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John Bruton says Easter Rising was ‘unnecessary’

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Comments

  • #122
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    Muahahaha wrote: »
    Does anyone else think that there is a fear in Fine Gael of the rise of Sinn Fein (latest poll FG 25% vs. SF 24%) and this outburst by John Bruton is part of a FineGael strategy over the next two years to try to sell the idea to the Irish public that we didn't need the 1916 Rising at all and that there was always a non-violent solution.
    I wouldn't say the two are connected. There's really not much new in Bruton's 'revisionism'; it's been a strand of criticism from the Right for decades, see Ruth Dudley Edwards as an example.

    To my mind this is tied up in three distinct factors:
    • The natural revisionism that accompanies any generational change in academia. This was particularly useful in applying a corrective to the nationalist myths and state-sanctioned hagiographies of the Independence period.
    • The revival of violence in the North. In seeking to undercut the legitimacy of the IRA, successive governments implicitly (and historians explicitly) attacked the legitimacy of 1916. The result is that quite inane attitude that 'violence for political goals' is in itself unacceptable.
    • Today's political class is comprised almost exclusively of people who would not look out of place in a corporate office. They're managers of the State machine. It's natural that a professional politician and bureaucrat like Bruton should want to undercut the legitimacy enjoyed by his antithesis: a bunch of poets, teachers trade unionists, etc who rose to prominence independently of the professional political machine.


  • #123
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    RED L4 0TH wrote: »
    Interesting riposte by Eamonn McCann in today's Irish Times to John Bruton.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/revisiting-the-rising-what-home-rule-couldn-t-have-achieved-1.1888311

    John Redmond's call to engage in violence in 'defense of Ireland' cost many more Irish lives than the Easter Rising and subsequent events did.


    Its Eamonn O'Cuiv, just to give the devil his due.


  • #124
    Banjoxed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,844 ✭✭✭Banjoxed


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    We'd probably have two Home Rule parliaments one in Belfast & one in Dublin. Partition was on the table well before 1916.

    We would have a United Federal Ireland outside the UK but a Republic within the Commonwealth.

    All Pearse and Co did for us was allow the impoverished Free State to sacrifice its poor and hand over social power to the Catholic Church.


  • #125
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,782 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    LordSutch wrote: »



    I say that we should have had a harmonious and gradual disengagement from the UK (if that's what we wanted), while keeping friendly and cordial terms with London, Washington & Belfast, becuse then we could have steered the country on a much brighter and steadier course through those first four or five self inflicted backward and miserable decades.

    The Easter rising was indeed unnecessary.

    But was the backward decades not as a result of DeV implementing a protectionist trade policy with the UK whilst simultaneously giving the keys of the country to the Catholic Church ? At least that's the way I'd see it, I don't think it's fair to link the occurance of the Rising/WoI/Civil War to what came after it. Whatever DeValeras feelings for the British the wheels of capitalism still spin and trade to invigorate the fledgling Irish economy is what was most needed to stem emigration. But for some reason he thought the best thing to do was lock the borders down and go dancing at the crossroads with the bishops.
    Sierra Oscar wrote: »
    No I don't think it is part of any FG strategy. These views have been held by John Bruton for a very long time - long before Sinn Féin were even on the map electorally in recent times in the south. He has expressed similar sentiments over the last few decades.

    Ok I hadn't realised this was a hobby horse of Brutons. Still though I get the impression that FG are cagey of what to make of the 1916 commemorations. Either way I can see arguments like Brutons being aired a lot on the airwaves over the next two years.

    Anyway I was just playing devils advocate (and I know this is very simplified) but iirc in 1918 the British had plans to introduce conscription of Irish males into the Brotish Army to help the WW1 effort. The policy was deemed as unworkable after a short time. But let's say that Irish people were given a deal- conscription in the war in exchange for a post war independence vote on an all Island independent republic. So I'm interested to just boil this down solely to the casualties it would have cost to achieve the objective by one route Vs. another. People with more knowledge than me will surely correct these figures but I'm just going by Wiki casualty estimates here

    1916 Rising 500
    War of Independence 1,400
    Civil War 4,000

    Total 5,900

    Now I'm sure there was a lot of tit for tat too outside those three key events. I'm not sure if there is a total reliable figure available?

    Irish dead fighting for Great Britain in WW1 without conscription- 30,000

    Now what might be the Irish dead in WW1 had we agreed to conscription ? Would it be fair to say it would have been at least double the 30,000 figure it was ? Or would it have been even more, given the way generals were using soldiers as cannon fodder in the trenches ?

    Maybe I'm simplifying things too much here. Nonetheless if part of Brutons method of succeeding in achieving independence in a non violent way was to support conscription to WW1 then I think it is pretty clear that far, far more Irish lives would have been lost than what was by the events of 1916-1923.

    Sending ten of thousands of Irish men to almost certain death on battlefields in Europe wasn't exactly a guilt free option either IMO.


  • #126
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Reekwind wrote: »
    Which is the flaw in your logic right there. Just because something is inevitable doesn't mean that it can't be resisted. British resistance (whether parliamentary or repressive) to the realisation of Irish independence was always there to be overcome. There was nothing inevitable about the means by which independence was achieved and this resistance overcome.

    It's also grossly simplistic to conflate inevitability with fatalism. Irish independence was inevitable precisely because the aspiration to national self-determination manifested itself in a nationalist movement that agitated for that. The forces that made independence inevitable also produced people willing to take up arms when other avenues looked closed.
    What you're saying is that Irish independence was inevitable, but only because of a willingness to use violence to achieve that independence; that you literally can't conceive of any possible chain of historical events that could possibly have ever resulted in independence if that chain of events didn't involve a war.

    Frankly, that strikes me as a failure of imagination. Tragically, it's the same failure of imagination that allows a tiny minority to continue to use violence in Northern Ireland today: they believe that it's still the case that only physical force will ever achieve Irish unity.

