Jack300 wrote: » This is not true. The social, economic and political reality experienced by Irish People in their day to day lives was colonial. This did not change with the passing of the Act of Union. All the Act of Union did was get rid of the Parliament in Dublin. The overwhelming majority of Irish people were excluded from that parliament anyway so it made little difference to them. Also in Britain they continued to treat Ireland as a colony and continued to see Ireland and the Irish as the stereotypical “other”. Seeing the Irish as “other” also cut across class lines and was not just confined to the upper classes of British society. This attitude remained prevalent in British society(especially it’s political class) right up to and after the outbreak of the Troubles in the 1960’s. In fact the contradiction in this attitude of seeing Ireland at once the colonial “other” and supposed integral part of the British State was a contributing factor to the worsening of the Troubles. As for the Irish people in the British Army, it is a standard motif of Imperial discourse to see war as glorious and adventurous. It is not surprising therefore to see adventure being trotted out here as the fundamental reason for Irish people joining the British Army.
purplengold wrote: » Ireland was not a colony; it was part of the United Kingdom just as Northern Ireland still is to this day. And it would be ridiculous to describe Northern Ireland as a colony, by that definition Scotland and Wales are also colonies. It really doesn’t matter what you choose to believe or what spin you put on it. The fact is Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Get over it.
m1ke wrote: » A lot of political science research shows that former British colonies are much much more likely to be democratic than French, German, Portguese etc... (for reasons that I won't go into). So British political culture, values and institutions must have had some positive effect. Even in Ireland! Sure there were a lot of negative aspects to the British empire but it can claim to have done some good too.
My understanding of Ireland's role in the Empire was that we were officially part of the United Kingdom, with representation in Westminster. This was not the case for other colonies/countries. Ireland had a more active role than a lot of the posters on this thread acknowledge.
Fratton Fred wrote: » I guess it would be easy to consider the Irish as "Others" when pretty much every time Britain had an enemy, people from Ireland were siding with them. I think at some point Irish "Rebels " have called on the help of Rome, France, Spain, Germany even Nazi Germany. The Irish have been carrying out terrorists attacks in England of one sort or another for most of the 20th Century, any wonder they were considered a seperate group? Politically though, Ireland was not a colony, it was a troublesome part of the UK.
Jack300 wrote: » Before the Act of Union was passed Ireland was a colony and ruled as such. The act of Union incorporated the island into the British State. It did not change the colonial attitudes that governed the relationship between the two islands. All it did was move Irish representation to Westminister, this in reality means little. As I outlined the relationship between northern Ireland and the British mainland was complicated, however, the attitudes that governened that relationship remained essentially colonial. The British political elite includeing the Conservatives saw the Northern Irish State as not really British. As such they tended to ignore it. An example of this would be the fact that you could not raise issues related solely to Northern Ireland in Westminister because they had their own parliament. However despite this it would not be right to see northern Ireland experience as purely colonial. There were complexities, however, to completley dismiss the colonial attitudes as you do is I would suggest is very stupid and completely politically motivated and not as another poster points out conducive to good debate.
Jack300 wrote: » But that is just playing up imperial sterotypes and is purely politically motivated.btw I don't care what you think, your prejudices are irrelevant to a discussion on history. I have to agree with the other poster eroo this forum is shocking.
Jack300 wrote: » AS for Irish people helping the empire of course this is true however, this is also complex. Some did so because they had a genuine affinity with Imperialism some did not. It is complicated.
