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Commonly believed historical inaccuracies

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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Mick Tator wrote: »
    I and lots of others dismissed IrishCentral as a source. The nonsense purveyed by that site is patent rubbish from the outset. Asserting that Victoria was ‘the Famine Queen’, a name that the American nationalist community tried (unsuccessfully) to stick to her, is plain silly
    Queen Victoria was greeted by rapturous crowds everywhere she went when she visited Ireland in the last days of the Famine (1849); Cork, Dublin, etc. all had firework displays, triumphal arches (one for e.g. on the canal to greet her entry into Dublin). It was not just the aristocracy, but the ordinary poor who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to greet and welcome her. Go explain that if you can (because the tiny nationalist community were unable to do so at the time and said her visit had been a huge setback to their ‘cause’. And reflect, while you are at it, the visit was a year after the Young Irelander ‘rising’. Who was shown more support?

    Confused. What is your position? Do you believe the myth? Or the kernel of it? Or do you agree it is historically inaccurate (i.e.rubbish)? You also are being rather economical with the truth – what you said was

    That statement is patently untrue. You misunderstand her role and powers, and you also dismiss her ‘Letters’.

    Contradicting yourself again there. Public opinion in Ireland was also infused with ‘Malthusian beliefs’, laissez-faire economics and blamed the blight as a ‘visitation from God’. Not of course that it stopped the Irish merchants form shipping out foodstuffs. Go read the minute books of any of the Workhouses, or sermons by priests of various denominations, or the contemporary newspapers. Read for example ‘The Great Famine in Tralee and North Kerry’ by Bryan MacMahon. It would open your eyes on the role God played.

    Nonsense. Have you any idea of the difference between what is agreed as aid and what is actually delivered? Do you know that the Yemini war has cost that country MORE THAN $100 BILLION? Are you aware of the bureaucracy, corruption, total absence of infrastructure, etc., etc., in Yemen? Or that an oil tanker, the ‘Safer’ (oh the irony!) has been rotting away off the coast and could – at any moment dump more than a million gallons of oil into the Red Sea?
    The majority of people around the world have ceased to give a rats about Africa and places like Yemen. Supporting them with ‘aid’ is money down the drain, it lines the pockets of the rulers..


    I see you are falling into the trap of the hoary old chestnut of the Ottoman nonsense. Go read about it in a history book, not some fairytale created for Yanks. The Ottoman regime was hardly a poster boy for democracy!

    Dream on! I never contended that, nor have I asserted that the British government did a good job – clearly they did not.
    Your comments show an ignorance of historical fact, of matters surrounding the Famine and an ignorance of the role of a constitutional monarch including the role (and power) of Victoria after her accession.
    If you want to revive a post pages back from last month and pick a fight, at least go do some factual homework first.

    Mod: Post a bit more civilly or dont post at all.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,270 ✭✭✭Caquas


    Mick Tator wrote: »
    I and lots of others dismissed IrishCentral as a source. The nonsense purveyed by that site is patent rubbish from the outset. Asserting that Victoria was ‘the Famine Queen’, a name that the American nationalist community tried (unsuccessfully) to stick to her, is plain silly
    Queen Victoria was greeted by rapturous crowds everywhere she went when she visited Ireland in the last days of the Famine (1849); Cork, Dublin, etc. all had firework displays, triumphal arches (one for e.g. on the canal to greet her entry into Dublin). It was not just the aristocracy, but the ordinary poor who turned out in their hundreds of thousands to greet and welcome her. Go explain that if you can (because the tiny nationalist community were unable to do so at the time and said her visit had been a huge setback to their ‘cause’. And reflect, while you are at it, the visit was a year after the Young Irelander ‘rising’. Who was shown more support?

    Confused. What is your position? Do you believe the myth? Or the kernel of it? Or do you agree it is historically inaccurate (i.e.rubbish)? You also are being rather economical with the truth – what you said was

    That statement is patently untrue. You misunderstand her role and powers, and you also dismiss her ‘Letters’.

    Contradicting yourself again there. Public opinion in Ireland was also infused with ‘Malthusian beliefs’, laissez-faire economics and blamed the blight as a ‘visitation from God’. Not of course that it stopped the Irish merchants form shipping out foodstuffs. Go read the minute books of any of the Workhouses, or sermons by priests of various denominations, or the contemporary newspapers. Read for example ‘The Great Famine in Tralee and North Kerry’ by Bryan MacMahon. It would open your eyes on the role God played.

