the monarchy ceased with the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force on 18 April 1949 and declared that the state was a republic. Later, the Crown of Ireland Act was formally repealed in Ireland by the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act, 1962. Ireland was technically a member of the British Commonwealth after independence until the declaration of a republic on 18 April 1949. At the time, a declaration of a republic terminated Commonwealth membership. This rule was changed 10 days after Ireland declared itself a republic, with the London Declaration of 28 April 1949. Ireland did not reapply when the rules were altered to permit republics to join.

ThreeLineWhip

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

was it not later? like 1948

Correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland_Act_1948

The Act was signed into law on 21 December 1948 and came into force on 18 April 1949.

GRMA

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

Correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland_Act_1948

The Act was signed into law on 21 December 1948 and came into force on 18 April 1949.

Well thats nothing to celebrate!!

ThreeLineWhip

GRMA wrote: »

Well thats nothing to celebrate!!

But the hijacking of a biscuit factory and a post office is?

wendell borton

We should use our patriots, spinning in their graves, to generate electricity. They must be in such apoplexy at the current state of things we would get some amount of MW's out of them.

Tonyandthewhale

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it's not really 100 years though, the current state as we know it only appeared in 1937

Only a republic since 1949.

EDIT: beaten to it on the pedantry front.

Lapin

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

But the hijacking of a biscuit factory and a post office is?

They should have gone for the brewery.

I'd gladly take part in a re-enactment of that !

ThreeLineWhip

wendell borton wrote: »

We should use our patriots, spinning in their graves, to generate electricity. They must be in such apoplexy at the current state of things we would get some amount of MW's out of them.

Imagine the electricity that could be generated if you connected Gerry Adams to a wind turbine.

bb1234567

Jacob T wrote: »

Not long until a full century passing since easter rising, needless to say the country is a very different place. A quote from Sean MacDermott before he was executed in 1916 "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!"

This struck a chord with me when I read it today. What we have now, 97 years later is political traitors freely walking the streets with huge pensions and lump sum payoffs, German/French/British governments and institutions controlling our country's finances, Irish citizens living in fear due to crime levels spiralling out of control, mass emigration, unemployment, etc.

Personally I can't see a whole lot changing in the next 3 years. So I would like to ask you, people of AH - is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the easter rising hypocritical considering these men are probably rolling in their graves now? "Discuss"

WHAT. I think you might be exaggarating this ever so slightly:pac: Irelands still one of the safest countries in the world to live in.

Richard Hillman

I'll be abroad that weekend. Unfortunately It will be highjacked by Sinn Fein and the Celtic jersey brigade. 1922 is a far more significant year for me.

GRMA

Richard Hillman wrote: »

I'll be abroad that weekend. Unfortunately It will be highjacked by Sinn Fein and the Celtic jersey brigade. 1922 is a far more significant year for me.

If anything it will be hijacked by the likes of FF, FG and Lab who have spat on their graves and done nothing to build the nation they died for

barry181091

The_Gatsby wrote: »

For most, it's another excuse for a piss up...

Hurrah!

Fizman

The_Gatsby wrote: »

For most, it's another excuse for a piss up...

Your avatar approves of this.

stoneill

I was wondering about this too - would you give up your life for Ireland the way these people did in 1916 or in the war of independence or civil war?

Would I fúck!

Pompey Magnus

GRMA wrote: »

If anything it will be hijacked by the likes of FF, FG and Lab who have spat on their graves and done nothing to build the nation they died for

Don't worry, plans are afoot to prevent an unwanted upsurge in Republicanism and national pride that could result in 2016. Taking a leaf out of the car registration idea, 2015 will instead be known as 20151 and 2016 will instead be 20152, normality will resume at 2017.

Richard Hillman

stoneill wrote: »

I was wondering about this too - would you give up your life for Ireland the way these people did in 1916 or in the war of independence or civil war?

Would I fúck!

