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Sabina Higgins Letter to Irish Times calling for ceasefire on Ukraine

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997



    You're the one trying to shut down criticism of what she wrote.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    No, I actually criticised the content Flinty and debated others on it. I object to those who would say she has no right to an opinion. Do read the thread.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,963 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    Rebellions very much were destroyed, just not the "spirit of Rebellion".

    In our own conflicts, whose centenaries we have been commemorating, each time the fighting was ended by a ceasefire being called, followed by negotiation. This was so in the 1916 Rising, in the War of Independence, and in our tragic Civil War.

    This is objectively false. There categorically was not a ceasefire and negotiations following "each time" there was fighting in Ireland. It definitely wasn't true following the 1916 Rising. It is a shockingly poor understanding of Irish history.


    I never said she wasn't entitled to it, just that it is deeply misguided and naive.

    Publishing it via the Office of the President was, however, grossly incorrect.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,705 ✭✭✭✭Hello 2D Person Below


    I don't dispute any of that but the point was a simple one - Ukraine are losing the war. Russia holds far more territory than it did in January and Ukraine holds far less territory than it did in January. For all the money, weapons and intelligence that Ukraine have received, that's the reality.

    I've been pleasantly surprised by Ukraine's defence, Russia are certainly advancing slower than I thought they would, but they're advancing nonetheless.

    Whatever way the war ends, Ukraine surrendering is certainly the least likely.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    That's a different point to the 'destroyed' one.

    I would agree on 1916. But the most recent conflict/war ended with ceasefires and negotiations.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Usually it's the fighting that gets them to the table.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Would love to know the chain of events that led to the letter being published on the website, and subsequently taken down. If Sabina is a private citizen then why was it published there?

    There’s a strange whiff off this story.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Yes agreed. There are those here who seem to be confused about that, In the Irish context nationalism is wrong, evil even, but in Ukraine it is right.

    Here, credit goes to those who seen an oppurtunity for peace and grasped the chance. Where would we have been if Hume, for instance was silenced and forbidden to seek a settlement? Or Trimble or Adams for that matter. And there were attempts to do that, even within their own party's (SDLP, SF and the UUP) and in Irish and British media.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Most expected Russia to steamroller over the country. They've a massive superiority in numbers 5:1 or higher and equipment.

    They were fought to standstill in the north then rotated to the east then south east. All have been effectively stopped. They are making tiny advances and have had to retreat in some significant areas even at sea.

    To achieve these gains they've been bled dry. Massive losses in both troops and equipment. They've had to resort to stripping other parts of Russia of units and reactivate 40yr obsolete equipment. They've been shown up as shadow of it's former power. It's technology is dated and in short supply.

    The Russian can sustain far heavier loss'es then Ukraine. But not at the rate they have been. Even Russia has limits.

    Ukraine has been hoarding it's limited resources by withdrawing east and using the resources its been given and small unit tactics to fight a war of attrition. It's a big country they can retreat for a long time at this rate. But it's not exhaustible either. They made dinner significant gains lately.

    That Russia has been fought to an almost standstill and incurred such massive losses, suggests all is not well with Russian military. Putin has been trying to relive old Glories by dragging old bombers back into service and flag flying around Ireland etc. But there more than a whiff of the emperor's new clothes about it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,261 ✭✭✭Gant21


    The president will have to intervene in this fiasco.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    It's has no parallels to the north stop trying to derail every thread to be about Irish Nationalism.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    I imagine he would very much agree with her. Lately he's been very vocal on a number of issues.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Oh give it a rest.

    Sabina introduced our experience, it is entirely relevant to the thread.

    Don't want to countenance it...scroll on.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,963 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    We’re descending into pretty silly semantics here Francie. As far as I’m concerned the 1798 rebellion was utterly destroyed. You want to claim It wasn’t cause of 1803 or 1848 then fine but we are simply taking different meanings of the word.

    She stated all fighting in Ireland ended in ceasefire and negotiations when in fact all but one time it basically ended in unconditional surrender of Irish forces, with executions and mass destruction of Irish people. It’s historically illiterate. Which is just a side comment on the general awfulness of the letter.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Well I'd argue 1916 didn't end with the executions and surrender, and was the start of something, but that is for another thread as you say and off topic.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,277 ✭✭✭Deub


    Her letter is disgusting. It has a bad smell of NIMBY behaviour.