    Presumably you disagree. Presumably you believe that these people are misguided and blinkered, because they can't see that "this time it's different". And, presumably, those people would reject your view that violence is unnecessary now the same way you're rejecting my view that violence was unnecessary then.
    You're British? Because the idea that the "vast majority" of Irish people were anti-Rising is primary school history.
    Let me guess: this is the point where you quote the 1918 elections as "proof" that the majority of Irish people wanted a war in 1916. Just like the local government elections "proved" that the Irish people didn't want a Fine Gael/Labour government in 2011.
    The obvious answer is obvious: the legitimacy of actions is not dependant on the use of violence. There's really nothing difficult about that.
    I'm not sure how that's an obvious answer, particularly since it isn't even an answer.
    Otherwise you'd have to argue that the Americans shouldn't have rebelled against George III and that France should still have a king.
    ...because in both those cases, the political process for achieving change had been stalled for a few decades? The American Independence Bill was too slow in making its way through Parliament? Le Roi was dragging his heels over making France a republic?
    In the case of Ireland, legitimacy was granted by popular endorsement and subsequent independence.
    As I suspected: legitimacy in retrospect. It's OK to kill people to force political change - not because people approve of the killing now, but because if that political change is achieved, it can be claimed in hindsight that the killing was the only way it could have been achieved.
    What I do find strange though is those people who see the word 'violent' and stop thinking, as if the very use of violence automatically invalidates any cause. Which is, to my mind, just petty legalism.
    Actually, it's a straw man, and a convenient misrepresentation of my position.
    Not only is it deeply anachronistic but it doesn't account for the violence employed by state authorities to enforce their rule in the first place.
    If your view is that no state should ever have any right to use any violence against any insurrection ever, I'll disagree, but I'll respect the consistency of your argument.


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  • #127
    Sand
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,120 ✭✭✭✭Sand


    Muahahaha wrote: »
    But was the backward decades not as a result of DeV implementing a protectionist trade policy with the UK whilst simultaneously giving the keys of the country to the Catholic Church ? At least that's the way I'd see it, I don't think it's fair to link the occurance of the Rising/WoI/Civil War to what came after it.

    I'd see the "Burn everything British except their coal" attitude as being derived from the militancy of the Rising/WoI/Civil War.

    A peaceful disengagement by constitutional, political and diplomatic means wouldn't have that same bitterness to motivate it. And its likely DeV would never have got anywhere near the leadership of Ireland in a peaceful scenario - as his years of inept, responsibility dodging, clerical rule demonstrated he had absolutely no credentials other than his "man of the gun" mythos. Which was very heavily embellished given he was pretty inept as a military leader as well.

    The militant "takeover" of the state also left a vacuum which was rapidly filled by the Church, gratefully accepted by a Dail that was finding its feet and simply didn't prioritise education or social policies. Not when trying to build the country back up over 6 years of violence and a bitter political divide with assassinations and confrontations to handle.

    So in short, I think the backwardness and economic failure was not entirely due to militant action, but it was a primary cause.


  • #128
    RED L4 0TH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭RED L4 0TH


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    you literally can't conceive of any possible chain of historical events that could possibly have ever resulted in independence if that chain of events didn't involve a war.

    Can you?

    It was Unionism that destabilized the Irish political scene by their open defiance of Home Rule as manifested by the formation of the UVF and the Larne gun running etc. The last general election was in December 1910, so know one really knew what Irish nationalists wanted by the Summer of 1914, never mind Easter 1916. The 1918 election showed they wanted more than the Home Rule model.


  • #129
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,316 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    I'm a Nationalist and huge admirer of John Hume, fascinated by Parnell and Redmond, my own county man Butt, I'm a huge critic of the IRA and the armed campaign, but I'd find it hard to argue against violence not being needed sometimes. The NICRA protested peacefully in 68 and got battered by a sectarian Protestant statelet's police force, that was there to protect a Protestant Government. By 1914, never mind 16, there was no peaceful and just solution left. We'd the Ulster Covenant, Volunteers on both sides, there was no peaceful solution. Sure N.I. Was peaceful from 1922 to 68 barring sporadic outburst from the Taighs, shows of supremacy when the Catholics got too uppity and the Border campaign. Even when Craig et al got what they wanted through the Govt. Of Ireland Act, it still wasn't enough. How they put up with it for 47 years is beyond me!

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #130
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    What you're saying is that Irish independence was inevitable, but only because of a willingness to use violence to achieve that independence...
    No, that's not what I'm saying at all. To be short: there was a willingness to employ violence because the pull towards Irish independence was so strong.

    Irish independence was inevitable because there was near-universal opinion (in Ireland) that it should be. The only question was whether this would be by parliamentary or physical force means. When the parliamentary process broke down or looked to be futile then there was always the option to resort to violence.

    And British resistance to independence meant that the parliamentary process was always tentative. Had Home Rule been granted in the 1880s or had the 1914 Bill been workable then this would be a very different conversation.
    ...that you literally can't conceive of any possible chain of historical events that could possibly have ever resulted in independence if that chain of events didn't involve a war.
    I've challenged you before to provide a plausible 'chain of events that didn't involve a war'. I'm still waiting.

    So the reason that I'm 'rejecting your view that violence was unnecessary then' is because you've completely failed to show that 'violence was unnecessary then. All I'm getting is platitudes about how violence is bad and references to the Troubles. Which is getting frustrating.
    Let me guess: this is the point where you quote the 1918 elections as "proof" that the majority of Irish people wanted a war in 1916. Just like the local government elections "proved" that the Irish people didn't want a Fine Gael/Labour government in 2011.
    I've three points on this:

    The first is that, no, that's not what I was referring to. The myth that the population was near-universally hostile to the Rising before the executions is just that – a myth. It's based on some widely reported (by a hostile media) local vignettes. There are plenty of conflicting accounts that show respect for the rebels, if not outright support. This shouldn't be a surprise – the rebels immediately slotted into that long tradition of armed resistance to London; a tradition powerful enough that even the IPP paid lip service to it.