    Nonsense. Have you any idea of the difference between what is agreed as aid and what is actually delivered? Do you know that the Yemini war has cost that country MORE THAN $100 BILLION? Are you aware of the bureaucracy, corruption, total absence of infrastructure, etc., etc., in Yemen? Or that an oil tanker, the ‘Safer’ (oh the irony!) has been rotting away off the coast and could – at any moment dump more than a million gallons of oil into the Red Sea?
    The majority of people around the world have ceased to give a rats about Africa and places like Yemen. Supporting them with ‘aid’ is money down the drain, it lines the pockets of the rulers..


    I see you are falling into the trap of the hoary old chestnut of the Ottoman nonsense. Go read about it in a history book, not some fairytale created for Yanks. The Ottoman regime was hardly a poster boy for democracy!

    Dream on! I never contended that, nor have I asserted that the British government did a good job – clearly they did not.
    Your comments show an ignorance of historical fact, of matters surrounding the Famine and an ignorance of the role of a constitutional monarch including the role (and power) of Victoria after her accession.
    If you want to revive a post pages back from last month and pick a fight, at least go do some factual homework first.

    Where to start? Perhaps at the end - I'm not the one picking a fight here! I posted a simple and balanced comment with a link a week ago and you came back with two posts, one merely dismissive and a follow-up
    Just to show how wrong you are on the topic and why I was so dismissive
    which didn't rebut anything I said or anything in the Irish Central article but pointed to the Church appeal of 1847 in Victoria's defence.

    Now you are back with more attacks on Irish Central (a website with which I have no connection and happened to google up)
    The nonsense purveyed by that site is patent rubbish from the outset
    But the only specific objection you raise is to their use of the epiteth - "Famine Queen". The Famine was the central event during her reign as Queen of Ireland so it seems fair enough to me. Naturally, the English have other views but here we are. Some historian should go around her former Empire and discover her many local titles - official, unofficial and scandalous.

    The Royal Visit of 1849 was widely welcomed but it would be delusionary to take it as proof that Victoria had done enough in response to the Famine. History is littered with the corpses of rulers who thought they were beloved of the people until it was too late. Her son Bertie (Edward VII) was greeted even more enthusiastically when he visited us in 1903 but a decade later Ireland was on the verge of civil war (interrupted for a few years by certain hostilities on the continent which swept aside his cousins who each believed they were loved and revered by their people. QED).


    You say you are
    Confused. What is your position? Do you believe the myth? Or the kernel of it? Or do you agree it is historically inaccurate (i.e.rubbish)? You also are being rather economical with the truth
    If you had simply read my first post instead of getting outraged by a link to Irish Central you might not be confused now. I stated my position clearly - Victoria gave far more than five pounds but
    Her failure to adequately mobilise the British government or philantropic organisations played a major role in the catastrophe of the Great Famine.

    No one suggests Victoria caused the Famine or had the primary responsibility for responding to it - that responsibility rested with her Government and, as I said in my first post, she was a Constitutional Monarch and there were strict limits on her powers.

    There's no point in diverting this discussion into the history of Yemen. I offered Yemen simply as the latest example - in a catalogue of humanitarian catastrophes - to illustrate the scale of funding which would be required for an adequate response to a major famine. And yes, of course, there is a big difference between the needs of a starving population and the actual response of international donors. My point remains - the amount raised in the 1847 Church appeal was a drop in the ocean of Irish needs at that moment. (I do not denigrate the generosity of those who donated but that is no defence for Victoria, or her Government.)

    You asked for a history book that mentions the Sultan's tale
    https://www.routledge.com/The-History-of-the-Irish-Famine-Volume-I-The-Great-Irish-Famine/Kinealy/p/book/9781138200876
    and you might enjoy this detailed monograph giving contemporary references for this story (which, of course, is merely to illustrate that Victoria's contribution was not seen as generous or even adequate by contemporary leaders)
    https://www.irishfamine.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/An-Irish-Tale-of-Hunger-and-the-Sultan.pdf


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    saabsaab wrote: »
    See below the panzer I and II made up much of Hitler's tank forces but was inferior to the bulk of the French and British tanks (Matilda II was a good tank at the time with front armour that was immune to german tanks of the time). The Germans were better at using theirs.

    "They came on in the same old way, and we stopped them in the same old way"

    A quote attributed to Rommel (or maybe one of his subordinates) after they had destroyed a British tank attack in the desert in 1942. Mainly with 88mm guns in antitank mode.

    Source: The World at War and my memory :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    That Sean South, from Garryowen, died in the War of Independence. He died, like all good terrorists, after being shot in the arse during a botched IRA raid on an RUC barracks in Fermanagh in 1957.

    Does anyone seriously think Sean South was shot in the War of Independence?