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

WoollyRedHat

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Padraic Pearse was not just a figure of the 1916 rising, but also a poet. When he was in jail, he composed this, The Wayfarer.
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/PadraicPearse.html

Wasn't he a writer in general? Seem to remember my history teacher tell us that he once wrote a story about Jesus Christ coming back to Earth as a child .. or something ..

Jacob T

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

Err one of them was a barrister and school teacher...they were certainly nothing resembling "anto" from tallaght destroying the city centre during love Ulster riots, while wearing a Celtic Jersey

fergiesfolly

Alright Hillman, lets keep your family out of this

TheUsual

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

Dregs of society is what the brits sent over here in the form of the black and tans. Their own army Captian's said they were animals.

Celly Smunt

stoneill wrote: »

I was wondering about this too - would you give up your life for Ireland the way these people did in 1916 or in the war of independence or civil war?

Would I fúck!

For Ireland the nation and people,yes.For Ireland the establishment,no.

Richard Hillman

Jacob T wrote: »

Err one of them was a barrister and school teacher...they were certainly nothing resembling "anto" from tallaght destroying the city centre during love Ulster riots, while wearing a Celtic Jersey

They were the clever leaders and great public speakers. It would be something akin to Richard Boyd-Barrett and Joe Higgins leading the tracksuit brigade to a rebellion.

Celly Smunt

Richard Hillman wrote: »

They were the clever leaders and great public speakers. It would be something akin to Richard Boyd-Barrett and Joe Higgins leading the tracksuit brigade to a rebellion.

It wouldn't be too hard tbh,a lot of them i talk to still think sinn fein are IRA.

OCorcrainn

Richard Hillman wrote: »

They were the clever leaders and great public speakers. It would be something akin to Richard Boyd-Barrett and Joe Higgins leading the tracksuit brigade to a rebellion.

pmcmahon wrote: »

It wouldn't be too hard tbh,a lot of them i talk to still think sinn fein are IRA.

It is interesting to see how people like yourselves feel the need to come on here to troll and mock Irish people.

I wonder what Freud would have thought of that.

Edit: Fixed

ThreeLineWhip

Nothing, he is dead.

homer simpson

wendell borton wrote: »

We should use our patriots, spinning in their graves, to generate electricity. They must be in such apoplexy at the current state of things we would get some amount of MW's out of them.

And then sell the power to the UK

DonLimon

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

I can't believe that those words were just strung together. It really seems like the idiotic ramblings of somebody who cannot comprehend that the current situation NI has nothing in common with that which existed a hundred years ago. Seriously, not even the staunchest of revisionists could make the argument not even with your very liberal use of the word probably. Have you ever even seen a history book?

endacl

Ah sure, every year is the 100 year anniversary of some year or other. I don't have a Celtic shirt. No plans to buy one either. And if its going to be a formal affair, 3 years just isn't enough time to grow the enormous beerbelly required to fill the 'white dunnes stores shirt and black dunnes stores slacks' uniform that'll be worn on the march to glasnevin. Berets have been optional since the 50th anniversary I believe. Beerbellies remain absolutely mandatory. Easier to ditch a beret than a beerbelly, I suppose. No plans at all have been put in place to ditch the shoulder chips....

I probably won't be marking the occasion.

Richard Hillman

DonLimon wrote: »

I can't believe that those words were just strung together. It really seems like the idiotic ramblings of somebody who cannot comprehend that the current situation NI has nothing in common with that which existed a hundred years ago. Seriously, not even the staunchest of revisionists could make the argument not even with your very liberal use of the word probably. Have you ever even seen a history book?

Im a keen historian actually

So tell us, you are Padraig Pearse and you need to get people to join the cause. Who are you going to target to boost the numbers? Doctors? Teachers? Business owners? Not a chance. Anyone with any smarts would go after the disaffected, people living day to day, lads that are in and out of prison, the young and impressionable etc.