    But, more generally, I find your comparison here to be extremely facile and lazy. You are actually comparing what was effectively a referendum on independence (ie a conscious decision to vote for a party that promised an immediate and complete withdrawal from the Empire), held in quasi-revolutionary circumstances, with recent local elections? That's bizarre. What next, the Conscription Crisis was no different to the opposition to water charges? The cultural and political upheaval at local level was nothing more than the frenzy of Ireland at a World Cup?

    Frankly, the dismissal of the 1918 election by you and others strikes me as nothing but anti-democratic. You're much safer with leaving this politics business to the professional politicians of the IPP. Let them – a party that had never faced a competitive election until 1918 – 'manage' the independence process in Westminster meeting rooms, while the rest of the population waits passively. It's an absurd dismissal of the only real source of legitimacy for independence - popular sovereignty.
    ...because in both those cases, the political process for achieving change had been stalled for a few decades? The American Independence Bill was too slow in making its way through Parliament? Le Roi was dragging his heels over making France a republic?
    Because both cases highlight the truism (to paraphrase JFK) that those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

    Both demonstrate that when the limits of parliamentary reform are reached (and the British refused to extend representation to the US, while Louis XVI tried to shut down the estates) then the use of 'violence for political goals' is justified. Or do you feel, based on their employment of physical force, that both those revolutions are illegitimate?
    Sand wrote:
    The militant "takeover" of the state also left a vacuum which was rapidly filled by the Church, gratefully accepted by a Dail that was finding its feet and simply didn't prioritise education or social policies. Not when trying to build the country back up over 6 years of violence and a bitter political divide with assassinations and confrontations to handle.
    I'd suggest that a more relevant cause of Ireland's backwardness was the British administration itself. The rural economy, strength of the Catholic Church, rudimentary nature of the administrative apparatus, etc, are all hallmarks of London's rule. This is something we have in common with many of those other direct colonies of the Empire.

    What is regrettable was the effective kowtowing of ILP to Sinn Fein in the name of independence. But this was a product of local historical circumstances and actors.


  • #131
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Reekwind wrote: »
    No, the claim has been made. Witness: "The violence in 1916 onwards didn't achieve anything materially better than the Home Rule that was already on the table". Hence my response. It's also been used in reference to the ease with which Ireland achieved formal independence in 1937.

    In fact, you've contributed to this yourself by referring to "relatively small differences". See above.
    Eh, yeah, that’s what I said? And I’ll say it again: Nobody has said Home Rule and The Free State were one and the same. What is being said is the relatively small differences were not worth the violence.
    Reekwind wrote: »
    Because in 1916, not only did the Home Rule Bill promise a very limited degree of autonomy, Unionist objections meant that there were major questions over what its final form would actually take and if it were ever implemented at all.
    Sure – personally I don’t think partition was ever realistically avoidable.

    But what really doesn’t make sense to me is this argument that Home Rule was unworkable because of the Unionists, so we had to fight for full independence. Explain that one to me, would you?
    Reekwind wrote: »
    This is primary school history. So in your world, pre-1916 most Irish people were happy citizens of the Empire and were perfectly content with the limitations of Home Rule (with the glimmer of independence in decades to come). Then BAM. Suddenly the British execute 16 men and the whole country turns rabidly Nationalist and votes en masse for a separatist party at the next opportunity.
    That’s obviously not what I said – I’m getting pretty tired of people jumping down my throat instead of reading what I actually posted.
    Reekwind wrote: »
    You understand that this is not what the Home Rule Bill ever planned?
    In its most recent form, yes. You accept that this was anathema to Republicans at the time?


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  • #132
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    FTA69 wrote: »
    The two events were unrelated actually.
    They really weren’t, but anyway, like I said already, I’m not implicitly condoning any actions of the British authorities of the time.
    FTA69 wrote: »
    That's fair enough, I'm simply trying to point out what the Irish people were up against. They weren't dealing with a benevolent democracy in a free and fair political system, they were dealing with an armed imperial superpower who didn't give two sh*ts about using force to overturn any challenge to their dominion in Ireland.
    Absolutely, which is why people like Parnell deserve so much more respect, in my opinion. I think it’s criminal how his contributions are essentially being dismissed as insignificant by so many posters on this thread.
    FTA69 wrote: »
    It worked for the Cubans, Algerians, Angolans and countless other colonies didn't it?
    Cuba, Algeria and Angola aren’t exactly stable, prosperous states are they? But once again, my point is that just because violence occurred, it doesn’t mean it was essential (see India, for example). Correlation is not causation.


  • #133
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    partyguinness wrote: »
    The Home Rule Bill was passed into law in 1920 but did not take effect in the 'south'. The Irish electorate were given the choice in the 1918 Elections and they rejected it. Therefore Home Rule as far as the Irish public was concerned was a dead duck. They were not interested. The 1916 Rising gave the Irish people another choice i.e. a more militant approach and they accepted. You may not like that but that's what happened.
    None of which has anything to do with what I said.
    partyguinness wrote: »
    Oh come on, not this infantile argument. Yes, the political climate in 1949 was pretty much the same as in 1916-1922. You cannot actually be serious.
    I’m completely serious. Peaceful means got Ireland as far as Home Rule. Lots and lots of violence advanced that marginally to The Free State (but of course many republicans regarded the Free State as an abomination). Peaceful means advanced the Free State to a Republic.

    Overall, the violence of 1916-21 achieved very, very little.


  • #134
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Reekwind wrote: »
    No, that's not what I'm saying at all. To be short: there was a willingness to employ violence because the pull towards Irish independence was so strong.
    Sure. But the desire to achieve something doesn't automatically make it OK to kill people. A willingness to employ violence isn't sufficient justification for violence.
    Irish independence was inevitable because there was near-universal opinion (in Ireland) that it should be. The only question was whether this would be by parliamentary or physical force means.
    This is equally true today. A majority of people on this island want a united Ireland. The question is whether this should be by parliamentary or physical force means.

