Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
John Bruton says Easter Rising was ‘unnecessary’
Options
Comments
-
I’m pointing out that the electorate is obviously not infallible.partyguinness wrote: »and your alternative is.....?
And I’ve been hearing this “anti-Rising = pacifist” nonsense all my life – it’s a real lazy argument.partyguinness wrote: »I have been hearing this 'anti violence' argument for the best part of 25 years from people. Most of it is pure and simple dislike/disdain for the Republican movement but dressed up as some sort of 'anti violence' platform.
Are you honestly suggesting that there was absolutely no alternative to The Rising whatsoever?0 -
And yet The Commons passed three Home Rule bills?That's the thing though, sometimes violence and loss of life is made inevitable by an oppressive force. John Bruton seems to be of the opinion that British imperialism could be challenged by peaceful means alone and that would have resulted in success. The reality of the situation however, was that England had always maintained its dominance over Ireland and systemically shut down any peaceful opposition to its rule there. When its rule was challenged to any serious degree it had no problem deploying legions of police, secret police, agent provocateurs etc etc and ultimately its military in order to crush any resistance.
And yet, the Empire is no more.I fail to see the inevitability of a peaceful transition to independence considering the violent imperial power Britain was.
First of all, The Rising was not about “resisting colonization” – it had already happened centuries before. The lads involved well and truly missed the boat on that one.No, because there's a difference between using physical force to resist colonisation and create a country of "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens"….
Secondly, independent Ireland was a nation conferring “religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens”? Well sure, as long as you were a Catholic, adult male.0 -
Once again, this is the whole “a war was inevitable so it might as well have been the Republicans who started it” argument. Wars are only inevitable when the two sides involved fail to see the alternatives, largely because they don’t want to.steddyeddy wrote: »There is no way unionists would have allowed a home rule bill to go through.0 -
Seems pretty unlikely, given the overwhelming support for independence in Ireland, as opposed to Wales and Scotland.Absolutely ridiculous statement from Bruton - without the Easter rising and the resulting WOI Ireland today would more then likely be the same as Scotland and Wales - remaining under the monarchy.
Has it occurred to you that maybe they had good reason to oppose it (not violently, of course)?As already said the Unionist population in the north would never have stood for Home Rule from Dublin.
Why did it have to be a binary choice?Partition though was one of the worst things that London ever inflicted on the country, London should have stood behind democracy in 1921 and held a 32 county vote on the issue. Home rule under London or Full Independence - let the people decide.0 -
You seem to be arguing against a point I haven’t made?It doesn't matter how long the road leading up to it is, a dead end is a dead end. How many more decades should people have blindly trusted the IPP to muddle through? Or how much longer could they put off actually competing at the ballot box?
Em – ok?Frankly, the bigger fantasy here is that a single event (ie the Rising) suddenly precipitated the collapse of a thriving parliamentary party with a bright future. The reality was that the IPP was in decline and was done for as soon as it attached itself to the (always unpopular) war. Hence it was trounced as soon as a rigorous Nationalist alternative emerged that actually challenged the party at the ballot box.
Sure you do, but you’re not the only one who has attempted to draw moral comparisons between The Rising and WWI.No idea where you got that one.
Again, this is a poor argument. Everyone else celebrates violence, so stop questioning and just grab a flag and start waving.I'm fine with people rejecting both. But insisting on a distinction between politics and violence (or rejecting outright any role for the latter) is a facile judgement. Again, other countries have no problem in accepting that use of violence in the formation of their political or national institutions.
Just to be clear, are you dismissing everything that was ultimately achieved by the parliamentarians, or just the Home Rule Bill?Hence we get Bruton preferring to laud some meaningless parliamentary bill than accept the key role that the events of the "other commemorations" played.0 -
Advertisement
-
Once again, this is the whole “a war was inevitable so it might as well have been the Republicans who started it” argument. Wars are only inevitable when the two sides involved fail to see the alternatives, largely because they don’t want to.
Indeed and unionists have never seen an alternative.0 -
Bruton is right. The violence in 1916 onwards:
1 - Didn't achieve anything materially better than the Home Rule that was already on the table. Sunningdale for slow learners 8 decades early.