Fratton Fred wrote: » You must surely be a west brit to have such strong views about Guinness:D nope , Im a non drinker who used to drink quite a lot , a veritable beer connossieur and authority on the subject . And in my considered opinion Guinness is minging pish. the breweries and distillaries also provided jobs to people, as did the landlords who presumably employed people to harvest all these crops being exported. In a country of almost 10 million starving people a few breweries werent going to provide much employment . Please be serious , thats a ridiculous suggestion . Its very unlikely a native Irish catholic would have found employment in a brewery in those days in any event . Furthermore the landlords did not employ the Irish to harvest the grain . The grain crops were grown and harvested by the Irish themselves . not by the landlords . The Irish had to sell the grain to the landlord to pay the rent and remain on the land . After that they were supposed to survive on potatoes . Despite this many who did manage to pay their rent were still evicted . Tens of thousands of troops were brought into the country to enforce this . A massive local militia was also recruited into the RIC to enforce the evictions . Large sums of public money were spent , the policy wasnt laissez faire but extermination . The theory behing the Laissez Faire policy was that by keeping free trade going, it would create employment, wealth and people could afford to feed their families. No , most definitely not . The theory behind laisez faire was from a British point of view Ireland was overpopulated , sheep were more profitable and less politically and militarily dangerous than human beings , and the population had to be dramatically reduced to more managable numbers. The policy was mass extermination . The failure of the potato crop was viewed by them as divine providence , a heaven sent solution to the problem they faced of too many Irish people in Ireland for the British system to comfortably cope with . Lord Trevelyan , the man Britian put in charge of what they laughingly referred to as famine relief stated in 1847 at the height of the holocaust ``It is my opinion that too much has been done for the people. Under such treatment the people have grown worse instead of better, and we must now try what independent exertion, and the operation of natural causes, can do.... I shall rest after two years of such continuous hard work in public service, as I have never had in my life." Afterwards as he holidayed in France, he added in his diaries " The problem of Irish overpopulation being altogether beyond the power of man, the cure had been supplied by the direct stroke of an all-wise Providence " As Lord Clarendon, the British viceroy in Ireland during the 1840s, wrote to British Prime Minister Lord John Russell: "I don't think there is another legislature in Europe that would coldly persist in this policy of extermination." The British viceroy was hardly some Fenian with a grudge . He saw the policy very clearly for what it was . Mass extermination . That makes it very clear . It wasnt about laissez faire and the belief this would provide the cure to the welfare of the Irish people . It was about the British empire taking the view that the Irish population needed to be culled . Exterminated to a manageable degree . And it was . It obviously didn;t work, because like most theories, it depends on people playing fair which the Landlords obviously didn't do. firstly lets be very clear this theory that it was done to help the Irish is unsurprisingly a theory youve just made up off the top of your head . Im not going to be dragged into a context where something youve just made up in your own head because it sounds more agreeable to you is actually the truth . Not going to happen . For example , some managers of public works schemes wanted to use the schemes to provide irrigation and drainage , opening up bogland for agricultural use . This would have produced food and saved lives . British policy strictly forbade this and insisted upon totally pointless work being carried out with no purpose other than to work people to death breaking stones and making roads to nowhere . A human being needs a specific calorific intake in order to produce energy . If you dont give a human enough food he'll die . If you force a human to work digging roads to nowhere and dont feed him hell die . The policy in Ireland was the policy of auschwitz . Extermination . There was an Irish probelm and there was a jewish problem one hundred years apart . The theory was one which the landlords , who were the rulers and the establishment , made up for themselves and insisted upon governemnt assistance in enforcing . They were given tens of thousands of troops and militia at the expense of the British exchequer to enforce their policies . It did not go wrong by any means , it went perfectly right . They were very happy with the outcome of their policies . They were even rewarded and decorated by Queen Victoria in 1948 for their Irish policies . why you persist in claiming something went wrong somewhere isnt a mystery at all . Its just denial . It's one of the arguements with Africa at the moment, European farmers are being paid subsidies which allow european crops to be sold at a loss, this prevents cheap imports from Africa entering the european market, so African farmers can't sell their crops, can't feed their families and therefore end up receiving charity from the same europeans who are preventing them earning a living. The difference is the europeans dont own the land on which the africans grow the crops and arent sending tens of thousands of troops to africa and evicting them in their millions from their homes as a matter of policy in the wish to see them die in their millions .
You must surely be a west brit to have such strong views about Guinness:D
the breweries and distillaries also provided jobs to people, as did the landlords who presumably employed people to harvest all these crops being exported.