    Now, to me (and I suspect to you) the answer is, unequivocally, that violence is not now an appropriate means to achieve that end. There are those who disagree, who believe that the parliamentary process is stuck, and that violence is the only language that themuns understand.

    Of course, this time it's different.
    When the parliamentary process broke down or looked to be futile then there was always the option to resort to violence.
    And there still is (for some). I guess it comes down to how important it is to you not to kill people to further your political aims. My personal view is that if there's a possibility of achieving a goal without killing anyone, then that's the avenue to pursue. Others seem to have a much lower threshold for the acceptability of killing others to achieve their aims. I guess we'll have to agree to differ.
    And British resistance to independence meant that the parliamentary process was always tentative.
    And a tentative peaceful process, apparently, is sufficient justification for starting a war.
    I've challenged you before to provide a plausible 'chain of events that didn't involve a war'. I'm still waiting.
    You'll be waiting. Unlike many on your side of the debate, I don't claim to know with certainty what would have happened.

    My argument is that the Home Rule process held out the possibility of independence without a rising, without a war of independence, and without a civil war. I'm not claiming that these things would have happened, I'm suggesting that they could have. Apparently, I'm wrong in this, because - uniquely in the study of history - others know for a categorical, incontrovertible fact that, in the absence of 1916, we would still be part of the UK, or we would have had a war with the unionists (which, apparently, is a prospect so utterly horrifying that a war of independence and a civil war were a trivial price to pay), or other such definitive outcomes.

    If you're going to claim that home rule couldn't possibly have peacefully led to independence, you'll have to explain how you know that for a fact. If you're going to be more honest and accept that there was a possibility of such an outcome (however unlikely), why you feel that starting a war was preferable to pursuing a tentative peaceful process in 1916, but that a tentative peaceful process is preferable to starting a war in 2014.
    So the reason that I'm 'rejecting your view that violence was unnecessary then' is because you've completely failed to show that 'violence was unnecessary then.
    Violence was unnecessary because there was a peaceful avenue open. If your argument is that the peaceful avenue didn't provide enough certainty at the time, then you're arguing by implication that the rising offered a greater certainty at the time. It's rather pathetically easy to argue that something was inevitable after it happened.
    All I'm getting is platitudes about how violence is bad...
    You don't think violence is a bad thing?
    ...and references to the Troubles.
    Because, as we all know, there's nothing whatsoever connecting 1916 to the Troubles.
    I've three points on this:

    The first is that, no, that's not what I was referring to. The myth that the population was near-universally hostile to the Rising before the executions is just that – a myth. It's based on some widely reported (by a hostile media) local vignettes. There are plenty of conflicting accounts that show respect for the rebels, if not outright support. This shouldn't be a surprise – the rebels immediately slotted into that long tradition of armed resistance to London; a tradition powerful enough that even the IPP paid lip service to it.
    Just so we're clear: it's your firmly-held view that, if the people of Ireland had been asked in early 1916 whether they would support taking up arms in a war of independence, a majority would have enthusiastically supported the idea?
    But, more generally, I find your comparison here to be extremely facile and lazy.
    That's fair enough, because I find most of the arguments for celebrating the starting of a war facile and lazy as well: they mostly boil down to "the political process might not have worked, so that's all the justification for war that's required".
    Frankly, the dismissal of the 1918 election by you and others strikes me as nothing but anti-democratic.
    I haven't dismissed the 1918 election other than as a retrospective justification for what had happened before. To argue that a war in 1916 was justified because people voted for a pro-war party after a failed rebellion, executions, internment and the conscription crisis is much worse revisionism than anything you've accused me of.
    Because both cases highlight the truism (to paraphrase JFK) that those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

    Both demonstrate that when the limits of parliamentary reform are reached (and the British refused to extend representation to the US, while Louis XVI tried to shut down the estates) then the use of 'violence for political goals' is justified. Or do you feel, based on their employment of physical force, that both those revolutions are illegitimate?
    If you believe that, you haven't been paying attention. Probably because you're too busy arguing with your caricature of me as someone who is totally opposed to any violence for any reason ever.
    I'd suggest that a more relevant cause of Ireland's backwardness was the British administration itself. The rural economy, strength of the Catholic Church, rudimentary nature of the administrative apparatus, etc, are all hallmarks of London's rule.
    Now that's revisionism. Ireland turned into an isolationist, priest-ridden economic backwater after independence? Feckin Brits.


  • #135
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Sure. But the desire to achieve something doesn't automatically make it OK to kill people.
    Where in any of my posts did I... you know what? I don't care. You still don't get that but I'm not going to try to explain that point further.
    If you're going to claim that home rule couldn't possibly have peacefully led to independence...
    It's a good thing that I'm not arguing that and never have, isn't it? In fact, I'm fairly sure that in the post you responded to I outlined the possibility of a non-violent road to independence.

    I've stated quite clearly that the Home Rule Bill itself was unworkable but left the door open for you, or anyone, to provide a counterfactual scenario - ie, a possible alternative, not a declaration of certainty (:rolleyes:) - that allows for independence via that route. But you feel more comfortable in attacking a strawman.

    If you genuinely feel that "there was a peaceful avenue open" then the onus is on you to demonstrate that the obstacles that I and others have detailed in numerous posts are surmountable. You then have to sketch a potential route from Home Rule to independence. Otherwise you're just making bald statements that lack substance.
    Because, as we all know, there's nothing whatsoever connecting 1916 to the Troubles.
    And this is the crux of the matter. You're not discussing 1916, not really. Neither is Bruton. You're both still fighting the Troubles and judging 1916 in that light. You're condemning Republicans not for storming the GPO but for bombing Belfast. Kingsmill rather than Boland's Mill.