2 - Didn't prevent the partition of Ireland - in fact it probably doomed any slight chance of a compromise.
3 - Heavily contributed to, if not outright caused, the Irish Civil War and the political bitterness that has defined our main political parties since.
But for the likes of Pearse, what was critically important was the concept of blood sacrifice. Pearse was as much a jingoistic eejit as the imperialists the Provos denounce today. He was overjoyed when WW1 broke out:
The idea of an independent Ireland coming to pass peacefully was disgusting to him. In Pearse's view there *had* to be blood and conflict to consecrate Ireland as a *real* nation. Freedom and independence was something the Irish had to take violently, it wasn't something the British could give us. Let alone a certain self interest - a peaceful handover of power would leave violent men and violent groups out in the cold politically. Whereas, after the Rising and the resulting conflicts, the Dail was dominated by parties and men with militant records and backgrounds.
So while Bruton is right, he is thinking about it from the point of view of what benefits the Irish people. Pearse and his ilk thought about it from an entirely different perspective.
1. As mentioned early, Home Rule was a dead duck and never on the table. There is this false notion that Home Rule was in place, done and dusted- simply waiting for the inconvenience of WWI to finish. No it wasn't. The electorate in 1918 saw this and rejected it.
Plus, we have not idea how (violently?) the UVF would have acted even if Home Rule magically came into being.
2. So do you think partition was inevitable in 1916? Partition was never on the table in 1916 and was a compromise to the northern Protestants during Treaty negotiations.
3. Heavily contributed to? Yes of course. All the events in that period are inextricable linked. Downright caused? No, that's stretching it, it was pro v. anti Treary that was the downright cause.
Yes, Pearse was all about blood sacrifice and glory and sought to rouse patriotic jingoism. So what? Somebody had to rouse Mother Ireland from her slumber..that was the concept. It was all the fashion in them times across all nations. Even a superficial glances at writers from that period will show you how heavy the concept of blood sacrifice was. Not unique to Ireland and let's not take it out of context. Afterall the imperial powers in Europe were using the same language while sending their troops off the Flanders.
How likely was Britain going to hand back Ireland peacefully? Unlikely.
Would there have been a better Ireland through Home Rule and without 1916 et al? Who knows. It's a somewhat a pointless exercise because 1916 etc did happen like it or not.0 -
I’m pointing out that the electorate is obviously not infallible.
And I’ve been hearing this “anti-Rising = pacifist” nonsense all my life – it’s a real lazy argument.
No far from it. In fact you have missed my point completely. Maybe I wasnt clear. There are people (not all and not directing this at you) who criticise the 1916 Rising. Fine. But they dress up their criticism on an anti-violence platform when really the true root of their disdain is not the 1916 Rising in itself but a rather more broad hatred/disdain for the Republican movement generally. Mixing the modern day version with the 1916 version. John Bruton and his ilk fall into that category. Start a debate about 1916 great, I am all up for that- prob my favourite topic. But I find some commentators disingenuous and quite frankly nauseating.
For example, the likes of Kevin Myers castigating the violence and that they had no mandate etc. That's fine. But the next week weeping into their breakfast when writing about the glorious sacrifices on the Somme etc. Incidently, I wonder how many of the dead soldiers actually had the vote?
It's fine and dandy for the Brits or whoever to the send thousands of people to their slaughter for some imperial jolly but use the 'no mandate' stick against the 1916 Rising. It's bizarre.
Not saying that at all. What I have said is that the alternative at the time was Home Rule. The Irish people roundly rejected it,0 -
Ah yes, if only the other side wasn’t so blinkered, eh?steddyeddy wrote: »Indeed and unionists have never seen an alternative.0 -
It was. You can ignore historical facts as much as you like, but the reality is it was due to come into law. Now, you can argue that you didn’t like what Home Rule represented and you can argue that Unionists would not have been happy with it, but what you can’t do is ignore that it was passed by The Commons three times.partyguinness wrote: »1. As mentioned early, Home Rule was a dead duck and never on the table. There is this false notion that Home Rule was in place, done and dusted- simply waiting for the inconvenience of WWI to finish. No it wasn't.
So let’s start a war to force them to become completely independent? Yeah, that makes sense.partyguinness wrote: »Plus, we have not idea how (violently?) the UVF would have acted even if Home Rule magically came into being.