The theory behing the Laissez Faire policy was that by keeping free trade going, it would create employment, wealth and people could afford to feed their families.
It obviously didn;t work, because like most theories, it depends on people playing fair which the Landlords obviously didn't do.
It's one of the arguements with Africa at the moment, European farmers are being paid subsidies which allow european crops to be sold at a loss, this prevents cheap imports from Africa entering the european market, so African farmers can't sell their crops, can't feed their families and therefore end up receiving charity from the same europeans who are preventing them earning a living.
kreuzberger wrote: » nope , Im a non drinker who used to drink quite a lot , a veritable beer connossieur and authority on the subject . And in my considered opinion Guinness is minging pish.
Fratton Fred wrote: » Britian did not use Gas in Iraq, please find me something that says they did.
Fratton Fred wrote: You speak of the Britih Empire as if Ireland were not part, but they were. Ireland was not a colony, ireland was part of Britain and the Irish were very much part of Britains exploits overseas. The British Empire was won by the Irish, Administered by the Scots and lost by the English.
Snickers Man wrote: » No they didn't. Just bombs. A first hand account from the man in charge describes how it worked. It makes for interesting reading, especially when you consider that what is being described here refers to the 1920s. But it sounds oh-so-familiar to anybody who reads the papers today. When I got to Irak (sic), or Mespot as we called it in those days, Sir John Salmond had just taken over the "air control" of the country and most of the very large army forces which the British tax payer refused any longer to support there had departed. A rebellion had broken out in 1920, because the Arabs had been led to expect complete independence and had got instead British Army occupation and a horde of Jack-in-Office officials; the British Army forces occupying the country .... (got) the rebellion under after some months of hard fighting with heavy casualties on both sides. The military control of Irak was transferred from the army to the RAF entirely to save money. ......... The truculent and warlike tribes which occupied and still controlled, after the rebellion, large parts of Irak, had to be quelled, and in this our heavy bombers played a major part. We were hundreds of miles up river near Baghdad and in the very centre of thoroughly turbulent and wholly unpacified tribes on whom we were endeavouring to impose government of local Baghdad i Effendis whom the tribesmen have naturally held in utter contempt from time immemorial. When a tribe started open revolt we gave warning to all its most important villages, by loud speaker from low flying aircraft and by dropping messages, that air action would be taken after 48 hours. Then, if the rebellion continued, we destroyed the villages and by air patrols kept the insurgents away from their homes for as long as necessary until they decided to give up, which they invariably did.Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Command, 1947 Ever get the feeling the British, and their successors the Americans, are not very good at this governing Iraq, or Irak, business? Nearly 100 years on and you're STILL at the same old same old and pretending that it's really working this time. Oh you are very right to bring up the fact that an Empire is largely ruled by its subject peoples. And it's something that we in Ireland MUST confront. But the point is that as an independent republic we can, if we wish, draw a line under that and insist that the nature of our new (ish) state is inherently anti imperialist and anti colonial. It requires that our actions in foreign policy reflect that and they don't always, but our clinging on to a notion of neutrality, even though it's something of a fig leaf, vis a vis flights out of Shannon, is an important part of that. The British way of dealing with that history has to be subtly different. You have retained the monarchy, in whose name this exploitation was effected and you continue to involve yourselves in wars that have been going on for nearly a century while trying to dress each subsequent campaign up as something different. But I know that there is a huge body of opinion in Britain which prefers to see its own history in terms of an exploitative class struggle and is determined to link the liberation of its own people to the liberation of its former subjects. These are the workign classes who dreamed of a welfare state and a just society and were prepared to fight their own countrymen and masters to achieve it. They are the people whose mettle and determination fought the Second World War for you, and contributed to its victory. How did they celebrate it? By kicking out the commander in chief (Churchill) and his Tory cohorts and voting in the most hardline socialist government ever seen in western Europe. You should be proud of those people, not of the likes of those old murderous imperialists like Kitchener (Irish born) or Cecil Rhodes, or Stanford Raffles etc etc etc
Fratton Fred wrote: » If you don't care what i think, then don't quote me. If you don;t like the thread, ignore it. It's not difficult.