    You want my answer? Yes, when evaluating the circumstances and decisions of the Nationalist movement in 1916, there is no connection with the Troubles. To suggest otherwise - ie that the Rising should be condemned because it somehow legitimises the PIRA or is no different to it - is just grossly anachronistic and projecting political assumptions and prejudices backwards into the past.

    I've no time for such nonsense.
    Just so we're clear: it's your firmly-held view that, if the people of Ireland had been asked in early 1916 whether they would support taking up arms in a war of independence, a majority would have enthusiastically supported the idea? That's fair enough, because I find most of the arguments for celebrating the starting of a war facile and lazy as well: they mostly boil down to "the political process might not have worked, so that's all the justification for war that's required".
    It's undeniable that by 1918 the pro-independence movement was incredibly popular and that the country did effectively vote for independence. That did not spring from nowhere and it was not conjured up by a few executions. The only logical conclusion is that, in an era before opinion polls, pre-1916 the majority of the population was in favour of unilateral independence.

    What 1916 (and here it differs from the Home Rule Crisis, the Curragh Mutiny and the Conscription Crisis) made clear was that the British government of the time would not tolerate Irish independence. The savage repression made it clear that if the independence agenda was to be fulfilled (as the vast majority wished) then Sinn Fein's approach was necessary.

    So let's be clear on this: I don't think that 1916 changed any of the underlying attitudes. Ireland wanted independence, Britain refused to concede this. All the Rising did was reveal the fundamental contradiction between the two.
    Now that's revisionism. Ireland turned into an isolationist, priest-ridden economic backwater after independence? Feckin Brits.
    Even assuming you meant 'before independence', that doesn't make much sense.
    djpbarry wrote:
    What is being said is the relatively small differences were not worth the violence.
    Oh FFS. You must be being deliberately obtuse at this point, surely? Would you describe any of the below from this post as "relatively small differences"?

    "How about the right to conduct an independent foreign policy? Maintain an army? Have complete control over tax policy? Determine trade/customs policy? Legislate on coinage, telegraphs or patents? Or indeed independently alter the Act itself and change Dublin's relationship with London?

    And that's not even digging into the constitutional niceties. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the degree of autonomy/independence won historically in 1921 was far greater than that on offer in 1914. The Free State was de facto an independent nationstate (increasingly so as successive governments bulldozed the Treaty) to a degree that Home Rule never came close to promising."

    Now that post was made in direct reply to you making that exact same point. Why do I feel that this is a one-way conversation?
    But what really doesn’t make sense to me is this argument that Home Rule was unworkable because of the Unionists, so we had to fight for full independence. Explain that one to me, would you?
    What's difficult about it? The Home Rule Bill passed by the Commons was unworkable. That everyone knew. This left two possibilities:

    1) The Bill is amended by London to kowtow to Belfast and effect partition. which happened historically. This, to emphasise, was as unacceptable to the IPP as it was Sinn Fein - those IPP MPs who survived the 1918 elections (eg Joe Devlin) voted against the final draft in 1920.
    2) The Bill goes back to the drawing board and spends God knows how many more years meandering through the Westminster system. AFAIK this was never on the table.

    Neither of the above were acceptable to either the IPP (which had staked so much on Home Rule) or Sinn Fein. The alternative (eg the 1914 Home Rule Bill) was not acceptable to Belfast. There was no parliamentary option that could progress without entirely alienating one side or the other*. And that's not even getting into the tameness of Home Rule when contrasted to the small nations springing up elsewhere in Europe.

    So let's be clear: people didn't take up arms for the craic or because they wanted to 'warm the earth with blood'. They did so because their aims (ie independence) could not be met by parliamentary means.

    *You can of course argue that both the IPP and Sinn Fein should have accepted partition but that's hindsight talking.
    That’s obviously not what I said – I’m getting pretty tired of people jumping down my throat instead of reading what I actually posted.
    To be honest, it's hard to judge the nuances of your position when it's delivered in one-line comments


  • #136
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Reekwind wrote: »
    Where in any of my posts did I... you know what? I don't care. You still don't get that but I'm not going to try to explain that point further.
    You can't claim that you don't think it's OK to kill people to achieve political ends while simultaneously arguing that it was OK to start a war because the political progress was moving too slowly in 1916. That's an utterly illogical position to hold.
    It's a good thing that I'm not arguing that and never have, isn't it? In fact, I'm fairly sure that in the post you responded to I outlined the possibility of a non-violent road to independence.

    I've stated quite clearly that the Home Rule Bill itself was unworkable but left the door open for you, or anyone, to provide a counterfactual scenario - ie, a possible alternative, not a declaration of certainty (:rolleyes:) - that allows for independence via that route. But you feel more comfortable in attacking a strawman.
    If you believe that a peaceful avenue to independence was a possibility, why are you badgering me to propose a peaceful avenue to independence? Why are you asking me to prove to you the possibility of something you agree was possible?

    More to the point, if you accept that it was possible that independence could have been achieved by peaceful means, why do you believe that the certainty of violence was preferable to the possibility of peace?
    If you genuinely feel that "there was a peaceful avenue open" then the onus is on you to demonstrate that the obstacles that I and others have detailed in numerous posts are surmountable. You then have to sketch a potential route from Home Rule to independence. Otherwise you're just making bald statements that lack substance.
    ...and now you no longer believe that a peaceful route existed.

