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Kilmichael Ambush Site

  • 19-02-2012 7:44pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 593 ✭✭✭


    Paid a visit to the Kilmichael ambush site for the first time today, having wanted to see it for a long time. I could not believe the state of the place.

    There are two signposts for the ambush site after you go through Macroom, both of which point you in completely the opposite direction.

    When you reach the site itself there is quite an impressive monument, but bits of it are broken and it's very neglected looking. The back of the monument is covered in grafitti. There is a very battered sign telling you the basic story of the ambush and a more recent (and fairly pointless) Bord Failte 'movie trail' sign that makes some reference to Wind that Shakes the Barley.

    There are a couple of other signs (some you can't reach from the road) which tell you where different sections were on the day but at least one of these was also vandalised. There was also litter strewn everywhere.

    I thought Beal no Blath was bad but Kilmichael is a disgrace to be honest. I drove away thinking, we get the country we deserve.

    Who exactly is responsible for maintaining these monuments? There are so many gung-ho republicans around Cork constantly singing the praises of Barry & co and condemning anybody who begs to differ yet they leave the most famous monument to him get into this condition?!


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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    I have not been to the site. A photo of the monument in good condition:
    Kilmichael.jpg
    It was erected in 1966.

    There is a more interesting image of one of the Crossley tender trucks in the days after the ambush:
    crossley.jpghttp://homepage.eircom.net/~corkcounty/kilmichael.html

    It is a much celebrated and recognised ambush. The theories and tactics behind it are said to have been studied in military acadamies across the world.
    V480 wrote: »
    Paid a visit to the Kilmichael ambush site for the first time today, having wanted to see it for a long time.
    Could you expand on why you wished to visit the site?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    There has been controversy in recent years leading on from Peter Hart's book "The I.R.A. and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923". As time goes by peoples views change on historical event yet there was a hostile reaction to Harts questioning of events, including Kilmicheal.

    I would be interested in what people think of Harts questioning of the events at Kilmicheal and further afield?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 593 ✭✭✭V480


    Thanks for the replies. I'm particularly interested in the second photograph, of the ruined car. I've never seen that before. Was it definitely taken in Kilmichael?

    As for why I wanted to see it, I have a big interest in this period of history and had simply always intended on going to see the ambush site but just never got around to it. I was very disappointed at the state of the place. Mind you Beal na Blath is not much better and nobody seems to care about that either.

    I wrote an essay on the Kilmichael 'debate' recently. I didn't really want to get into it in this thread though as it tends to create mindless arguments! It is a fascinating debate though and created some very interesting discussion. I wonder why all those vociferously anti-Peter Hart hardmen have left the monument to Kilmichael deteriorate so much?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    V480 wrote: »
    ....anti-Peter Hart hardmen....

    could you explain what an "anti-Peter Hart hardmen" is? i think the peter hart version has been dealt with on another thread on boards but i think he has even admitted that some of his sources on the incident are unreliable.

    the B&Ts were ruthless in their dealing with the irish population they had no regard to human life and ruled with fear terror and murder. i do of course understand that they were face with some men who wre as ruthless as themselves. in the case of kilmichael ambush the B&Ts reaped what they sowed.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 593 ✭✭✭V480


    could you explain what an "anti-Peter Hart hardmen" is? i think the peter hart version has been dealt with on another thread on boards but i think he has even admitted that some of his sources on the incident are unreliable.

    the B&Ts were ruthless in their dealing with the irish population they had no regard to human life and ruled with fear terror and murder. i do of course understand that they were face with some men who wre as ruthless as themselves. in the case of kilmichael ambush the B&Ts reaped what they sowed.


    Yeah this is why I didn't want to talk about the ambush itself or the debate surrounding it because it would stir up pointless arguments.

    I'm on about the site itself which is a disgrace.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    V480 wrote: »
    Thanks for the replies. I'm particularly interested in the second photograph, of the ruined car. I've never seen that before. Was it definitely taken in Kilmichael?

    I had'nt come across it before either and that is why I titled it as an image rather than a photograph. I will try and verify it from other sources.
    V480 wrote: »
    I wrote an essay on the Kilmichael 'debate' recently. I didn't really want to get into it in this thread though as it tends to create mindless arguments! It is a fascinating debate though and created some very interesting discussion. I wonder why all those vociferously anti-Peter Hart hardmen have left the monument to Kilmichael deteriorate so much?

