What was the worst event in modern Irish history?

Uriel. · 22-07-2014 1:20pm

John Doe1 wrote: »

There has been quite a few but DeValera signing a book of condolence for Hitler and the treatment of those who fight in WW2 when they returned home has got to be up there.

Also, The Omagh bombing was the most pointless waste of life on this island.

Ireland was officially neutral throughout the entirety of the war, it would not be unusual for one head of state to sign a book of condolences on the death of another head of state, especially where both parties were not in conflict with each other.

El Inho · 22-07-2014 1:21pm

John Doe1 wrote: »

There has been quite a few but DeValera signing a book of condolence for Hitler and the treatment of those who fight in WW2 when they returned home has got to be up there.

Also, The Omagh bombing was the most pointless waste of life on this island.

On the Hitler thing. It's very easy to get caught up in allowing what we know now to cloud past judgements. I am no big fan of Dev at all, but we must consider that very little was know about the depth of evil carried out by the Nazi's under Germany's control - at the time of signing.

Irish neutrality has always been a flash point, and is of course in the news again today. As a neutral nation, to not sign such a book for a deceased world leader would be unheard of. We were not directly involved in the war as a nation.

It's very important that when we view history, we remain subjective and ignore hindsight.

Uriel. · 22-07-2014 1:28pm

genuine leather wrote: »

Two treatys that were voted against by the irish electorate,
but both got a yes vote after the threats....sorry,disscussion,sorry jellybeans...eh..f n hell democracy my arse

Well whatever about Nice, we rejected Lisbon 1 and the Government went back to the EU - changes were made and assurances were given and an amended proposal was put to the people who then voted Yes. That IS democracy and it is democracy working as it should!

RandomName2 · 22-07-2014 1:28pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

that's using irish history loosely there!! It affected Irish history but it was an external factor.

It caused the outbreak of WW1, which caused the UK to delay signing the Home Rule Bill, which helped generate the 1916 Rising, which led to the war of Independence, which in turn led to partition and the Civil War; all of which had brought hard-line nationalists to the fore, which led to an independent, but isolated and backward Ireland, where the Church had full sway on all sections of society. Never mind the tens of thousands of Irish who died fighting in WW1 itself.

So any one, single, event? Yup, that one in Sarajevo.

foxy farmer · 22-07-2014 1:53pm

whupdedo wrote: »

Would he still be alive if they hadn't ???

Well it certainly didn't do him any good. Totally uncalled for and achieved absolutely nothing. Tv3 grasping at straws for ratings. Below the belt and kicking a man when hes down. Why didnt they do the same with Michael Noonan recently I wonder.

RoadhouseBlues · 22-07-2014 1:53pm

The Omagh bombing. I was coming back from England on the ferry when the report came on the television. I sat in a quiet corner and didn't speak because I didn't want anyone to hear my accent. I was ashamed to be Irish that day.

MiamiMice · 22-07-2014 1:55pm

The Garth Brooks concert cancellations.

Rogers830 · 22-07-2014 1:57pm

MiamiMice wrote: »

The Garth Brooks concert cancellations.

It's a concert get over it, buy the CD, listen to it, forget about it...

Ash.J.Williams · 22-07-2014 2:04pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

It caused the outbreak of WW1, which caused the UK to delay signing the Home Rule Bill, which helped generate the 1916 Rising, which led to the war of Independence, which in turn led to partition and the Civil War; all of which had brought hard-line nationalists to the fore, which led to an independent, but isolated and backward Ireland, where the Church had full sway on all sections of society. Never mind the tens of thousands of Irish who died fighting in WW1 itself.

So any one, single, event? Yup, that one in Sarajevo.

i hear ya but if that's the reasoning, one would nearly put ww1 and ww2 as the worst incidents in modern "irish history" and this thread is looking from 3rd place on!

MiamiMice · 22-07-2014 2:04pm

Rogers830 wrote: »

It's a concert get over it, buy the CD, listen to it, forget about it...

Well I was bringin me third cousin and there was a great chance of getting the ride. I'm traumatised on so many levels.

DublinWriter · 22-07-2014 2:10pm

John Doe1 wrote: »

DeValera signing a book of condolence for Hitler

Never happened.

Can't believe that the famine hasn't been mentioned; 1 million dead and another million emigrated.

Azwaldo55 · 22-07-2014 2:31pm

The worst event in modern Irish history was the outbreak of the World War 1 - the result of the Arch Duke's car stalling outside a snackbar in Sarajevo as his assassin queued for a sandwich after an earlier attack failed.