    It's essential to his myth that he was killed in the Border Campaign of the 1950s.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,191 ✭✭✭RandomViewer


    Does anyone seriously think Sean South was shot in the War of Independence?

    It's essential to his myth that he was killed in the Border Campaign of the 1950s.

    A lesser goverment politician attributed a major bombing to the wrong side lately, I think someone has decided to muddy the water of other events in an attempt to make it look less embarrassing


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    breezy1985 wrote: »
    Was never found innocent was released after the 3rd trial. I'm not saying he wasn't innocent but but song is a little misleading and the movie very much so

    And he was never "the number one contender for the middleweight crown".


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    "They came on in the same old way, and we stopped them in the same old way"

    A quote attributed to Rommel (or maybe one of his subordinates) after they had destroyed a British tank attack in the desert in 1942. Mainly with 88mm guns in antitank mode.

    Source: The World at War and my memory :)


    I thought this quote was attributed to the Duke of Wellington?

    And here it is: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    I thought this quote was attributed to the Duke of Wellington?

    And here it is: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington

    Maybe it was a German quoting Wellington then.

    Groan. OK I'll dig out my WAW box set and check it out.......

    (At least I know what episode it was)


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    I thought this quote was attributed to the Duke of Wellington?

    And here it is: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington
    Maybe it was a German quoting Wellington then.

    Groan. OK I'll dig out my WAW box set and check it out.......

    OK. It was Laurence Olivier, narrating the World at War series who described another futile British attack in the desert, by Cunningham and Auchinlek (under great political pressure from Churchill).

    "Rommel might have been tempted to echo the words of the Duke of Wellington. 'They came on in the same old way, and we stopped them in the same old way'"


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,698 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    Churchill was an excellent wartime leader or strategist.
    He made several big mistakes both in WWI and WWII. His (aborted) plan to support Finland against Russia could have cost them the war.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Gardai are unarmed to break with the tradition of and to contrast to the armed RIC which is repeated a lot on Boards.

    No-one thought to look at the origin of this. The civic guard were initially armed, but disarmed by the government following a mutiny.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,716 ✭✭✭knucklehead6


    Gardai are unarmed to break with the tradition of and to contrast to the armed RIC which is repeated a lot on Boards.

    No-one thought to look at the origin of this. The civic guard were initially armed, but disarmed by the government following a mutiny.

    I never heard of a mutiny in the gardai.
    Would love to read more about it, can you find a source?


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,716 ✭✭✭knucklehead6


    I never heard of a mutiny in the gardai.
    Would love to read more about it, can you find a source?

    never mind... found a book and a few places, cheers!


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,338 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    saabsaab wrote: »
    Churchill was an excellent wartime leader or strategist.
    He made several big mistakes both in WWI and WWII. His (aborted) plan to support Finland against Russia could have cost them the war.

    Honestly I find it hard to reconcile the British reverence for 1940-45 Churchill and the retconning of history to highlight his "lone opposition" to Nazism in his years in the 1930's wilderness.

    Churchill is a prime example of that old axiom that history belongs to the victors.
    Indeed his authoritative history of the 2nd World War set a seal for many upon his achievements.

    Much like Ireland's relationship and memory of Cromwell, Ireland's memory of Churchill differs greatly from the British and is perhaps far more balanced.
    I have no issue in recognising that Churchill's rhetoric, work and sheer stubbornness played a huge role in preventing a British collapse in 1940.
    I balance my appreciation of that realpolitik, with my view of his actions as home secretary and PM and the effects on Irish and Empire citizens.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,906 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Gardai are unarmed to break with the tradition of and to contrast to the armed RIC which is repeated a lot on Boards.

    No-one thought to look at the origin of this. The civic guard were initially armed, but disarmed by the government following a mutiny.
    I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

    The Civic Guard was to be a new police force for the new state which would draw on the tradition of both the (disbanded) RIC and the Republican Police (established by Dáil Éireann during the War of Independence). The problem here was that, on the one hand, the Republican Police didn't have much of a tradition — it had only been around for two years, it had minimal structure and no training, and most of its members were IRA Volunteers for whom policing duties had been an occasional sideline — and, on the other hand, the RIC was cordially hated by a large number of even the pro-Treaty IRA volunteers/supporters who were recruited into the new force.

    The Provisional Government was aware of this tension but there wasn't a lot they could do about it - the RIC was pretty much the only source of policing experience and knowledge that they had to draw on. They set up a Committee to oversee the establishment of the new force which included both senior republicans (Michael Staines, Eoin O'Duffy) and senior RIC officers (District Inspectors Patrick Walsh and John Kearney).