    The support was huge at the start of the war and the vast majority agreed with NATO and other countries supporting Ukraine. But now it is start to impact them at home (electricity and gas) some people changed their opinion.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,780 ✭✭✭littlevillage


    The Government spin doctors and madirins have very effectively kept the lid on this controversy.... Soo far.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,679 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Perhaps he could re-use his Nigeria Church massacre quote for Ukraine? 😉

    "All those impacted not only by these horrible events, but in the struggle by the most vulnerable, on whom the consequences of climate change have been inflicted”.

    But seriously, he should say something to diffuse this a bit, e.g. show a bit more sympathy for the Ukrainians.

    A good distraction though would be for him to bang on again about the Housing Crisis.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    He has already expressed his own views that Russia must withdraw.

    President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, has called on Russia to halt the unjustified violence and withdraw troops from Russia in a new statement.

    President Michael D. Higgins issues statement on Ukraine crisis: "Every glimmer of hope through diplomacy must be seized" | Hotpress



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,017 ✭✭✭riddles


    I think she can write whatever she likes I know I for one wouldn’t read anything she wrote. Same for that King Brian of the fairies she’s married too - all that crowd like Robinson and McAleese all parasites.

    Loading up the bank balances is their key skill set whilst preaching a load of auld tosh.



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    For the most part I have a lot of admiration for Higgins but that letter is just incredibly naive. Also a bit of an insult to all the displaced Ukrainians.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,679 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Yes, but that was on the 1st of March, 5 months ago now. Whereas Sabina's letter, highlighted on President.ie (before someone took it down), was a few days ago. And I think this changes things.

    Also, I think comparison between relatively minor Irish events like the 1916 Rising, and our Civil War, are not really good comparisons with the massive suffering and cataclysm that occurred in Ukraine between 1914 and 1952. ww1, russian civil war (e.g. De-Cossackization - Wikipedia), the 1921 Famine, the much worse 1932 famine, Stalin's purges, ww2, and removal of remaining nationalist resistance up to 1952.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,227 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Russia has invaded another country and committed wholesale slaughter and destruction.

    It's tone deaf (and arguably morally bankrupt) to imply these events and anything related are in anyway propped up by Ukraine defending itself.

    Appeasement won't work when Russia has to long passed the point of no return. Everything they do and say suggests they won't stop with Ukraine. How can you be blind to that.



  • Registered Users Posts: 66,301 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    I don't think she was comparing them in scale TBH.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 21,934 CMod ✭✭✭✭Ten of Swords


    Mod - Thread is going off topic, let's get back on track.

    Please discuss the letter and/or whether you think it was appropriate for her to send it, as wife of the president.

    This is not the place to rekindle arguments from other threads



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    It is wrong. It allows the aggressor - who is on the ropes now - to reorganise and regroup, bring stocks of ammunition to the front. It will directly lead to more Ukrainians deaths.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,575 ✭✭✭Economics101


    The Irish Times has milked this letter for all that it's worth. More exposure for the Russian Ambassador, and reactions from Ukrainians which are totally not news - how do you expect them to react to this stupid letter?

    The original aphorism about an ambassador being someone sent abroad to lie for his country does not apply here: the remark referred to an honest man being sent abroad,,,,



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,355 ✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    Please point out the clause in the constitution which has been breached.

    I heard the same "legal" rhetoric when he called out the housing disaster but there is no clause in the constitution preventing him doing so.

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,325 ✭✭✭cuttingtimber22


    Michael D should resign.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,650 ✭✭✭growleaves


    Read banie01's posts further back in the thread though I can't say if he has definitely breached it. It isn't clear that he definitely hasn't, would love to get a take from a constitutional scholar.

    Before Higgins (BH) the President didn't act as a thorn in the side of the Government by putting out a parallel set of policy positions into the public realm.

    There is another poster on these threads who likes to say "The days of a FF bully in a cheap suit smoking a fag and telling the President what he can do are long gone." Well okay then but it creates a bit of a headache for the Gov.



This discussion has been closed.
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