    OK I understand that you don't want to go into it but that is almost inevitable! Do I detect that you would have some time for Harts arguments? He asked questions which I think was fair enough. What people did'nt like was the answers he gave to those questions. I think it is a fair point to make that while people go out of their way to defend the battles memories that actual physical care of the monument is lacking. It is reflected in more general terms in the care taken over historical buildings and monuments in the past 50 or so years.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    "anti-Peter Hart hardmen" ????

    anybody????


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    "anti-Peter Hart hardmen" ????

    anybody????

    I presume it is people who took a hardline attitude against the published views of Peter Hart. Some people refused to even consider his methodology given that he was critical of patriots.

    What is your opinion of Harts views R.Dub?


  • Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭Ambush Rebel 2010


    V480 wrote: »
    Paid a visit to the Kilmichael ambush site for the first time today, having wanted to see it for a long time. I could not believe the state of the place.

    There are two signposts for the ambush site after you go through Macroom, both of which point you in completely the opposite direction.

    When you reach the site itself there is quite an impressive monument, but bits of it are broken and it's very neglected looking. The back of the monument is covered in grafitti. There is a very battered sign telling you the basic story of the ambush and a more recent (and fairly pointless) Bord Failte 'movie trail' sign that makes some reference to Wind that Shakes the Barley.

    There are a couple of other signs (some you can't reach from the road) which tell you where different sections were on the day but at least one of these was also vandalised. There was also litter strewn everywhere.

    I thought Beal no Blath was bad but Kilmichael is a disgrace to be honest. I drove away thinking, we get the country we deserve.

    Who exactly is responsible for maintaining these monuments? There are so many gung-ho republicans around Cork constantly singing the praises of Barry & co and condemning anybody who begs to differ yet they leave the most famous monument to him get into this condition?!

    I am from the area and agree with you on the above remarks.

    It is unfortunate that the site is in the state it is in. Particularly given the number of people that stop a the site on a daily basis.

    I was involved in a Foroige club a few years back that erected the informative plaque that is now in a poor state. It was repeatedly vandalised. This was a constant frustration.

    As for who is responsible for maintaining the site.. I am not sure. I understand there is a local historical society in the parish as for whether this is there responsibility im not sure.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    I presume it is people who took a hardline attitude against the published views of Peter Hart. Some people refused to even consider his methodology given that he was critical of patriots.

    What is your opinion of Harts views R.Dub?

    its not realy that i disagree with harts opinions or views , most of his "false surrender" informants and information has been discredited , and on that basis i would disagree with his opinion.

    if you are asking me if there was a false surrender ? my answer would be that i don't care if there was or not as the B&Ts got the same treatment that they gave out. if it was an ordinary british army regiment who were ambushed i would have some sympathy for those killed.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    its not realy that i disagree with harts opinions or views , most of his "false surrender" informants and information has been discredited , and on that basis i would disagree with his opinion.

    if you are asking me if there was a false surrender ? my answer would be that i don't care if there was or not as the B&Ts got the same treatment that they gave out. if it was an ordinary british army regiment who were ambushed i would have some sympathy for those killed.

    The ambush was on the auilliaries which I think is significant, as a distinct differenciation from the ordinary RIC or the Black and Tans. Given their reputation it is probably fair comment.
    Harts challenge to the accepted view was positive in my view but his reluctance to be more open about his sources does not give much faith in these sources.

    The reaction to Hart is also interesting. To me his views were revisionist (although obviously earlier than the 70's which most revisionist theories seem to address) and he was then widely criticised for them. Does this mean that revisionist views of this period are not accepted, if so why would this be? I would like if some of our resident historians could give their views on this?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    B&Ts and the Auxies one and the same , same tatics except one group got paid more than the other. but i get what you are saying.

    i have no problem with hart telling the truth if he has the facts to back it up but his sources were lacking.

    all B&Ts and Auxies were not ruthless killers , Tom Barry , after the war, counted one as a friend. and Percy Crozier resigned his commision because of their actions.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,541 ✭✭✭Gee Bag


    The ambush was on the auilliaries which I think is significant, as a distinct differenciation from the ordinary RIC or the Black and Tans. Given their reputation it is probably fair comment.
    Harts challenge to the accepted view was positive in my view but his reluctance to be more open about his sources does not give much faith in these sources.