Probably.partyguinness wrote: »2. So do you think partition was inevitable in 1916?
He refused to consider alternatives. That’s what.partyguinness wrote: »Yes, Pearse was all about blood sacrifice and glory and sought to rouse patriotic jingoism. So what?
How much violence was the declaration of a republic met by?partyguinness wrote: »How likely was Britain going to hand back Ireland peacefully? Unlikely.
Yeah, let’s never examine history and try to learn from past mistakes.partyguinness wrote: »Would there have been a better Ireland through Home Rule and without 1916 et al? Who knows. It's a somewhat a pointless exercise because 1916 etc did happen like it or not.0 -
Advertisement
-
Or maybe just the more militant elements?partyguinness wrote: »No far from it. In fact you have missed my point completely. Maybe I wasnt clear. There are people (not all and not directing this at you) who criticise the 1916 Rising. Fine. But they dress up their criticism on an anti-violence platform when really the true root of their disdain is not the 1916 Rising in itself but a rather more broad hatred/disdain for the Republican movement generally.0 -
partyguinness wrote: »Would there have been a better Ireland through Home Rule and without 1916 et al? Who knows. It's a somewhat a pointless exercise because 1916 etc did happen like it or not.
So we should triumphantly celebrate some jingoistic idiots starting a war just because we have no idea whether or not their goals could have been achieved peacefully?
Yeah, that makes sense.0 -
Really? I suspect the weasel word there is "materially". Because the Treaty provided Ireland with substantially more independence than anything laid out in the various Home Rule bills. The latter didn't even concede Ireland Dominion status, never mind the right to conduct an independent foreign policy. The 1920 Home Rule Bill didn't even give Dublin authority over its lighthouses!1 - Didn't achieve anything materially better than the Home Rule that was already on the table. Sunningdale for slow learners 8 decades early.
So the idea that Home Rule provided the same freedoms as those enjoyed by the Free State is simply fantasy. As I said earlier, the Free State governments were effectively independent of London, something that made eventual independence a formality when it finally came.
And, to point out again, this all assumes that the Home Rule Bill actually came into force and was accepted by the Unionists without any major alterations. That is, the fact that a document was sitting in a drawer in London made very little difference to people if it wasn't possible to turn it into action in Dublin. And the track record of turning good words on Home Rule into something akin to independence was terrible. The constitutional niceties of Home Rule were irrelevant given that it was never going to work.
Again, the key word there is "slight". Regardless of what happened in Dublin, the Unionists were almost certainly going their own way. They were out of synch with not just Sinn Fein and the Gaelic movement but also the IPP - which was generally no more considerate of the North than its successor.2 - Didn't prevent the partition of Ireland - in fact it probably doomed any slight chance of a compromise.
I've always found Pearse to be an interesting character, partly because almost nobody agreed with his nonsense and yet he somehow found himself front and centre. Clarke and Connolly (who rightly dismissed Pearse's jingoistic nonsense as that of a 'blighting idiot') were the brains of 1916 while the later generation (Collins, Dev, Cosgrave, etc) were cut from an entirely different cloth.But for the likes of Pearse, what was critically important was the concept of blood sacrifice. Pearse was as much a jingoistic eejit as the imperialists the Provos denounce today.
So the question is not what motivated Pearse but what he had in common with his more level-headed contemporaries and, as shown by 1918, the rest of the country. You can dismiss him all you want but he was clearly on the money with something. And that was the twin belief that Ireland should be independent and this was not possible by parliamentary means. If either of those had not been common currency throughout the country then 1916 would not have had the resonance it did.
(The irony is that placing an undue emphasis on Pearse's odder writings, critics actually give them more credit than they deserve. Blood sacrifice goes from being overly florid prose to actually explaining what happened post-Rising. That is, Pearse was either this mad figure bent on blood and violence whose death inspired exactly that OR he shared many of the mainstream sentiments that united much of the country and his actions happened to tap into these.)
In short: if the Rising hadn't tapped into popular opinion throughout the rest of the country then it would have been a footnote of history. That it had such an effect strongly suggests that the proclamation of the Republic (or at least the sentiments of the Rising) fell on fertile ground.