At that time Ireland had a united Irish Volunteer movement, a strong Irish Parliamentary Party and Nationalist Ireland had won the Home Rule debate.

The outbreak of World War 1 led to the suspension of Home Rule and the IPP was discredited further when Redmond urged tens of thousands including his own brother to fight and die in the hell of trenches. Tens of thousands of our best men died, men who could have contributed to Home Rule Ireland.

Without the outbreak of the war it is unlikely that Irish Republicans would have staged the 1916 Rising, the leaders would not have been executed and there might have been no victory for Sinn Féin in 1918, the War of Independence and Civil War might not have happened and Ireland might not have been partitioned into two theocratic states north and south.

Ulster Unionists without revolvers or machine guns or artillery or planes and shouldering a bewildering variety of different calibers of rifle with a poor means of distributing the correct ammo would have been no match for the overwhelming Catholic ranks of the British Army and the RIC in Ireland if they opposed the implementation of Home Rule.

Ireland might well have won independence sooner and more painlessly and with less bloodshed.

Rogers830 · 22-07-2014 2:47pm

The famine was the worst bar none

LordSutch · 22-07-2014 2:48pm

thegills wrote: »

The murder by the British of our great leaders in 1916. What would Ireland be like now if they lived?

great leaders who caused chaos death and destruction before their demise. More like wreckless & feckless lightweight, deluded, gung ho, mono cultural murdering dreamers.

1/The 50.000 Irish dead of WWI.
2/The Hitler condolence incident.
3/Omagh.
4/Enniskillen
5/Dublin & Momaghan.
6/Stardust.
7/Bloody Sunday.
8/Bloody Friday.
9/Belfast 18/3/88.
10/Lord Mountbatten.

in no particular order . . . . .

conorhal · 22-07-2014 2:52pm

LordSutch wrote: »

great leaders who caused chaos death and destruction before their demise. More like wreckless & feckless lightweight, deluded, gung ho, mono cultural murdering dreamers.

1/The 50.000 Irish dead of WWI.
2/The Hitler condolence incident.
3/Omagh.
4/Enniskillen
5/Dublin & Momaghan.
6/Stardust.
7/Bloody Sunday.
8/Bloody Friday.
9/Belfast 18/3/88.
10/Lord Mountbatten.

in no particular order . . . . .

Oh piss of back to Brussels Mr. Bruton!

Azwaldo55 · 22-07-2014 2:57pm

Rogers830 wrote: »

The famine was the worst bar none

The mid 19th century wouldn't be modern Irish history would it?

Doesn't modern Irish history begin after 1875?

El Inho · 22-07-2014 4:25pm

I'm surprised Hitlers condolence book is getnuinely considered so tragic. Just think about it!

Also, the famine is a far cry from the modern era

Nodin · 22-07-2014 4:45pm

LordSutch wrote: »

great leaders who caused chaos death and destruction before their demise. More like wreckless & feckless lightweight, deluded, gung ho, mono cultural murdering dreamers.
. . .

...coming from an apologist for the British Empire, that's good that is. The bit about "mono cultural" is particularily amusing given your previously expressed wish to ban expressions of support for Republicanism, "rebel" ballads etc.

oppenheimer1 · 22-07-2014 4:49pm

EyeSight wrote: »

Not the IMF bailout, but the bare faced lies by the government that it was not happening, while they were organizing it. Criminal!

Various IRA bombings

Michael Collins being murdered

The patient X case causing the death of a woman

You do know why they lied about the bailout?

If they came out and said that they were preparing a bailout as a backup plan, it would have become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Kevhog1988 · 22-07-2014 4:51pm

Undoubtedly the civil war…. there are still divisions in my local area.

Nodin · 22-07-2014 4:56pm

Roger_007 wrote: »

Since independence, 6 million have chosen do exactly that. Whether they felt free or not is open to question. Emigration is the the most obvious example of how this state has failed. There are now twice as many people who were either born in Ireland, or have parents who were born here, living outside the the country as live inside it. Hardly a vote of confidence by Irish people in their motherland!

There was no emigration under the Brits?

EyeSight · 22-07-2014 4:57pm

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

You do know why they lied about the bailout?

If they came out and said that they were preparing a bailout as a backup plan, it would have become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I don't get why that would be so bad? (Maybe i'm just misunderstanding you)
Either way, they serve the people and their bold face lie(of which there were many) showed how badly they treated us. We all knew it was happening, people involved were even saying. Except our leaders

Muahahaha · 22-07-2014 5:00pm

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

There's a LOT to choose from.