DonLimon

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Im a keen historian actually

So tell us, you are Padraig Pearse and you need to get people to join the cause. Who are you going to target to boost the numbers? Doctors? Teachers? Business owners? Not a chance. Anyone with any smarts would go after the disaffected, people living day to day, lads that are in and out of prison, the young and impressionable etc.

Okay keen historian give me an example of some of these poor wasted youths who were tricked into fighting for their countries freedom. :rolleyes:

Qualitymark

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

Not at all; read contemporary accounts, or better still go back to the original sources; for instance, the Bureau of Military History is releasing the witness statements from 1916 and the subsequent War of Independence and Civil War gradually online http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/bmhsearch/browse.jsp

The seven signatories of the Proclamation were a university lecturer, a headmaster, an O'Connell Street/Parnell Street shopkeeper, the poet son of property developers, a journalist, a trade union founder and a civil servant.

Those who came out to fight included landowners like The O'Rahilly, doctors and nurses, lawyers, civil servants, teachers, builders, plumbers, and others in sound and respected professions.

A small point on the foundation of the Republic: the centenary of 1916 is to be commemorated as the centenary of the Rising, which led to the foundation of our State; this was first a Free State, and later an independent republic.

Nodin

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The majority of the people who fought in these things were probably the dregs of society. People who had nothing else to live for led by clever public speakers.

Ever the charmer, eh? Being the "keen historian" you'll be able to back up your claim, presumably....

9959

OCorcrainn wrote: »

It is interesting to see how people like yourselves feel the need to come on here to troll and mock Irish people.

I wonder what Freud would have thought of that.

Edit: Fixed

Not sure myself what 'Freud' thought of nationalism, personally I'm extremely wary and nervous of nationalism of any stripe, be it British, Irish, American or Russian.

Histories and Theories of Nationaliam:
A Semiotic Reproach
by M. Michael Shiff
York University

The issue of nationalism is much more difficult to settle, because nationalism is no unitary thing, and so many different kinds of ideologies and political practices have invoked the nationalist claim that is always very hard to think of nationalism at the level of theoretical abstraction alone, without weaving into this abstraction the experience of particular nationalisms and distinguishing between progressive and retrograde practices. Theoretical debates as well as global historical accounts are rendered all the more opaque when the category of 'nationalism' is yoked together with the category of 'culture' to produce the composite category of 'cultural nationalism'.

Unlike the political category of the state, the regulatory and coercive category of law, institutional mechanisms such as political parties or class organisations like trade unions, 'culture' generally and the literary/aesthetic real are situated at great remove from the economy and are therefore, among all the superstructures, the most easily available for idealization and theoretical slippage. As these categories have been historically constituted, they have been endowed with an inherent tendency towards national and civilizational singularization.

The ideology of cultural nationalism is based explicitly on this singularization tendency and lends itself much too easily to parochialism, inverse racism and indigenisation obscurantism, not to speak of the professional petty bourgeois's penchant for representing its own cultural practices and aspirations, virtually by embodying them as so many emblems of a unified national culture.

Cultural domination is doubtless a major aspect of imperialist domination as such, and culture is always, therefore, a site for major resistance, but cultural contradictions within the imperialized formations tend to be so very numerous - sometimes along class lines but also in cross-class configurations, as in the case of patriarchal cultural forms or the religious modes of social authorization - that the totality of indigenous culture can hardly be posited as a unified, transparent site of anti-imperialist resistance.

Roger_007

It is easy to forget now that at the time of the rising most of the people in Dublin regarded the rebels as a bunch of criminal lunatics. The mistake the British made was to execute the leaders. If they had just jailed them for a few years they would be largely forgotten about now. It is hard to know what might have happened since then but it is likely that independence would have happened anyway by way of referendum.

conorhal

Roger_007 wrote: »

It is easy to forget now that at the time of the rising most of the people in Dublin regarded the rebels as a bunch of criminal lunatics. The mistake the British made was to execute the leaders. If they had just jailed them for a few years they would be largely forgotten about now. It is hard to know what might have happened since then but it is likely that independence would have happened anyway by way of referendum.