My point is simple: the Home Rule Bill was unworkable and the IPP, whose fate it was tied to, was in decline. Hence I disagree when Bruton claims that this was an alternative to the Rising (ie the latter being "completely unnecessary because Home Rule was already on the statute books").djpbarry wrote:You seem to be arguing against a point I haven’t made?
That's a basic restatement because I can't read your mind. If you want to argue the validity of the Home Rule approach (with or without the IPP) then you'll have to go ahead and put it into more than cryptic one liners.
Still in the dark. But, out of curiosity, what's your objection to situating the Rising and the War of Independence in the landscape WWI and its aftermath?Sure you do, but you’re not the only one who has attempted to draw moral comparisons between The Rising and WWI.
Not unless every parliamentary bill is "meaningless".Just to be clear, are you dismissing everything that was ultimately achieved by the parliamentarians, or just the Home Rule Bill?0 -
[Double post but the below is a separate point and was made late enough not to include in the above. Soz.]
Look, we're almost four pages in and at the point where threads usually go off the rails. So let's get down to brass tacks. I've explained above why I believe that the Home Rule Bill was unworkable but let's hear the opposite case be made.oscarBravo wrote: »So we should triumphantly celebrate some jingoistic idiots starting a war just because we have no idea whether or not their goals could have been achieved peacefully?
Yeah, that makes sense.
So. Build me a counter-factual scenario in which London and the IPP manage to successfully implement the 1914 Home Rule Bill. The Rising and War of Independence do not happen (I'm being generous by handwaving away the latter) but other events (eg the Conscription Crisis, Larne gun-running, Curragh Mutiny) proceed as they did historically.
So tell me how the British government plans to make the unworkable workable. Tell me how armed resistance in Ulster is overcome. Tell me how Redmond sells this to an increasingly radicalised population. Tell me how, when the map of Europe is being redrawn according to Wilson's principles, the Irish accept Home Rule that denies them even Dominion status. Tell me how this leads to independence on roughly the same timeline as our history.
Let's put together a scenario that makes the Rising "completely unnecessary". Then we'll look at each link to see just how much "sense" it makes to simply dismiss out of hand those Nationalists who didn't trust London to deliver for Ireland.
[Edit: Keep in mind that this is not supposed to be easy. Like any of the other 19th C 'Questions', people struggled for decades to try and resolve this conundrum. If there were an easy answer then I'm sure it would have been taken.]0 -
The reactionary violence of the British authorities to 1916 that culminated in the execution of the Rising's leaders didn't help the Home Rule cause either. John Redmond urged the British to exercise leniency in this regard because of what might happen next.0
-
oscarBravo wrote: »So we should triumphantly celebrate some jingoistic idiots starting a war just because we have no idea whether or not their goals could have been achieved peacefully?
Yeah, that makes sense.
If that's how you see it, fine. More power to you.
Nobody is forcing you or 'we' to triumphantly celebrate anything. How do you feel about commemorating it?0 -
Of course unionists by their very nature could oppose an independent Ireland back then but for them to arm themselves and defy the democratic process of the 32 counties was disgraceful.Seems pretty unlikely, given the overwhelming support for independence in Ireland, as opposed to Wales and Scotland.
Has it occurred to you that maybe they had good reason to oppose it (not violently, of course)?
Why did it have to be a binary choice?
What actually made it worse was London's refusal to stop Unionists having this power and letting partition take hold which effect some 100 years later is still felt in hatred, fear and power struggles in the 6 counties.
You cannot say for certain that Ireland would have gained full independence from Britain as a republic if the WOI and the Easter rising didn't take place, you have to remember up to and including the Easter rising itself the rich and powerful catholic elite along with their protestant unionist counterparts firmly wanted to stay in the Union. The shooting of the 1916 leaders changed absolutely everything - men, women, young and old volunteers from every city, town, parish and townland flocked to set up or join their local IRA grouping. After the leaders were shot, the country was ungovernable from a British point of view, nothing bar complete ethnic cleansing of the local population could have worked.
For every Irishman or woman they beat or killed 5 more joined the fight in some way or another as Collins and his men became cult hero's in their fight against British tyranny.