    The reaction to Hart is also interesting. To me his views were revisionist (although obviously earlier than the 70's which most revisionist theories seem to address) and he was then widely criticised for them. Does this mean that revisionist views of this period are not accepted, if so why would this be? I would like if some of our resident historians could give their views on this?

    There's nothing wrong with someone coming up with new information or a different view about historical events provided that information is from a reliable source. Harts methodology appears to have been that he came up with the narrative first and then moved or omitted the sources around to fit.

    As you stated in the first paragraph above, the problem with Peter Hart's version of the Kilmichael ambush is that he claimed he interviewed the last survivor of the ambush (Ned Young) just before he died. (He even claimed at one stage to have interviewed him the day after he died). Ned Young's son John and others have pointed out that Ned Young was severley affected by a stroke at this time and had great difficulty speaking. John Young has sworn an affidavitt saying that Hart never interviewed his father.

    In addition, he also used two anonymous sources. As pretty much everyone involved in the ambush had died at the time Hart was doing his research it seems very, very dubious.

    Hart also used a typed, undated and unsigned doc he claimed to have found in the British Military Archive which gave the account of the ambush with prisoners being executed. He used this single source to trump every other known and verified account of the ambush.

    I found his book on Michael Collins to be truly bizarre. It was very badly written (it read like an unedited early draft) and was full of inferences that could not be substantiated. As with the IRA and It's Enemies, it appeared that he came up with the notion of taking Collins down a peg or two and ignored anything that did not fit with this.

    The use of the term Revisionism has very negative connotations. There is nothing wrong with revising history if the evidence can back it up. Hart's wilder claims just don't have this. Without solid sources Hart's work should be considerd as the authors opinion and nothing More.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,677 ✭✭✭deise go deo


    There has been controversy in recent years leading on from Peter Hart's book "The I.R.A. and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923". As time goes by peoples views change on historical event yet there was a hostile reaction to Harts questioning of events, including Kilmicheal.

    I would be interested in what people think of Harts questioning of the events at Kilmicheal and further afield?


    As far as I am aware his claims have been shown to be baseless, he claimed to have interviewed a number of voulenteers who gave him the inside story of what happened on the day, but at the time he claimed to have spoken with them, only one voulenteer who was there on the day was still alive, and they denied ever speaking with Harte.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 267 ✭✭dmcronin


    V480 wrote: »

    Who exactly is responsible for maintaining these monuments? QUOTE]

    I had thought there was a republican version of the Commonweath Graves Commision, aren't they supposed to be maintaining them? Or a local committee more likely? Pretty sure it wouldn't be the Co. Councils responsibility.

    FYI one wheel off one of the tenders survives in Kilmurray Museum, well rusty and on the verge of falling apart.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,861 ✭✭✭IrishEyes19


    Gee Bag wrote: »
    There's nothing wrong with someone coming up with new information or a different view about historical events provided that information is from a reliable source. Harts methodology appears to have been that he came up with the narrative first and then moved or omitted the sources around to fit.

    As you stated in the first paragraph above, the problem with Peter Hart's version of the Kilmichael ambush is that he claimed he interviewed the last survivor of the ambush (Ned Young) just before he died. (He even claimed at one stage to have interviewed him the day after he died). Ned Young's son John and others have pointed out that Ned Young was severley affected by a stroke at this time and had great difficulty speaking. John Young has sworn an affidavitt saying that Hart never interviewed his father.

    In addition, he also used two anonymous sources. As pretty much everyone involved in the ambush had died at the time Hart was doing his research it seems very, very dubious.

    Hart also used a typed, undated and unsigned doc he claimed to have found in the British Military Archive which gave the account of the ambush with prisoners being executed. He used this single source to trump every other known and verified account of the ambush.

    I found his book on Michael Collins to be truly bizarre. It was very badly written (it read like an unedited early draft) and was full of inferences that could not be substantiated. As with the IRA and It's Enemies, it appeared that he came up with the notion of taking Collins down a peg or two and ignored anything that did not fit with this.

    The use of the term Revisionism has very negative connotations. There is nothing wrong with revising history if the evidence can back it up. Hart's wilder claims just don't have this. Without solid sources Hart's work should be considerd as the authors opinion and nothing More.

    The best book on Michael Collins is in my opinion, is Tim Pat Coogans.

    Completely agree with you, revisionism if used for the right purposes can be great, using modern tools and far more access to evidence can really shine new light on history, but I think its been taken a bit too far, that its now been used to discredit our really big names in our history like Collins, Pearse, ect......Hart and many other Historians are in my opinion setting out to create controversy and stir emotions by making admired patriots and "Irish Heroes" to be no better than blood thirsty murderers or greedy individuals with their own agenda.

