If Collins had lived...

MJ23 · 06-02-2010 06:29PM

its nearly 90 years ago now, get on with it. Stop living in the past. Who cares anyway ?

kev9100 · 06-02-2010 06:40PM

If one can't understand the past, one will never understand the future.:D

Xluna · 06-02-2010 06:47PM

MJ23 wrote: »

its nearly 90 years ago now, get on with it. Stop living in the past. Who cares anyway ?

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Anyway it's interesting harmless speculation. If you don't enjoy it there's plenty of other threads for you to post on.

ejmaztec · 06-02-2010 07:27PM

Xluna wrote: »

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Anyway it's interesting harmless speculation. If you don't enjoy it there's plenty of other threads for you to post on.

Yes, it's always interesting to work out how a good idea got screwed up.

Not as bad as the Russians though. They have a successful revolution to set things right, everything's heading in the right direction for a short time, then Stalin ends up running everything.:eek:

HalloweenJack · 06-02-2010 07:45PM

Forget Collins, Connolly would have been the real great thinker to have.

A genuine socialist, the country would have got off on a better footing.

Xluna · 06-02-2010 07:51PM

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Forget Collins, Connolly would have been the real great thinker to have.

A genuine socialist, the country would have got off on a better footing.

Collins had a lot of respect for Connoly,he said he would have followed him to death as his leader. He had little respect for Pearce though, he considered Pearce to be a deluded dreamer, obsessed with a glorious death.

kev9100 · 06-02-2010 07:51PM

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Forget Collins, Connolly would have been the real great thinker to have.

A genuine socialist, the country would have got off on a better footing.

That's an intresting point actually. Why did'nt Connolly become a symbol for Socialism in Ireland? After his death, most people applauded him because he signed the proclamation, not because he was a socialist and fighted for the working-class.

ejmaztec · 06-02-2010 07:58PM

kev9100 wrote: »

That's an intresting point actually. Why did'nt Connolly become a symbol for Socialism in Ireland? After his death, most people applauded him because he signed the proclamation, not because he was a socialist and fighted for the working-class.

I expect the RC church kept the idea of socialism firmly swept under the carpet - too much competition.

sdanseo · 06-02-2010 09:00PM

MagicMarker wrote: »

Don't know, don't care.

So don't bloody post then!

Lone Stone · 06-02-2010 09:13PM

I think more robots and less ..... stuff

darkman2 · 06-02-2010 09:21PM

In a way it's probrably lucky he did not live as he had a State sponsered war against the 6 counties, in retalliation for what was going on there to Catholics, about to begin. The British knew this aswell. But due to the civil war circumstance thought it better they back Collins against Dev.

El Siglo · 06-02-2010 09:28PM

Collins is dead, if he was alive he wouldn't have recognised the place. Same goes for DeValera and all of the other old conservative sectarian gools in Glasnevin. Personally, if the actual revolutionaries who tried to found the Irish Republic were still alive, Pearse et al. I think they'd be pretty disgusted with everything. The fact that the only thing that has changed has been the flag and passports, that we're more or less getting fucked over by the same kinds of cunts today as we were in their time.
I'm reminded by the Connolly's famous quote:
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs”.
Evocative as it might sound and no doubt we'll here the revisionists come in and disregard this as the notions of a romantic socialist terrorist, but Connolly said this over 90 years ago and it still has some resonance today. We only broke economic union with Britain in 1979 and even then we ended up joining the EMU, we're still ruled by bankers, just look at NAMA and the banks guarantee.

kumate_champ07 · 06-02-2010 09:29PM

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

How would Collins have stopped us from becoming a cantion run by a corrupt organisation that was heavily enflueniced by outside and corporate cultures...?

bullet to the head of anyone corrupt, bang and the dirt is gone

kumate_champ07 · 06-02-2010 09:30PM

I wonder if he'd be a Man Utd supporter or Liverpool supporter, what do you think?

El Siglo · 06-02-2010 09:34PM

Isn't it funny though that we used to have well educated, committed revolutionaries in this country, Tone, Emmett, O'Donovan-Rossa, Pearse, Connolly etc... what have we got instead: Cowen can't even read the right cue card and Coughlan doesn't know what theory Einstein came up with. It's a joke.

aDeener · 06-02-2010 09:41PM

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

I wonder if he'd be a Man Utd supporter or Liverpool supporter, what do you think?

he'd be a cork supporter

Xluna · 06-02-2010 09:52PM

El Siglo wrote: »

Isn't it funny though that we used to have well educated, committed revolutionaries in this country, Tone, Emmett, O'Donovan-Rossa, Pearse, Connolly etc... what have we got instead: Cowen can't even read the right cue card and Coughlan doesn't know what theory Einstein came up with. It's a joke.

Don't forget our morbidly obese minister for health and her wonderful two tier health system.

enniscorthy · 06-02-2010 10:12PM

kev9100 wrote: »

If one can't understand the past, one will never understand the future.:D

DEFO

enniscorthy · 06-02-2010 10:13PM

El Siglo wrote: »

Isn't it funny though that we used to have well educated, committed revolutionaries in this country, Tone, Emmett, O'Donovan-Rossa, Pearse, Connolly etc... what have we got instead: Cowen can't even read the right cue card and Coughlan doesn't know what theory Einstein came up with. It's a joke.

my dearest fellow you are wonderful DONT EVEN TRY AND GET ME STARTED ON MICHAEL MARTIN

Crann na Beatha · 06-02-2010 11:04PM

This post has been deleted.