This thread was set up to allow the Brit bashers bash the British empire, but as usual it ends as a "Look what those nasty Brits did to us poor Irish" type thread.
Fratton Fred wrote: » Yes, this is complicated, but to say young Irishmen joined the army out of a need to feed their families is not true, that is my point. Young Irishmen would have, I am presuming, joined the British army for the same reason young men joined the army all over europe.
csk wrote: » Do you believe that marxism is a viable theory then?
PDN wrote: » No, I think Marxism is a load of junk. You don't have to be a Marxist to acknowledge the historical fact that in most societies those who have real wealth (owning land) tend to crap on the working classes.
csk wrote: » Ah so I was right. It was just empty rhetoric with no point. :rolleyes:
PDN wrote: » So you think only Marxists are allowed to believe that the working classes have historically got a raw deal? :rolleyes:
csk wrote: » Of course such rhetoric is purely ironic I take it? and ultimately you have no point let alone any wish to debate anything that doesn't confirm to your own prejudiced cliche?
brianthebard wrote: » This is you speaking tongue in cheek I guess? Considering your posts above number 80, its hard to take you seriously complaining about someone elses rhethoric, given your own cack handed ways with it.
csk wrote: » No I would expect a Marxist to have more analysis of the situation in Ireland like, indeed, Marx and Engels who had quite a bit to say on Ireland. On the other hand I would expect someone with empty rhetoric and no point to spout simplistic Marxist rhetoric in an effort at appearing clever.
PDN wrote: » Maybe on the way in you forgot to look at the bit that says "History & Heritage"? You should have taken a left turn a bit earlier if you wanted the Politics forum.
I am interested in history and noting a trend or event in history does not need to have a political point. One of the reasons why it's so hard to have sensible discussions on this board is that some people are more driven by ideology than by a genuine interest in history. If you try to force events into your narrow little ideological perspective (be it republican, marxist, or pro-British) then all you do is distort history.
I couldn't give a toss if anyone thinks I'm clever or not - I grew out of that phase many years ago. I enjoy discussing history, and I believe it is a valid point that the landed gentry tend to crap all over the workers (irrespective of whether they are British, Irish or Chinese). If you can't tell the difference between a simple observation about human nature and spouting "simplistic Marxist rhetoric" then that's really no concern of mine. I can't stop you making a pratt of yourself.
csk wrote: » Again I agree, as I said I have highlighted this before. Who are these "some people", btw? So what ideological perspective should we come at history from?
But your "simple observation about human nature" was just that simple. Tbh it goes without saying and hardly offers us anything we didn't know already.
PDN wrote: » McMarmite would a prime example. Yes he is a troll and should have been banned ages ago. But you used the plural - who are these "people" that you are kicking up such a fuss about? The perspective I approach history from is a desire to understand how events happened and what motivated people to behave the way they behaved. Except when you do not agree with others politically. Then you can dismiss perfectly valid arguments based on no more than superficial "simple" comments about human nature. Hopefully we can learn enough to avoid repeating the same mistakes for ever and maybe we can emulate the occasions when people managed to do something really worthwhile. But that is inherently political not to mention wishy washy bull****. So we are only supposed to post stuff that is completely new to everybody? My observation was certainly simple, and hardly original, but it was evidently needed to correct the attitudes of others who, viewing the world through their one twisted eye, see the use of cannon fodder in World War I as nothing else but proof of how nasty the British are. No, but what you posted was the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. It was not necessary. It was simple and stupid.