-The exaggerated media emphasis on Brian Cowen being 'drunk' back in September 2010 which in effect made up the minds of the Rating agencies to pull the trigger on us and thus allow in the IMF. Cowen was not even drunk by the way! Total and harmful media exaggeration.

In fairness Brian Cowen sounded very hungover on the radio that morning. It was revealed that Cowen and most of his ministers were up till 3am and it's pretty unlikely they weren't drinking.

That aside it was pretty much an open secret around Leinster House that Cowen had hit the bottle hard as the economy crumbled further and further. I remember myself seeing him staggering out of Doheny &Nesbitt on Baggot St at 10pm on a Thursday, he was having trouble walking he was that bad. A poster here at the time also told a story of how he was at a lock in in Offaly around this time and had sent his Garda driver home. At 5am he realised he was due in Dublin and one of the pub regulars who was sober had to drive him up to work- locked.

foxy farmer wrote: »

Allowing a love ulster march in dublin in 2006.

TV3 believing it was in the national interest to publicise the fact that Brian Lenihan had cancer.

Well given he was the Minister for Finance it was in the public interest. In fact I'd go further and say that any Minister for Finance who has a serious illness has a duty to resign their position so they can focus on their treatment and let someone with a full focus on Finance be the Minister for Finance.

Maybe it's a horrible thing to say but I often wondered at the time how much his decision making was affected by other troubles. You need to be at the top of your game to fight the economic crash he had on his hands and he wasn't - he was terminally ill and not exactly in the best frame of mind to be making decisions that will effect the country long after he is gone. The media may like to sell Brian Lenihan as a 'patriot' for struggling through an economic crash and cancer at the same time but I just see him as someone who was at their weakest when the nation of Ireland needed someone at their strongest. I think time will show this, especially if we ever get sight of the Trichet letters where he brow beat Lenihan into the bailout.

fiachr_a · 22-07-2014 5:16pm

Rap against rape
This year's IFTAs ceremony
Fans singing 'You'll never beat the Irish' at the 2012 Euros
Self Aid in 1986

SaveOurLyric · 22-07-2014 5:21pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqzhcV_7ajQ

oppenheimer1 · 22-07-2014 5:41pm

Muahahaha wrote: »

In fairness Brian Cowen sounded very hungover on the radio that morning. It was revealed that Cowen and most of his ministers were up till 3am and it's pretty unlikely they weren't drinking.

That aside it was pretty much an open secret around Leinster House that Cowen had hit the bottle hard as the economy crumbled further and further. I remember myself seeing him staggering out of Doheny &Nesbitt on Baggot St at 10pm on a Thursday, he was having trouble walking he was that bad. A poster here at the time also told a story of how he was at a lock in in Offaly around this time and had sent his Garda driver home. At 5am he realised he was due in Dublin and one of the pub regulars who was sober had to drive him up to work- locked.

Well given he was the Minister for Finance it was in the public interest. In fact I'd go further and say that any Minister for Finance who has a serious illness has a duty to resign their position so they can focus on their treatment and let someone with a full focus on Finance be the Minister for Finance.

Maybe it's a horrible thing to say but I often wondered at the time how much his decision making was affected by other troubles. You need to be at the top of your game to fight the economic crash he had on his hands and he wasn't - he was terminally ill and not exactly in the best frame of mind to be making decisions that will effect the country long after he is gone. The media may like to sell Brian Lenihan as a 'patriot' for struggling through an economic crash and cancer at the same time but I just see him as someone who was at their weakest when the nation of Ireland needed someone the at their strongest. I think time will show this, especially if we ever get sight of the Trichet letters where he brow beat Lenihan into the bailout.

Did you just libel the former Taoiseach? Nothing good became of Nell McCafferty for saying something similar

JupiterKid · 22-07-2014 7:53pm

The civil war
DeValera's economic war with The UK and isolationist policies that ended up holding the development of Ireland back for 30 years
The power of the religious institutions
The 1974 Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
The 1981 Stardust tragedy
The 1998 Omagh bombing

...to name but a few.

P_1 · 22-07-2014 8:02pm

The civil war
The extremely short-sighted destruction of the British built infrastructure of our cities
Swapping London rule for Rome rule
The Troubles
The Dublin & Monaghan bombings
Stardust
Omagh

Adamantium · 22-07-2014 8:09pm

The bones of 800 babies dumped in a septic tank in Tuam and who knows how many other sites around the country. Experimentation and medicine trials on said children.