    When you figure out which position you're espousing, let me know. It's hard to discuss things with you when you're arguing two contradictory things simultaneously.
    And this is the crux of the matter. You're not discussing 1916, not really. Neither is Bruton. You're both still fighting the Troubles and judging 1916 in that light. You're condemning Republicans not for storming the GPO but for bombing Belfast. Kingsmill rather than Boland's Mill.
    It's so nice to have you around to tell me what I'm really saying. Because I couldn't possibly actually mean what I say, could I?
    You want my answer? Yes, when evaluating the circumstances and decisions of the Nationalist movement in 1916, there is no connection with the Troubles. To suggest otherwise - ie that the Rising should be condemned because it somehow legitimises the PIRA or is no different to it - is just grossly anachronistic and projecting political assumptions and prejudices backwards into the past.
    On the contrary: can you name an Irish republican armed group that hasn't claimed legitimacy from 1916?
    It's undeniable that by 1918 the pro-independence movement was incredibly popular and that the country did effectively vote for independence. That did not spring from nowhere and it was not conjured up by a few executions. The only logical conclusion is that, in an era before opinion polls, pre-1916 the majority of the population was in favour of unilateral independence.
    As we all know, there has never in the history of history been a single instance of the electorate collectively changing its mind about something over a two year period. If the electorate believed something in 1918, the only logical conclusion - your words - is that they believed the exact same thing in 1916.

    Republican logic is funny.
    What 1916 (and here it differs from the Home Rule Crisis, the Curragh Mutiny and the Conscription Crisis) made clear was that the British government of the time would not tolerate Irish independence.
    What 1916 made clear is that the British government would not tolerate insurrection.
    So let's be clear on this: I don't think that 1916 changed any of the underlying attitudes. Ireland wanted independence, Britain refused to concede this.
    You're simply reiterating the "Britain never would have..." argument. It's patent nonsense to argue that a government which had passed a Home Rule bill would never contemplate independence.

    The justification for violence remains that it's OK to kill people if the pace of political change isn't up to your standards. You dress that up as the impossibility of peaceful independence (when you're not, confusingly, simultaneously arguing that a peaceful path to independence was, in fact, a possibility), but the fact remains that you think that it was OK to start a war because of impatience with a political process, and I don't.


  • #137
    RED L4 0TH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭RED L4 0TH


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    It's patent nonsense to argue that a government which had passed a Home Rule bill would never contemplate independence.

    It didn't contemplate independence. All Home Rule offered was a form of limited devolution, with key areas such as defense and foreign relations remaining in the hands of the British government.


  • #138
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    RED L4 0TH wrote: »
    It didn't contemplate independence. All Home Rule offered was a form of limited devolution, with key areas such as defense and foreign relations remaining in the hands of the British government.

    Permanently and irrevocably?


  • #139
    RED L4 0TH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭RED L4 0TH


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Permanently and irrevocably?

    The home rule bill that reached the statute books in September 1914 didn't consider full independence.


  • #140
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    RED L4 0TH wrote: »
    The home rule bill that reached the statute books in September 1914 didn't consider full independence.

    And the Free State that emerged after the war didn't have full independence. You could argue, if you're of an all-island bent, that Ireland still doesn't have full independence - in fact, this continues to be used as justification for violence.

    There was a political path to independence available. The violent path was chosen instead; I believe this was a tragic mistake.


  • #141
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,316 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    RED L4 0TH wrote: »
    The home rule bill that reached the statute books in September 1914 didn't consider full independence.

    Indeed if anything, with the Unionist protests, it seemed less was going to be on offer. It has to be remembered that even Redmond ended up not fully trusting the British Government, with good reason, after Lloyd George went behind is back to promise Unionists that the North would be excluded from HR long term.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



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  • #142
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    K-9 wrote: »
    Indeed if anything, with the Unionist protests, it seemed less was going to be on offer. It has to be remembered that even Redmond ended up not fully trusting the British Government, with good reason, after Lloyd George went behind is back to promise Unionists that the North would be excluded from HR long term.

    Well, if we needed a war to prevent partition, I guess it was worth it in the end.


  • #143
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Reekwind wrote: »
    Oh FFS. You must be being deliberately obtuse at this point, surely? Would you describe any of the below from this post as "relatively small differences"?
    All of them.

    You see, we’re just never going to agree on this. I think that even killing one single person to achieve anything on that list is totally unjustified when the possibility of achieving the same thing peacefully exists. You disagree: apparently, x number of lives lost was an acceptable price to pay for Dublin to be able to legislate on telegraphs.
    Reekwind wrote: »
    What's difficult about it? The Home Rule Bill passed by the Commons was unworkable. That everyone knew. This left two possibilities:
    Just two? Really?
    Reekwind wrote: »
    1) The Bill is amended by London to kowtow to Belfast and effect partition. which happened historically. This, to emphasise, was as unacceptable to the IPP as it was Sinn Fein - those IPP MPs who survived the 1918 elections (eg Joe Devlin) voted against the final draft in 1920.
    The point is it was an option.

    So, finally, you accept that Home Rule for the 26 counties was a possibility? An unpopular option perhaps, but a possibility none the less.


  • #144
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,316 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Well, if we needed a war to prevent partition, I guess it was worth it in the end.


    Ah now, war was an event that happened that really had no bearing on Irelands partition, it may have been used politically by Unionists, Nationalists and indeed SF for political advantage, but Unionist opposition was always going to exist. I think it is important to try and place yourself as much as possible in the times then, rather than looking back with maybe unrealistic revisionism.

    Whether we like it or not, the IPP under Redmond did not want partition and the most they'd give was a temporary opt out to the North. Whether that was a Redmond principle, I'd say so, but increasing Republicanism also probably informed his view. SF were offering independence (obviously unattainable but still) while Redmond was fighting a battle to keep a pretty limited HR in comparison from falling apart.

    Looking back now it is obvious partition of some part was inevitable, but it's unfair to apply hindsight and 20/20 vision to a very difficult political situation at the time.

    Oddly enough SF started out with Griffiths dual monarchy idea but ended up wanting full independence. Shows you how things changed dramatically over a very short period of time.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #145
    RED L4 0TH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭RED L4 0TH


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    And the Free State that emerged after the war didn't have full independence.

    But it still had more independence from the off than the Home Rule model would have given it. Own taxation, own army etc.
    There was a political path to independence available. The violent path was chosen instead; I believe this was a tragic mistake.