Yes he is a troll and should have been banned ages ago. But you used the plural - who are these "people" that you are kicking up such a fuss about? The perspective I approach history from is a desire to understand how events happened and what motivated people to behave the way they behaved. Except when you do not agree with others politically. Then you can dismiss perfectly valid arguments based on no more than superficial "simple" comments about human nature. Hopefully we can learn enough to avoid repeating the same mistakes for ever and maybe we can emulate the occasions when people managed to do something really worthwhile. But that is inherently political not to mention wishy washy bull****. So we are only supposed to post stuff that is completely new to everybody? My observation was certainly simple, and hardly original, but it was evidently needed to correct the attitudes of others who, viewing the world through their one twisted eye, see the use of cannon fodder in World War I as nothing else but proof of how nasty the British are. No, but what you posted was the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. It was not necessary. It was simple and stupid.
The perspective I approach history from is a desire to understand how events happened and what motivated people to behave the way they behaved.
Hopefully we can learn enough to avoid repeating the same mistakes for ever and maybe we can emulate the occasions when people managed to do something really worthwhile.
So we are only supposed to post stuff that is completely new to everybody? My observation was certainly simple, and hardly original, but it was evidently needed to correct the attitudes of others who, viewing the world through their one twisted eye, see the use of cannon fodder in World War I as nothing else but proof of how nasty the British are.
csk wrote: » PDN wrote: » McMarmite would a prime example. Yes he is a troll and should have been banned ages ago. But you used the plural - who are these "people" that you are kicking up such a fuss about? I would hardly describe making a few comments as "kicking up a fuss". I could go over a list of names and we could argue with each one of them and have a series of personal fights. Is that you want? A bit of entertainment? An internet gladiatorial contest? However, if you want another name to justify my use of the plural, Quis Separabit would be another example. Anyone who uses the UDA's slogan (ironically lifted from the Catholic Vulgate translation of the Bible - but loyalists tend not to be noted for their intellectual prowess) as a pen-name is unlikely to take an objective view on Irish history. Except when you do not agree with others politically. Then you can dismiss perfectly valid arguments based on no more than superficial "simple" comments about human nature. We're all free to do that, old chap, it goes with the territory. We may, of course, disagree over how 'valid' an argument is or how 'superficial' a comment may be. Horses for courses. But that is inherently political not to mention wishy washy bull****. You're entitled to your opinion. I answered a direct question and you don't like the answer you get. No, but what you posted was the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. It was not necessary. It was simple and stupid. If people insisted on arguing on the basis that the sky was green white and gold then it would be perfect valid to point out that the sky was blue.
PDN wrote: » McMarmite would a prime example. Yes he is a troll and should have been banned ages ago. But you used the plural - who are these "people" that you are kicking up such a fuss about? I would hardly describe making a few comments as "kicking up a fuss". I could go over a list of names and we could argue with each one of them and have a series of personal fights. Is that you want? A bit of entertainment? An internet gladiatorial contest? However, if you want another name to justify my use of the plural, Quis Separabit would be another example. Anyone who uses the UDA's slogan (ironically lifted from the Catholic Vulgate translation of the Bible - but loyalists tend not to be noted for their intellectual prowess) as a pen-name is unlikely to take an objective view on Irish history. Except when you do not agree with others politically. Then you can dismiss perfectly valid arguments based on no more than superficial "simple" comments about human nature. We're all free to do that, old chap, it goes with the territory. We may, of course, disagree over how 'valid' an argument is or how 'superficial' a comment may be. Horses for courses. But that is inherently political not to mention wishy washy bull****. You're entitled to your opinion. I answered a direct question and you don't like the answer you get. No, but what you posted was the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. It was not necessary. It was simple and stupid. If people insisted on arguing on the basis that the sky was green white and gold then it would be perfect valid to point out that the sky was blue.
Yes he is a troll and should have been banned ages ago. But you used the plural - who are these "people" that you are kicking up such a fuss about?
Except when you do not agree with others politically. Then you can dismiss perfectly valid arguments based on no more than superficial "simple" comments about human nature.
But that is inherently political not to mention wishy washy bull****.
No, but what you posted was the equivalent of saying the sky is blue. It was not necessary. It was simple and stupid.
Fratton Fred wrote: » Good post.