The congnitive dissonance to so such things only because those children "were already dead in the eyes of God, they're souls are worthless anyway", that's probably what these "people" tried to convince themselves of.

The human and animal parts of the brain were turned off, a animal wouldn't be able to do it to a cub of its pack.

Amazing how quickly that receded in the news.

GerB40 · 22-07-2014 8:10pm

Personally I genuinely believe Charles J Haughey is the worst thing thats happend to Ireland in recent years.. His utter and completely corrupt way of "governing" a state has poisoned Irish politics and the worst thing is, Fianna Fail havent changed whatsoever from CJHs modus oparandi.
Fianna Fail need to go before Irish Politics can be taken seriously again..

Adamantium · 22-07-2014 8:12pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2c5v8IZNA

Karl Stein · 22-07-2014 8:27pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

Ireland might well have won independence sooner and more painlessly and with less bloodshed.

No. With the rise of the welfare state in the UK it's very likely we would have become an English dependency. Plus it's very likely there would have been ceaseless resistance to British rule. We'd have been a bit like the north in the 70's and 80's.

Nodin wrote: »

There was no emigration under the Brits?

I know yeah. Ireland had a population of 8 million before the famine under British administration - by the time they fucked off we had half that with a million dead from starvation. But oh no, some would have you believe it was the golden age of Ireland.

Such proud displays of profound ignorance.

partyguinness · 22-07-2014 8:34pm

How far back are we going?

Roy Keane in Saipan.

partyguinness · 22-07-2014 8:36pm

GerB40 wrote: »

Personally I genuinely believe Charles J Haughey is the worst thing thats happend to Ireland in recent years.. His utter and completely corrupt way of "governing" a state has poisoned Irish politics and the worst thing is, Fianna Fail havent changed whatsoever from CJHs modus oparandi.
Fianna Fail need to go before Irish Politics can be taken seriously again..

CJH was, with all subjectively aside, actually a very good politician and enacted many ground breaking pieces of legislation but of course, he was corrupt and self serving which tarnihses everything.

Manach · 22-07-2014 8:45pm

For the collective shock, I'd place the event of the Dublin/Monaghan bombing, followed by the Tuskar air disaster.

In passing on Charlie Haughley - yes he was corrupt, but both by international standards he was only small scale and he did not overly indulge in the deficit spending to drive social change that has weaken Western economies so much that Europe is now a shadow of its former share of world GDP.

Birroc · 22-07-2014 8:53pm

Adamantium wrote: »

The bones of 800 babies dumped in a septic tank in Tuam and who knows how many other sites around the country. Experimentation and medicine trials on said children.

The congnitive dissonance to so such things only because those children "were already dead in the eyes of God, they're souls are worthless anyway", that's probably what these "people" tried to convince themselves of.

The human and animal parts of the brain were turned off, a animal wouldn't be able to do it to a cub of its pack.

Amazing how quickly that receded in the news.

+1

This issue really rocked me. I am still flabbergasted at how cruel "Christian" people were in the new Irish state.

Birroc · 22-07-2014 8:56pm

GerB40 wrote: »

Personally I genuinely believe Charles J Haughey is the worst thing thats happend to Ireland in recent years.. His utter and completely corrupt way of "governing" a state has poisoned Irish politics and the worst thing is, Fianna Fail havent changed whatsoever from CJHs modus oparandi.
Fianna Fail need to go before Irish Politics can be taken seriously again..

I agree with you for the most part. He was a sheister. However, when we needed CJH the most was when we were negotiating the nationalisation of the private banking debt. CJH was who we wanted at that negotiation table. A ballsy poker player who would have scared the EU into a much better deal.

tomwaterford · 22-07-2014 9:41pm

those 2 weeks back in the 80s from gibraltor killikngs to the killing of two undercover soldiers in front of tv cameras,...showed a real low point of brutality of people hardened by the troubles

or the forcing of the orange parade through drumcree in 95...an unwillingness of the police/army to stand up to bigots/thugs....even though at the time it looked like it was on the verge of civil war.

GerB40 · 22-07-2014 11:18pm

partyguinness wrote: »

CJH was, with all subjectively aside, actually a very good politician and enacted many ground breaking pieces of legislation but of course, he was corrupt and self serving which tarnihses everything.

He made a lot of changes, I wont argue that.. But how many changes for the good are still relevant? Now look at his bad choices and see how many of those are still relevant.