Of course one of many "what if's" is what Collins would have done about the 6 counties as his "stepping stone" faded into the embers of the Civil war - IMO and I have no proof of this I think he would have eventually brought the two treaty sides together, eventually re-armed with funds from the states and re-engaged across the border against the orange government.
We will never know what Collins would have done but I refuse to believe he would have took the DeValera stance of shouting at a distance at Belfast and London - although my view also has to be balanced with Collins obvious war weariness which stretched all the way back to Easter 1916, WOI and Civil war. In truth he could very well have know there was a big big chance he would not return from Cork - he was entering bandit country and who know maybe deep down he welcomed it as had seen his county tear itself apart over his treaty.0 -
-
oscarBravo wrote: »So we should triumphantly celebrate some jingoistic idiots starting a war just because we have no idea whether or not their goals could have been achieved peacefully?
Yeah, that makes sense.
So you think we shouldn't celebrate any armed struggle or member of an armed force because they were jingoistic idiots for starting a war?
By the way you realise jingoistic refers to a tendency to act aggressively to a country with who you have peaceful relations with? No country that was ruled as a colony had peaceful relations with the colonial power.0 -
That's the thing though, sometimes violence and loss of life is made inevitable by an oppressive force. John Bruton seems to be of the opinion that British imperialism could be challenged by peaceful means alone and that would have resulted in success. The reality of the situation however, was that England had always maintained its dominance over Ireland and systemically shut down any peaceful opposition to its rule there. When its rule was challenged to any serious degree it had no problem deploying legions of police, secret police, agent provocateurs etc etc and ultimately its military in order to crush any resistance.
Ireland wasn't exactly the last colony the Brits lost either. They had very little qualms in brutally suppressing independence movements in places like Cyprus, India, Kenya and a variety of others. From the 1970s onwards they fought a long and dirty war in Ireland with a view to keeping a part of that country within the UK.
I fail to see the inevitability of a peaceful transition to independence considering the violent imperial power Britain was.
No, because there's a difference between using physical force to resist colonisation and create a country of "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens" and getting slaughtered wholesale to preserve the rule of elitist monarchies and capitalists across Europe.
My uncle was one of the chief organisers of the civil rights movement in the north. When Bloody Sunday happened they realised that the peaceful method had been rejected by the British government. He left to live in the south of Ireland and the IRA filled the gap, Sometimes the peaceful method will be tried and rejected. Can you imagine peaceful protests ending apartheid in South Africa?0 -
Advertisement
-
And starting a war was worthwhile because Dublin gained authority over its lighthouses?Really? I suspect the weasel word there is "materially". Because the Treaty provided Ireland with substantially more independence than anything laid out in the various Home Rule bills. The latter didn't even concede Ireland Dominion status, never mind the right to conduct an independent foreign policy. The 1920 Home Rule Bill didn't even give Dublin authority over its lighthouses!
Nobody has said it was the same. What is being said is the relatively small differences were not worth the violence.So the idea that Home Rule provided the same freedoms as those enjoyed by the Free State is simply fantasy.
Does it? Why?And, to point out again, this all assumes that the Home Rule Bill actually came into force and was accepted by the Unionists without any major alterations.
Probably – a fact that Republicans seem to have a hard time accepting.Again, the key word there is "slight". Regardless of what happened in Dublin, the Unionists were almost certainly going their own way.
Of course it was possible by parliamentary means – Pearse just had absolutely no interest in achieving independence peacefully.So the question is not what motivated Pearse but what he had in common with his more level-headed contemporaries and, as shown by 1918, the rest of the country. You can dismiss him all you want but he was clearly on the money with something. And that was the twin belief that Ireland should be independent and this was not possible by parliamentary means.
Eh, no. Had the protagonists not been executed, The Rising would have been forgotten.In short: if the Rising hadn't tapped into popular opinion throughout the rest of the country then it would have been a footnote of history. That it had such an effect strongly suggests that the proclamation of the Republic (or at least the sentiments of the Rising) fell on fertile ground.
…but full independence was not?My point is simple: the Home Rule Bill was unworkable…
You accept that most of Ulster remains part of the UK. Simples.So tell me how the British government plans to make the unworkable workable. Tell me how armed resistance in Ulster is overcome.0 -
-
I don’t think either party was reasonable. That’s kind of my point.steddyeddy wrote: »Yes frankly. You think they would have been the reasonable party?