    Was John Redmond's Woodenbridge speech not also a tragic mistake? It meant the Home Rule process was also linked to violence, i.e. 'go where-ever the firing line extends' and all that. The Irish body count as a result of his speech was shockingly high don't you think? What if we had accepted conscription on top of that?


  • #146
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    This is getting nowhere. I'm just treading over the same nonsense with people who are more concerned with political name calling rather than history. I've laid out my views in more words than I should have and still don't see a decent case for the validity of the Home Rule Bill. Instead the last few pages have just held sniping and deliberate misconstruing of posts.
    oscarBravo wrote: »
    If you believe that a peaceful avenue to independence was a possibility, why are you badgering me to propose a peaceful avenue to independence? Why are you asking me to prove to you the possibility of something you agree was possible?
    Because it's a possibility. Other possibilities include: an asteroid hitting London, Ireland drifting off into the Atlantic and the King unilaterally deciding to grant us independence after God spoke to him in a dream.

    What I want from you is a plausible (ie a probable, rather than possible) avenue to independence via parliamentary means alone. If you can't provide that then why on earth should anyone listen to when you claim that physical force was unnecessary?

    In fact, let's strengthen that sentiment. You've not sketched out a potential means to Irish independence via parliamentary means (a five minute exercise) because you either don't know the history well enough or you realise that whatever you assemble won't stand up to scrutiny. Instead you duck and dive and insist that people in the 1910s should have had blind faith in a process that you can't even guess would look like.

    (And again I end up repeating myself. From the very post that I linked to above: "...the question is not what might have happened but what looked likely to happen in 1916. By this point - the point at which people had to make the calculation that we're now questioning - the odds of Home Rule (never mind actual independence) looked as distant as ever. Crucially, that was the conclusion reached by the population at large when Nationalist opinion swung from the IPP to Sinn Fein.")
    On the contrary: can you name an Irish republican armed group that hasn't claimed legitimacy from 1916?
    That's not 'on the contrary'. Nothing in my post denied that? What posts are you actually reading? This is a perfect example of what the nonsense I'm dealing with.

    The point was that the actions of proclaimed successors half a century later have no bearing on what actually happened in 1916. They should have no bearing on how we view 1916; those events should be analysed according to their own circumstances. I say 'should' because there are always the likes of yourself who are more interested in current politics than historical reality. To be blunt: criticising the IRB/ICA because the PIRA (or any varient thereof) claims legitimacy from them is just stupid.
    As we all know, there has never in the history of history been a single instance of the electorate collectively changing its mind about something over a two year period. If the electorate believed something in 1918, the only logical conclusion - your words - is that they believed the exact same thing in 1916.
    Can you think of a comparable shift in popular opinion on such a major issue*? From happy citizens of Empire (content to wait potentially decades for independence) to strongly supporting immediate secession in less than two years. I can't. Every major revolution of rising that I'm aware of (revolutions in America, France and Russia, US Civil War, etc) has been trailed by years, if not decades, of discontent. But you believe Ireland to be different, Ireland to be the singular case in which rebellion arrived like a light flicking on?

    *Without reference to recent local elections, please.
    You're simply reiterating the "Britain never would have..." argument. It's patent nonsense to argue that a government which had passed a Home Rule bill would never contemplate independence.
    Again, there is this mad association of Home Rule with independence. Home Rule would have left Ireland with about as much autonomy as Wales today enjoys. That is in no way incompatible with the maintenance of Empire.

    But I don't even have to point to British repression in her colonies well into the 1950s. Because in 1919 when Dail Eireann (with as strong a democratic mandate as could be provided) met and issued its Declaration of Independence, London had a choice. It could recognise the will of the Irish people to independence and sit down to, at the very least, negotiate or it could refuse to even contemplate Irish independence.

    Intense repression was the response to demands for independence. Yet you'd have us believe that the British were only too happy to consider Irish aspirations for self-determination? Because they were willing to consider (after decades of debate) limited devolution? Cop yourself on.
    djpbarry wrote:
    You see, we’re just never going to agree on this. I think that even killing one single person to achieve anything on that list is totally unjustified when the possibility of achieving the same thing peacefully exists. You disagree: apparently, x number of lives lost was an acceptable price to pay for Dublin to be able to legislate on telegraphs.
    I'm sorry but, in the nicest possible way, that's a cop out.

    You might believe that the lives lost were unnecessary or not worth the gains; fine. That's your opinion and I respect that. But you cannot use that sentiment to deny that those gains existed. That is, your evaluation as to worthiness of the independence struggle is irrelevant when gauging what exactly the differences between Home Rule and the Free State were. It's like saying 'I don't agree with X, therefore the differences between A and B are irrelevant'.

    The differences are there. Things like having an army or being able to conduct an independent foreign policy are significant. Whatever value judgement you may make the idea that there were 'relatively small differences' between Home Rule and the Free State is just false.
    Just two? Really?
    See above. There are always infinite possibilities but, IMO, only two semi-realistic options. If you want to suggest more or believe that I missed something then by all means go ahead. That's exactly what I've been getting frustrated about people not providing.
    So, finally, you accept that Home Rule for the 26 counties was a possibility? An unpopular option perhaps, but a possibility none the less.
    It was an option. I'm not sure how it would have been implemented given that Nationalists (and socialists) of all stripes were dead set against it. As above, I'd be interested to hear how you think it could have worked.

    But here's what oscarBravo doesn't seem to get: I'm not that fussed about the six counties. Signing the Treaty was probably the right move. But I'm not going to fault the people who were making these political calculations back then for something that they didn't know. They didn't have hindsight. And I'm not going to get invested in a particular historical choice just because it fits in with my current politics. Hence I've been asking: show me the alternatives.


  • #147
    FTA69
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    On the contrary: can you name an Irish republican armed group that hasn't claimed legitimacy from 1916?

    The INLA. (Forgive me nerdism.)

    Even then they drew heavily from the Citizen Army.


  • #148
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Reekwind wrote: »
    What I want from you is a plausible (ie a probable, rather than possible) avenue to independence via parliamentary means alone. If you can't provide that then why on earth should anyone listen to when you claim that physical force was unnecessary?
    You're asking me for the impossible, and you know it. There is no counterfactual I could conceivably stretch that you can't knock down with reference to things as they did unfold, because it's easy to point to what did happen as a way of disproving what might have happened.

    1918 is a case in point. The British government reacted badly to a unilateral declaration of an Irish republic, which is used as "proof" that the British government would never have contemplated any peaceful moves to independence. This carefully and conveniently ignores the fact that the 1918 Dáil was composed of many of the same people who had, two short years previously, started an armed insurrection.

    What would have been the outcome of the 1918 elections, had the 1916 rising not taken place? We can't possibly know. You can state as blithely as you like what you believe would have happened, but you'd be making stuff up the same way you're asking me to make stuff up, and I'm not interested in building your straw men for you.
    That's not 'on the contrary'. Nothing in my post denied that? What posts are you actually reading? This is a perfect example of what the nonsense I'm dealing with.

    The point was that the actions of proclaimed successors half a century later have no bearing on what actually happened in 1916. They should have no bearing on how we view 1916; those events should be analysed according to their own circumstances. I say 'should' because there are always the likes of yourself who are more interested in current politics than historical reality. To be blunt: criticising the IRB/ICA because the PIRA (or any varient thereof) claims legitimacy from them is just stupid.
    Yet again, you're working very hard at missing my point.

    Every Irish republican since 1916 has claimed legitimacy from that event. That's not an argument against 1916 - unlike some, I don't believe in using future events as justification or otherwise for past events - it's an argument against the celebration of 1916. If we claim that it was just and right to kill people in order to subvert a political process in 1916, but that it's evil and wrong to kill people in order to subvert a political process in 2014, that's hypocrisy. People don't like feeling like hypocrites, so they invent post hoc rationalisations to explain why killing people was OK in 1916, but isn't OK now.

    1916 happened, and there's nothing we can do to change that. What we could do is stop patting ourselves on the back and talking about how wonderful it was that we started a war nearly a hundred years ago.
    Again, there is this mad association of Home Rule with independence. Home Rule would have left Ireland with about as much autonomy as Wales today enjoys.
    Permanently and irrevocably?
    But I don't even have to point to British repression in her colonies well into the 1950s. Because in 1919 when Dail Eireann (with as strong a democratic mandate as could be provided) met and issued its Declaration of Independence, London had a choice. It could recognise the will of the Irish people to independence and sit down to, at the very least, negotiate or it could refuse to even contemplate Irish independence.
    And that choice was coloured in large part by the fact that London had just recently put down an insurrection.
    Yet you'd have us believe that the British were only too happy to consider Irish aspirations for self-determination? Because they were willing to consider (after decades of debate) limited devolution? Cop yourself on.
    I'm arguing that whatever was achieved through the Easter rising and the war of independence wasn't worth the thousands of lives that were lost. You're arguing that those thousands of lives were a price worth paying. I'm comfortable with my view; if you're comfortable with yours, fair enough.


  • #149
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,575 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    K-9 wrote: »
    Ah now, war was an event that happened that really had no bearing on Irelands partition, it may have been used politically by Unionists, Nationalists and indeed SF for political advantage, but Unionist opposition was always going to exist. I think it is important to try and place yourself as much as possible in the times then, rather than looking back with maybe unrealistic revisionism.

    Well... yes. Unionists were always likely to fight - but their fight was aimed at the British Government! I find it funny how this is so commonly overlooked.

    Actually, isn't it like the definition of irony:

    UK preparing to force territory out of the UK, and said territory looking to enemies of the UK to get arms to fight to UK in order to remain loyal members of the UK! :p

    Ireland was almost certainly going to get some sort of independence, (devolved as it may have been) had the war in Europe not erupted. The Unionist question was still in the air, and it is quite hard not to take a view that would not say that the Unionists had some sort of moral justification.

    Different republicans parties insisting on calling themselves Sinn Fein throughout the years has been a needless cause of confusion and argument. At least there currently are only two Sinn Fein parties, one of which you can safely ignore.


  • #150
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,316 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    RandomName2 wrote: »
    Well... yes. Unionists were always likely to fight - but their fight was aimed at the British Government! I find it funny how this is so commonly overlooked.

    Actually, isn't it like the definition of irony:

    UK preparing to force territory out of the UK, and said territory looking to enemies of the UK to get arms to fight to UK in order to remain loyal members of the UK! :p

    Ireland was almost certainly going to get some sort of independence, (devolved as it may have been) had the war in Europe not erupted. The Unionist question was still in the air, and it is quite hard not to take a view that would not say that the Unionists had some sort of moral justification.

    Different republicans parties insisting on calling themselves Sinn Fein throughout the years has been a needless cause of confusion and argument. At least there currently are only two Sinn Fein parties, one of which you can safely ignore.

    Well, it was against the British and HR and SF. I suppose, and Redmond was guilty of this as well, there was little recognition that Unionists would prove to be such a stumbling block to full partition.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



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  • #151
    RED L4 0TH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭RED L4 0TH


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    If we claim that it was just and right to kill people in order to subvert a political process in 1916, but that it's evil and wrong to kill people in order to subvert a political process in 2014, that's hypocrisy. People don't like feeling like hypocrites, so they invent post hoc rationalisations to explain why killing people was OK in 1916, but isn't OK now.

    1916 happened, and there's nothing we can do to change that. What we could do is stop patting ourselves on the back and talking about how wonderful it was that we started a war nearly a hundred years ago.

    This doesn't mean much tbh, if you consider it 'impossible' to map out an alternative peaceful path, as requested by other posters.
    I'm arguing that whatever was achieved through the Easter rising and the war of independence wasn't worth the thousands of lives that were lost.

    And John Redmond's utterances that also led to the loss of thousands of lives were?


This discussion has been closed.
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