    I've noticed in the last few years, being proud of Irish history and accomplishments and celebratory of what those men and women did in the war of independence and before is frowned upon and the media especially, revisionists are having a field day bringing out essays and published books on the downfalls or flaws they believe our past leaders possessed and kept from us. We must be only nation who actually comes to a pause and blushes when we praise our past and achievements. I don't know whether it is since the peace treaty and agreements with northern Ireland that this almost embarassment of our past has taken over, but its rather sad. A crude example is so many Irish will sit down and cheer and swear their way through a Ireland rugby match covered in green screaming for their nation and in the same breath, tolerate and believe the nonsense and anti Irish works that a lot of revisionist publications are bringing out today.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm



    Completely agree with you, revisionism if used for the right purposes can be great, using modern tools and far more access to evidence can really shine new light on history, but I think its been taken a bit too far, that its now been used to discredit our really big names in our history like Collins, Pearse, ect......Hart and many other Historians are in my opinion setting out to create controversy and stir emotions by making admired patriots and "Irish Heroes" to be no better than blood thirsty murderers or greedy individuals with their own agenda.

    Some people and events were not nice and it is wrong to edit them out.

    However, in Irish history huge swathes got left out from official histories and the history taught in schools was often "makey upey".

    The first biographies of Pearse in 1932 just 16 years after his death was scant on facts. Subsequent biographies have followed the trend. I mention Pearse as Collins was not a fan.

    A feature of the US in Iraq has been prisoner torture

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3689167.stm




    I've noticed in the last few years, being proud of Irish history and accomplishments and celebratory of what those men and women did in the war of independence and before is frowned upon and the media especially, revisionists are having a field day bringing out essays and published books on the downfalls or flaws they believe our past leaders possessed and kept from us. .

    I agree totally with you.The late Peter Hart however seemed to make things up to sell books.

    Now making things up about history in Cork is bizarre !!!!!

    Seriously, of all locations it is probably the most documented.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    CDfm wrote: »
    Some people and events were not nice and it is wrong to edit them out.

    .......

    The late Peter Hart however seemed to make things up to sell books.

    Now making things up about history in Cork is bizarre !!!!!

    Seriously, of all locations it is probably the most documented.

    Peter Hart challenged the consensus but came up short in some instances it seems. I have not read his work but intend to do so because he challenged the consensus and he had no reasons not to be plain about what he found. Meda Ryan for example is from West Cork and what she said would be easy on the ears of people from Cork. Hart was Canadian and what he said was not easy to hear and thus people did not want to hear it. This is fact and rebuttals of Hart would also have been easy on the ears for some. None of which makes him right or wrong of course but should be considered.

    An appraisal of him here:
    Hart’s argument is that in Cork and in many other parts of Ireland, north and south, there was a communal, religious divide between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists. Protestant republicans, Hart writes, were an eccentric rarity.

    “The sectarian division in Irish politics and society and the revolution’s central organising principle of Catholic/nationalist ethnicity (along with the role of Protestantism in unionism), inevitably structured the revolution north and south”.[30]
    The IRA, in this context represented a, “quasi millenarian idea of a final reckoning between settler and native”, going back to the 17th century plantations. [31] For this reason, he describes the targeting of informers by the IRA in terms of reprisal shootings of “enemies”.

    Hart notes that in killings of alleged informers in Cork, Protestants and also other “enemy” groups like ex-soldiers, travelers and beggars (outside the “respectable” nationalist community) were over-represented. He argues that this was not because of evidence against them, but simply that when IRA members on the ground said “informer” they really meant “enemy”. “It was not merely (or even mainly) a matter of espionage, spies and spy hunters, it was a civil war between and within communities”.[32]
    Taken together with the killing of some thirteen Protestants in west Cork over two nights in April 1922 (apparently in response to the fatal shooting of an IRA officer) that sparked a flight of several hundred Protestants from the area, Hart argued that communal conflict and even “ethnic cleansing” was at the heart of the revolution. “Protestants had become fair game because they were seen as outsiders and enemies, not just by the IRA but by a large segment of the Catholic population as well.”[33]

    One wonders, at times, if Hart, a scholar from Canada with no Irish roots, realised how explosive a proposition this was in Ireland in the 1990s. People were still dying in Northern Ireland at the hands of an organisation calling itself the IRA, regarding itself as the same organisation as that of the 1920s and still arguing that it represented all the Irish people, regardless of religion, against British imperialism.
    Historical debate can rarely really be separated from the present, even less so in Ireland than in most other places. However, talking strictly about the 1920s, was Hart right? Should we see the 1913-1923 period as primarily one of communal conflict, effectively one long Irish civil war?