So peaceful protest has never, ever brought about change?steddyeddy wrote: »Can you imagine peaceful protests ending apartheid in South Africa?0 -
-
And yet The Commons passed three Home Rule bills?
And yet when their dominion over the country was threatened in a meaningful sense they sent in rafts of paramilitary police and the military in order to beat the country back into submission. In 1918 the Irish people voted overwhelmingly for independence and a Republican platform. The British response to the democratically-elected Dáil Éireann was to round up its members, intern them in prison and then charge them with sedition. That was the real British attitude to democracy in Ireland; anything that wasn't watered-down devolution on their terms was a threat to be a smashed immediately.And yet, the Empire is no more.
I'm sorry but this point is ridiculous. The "Empire is no more" precisely because people across the world struggled in pretty much the same way the IRA did, in fact we were one of the first people in the world to do it. The French didn't leave Vietnam and Algeria because they were politely remonstrated with by native political elites, similarly the Brits didn't leave Kenya and Malaysia as part of a natural decolonisation process. In short, they had to be f*cked out on their ear on the back of popular and often violent resistance movements. Basically on one hand you're bemoaning anti-imperialist armed struggle and on the other you're lauding the dismantling of Empire that that struggle achieved.
Similarly the above independence struggles raged on until the swinging 1960s, well after WW2 was supposedly fought to defeat 'tyranny' and all of the lark. Never mind what the climate was like in the early part of the 20th Century when Western imperialism was in full effect. Similarly, considering the Brits fought a very dirty 25 year war in Ireland (which included them colluding with Loyalist death squads) in order to maintain their sovereignty there, I would be very suspicious indeed in their commitment to democracy in Ireland.0 -
-
Which of course had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the meeting of the First Dail just happened to coincide with the beginning of the War of Independence.And yet when their dominion over the country was threatened in a meaningful sense they sent in rafts of paramilitary police and the military in order to beat the country back into submission. In 1918 the Irish people voted overwhelmingly for independence and a Republican platform. The British response to the democratically-elected Dáil Éireann was to round up its members, intern them in prison and then charge them with sedition. That was the real British attitude to democracy in Ireland; anything that wasn't watered-down devolution on their terms was a threat to be a smashed immediately.
But for the record, just because I question the need for The Rising and all the followed, it does not mean I implicitly support or condone anything that the British authorities of the time were responsible for.
I would argue that armed struggle generally achieves very little. It is grass roots civil rights and political movements that have been far more effective at bringing about change. Do I really need to cite the example of Gandhi?I'm sorry but this point is ridiculous. The "Empire is no more" precisely because people across the world struggled in pretty much the same way the IRA did, in fact we were one of the first people in the world to do it.
Just because violence occurred, it doesn’t mean it was necessary.The French didn't leave Vietnam and Algeria because they were politely remonstrated with by native political elites, similarly the Brits didn't leave Kenya and Malaysia as part of a natural decolonisation process. In short, they had to be f*cked out on their ear on the back of popular and often violent resistance movements.0 -
How about the right to conduct an independent foreign policy? Maintain an army? Have complete control over tax policy? Determine trade/customs policy? Legislate on coinage, telegraphs or patents? Or indeed independently alter the Act itself and change Dublin's relationship with London?And starting a war was worthwhile because Dublin gained authority over its lighthouses?
And that's not even digging into the constitutional niceties. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the degree of autonomy/independence won historically in 1921 was far greater than that on offer in 1914. The Free State was de facto an independent nationstate (increasingly so as successive governments bulldozed the Treaty) to a degree that Home Rule never came close to promising.
No, the claim has been made. Witness: "The violence in 1916 onwards didn't achieve anything materially better than the Home Rule that was already on the table". Hence my response. It's also been used in reference to the ease with which Ireland achieved formal independence in 1937.Nobody has said it was the same. What is being said is the relatively small differences were not worth the violence.
In fact, you've contributed to this yourself by referring to "relatively small differences". See above.
Because in 1916, not only did the Home Rule Bill promise a very limited degree of autonomy, Unionist objections meant that there were major questions over what its final form would actually take and if it were ever implemented at all. Which was borne out by subsequent events.Does it? Why?