That to be honest is the revisionist clap-trap like hawked by the Tintin O' Fool's of this world that has become so trendy of late.

Perhaps you would be right and a peaceful transition would have been possible is the British hadn’t bottled it over Irish demands for devolution.
The 1916 rebellion resulted from Westminster’s accession to the demands of Ulster Protestantism in the wake of the Ulster Covenant signed by nearly quarter of a million people in the North, it saw the formation of the UVF and threatened rivers of blood if devolution occurred, then came WW1 and self rule was totally off the agenda. At that point armed rebellion became inevitable.
As for the ‘majorities lack of support’, I think Yeats exasperation at the majority and their navel gazing self interest was eloquently expressed in his poem September 1913 when he said of them:
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

In other words, the complicit comfortable sheep will always support the status quo, as long as the money keeps rolling in it will trump idealism every time, sheep are rarely either visionary or revolutionary, (psst instead they will vote in FG and Labour and then grumble when nothing changes…)

Roger_007

conorhal wrote: »

That to be honest is the revisionist clap-trap like hawked by the Tintin O' Fool's of this world that has become so trendy of late.

Perhaps you would be right and a peaceful transition would have been possible is the British hadn’t bottled it over Irish demands for devolution.
The 1916 rebellion resulted from Westminster’s accession to the demands of Ulster Protestantism in the wake of the Ulster Covenant signed by nearly quarter of a million people in the North, it saw the formation of the UVF and threatened rivers of blood if devolution occurred, then came WW1 and self rule was totally off the agenda. At that point armed rebellion became inevitable.
As for the ‘majorities lack of support’, I think Yeats exasperation at the majority and their navel gazing self interest was eloquently expressed in his poem September 1913 when he said of them:
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

In other words, the complicit comfortable sheep will always support the status quo, as long as the money keeps rolling in it will trump idealism every time, sheep are rarely either visionary or revolutionary, (psst instead they will vote in FG and Labour and then grumble when nothing changes…)

I am so glad you agree with me.

SEPT 23 1989

For What Died The Sons Of Róisín

For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Irelands blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?

For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?

To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?

For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?

davet82

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun
And the dish ran away with the spoon!

Leftist

all this sentimental rubbish is a waste of time and is embarrassing. it was a very different world with largely different concerns and a totally different enviroment. People whinging about selling out to germany and france are just lazy.
It's a global economy now, a global world. it's not Europe's fault we are in debt. The whole western world is tied together and the EU dragged us from the priest trodden mud.

If padraig pearse wanted us to all be white, irish catholics living in some isolationist state then I am glad we've diverted from that twisted, highly nationalist and out of date world.

Thundercats Ho

Richard Hillman wrote: »

I'll be abroad that weekend. Unfortunately It will be highjacked by Sinn Fein and the Celtic jersey brigade. 1922 is a far more significant year for me.

Jacob T wrote: »

Err one of them was a barrister and school teacher...they were certainly nothing resembling "anto" from tallaght destroying the city centre during love Ulster riots, while wearing a Celtic Jersey

I'm a Celtic supporter. I don't get involved in any of this stuff, and have a passing interest in politics at best.
From memory there were a few Man Utd jerseys at the love Ulster thing, and also at the protest when the queen was visiting in 2011. There were possibly other british club shirts too but i can't recall.

The Celtic shirt thing is being trotted out regularly on boards and is pretty lazy imo. It's on a par with 'dance music fans are scrotes' in my opinion (i'm not a dance music fan).

St.Spodo

Sadly very little came from independence other than independence itself. The ideals of the Proclamation were never realised, but no doubt the centenary will be hijacked by the government.

Sergeant

I'm getting misty-eyed with sentimentality already.

Iwasfrozen

St.Spodo wrote: »

Sadly very little came from independence other than independence itself. The ideals of the Proclamation were never realised, but no doubt the centenary will be hijacked by the government.

What part of it wasn't realised?