    However well-intentioned the Committee members may have been, and however committed to the establishment of a new force, that attitude did not really filter down to the ranks of the recruits. There were reports, for example, of recruits refusing to salute training officers who were ex-RIC. This wasn't helped by the fact that anti-Treaty republicans were attempting to infiltrate the new force to destabilise it.

    The new force was always intended to be radically different from the RIC. While it was not initially to be wholly unarmed — the disturbed state of the country and the virtual breakdown of policing in the previous months precluded that — it was never intended to rely on the force of arms. It's notable that when the mutiny broke out at the CG training depot in the Curragh, the mutineers had to raid the armoury in order to secure weapons, which tells us that the Civic Guard had access to firearms, but they didn't routinely carry them when on duty.

    The force wasn't disarmed solely in response to the mutiny. The immediate response, once the mutiny was suppressed, was to appoint Eoin O'Duffy as Commissioner (in place of Staines, who resigned) and to shift the headquarters of the force from the Curragh to Dublin Castle/Ship Street (where it would be easier to keep an eye on things). It was another three months or so before the commitment to unarmed policing was made, and that was motivated not only by the mutiny but also by a desire to break with the RIC tradition, a desire to make the new force less likely to be a target in the Civil War which had by then broken out (and this was quite successful - only one member of AGS was killed by Republican action in the Civil War) and a desire to avoid a repetition of incidents like the one on 20 September when CG Charles Eastwood was accidentally shot dead in the barracks at Ship St by CG Leo Herde. The CG was renamed An Garda Síochána in 1923, and in 1925 was merged with Políní Átha Cliath (formerly the Dublin Metropolitan Police), which had always been an unarmed force, and which was regarded much more favourably by IRA and ex-IRA men than the RIC had been. This undoubtedly helped to bed down and cement the tradition of AGS as an unarmed police force


  • Registered Users Posts: 147 ✭✭Achebe


    Does anyone seriously think Sean South was shot in the War of Independence?

    It's essential to his myth that he was killed in the Border Campaign of the 1950s.

    I would imagine a lot of the people singing it at hurling matches do, for the simple reason that the Border Campaign isn't widely known.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,011 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Achebe wrote: »
    I would imagine a lot of the people singing it at hurling matches do, for the simple reason that the Border Campaign isn't widely known.

    I think a lot of people singing it are not thinking too much about what its about at all. When I hear it I just think it's the Limerick hurling song and I'm not too worried about which campaign it was while trying to concentrate on the match.

    But I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people understand he was going from the Republic to the North due to the line " A lorry load of volunteers approached the border town " so any confusion I have ever heard from people is that it happened in the 70s not the 20s


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    Gardai are unarmed to break with the tradition of and to contrast to the armed RIC which is repeated a lot on Boards.

    No-one thought to look at the origin of this. The civic guard were initially armed, but disarmed by the government following a mutiny.

    During peaceful times, the RIC left their weapons locked in the barracks.
    When the need arose, the DMP had access to weapons, but that was the exception.
    These are subtle differences, but the perceived armed RIC and unarmed DMP is broadly correct.
    An Garda siochana practice is basically that of the DMP but health and safety, policies etc mean that the Garda has a much more protocol based system for carrying weapons.

    Much else was inherited from the DMP, such as the ranks: inspector, superintendent and chief superintendent, the R I C equivalents being: head constable, district inspector and county inspector.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,698 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    tabbey wrote: »
    During peaceful times, the RIC left their weapons locked in the barracks.
    When the need arose, the DMP had access to weapons, but that was the exception.
    These are subtle differences, but the perceived armed RIC and unarmed DMP is broadly correct.
    An Garda siochana practice is basically that of the DMP but health and safety, policies etc mean that the Garda has a much more protocol based system for carrying weapons.

    Much else was inherited from the DMP, such as the ranks: inspector, superintendent and chief superintendent, the R I C equivalents being: head constable, district inspector and county inspector.


    I had a relative in the DMP. He was killed in 1916.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    saabsaab wrote: »
    I had a relative in the DMP. He was killed in 1916.

    He was not constable O'Brien I suppose, shot unarmed at the gate of Dublin castle?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,698 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    tabbey wrote: »
    He was not constable O'Brien I suppose, shot unarmed at the gate of Dublin castle?


    No he was killed at the Somme. Volunteered to join the British army a year earlier. They were looking for a quota from each area.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,599 ✭✭✭Cyclingtourist


    Yes I heard a guide attribute that one to Wellington while referring to his monument in the Phoenix Park. I corrected him on it but he was dubious about what I told him.



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