So when people look back and chastise the IRB/ICA for rising when there was the Bill on the table, they are completely ignoring both the limitations and uncertainty over Home Rule. Even that, with its pale shadow of independence, was not a certainty in 1916.
Snore. See my previous post on putting together a plausible counterfactual scenario. And my previous post on Pearse's role. And below on the silliness of Great Man history.Of course it was possible by parliamentary means – Pearse just had absolutely no interest in achieving independence peacefully.
This is primary school history. So in your world, pre-1916 most Irish people were happy citizens of the Empire and were perfectly content with the limitations of Home Rule (with the glimmer of independence in decades to come). Then BAM. Suddenly the British execute 16 men and the whole country turns rabidly Nationalist and votes en masse for a separatist party at the next opportunity.Eh, no. Had the protagonists not been executed, The Rising would have been forgotten.
The legacy of the Rising came not from its actions or even the executions (which is not the ignore the impact of either) but the fact that it chimed with a well established Nationalist current in Ireland. (One that had been poorly served in that regard by the IPP.) The very act of rising automatically tapped into the tradition of anti-British protest* and conveyed an automatic degree of legitimacy to those associated with it.
A single atrocity does not suddenly flip the attitudes of an entire nation. The executions amplified the impact of the Rising but the latter (and, more generally, independence) was by no means out of step with popular opinion.
*Which had never gone away. Even the IPP had used God Save Ireland (a hymn to IRB 'martyrs') as the pre-war Nationalist anthem.
No. Excepting Ulster, the War of Independence secured de facto independence for the nation and allowed for an easy exit from the Empire in the next decade. The fact that it actually happened tends to suggest that the pro-independence solution was 'workable'.…but full independence was not?
You understand that this is not what the Home Rule Bill ever planned?You accept that most of Ulster remains part of the UK. Simples.0 -
Which of course had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the meeting of the First Dail just happened to coincide with the beginning of the War of Independence.
The two events were unrelated actually. Dan Breen and Seán Treacy undertook Soloheadbeg on their own volition and much to the surprise of most of the Republican Movement at the time. The IRB actually tried to force the two of them to jump on the boat to the US but the men were having none of it. Anyway, your point doesn't hold up as the British authorities had long planned to suppress the establishment of the Dáil, well before a shot was fired. They had a long history of coercing democratically elected politicians and even interned Parnell, the quintessential parliamentarian, without trial at one stage.But for the record, just because I question the need for The Rising and all the followed, it does not mean I implicitly support or condone anything that the British authorities of the time were responsible for.
That's fair enough, I'm simply trying to point out what the Irish people were up against. They weren't dealing with a benevolent democracy in a free and fair political system, they were dealing with an armed imperial superpower who didn't give two sh*ts about using force to overturn any challenge to their dominion in Ireland. I reject this notion that the men and women of 1916 and afterward were simply die-hard militarists who were throwing a spanner in the works of an inevitable peaceful transition; and that's exactly the sort of b*llocks that hand-wringing revisionists like Bruton espouse.I would argue that armed struggle generally achieves very little.
It worked for the Cubans, Algerians, Angolans and countless other colonies didn't it? The Vietnamese didn't tickle the French and Americans out of their country.It is grass roots civil rights and political movements that have been far more effective at bringing about change.
Do I really need to cite the example of Gandhi?
Need I cite Ho Chi Minh, Ben Bella, Fidel Castro, Jomo Kenyatta? Most of the armed revolutionaries also engaged in political and social struggle at the same time, the armed struggle was merely the spearhead of that. In places like Vietnam and Algeria armed struggle was the only means by which they could achieve freedom due to the opposition they faced. One thing I won't be doing is condemning those who struggled for freedom against imperialism.0 -
Advertisement
-
Of course it was necessary. If WW1 hadn't broke there would have been a bloodier war between the UVF & Irish volunteers than 1916 - 21.
The country was getting impatient, it had been 30 years since Home rule had been promised & the country was getting fed up with it been put on the shelves for WW1 which looked like it could go on for years in 1916 was natural they would have wanted something more radical. Maybe the timing was bad that's all.0
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement