John Bruton says Easter Rising was ‘unnecessary’

gladrags · 27-10-2014 08:05PM

alastair wrote: »

If the rising wasn't necessary - as you imply might be the case, then the waste of lives - amongst all, not just the leadership of the rising, is down to that leadership - no-one else. However educated they might have been, it's also entirely true to point out that they were acting undemocratically - they had no mandate for their actions.

Pure fantasy.

"If"

You came up with all this fantasy before.
Trying to warp another opinion.

The poster is expressing what appears to be a well balanced opinion.

alastair · 27-10-2014 08:13PM

gladrags wrote: »

Pure fantasy.

"If"

You came up with all this fantasy before.
Trying to warp another opinion.

The poster is expressing what appears to be a well balanced opinion.

Yes - 'if' - as the poster doesn't express an opinion in that regard. No fantasy expressed above, and is it clear to you if the poster believes the rising was actually necessary?

gladrags · 27-10-2014 08:42PM

alastair wrote: »

Yes - 'if' - as the poster doesn't express an opinion in that regard. No fantasy expressed above, and is it clear to you if the poster believes the rising was actually necessary?

"I am not sure whether the Easter rising was unnecessary or not."

richardw001 · 27-10-2014 08:45PM

alastair wrote: »

Yes - 'if' - as the poster doesn't express an opinion in that regard. No fantasy expressed above, and is it clear to you if the poster believes the rising was actually necessary?

Well to be honest I don't know if the Easter Rising was necessary or not - that probably comes through :-)

However I definitely would not have the audacity to say that it was unnecessary.

And that is my main point.

On one hand we have people that took place in a rebellion they knew would not succeed - to try and provide the Irish People with what they believed was going to be a better Ireland - a republic in its pure sense (not in the sense that is bandied around in Ireland today).

And on the other hand we have politicians in Ireland today that deem it "unnecessary" or try and associate themselves with the people involved with the rising.

Take someone like Padraig Pearce - I wouldn't say he was perfect - however I would think that he sacrificed more for the Irish people than any politician in the Dail today. I would also think that considering the Government of Ireland act of 1914 - Some people back then probably considered it's postponement was enough of a mandate - this was a case where the result of democratic decision was postponed (yet again). So they did have (what they believed) was a clear mandate.

Anyway its impossible to say whether an Irish person living today would be be better off today if the Easter Rising had not occurred.

To say it was "unnecessary" is a very stupid remark. My other point is that I think is that we should be looking back and appreciating what was sacrificed - and what the leaders and volunteers then gave up for the Irish people. I don't agree with violence - however that's with my late 20th century/21st century hat on. I'm not going to judge peoples actions almost 100 years ago purely based on the violent aspects to it.

Karl Stein · 27-10-2014 09:07PM

"The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."

Carl von Clausewitz

jank · 28-10-2014 04:56AM

The same tired old arguments used to justify violence.

alastair · 28-10-2014 09:39AM

gladrags wrote: »

"I am not sure whether the Easter rising was unnecessary or not."

That would be a 'no' then. Cheers.

alastair · 28-10-2014 09:50AM

richardw001 wrote: »

Well to be honest I don't know if the Easter Rising was necessary or not - that probably comes through :-)

However I definitely would not have the audacity to say that it was unnecessary.

And that is my main point.

On one hand we have people that took place in a rebellion they knew would not succeed - to try and provide the Irish People with what they believed was going to be a better Ireland - a republic in its pure sense (not in the sense that is bandied around in Ireland today).

And on the other hand we have politicians in Ireland today that deem it "unnecessary" or try and associate themselves with the people involved with the rising.

Take someone like Padraig Pearce - I wouldn't say he was perfect - however I would think that he sacrificed more for the Irish people than any politician in the Dail today. I would also think that considering the Government of Ireland act of 1914 - Some people back then probably considered it's postponement was enough of a mandate - this was a case where the result of democratic decision was postponed (yet again). So they did have (what they believed) was a clear mandate.

Anyway its impossible to say whether an Irish person living today would be be better off today if the Easter Rising had not occurred.

To say it was "unnecessary" is a very stupid remark. My other point is that I think is that we should be looking back and appreciating what was sacrificed - and what the leaders and volunteers then gave up for the Irish people. I don't agree with violence - however that's with my late 20th century/21st century hat on. I'm not going to judge peoples actions almost 100 years ago purely based on the violent aspects to it.

If you aren't sure it was unnecessary, then logic requires that you also aren't sure if it was necessary. So why would you believe it's stupid for someone to hold either view? If it's as ambigious as you believe, then either belief could be correct.

I'm of the view that it wasn't necessary. That doesn't mean much within the bigger picture of what might have been the least damaging route to independence - we still had two competing national ideologies on the island, one way or another. Things might have turned out better or worse - we'll never know. And I'll judge the actions of the leaders of the rising by the standards of the day - they had no mandate, were opposed by the large majority of Irish people, and their decisions got many people killed.

poteen o hooley · 28-10-2014 11:45AM

alastair wrote: »

If you aren't sure it was unnecessary, then logic requires that you also aren't sure if it was necessary. So why would you believe it's stupid for someone to hold either view? If it's as ambigious as you believe, then either belief could be correct.

I'm of the view that it wasn't necessary. That doesn't mean much within the bigger picture of what might have been the least damaging route to independence - we still had two competing national ideologies on the island, one way or another. Things might have turned out better or worse - we'll never know. And I'll judge the actions of the leaders of the rising by the standards of the day - they had no mandate, were opposed by the large majority of Irish people, and their decisions got many people killed.

The most naive guff even seen on the internet. Laughably confused.

Hitler had a huge mandate. So by that logic nazism was justified.

The British Empire was not some enlightened humanist service designed to enable humanity to realise it's potentials.
It was the opposite.
It stole the resources of communities worldwide and mostly destroyed the indigenous cultures and value systems those communities had evolved to serve them. It was opposed to gaelic culture and it did the same here.
Its ethos was the enrichment of the elite ruling class of the British and it succeeded in concentrating vast wealth in the hands of a few while empoverishing everybody else.
Most of the chaos in the world today is the effect of such empire building. We might have seized 'political' freedom but we are actually still economic colonies since the REAL power on the planet lies with the big central banks and the 'markets'. And this is a legacy of colonialism still to be resolved, delivering us cyclical economic collapses and recessions.

The fact that a large part of the Irish population was cowed, confused or bought into complicity in such an anti human scourge did not render their opposition to the rising moral in exactly the same way that the support for Nazism by the German population did not render Hitler's designs for 'Ayran' domination right.

The spititual leaders of the uprising, especially Connolly and Pearse had in their vision a world of justice and equality for all peoples, not merely political power for a new anglo Irish elite.

The British Empire visited its scourge through the use of extreme violence and such violence was needed in response as it was the only language they acknowledged. It was self defence in reality.

Alastair seems to reside in a sort of fairy land where everything is rosy, the atrocious living conditions of the masses were their own fault because of their drinking and fecklessness and as long as all subscribe to a sort of deluded Gandhism which never actually existed then he'll be happy.
A confused fool, in a word.

alastair · 28-10-2014 12:00PM

Well that's Godwinned me good!

Otherwise? Nope - not subscribing to your pamphlet.

gladrags · 28-10-2014 12:11PM

alastair wrote: »

Well that's Godwinned me good!

Otherwise? Nope - not subscribing to your pamphlet.

Can you please unsubscribe me too?

Thanks

Psychedelic Pigeon · 31-10-2014 12:19AM

A view which has been expressed by several posters on this forum over the years, myself included.

Whether you agree with him or not, I think it's refreshing to see the glorification of events such as The Rising questioned. I don’t think much consideration will be given to his suggestion, but it may at least provoke some discussion.[/QUOTE

Bruton would say that because he worked for a British Crown corporation, the Oireachtas was set up under King George in 1922.
Please read the proclamation, it is one of the most powerful documents I have ever read, the Crown is a ruthless and murderous entity that has no place on this land.

twowheelsgood · 31-10-2014 12:59AM

Psychedelic Pigeon wrote: »

Bruton would say that because he worked for a British Crown corporation, the Oireachtas was set up under King George in 1922.

Ditto for every past and present TD surely, including the current Sinn Fein members?

Psychedelic Pigeon wrote: »

Please read the proclamation, it is one of the most powerful documents I have ever read

Election manifestos can be pretty impressive too. Alas there is inevitably a deficit between what they promise and what the promisers ultimately deliver. We can only speculate on how much of what was in that proclamation would (could) have ultimately be delivered,

alastair · 31-10-2014 01:09AM

Psychedelic Pigeon wrote: »

Please read the proclamation, it is one of the most powerful documents I have ever read, the Crown is a ruthless and murderous entity that has no place on this land.

I particularly like the bit where they align themselves with the German Empire - fresh on the back of their butchery in Belgium. Classy stuff.

Son Of A Vidic · 31-10-2014 01:52AM

djpbarry wrote: »

John Bruton says Easter Rising was ‘unnecessary’

Of course he would.

poteen o hooley · 31-10-2014 07:20AM

alastair wrote: »

I particularly like the bit where they align themselves with the German Empire - fresh on the back of their butchery in Belgium. Classy stuff.

The old Oirish-Paddy take on life that there's something rotten about the Irish. Definitely a version of Stockholm Syndrome where your thinking merges into the psychology of your abuser.
We see less of this Paddyology lately as the colonial mindset fades nevertheless the stink of inferiority complex clearly exudes.
Poor old Alice Dear.

alastair · 31-10-2014 09:29AM

poteen o hooley wrote: »

The old Oirish-Paddy take on life that there's something rotten about the Irish. Definitely a version of Stockholm Syndrome where your thinking merges into the psychology of your abuser.
We see less of this Paddyology lately as the colonial mindset fades nevertheless the stink of inferiority complex clearly exudes.
Poor old Alice Dear.

I take it that you're quite happy to have an alliance with these gallant lads marked down in the proclamation then?

At 6 o'clock on the following morning, the 21st, the Germans began to drag the inhabitants from their houses. Men, women and children were driven into the square where the sexes were separated. Three men were then shot, and a fourth was bayoneted. A German colonel was present whose intention in the first place appeared to be to shoot all the men.

A young German girl who had been staying in the neighbourhood interceded with him, and after some parleying, some of the prisoners were picked out, taken to the banks of the Meuse and there shot. The colonel accused the population of firing on the soldiers, but there is no reason to think that any of them had done so, and no inquiry appears to have been made.

About 400 people lost their lives in this massacre, some on the banks of the Meuse, where they were shot according to orders given, and some in the cellars of the houses where they had taken refuge. Eight men belonging to one family were murdered. Another man was placed close to a machine gun which was fired through him. His wife brought his body home on a wheel-barrow. The Germans broke into her house and ransacked it, and piled up all the eatables in a heap on the foot and relieved themselves upon it.

A hair-dresser was murdered in his kitchen while he was sitting with a child on each knee. A paralytic was murdered in his garden. After this came the general sack of the town. Many of the inhabitants who escaped the massacre were kept as prisoners and compelled to clear the houses of corpses and bury them in trenches. These prisoners were subsequently used as a shelter and protection for a pontoon bridge which the Germans had built across the river and were so used to prevent the Belgian forts from firing upon it.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/brycereport.htm

Nothing rotten about the Irish btw - who opposed this rising, in the main.

gladrags · 31-10-2014 09:54AM

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Of course he would.

The only thing Bruton has in common with 1916,is that they are both history.

And that's another fact.

poteen o hooley · 31-10-2014 10:09AM

The most creative way to celebrate the 1916 heroics would be to take Big Dick Bruton and all his pensions up to Kilmainham jail for an evening of tar and feathering.

Nodin · 31-10-2014 10:40AM

alastair wrote: »

I take it that you're quite happy to have an alliance with these gallant lads marked down in the proclamation then?

..........

Why? Were the Brits any better?

alastair · 31-10-2014 10:47AM

Nodin wrote: »

Why? Were the Brits any better?

The very definition of whataboutery btw - congrats.

Yes they were actually.

Why do you pretend there was only a binary choice presented to them in the text of the proclamation? They chose to highlight this alliance - no-one made them.

gladrags · 31-10-2014 10:58AM

Nodin wrote: »

Why? Were the Brits any better?

They were much better,from Cromwell to India,Iraq,Palestine,Afghanistan.

And of course the mass slaughter that was WW1.

You are flogging a dead horse btw.

alastair · 31-10-2014 11:03AM

gladrags wrote: »

They were much better,from Cromwell to India,Iraq,Palestine,Afghanistan.

And of course the mass slaughter that was WW1.

You are flogging a dead horse btw.

Ah right, because of Cromwell, it's perfectly acceptable to declare an alliance with an army currently engaged in the massacre of civilians. Makes perfect sense.

Nodin · 31-10-2014 11:09AM

alastair wrote: »

Ah right, because of Cromwell, it's perfectly acceptable to declare an alliance with an army currently engaged in the massacre of civilians. Makes perfect sense.

From massacring Tibetans in the early 1900's to bombing Iraq into submission in 1922, the British were constantly killing civillians, that's how the Empire was maintained. Rebels allied themselves with a competing power to gain aid, and that's it.

alastair · 31-10-2014 11:17AM

Nodin wrote: »

From massacring Tibetans in the early 1900's to bombing Iraq into submission in 1922, the British were constantly killing civillians, that's how the Empire was maintained. Rebels allied themselves with a competing power to gain aid, and that's it.

Again - how does any of that require declaring an alliance with an army currently engaged in the massacre of civilians, calling them 'gallant'?

Whataboutery writ large.

poteen o hooley · 31-10-2014 11:28AM

gladrags wrote: »

They were much better,from Cromwell to India,Iraq,Palestine,Afghanistan.

And of course the mass slaughter that was WW1.

You are flogging a dead horse btw.

I don't think you should simply label Alice Dear a dead horse.

We need a binary choice.

Nodin · 31-10-2014 04:50PM

alastair wrote: »

Again - how does any of that require declaring an alliance with an army currently engaged in the massacre of civilians, calling them 'gallant'?

Whataboutery writ large.

Who else would they align with?

How do you know they believed any reports that may have been extant?

alastair · 31-10-2014 05:49PM

Nodin wrote: »

Who else would they align with?

Well, let's see - no one? Seems like a far better option to me. It's not like the Kaiser was on tenterhooks to see if he got the full credits due in their PR, and didn't the Irish Citizens Army have a stance regarding the German leadership in any case?

Nodin wrote: »

How do you know they believed any reports that may have been extant?

Why would they have doubted them? They were both accurate, and widely reported.

Nodin · 31-10-2014 06:02PM

alastair wrote: »

Well, let's see - no one? Seems like a far better option to me. ...............

Well it would, seeing as you deemed the whole thing unnessecary.

alastair · 31-10-2014 06:14PM

Nodin wrote: »

Well it would, seeing as you deemed the whole thing unnessecary.

Eh? That makes no sense whatsoever.

You're seriously proposing that the effectiveness of the rising, or of the credibility of the proclamation, required the declaration of an alliance to a 'gallant' military who were engaged in the massacre of civilians in Belgium? Any sensible/neutral reading of their pitch, would have informed them that this would work against them, not generate any additional support.

John Bruton says Easter Rising was ‘unnecessary’

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