1916, war of independance and civil war

I don't know about nation who would be proud of its fight against itself /USA hear you say/. Maybe this is the reason, shame and selective memory? Perhaps?
It's always easier to point at "common" enemy /1916-1921/ than trying to find explanation for meaningles tribalistic killing. I think

brianthebard wrote: »

I think Claire h is right in saying the Easter rising is perceived as symbolic, even though I don't think it was intended that way. In terms of how people remember the three events, the rising would be seen as the match that lit the flame for the war of independance, which as already pointed out ended in compromise and then civil war. So it may be that the war of independance is seen to have betrayed or not lived up to the expectations of the "martyrs" who fought in the easter rising. (All of which really only applies if one is of quite a nationalistic slant, otherwise one could probably see the war of independance as more significant).

i think it would be more appropriate to refer to the 1919-21 period as a war for independence , as it wasnt acheived

Essentially what occured was the partitioned type of Home Rule envisaged by the British being forced upon the Irish people at the point of a British gun , in essence a British inspired and driven counter revolution . Constitutional nationalism of the Redmondite variety had been driven from public life post 1916 . The counter revolution saw it very firmly re-established as a political practice with republicanism and democracy being driven off the scen by undemocratic methods , as Cosgrave pointed out himself things had gone too far and some of the old order was being restored . Things like sovereignty being invested in the people and Democratic programmes were simply too much for the native bourgouisie to handle , much less the British . It had to be stopped .
. The Irish people were also forced under those terms to adopt a British framed constitution without it even being put to a vote . At every level democracy was thrown out the window by militarism , in order to suppress democracy .

The Importance of 1916:
Stategically it was a failure, but politicalally it was a huge success, after the executions people drifted further and further away from Home Rule and closer to Nationalism. People were outraged at the British response and upon that led to the War for Independece.

Importance of WOI:
Although we didn't get an Independant Ireland until the 1940's, Ireland got more freedom then it had prevously(Even if Home Rule had been brought out)

Importance of Civil War:
Not really important but it did lead to the formation of the Free State Army, before then the IRA were the ones fighting and they worked independantly from the Government

McArmalite wrote: »

Precisely, the Treaty was a bloody joke, those who signed it should have been charged with treason when they brought it back from London. Imagine as part of the conditions of the treaty, the free state had to pay off part of britain's national debt :mad: Ofcourse there also was the Land Annuities, repayment of british moneys invested in the railways, harbours etc payment for damage to government property in both Ireland and Britain, By 1932 these fanciful payments were still taking up about 7 per cent of the revenue of the free state - and people wonder why Ireland was economically underdeveloped ? ? ?. Also there was a curious claim for the cost of resettling ‘refugees’: this turned out to be the expenses incurred in relocating informers who had been unmasked - the British declined to supply any names :rolleyes:.

As I said, the treaty was a bloody joke. How could the 26 county state be 'free' when it's first actions were to attack the IRA at the behest of britian:mad:. The worst crime in it all, was to abandon the nationalists in the 6 counties who were the most vulnerable to the british army and unionist mobs to murder and pillage and openly commit pogroms against the nationalists in Belfast, Derry etc. Meanwhile, the free state was shelling their former comrades and life long friends with british supplied cannons machine guns etc on the IRA in the Four Courts.

So you think the Treaty was a joke aye, so what do you think we should have done. Refuse the Treaty and allow the Conservative Government in England to come to power and then the War would continue, therefore we would lose the war because
(1)We had no weapons to defend with

(2)Micheal Collins was a known figure now so he was no longer the man without a face, he wouldn't have gotten out of England if he had rejected it and even so he wouldn't be able to go back to his old ways

(3)The country had no where to run or hide, England only used the freaken Black and Tans and the Auxilaries, imagine what would have happened if England sent in the proper Army to deal with us, we'd lose everything and we'd be like Scotland now

(4)We'd never have gotten the Free State that eventually led to the an independant Ireland because DeValera would almost certainly have been Executed and therfore he wouldn't be around to dismantle the Treaty or achive Independence.

Lads i'm not saying i'm right but if you think about it, we got a better deal then we could hope for, stop this freaken hardline Republican bulls**t and start seeing what refusing the Treaty would have done

Erin Go Brath wrote: »

We can at best only guess what refusing the treaty would have done. Would it be any worse than the civil war which tore this country asunder? Would it be worse than several decades of unrest in the newly partitioned 6 county statelet?

Lets not equate rejection of the treaty with 'freaken hardline Republican bullsh**t' as you put it. By the same token you could argue that agreeing with the treaty equates with snivelling servitude and moral cowardice.

I would disagree with your assertion that we got a better deal than we could have hoped for. We should have played hardball with Britain during negotitaitons and see what transpired before deciding upon something that split Ireland down the middle.