Personally I think destroying a whole party and basically ending trust in our whole system of governance trumps his good ideas..

Tail Docker · 22-07-2014 11:27pm

Currently, the fact this bottle of wine is empty.

GerB40 · 22-07-2014 11:28pm

Birroc wrote: »

I agree with you for the most part. He was a sheister. However, when we needed CJH the most was when we were negotiating the nationalisation of the private banking debt. CJH was who we wanted at that negotiation table. A ballsy poker player who would have scared the EU into a much better deal.

As my father (who hates Haughey more than I can put into words) once said "To be fair, if he was Taoiseach now he would've told the IMF and EU to f*ck off)."
It's hard to argue with that..

Sayin that, Ireland wouldn't have needed a bailout if it wasn't for Fianna Fails utter corruption and where did that come from??? The one and only CJH himself.

Meangadh · 23-07-2014 12:15am

Not an individual "event" as such, but the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick and his ilk pretty much completely getting away with the damage they have done to this country.

Muahahaha · 23-07-2014 12:20am

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Did you just libel the former Taoiseach? Nothing good became of Nell McCafferty for saying something similar

It's not libel but defamation. And a clear defence to that is an honestly held opinion. I saw Cowen locked drunk with my own eyes, I also know other people who work around the Baggot St area who can testify that they saw similar to myself. I'm not the only poster here who saw him pretty drunk with my own eyes- others too reported it at the time. Like I said his drinking slowly became an open secret, at least around Dublin. Before that radio interview there wasn't anyone I knew who wasn't aware of what had being going on so it didn't come as that much of a surprise to me tbh.

Muahahaha · 23-07-2014 12:39am

theemigrant wrote: »

Undoubtedly the civil war…. there are still divisions in my local area.

That's mad, I just never get the mentality and then people go out and vote along those lines. It is completely insane to choose to vote for a candidate in 2014 based on events that happened in the 1920's.

GerB40 wrote: »

He made a lot of changes, I wont argue that.. But how many changes for the good are still relevant? Now look at his bad choices and see how many of those are still relevant.

Personally I think destroying a whole party and basically ending trust in our whole system of governance trumps his good ideas..

In fairness to Haughey he did stand up to the Church with the Succession Act, before that widowed women had no rights to property of their deceased husband, the Church got the house and land after the widow was allowed to live in it for the rest of her days. That was a big thing because it meant that the Church stopped accumulating land so easily and it gave women rights to land that they never had before. In fairness to Haughey I'd say he came under immense pressure from the Bishops not to do it but he went ahead anyway, it was one of the few ballsy moves against the Church that legislators have ever implemented.

But all that was a good 15 years before became Taoiseach for the first of three stints. He was a completely different animal by that stage, I think it was historian Diarmuid Ferriter who said that the beginnings of his career were very dynamic but from the 1970s onwards it was all about one thing- himself and enriching himself as much as possible.

WilyCoyote · 23-07-2014 12:50am

Roy Keane (Lucifer) rebelled against McCarthy (God) and all Hell broke loose

Closely followed by that French pimp handling the ball back into play before scoring.

StudentDad · 23-07-2014 12:53am

The 'rising' of 1916 which didn't have popular support. Leading to the overreaction of the govt. Which led to the war of independence and formation of the Free State. Following on from those actions this little country went from being one of the wealthiest in Europe to an economic, social and religious gulag.
I read somewhere that during the 50's the govt. here toyed with the idea of ringing London and asking if we could rejoin the UK. Absolute madness.

Thank god we joined the EEC when we did.

SD

Johro · 23-07-2014 12:58am

Garth Brooks getting cancelled. Apparently.

FatherTed · 23-07-2014 2:06am

Dev getting power. Really fked up the country in so many ways especially giving free reign to the church to chart the course of the country. Still paying for it. If someine else became leader long term e.g. Collins maybe the country would have ended up more secular.

WilyCoyote · 23-07-2014 2:11am

FatherTed wrote: »

Dev getting power. Really fked up the country in so many ways especially giving free reign to the church to chart the course of the country. Still paying for it. If someine else became leader long term e.g. Collins maybe the country would have ended up more secular.

Homosecular? Surely knot!

Ah Jasus Ted.

porsche959 · 23-07-2014 2:24am

GerB40 wrote: »

As my father (who hates Haughey more than I can put into words) once said "To be fair, if he was Taoiseach now he would've told the IMF and EU to f*ck off)."
It's hard to argue with that..

Er, actually it's very easy to argue with it.

What was the worst event in modern Irish history?

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