IrishManSaipan · 06-02-2010 11:11PM

Mike 1972 wrote: »

On the other hand Ireland under Collins was hardly a liberal progressive utopia either. One of the first acts of the newly established state was to pass legislation regarding film censorship. This at a time when Ireland was a war-torn state on the brink of economic collapse.

That act was passed in 1923. Bit harsh to blame that on Collins, he was dead afterall!

IrishManSaipan · 06-02-2010 11:15PM

This is very Devesque.....

"We have now won the first victory... We re now free in name. The extent to which we become free in fact and secure our freedom will be the extent to which we become Gaels again. It is a hard task. The machine of the British armed force, which tried to crush us, we could see with our physical eyes. We could touch it. We could put our physical strength against it. We could see their agents in uniform and under arms. We could see their tanks and armored cars.
"But the spiritual machine which has been mutilating us, restoring our customs, and our independent life, is not easy to discern... And it has become so familiar, how are we to recognise it? We cannot perhaps. But we can do something else. We can replace it. We can fill our minds with Gaelic ideas, and our lives with Gaelic customs, until there is no room for any other.
"... The biggest task will be the restoration of the language. How can we express our most subtle thoughts and finest feelings in a foreign tongue? Irish will scarcely be our language in this generation, not even perhaps in the next. But until we have it again on our tongues and in our minds we are not free, and we will produce no immortal literature.
"Our poets and artists will be inspired in the stimulating air of freedom to be something more than the mere producers of verse and the painters of pictures. They will teach us, by their vision, the noble race we may become. They will inspire us to live as Irish men and women should.... Our civilisation will be glorious or the reverse, according to the character of the people. And the work we produce will be the expression of what we are. Our external life has become the expression of all that we are deprived of - something shapeless, ugly, without native life.... Irish art and Irish customs must be carried out by the people themselves, helped by a central government, not controlled and managed by it, helped by departments of music, art, national painting etc., with local centres connected with them."

From "Michael Collins In His Own Words" (edited by Francis Costello) from Gill & Macmillan.

PK2008 · 06-02-2010 11:26PM

Wait, wait, wait.......Michael Collins was real????

I thought that movie sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Express · 07-02-2010 12:06AM

If collins had lived...

He'd be spinning over O'Connell Bridge on one of the free Dublin Bikes, doing high-fives with John Gormley whenever they passed each other.

citizen_p · 07-02-2010 01:35AM

more involvment in world affairs and less ignoring them

thebigcheese22 · 07-02-2010 01:51AM

He died on the same date as my birthday.

Useless info for the thread

Gingy · 07-02-2010 01:55AM

If Collins had lived, chances are that he wouldn't have stayed on it government for much longer after the Civil War, he wasn't a politician. The Boundary Commission probably still would have failed, but due to his legacy, Cumann na nGaedheal would have been in power for longer over the years. He definitely would not still be held as the romanticised figure of Irish history, if he lasted into old age.

randylonghorn · 07-02-2010 02:50AM

ejmaztec wrote: »

A donkey running the country would have done a better job than De Valera. He was living 100 years in the past even then, whereas Collins was at least up to date with what was going on in the world.

People seem to be making excuses for De Valera these days, but it will take a long time, if not an eternity, for me to accept any of them.

Dev got some things right, and while himself and Collins disagreed on a number of issues, they probably agreed on a lot more than they disagreed on. The unfortunate thing is that people either love them or hate them, very often stemming from early childhood socialisation, rather than looking at them as men with both strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failures.

Or, of course, in the case of many youngsters to-day, have no idea who they were ... :rolleyes:

I do tend to agree with this statement though ... VVV

Xluna wrote: »

He was a lot less insular and religious than Dev though. It would be interesting to see how he handled the economy and society in general. I think it would have been considerably less conservative in pretty much every aspect.

ejmaztec wrote: »

Yes, it's always interesting to work out how a good idea got screwed up.

Not as bad as the Russians though. They have a successful revolution to set things right, everything's heading in the right direction for a short time, then Stalin ends up running everything.:eek:

That seems to be the usual pattern though ... bloody revolutions nearly always seem to end up bringing to the top scum at least as bad as those who the revolution tumbled down. The French Revolution is another famous example historically, and we've seen many examples in Africa and South / Central America in the last century.

In that respect, Ireland was damn lucky!

El Siglo wrote: »

I'm reminded by the Connolly's famous quote:
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs”.
Evocative as it might sound and no doubt we'll here the revisionists come in and disregard this as the notions of a romantic socialist terrorist, but Connolly said this over 90 years ago and it still has some resonance today.

Substitute global big business for England, and it resonates a hell of a lot.

Son Of A Vidic · 07-02-2010 04:32AM

El Siglo wrote: »

Isn't it funny though that we used to have well educated, committed revolutionaries in this country, Tone, Emmett, O'Donovan-Rossa, Pearse, Connolly etc... what have we got instead: Cowen can't even read the right cue card and Coughlan doesn't know what theory Einstein came up with. It's a joke.

Well said indeed, actually Cowen can't even button his suit properly never mind read a cue card.

m@cc@ · 07-02-2010 07:47AM

justaday wrote: »

if ireland had the same population density as belgium/holland/england then our population would be over 40 million. netherlands is smaller than leinster but has 16 million population

Don't know where you got your information from but you're wrong. It's not even close either.

If Collins had lived...

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