How could we play hardball, we were blackmailed into the accepting, Lloyd George made it pretty clear to both De Valera and the Irish Delecates that we would not get External Assocation and when the delecates would not except anything other then that he threated war, becaus e he had no choice the British Elections were coming up and he was beginning to lose favour with the public over the WOI, the Conservative party would have come to power and they would never except also they would have went back to war qwith Ireland and we would have lost because we had no weapons and had huge loses, that why DeValera seeked Treaty Negotiations because with Britain and since the British were coming off as the bad side they agreed. My point is we played their game and they called us bluff.


To Kreuzberger

personally I regard it as a crime against our nation as opposed to a joke . A mockery perhaps

.

I agree that the Treaty was a crime we were screwed by Lloyd George not by Micheal Collins, DeValera would have done the same thing in Collin's place, he already tried and when he couldn't get it he sent Collins over to bring home the bad news, DeValera knew quite well what we would get and didn't want to tarnish his image.

there was plenty of gear came out of the woodwork post 1921

Yes but not enough, we suffered huge loses during the attack on the Customs House and were running out of ammo we would not have lasted another two months if we continued.

jaysus , the emerald pimpernell . British morale was effectively broken in the rural hinterlands . Michael collins played no part whatsoever in this war effort . It would have continued against an already demoralised enemey that didnt want to be there .

I don't know where you get your facts from but Morale or no morale Britiain would have no problem fighting again, and Collins did play a huge part a very huge pat and this is why
(1) His intelligence Agency was vital for getting onfo on the British
(2)He was the leader of the IRB which was running the show from behind the scenes
(3)The IRA listened to him, but neve listened to the government, who do you think he gave the name The Big Fella
(4)He helped free DeValera from prison who effectively ran us into the ground, but you seem to believe he is the true hero

This is absolute nonsense Im afraid . Ireland was fully garrisoned by tens of thousands of regular troops who very much were used on a daily basis in counter insurgent activities and in large scale manouvres . The Black and Tans and Auxiliaries were police auxiliaries , carrying out the duties of the already demoralised and decimated RIC .
The proper army were sent into west cork to deal with Tom Barrys flying column , which they outnumbered many times over , successfuly encircled by sheer force of nyumbers and were physically beaten in a stand up engagement at Crossbarry . They were thoroughly routed . This caused British morale to plummet . The officer in charge of all British troops in Ireland wasked to give a ful assessment of the military situation in Ireland to the British cbinet . His stark replywas that British morale had been broken and that in his opinion British troops should not be asked to remain in Ireland one more winter . It was on receiving this advice that the British cabinet asked for a truce .

iIeland was garrisoned by 10,000 troops maybe more, but England could send 100,000 troops of the regular army if we refused, if you thought the Black and Tans were easy then you'd be quite surprised to see what Britain could have done with the real army

a sizable chunk of our national territory is still occupied by Britian , therefore Ireland isnt independent . Its national sovereignty is still violated .

It is occupied by Britain because the Northern Irish people want to be British, and once again that was Lloyd George's fault for not sticking to his name. By the way, would you say North Korea is not indepedant because it's not it's connecteted with South Korea

As for various figues , so what ? Someone else would have , and probably done an even better job .

Who?

untrue . We got precisely what Britian was offering prior to 1914 , partitioned home rule . We got this from an enemy whose will to fight on had been broken by guerilla attacks and boycott of their rule and their forces by the general population . Our plenipotentiaries simply made a complete bollix of negotitations , followed by elements of our political society behaving in the most undemocratic manner in order to subvert national sovereignty and democracy in their rush for personal power .

We got better then Britain offered in 1914, we got our own army, police force, government, we were able to run ourselves again(to an extent) and we could choose to enter war or not

refusing to have democracy and sovereignty subverted and standing by our rights as a nation would have seen democracy and national sovereignty defended , put at the heart of our political system and spared us decades of conflcit in a still unresolved conflict in our country.

[/QUOTE]
Defend Demorcacy?And how would we do that go u to Britain and tell them their not being very Democratic, may i remind you that Britain was the first country to bring out Interment Camps the lad to the killing of millions of people during the Boer War and their claim to other nations dose not really fit well with Democracy, we have not chance in hell in fighting a foe who could outrightly knock us back into the Stone Age.

But then again and this is totally off subject but i would still fight and die for Ireland if i was given the chance, i just wouldn't like to see the rest of the Irish people sacrificed because some people refuse to see the good side of the Treaty

FiSe wrote: »

I think, that this nation needs to be more focused on the present and the future, rather then fighting 80yrs old battles over and over again being led by 3rd class leaders. Anyway getting off topic here, sorry :eek:

With respect, if you think we shouldn't focus on the past, why are you commenting on a history topic, on the history and heritage board?

Thats nonsense. Why do they hold Michael Collins commemorations, have as their first two (three maybe?) leaders prominant anti-treatites, have the support of the Army comerades association, have a leader in more recent times a former CnaG first minister. They didn't try very hard to move beyond civil war politics, at least until Garrets time in the 1980's.