    Firstly, looked at very broadly, the result of the revolution was the partition of Ireland between two states, one primarily Catholic and nationalist, the other Protestant and unionist. This is unsurprising given the very long-standing and deeply rooted sectarian divisions.

    There was also some population exchange between the two states. Some 40,000 Protestants left the Free State (though probably a small proportion of these were forced out by violence) and several thousand Catholics fled violence in Belfast to the Free State, though many of them subsequently returned to the Catholic enclaves in the north.

    While the scale of this was very small by the standards, for example, of the contemporary Armenian genocide, or “population exchange” in the wake of the Greco-Turkish war, it is unrealistic not to see some sectarian or communal aspect to the revolution.
    http://www.theirishstory.com/2010/08/09/peter-hart-a-legacy/#.T0T-MHmANfY
    So he has left himself open to accusations of making things up but there are reasons for this also.

    If he is a revisionist does that make those doubting him post-revisionists?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    Peter Hart challenged the consensus but came up short in some instances it seems. I have not read his work but intend to do so because he challenged the consensus and he had no reasons not to be plain about what he found. Meda Ryan for example is from West Cork and what she said would be easy on the ears of people from Cork. Hart was Canadian and what he said was not easy to hear and thus people did not want to hear it. This is fact and rebuttals of Hart would also have been easy on the ears for some. None of which makes him right or wrong of course but should be considered.


    So he has left himself open to accusations of making things up but there are reasons for this also.

    If he is a revisionist does that make those doubting him post-revisionists?

    the problem here is that it is not that he told the truth about what happened at kilmichael its that he lied about what happened and when his lies were challenged and exposed he stuck to his lies because it was selling his books. if he blaintly lied and used false information about the ambush what else did he lie about? what other false information is in his other books?

    we all know that many things in Irish history was covered up and brushed under the carpet with the foundation of the Irish state but Hart went about it the wrong way.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    the problem here is that it is not that he told the truth about what happened at kilmichael its that he lied about what happened and when his lies were challenged and exposed he stuck to his lies because it was selling his books. if he blaintly lied and used false information about the ambush what else did he lie about? what other false information is in his other books?

    we all know that many things in Irish history was covered up and brushed under the carpet with the foundation of the Irish state but Hart went about it the wrong way.

    I agree with you on this but there is also an unknown aspect to me as I have not read any of Harts work so cannot see what material is sourced and what is not. All I have read is peoples analysis of his work and it is hard to get a neutral view so I need to get some of his work. He won awards for some of his work and what was the basis for this. His CV is also very impressive. So I think your last point is probably a good summary of what happened, "Hart went about it the wrong way".


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    he had no reasons not to be plain about what he found. Meda Ryan for example is from West Cork and what she said would be easy on the ears of people from Cork. Hart was Canadian and what he said was not easy to hear and thus people did not want to hear it. This is fact and rebuttals of Hart would also have been easy on the ears for some. None of which makes him right or wrong of course but should be considered.


    Meda Ryan was not really unfair and she would have set herself up by raising the questions in 2003 or so.
    While Kilmichael
    veterans were dead in 1998, there were individuals and family members who had heard
    them venture opinions on events in which they had participated, opinions that Hart
    contested. For example, they reportedly spoke of a false surrender by British forces at
    Kilmichael leading to Irish fatalities. This included Meda Ryan, whose uncle, Pat
    O’Donovan, had fought at the ambush


    http://aubanehistoricalsociety.org/troubled_history.pdf


    If you don't like Ryan try John Borgonovo quoted in the same pamphlet.
    In 2007 John Borgonovo queried Hart’s statistical evidence with regard to
    ‘defenceless victims’ of the IRA in Cork during the War of Independence. Hart cited
    131 unnamed victims,



    I think it is fairer to say that Hart used journalistic as opposed to history methods.

    Those involved in the review by the Aubane Historical Society included
    Dr Ruan O'Donnell is Head of the History Department in The University of Limerick. He is the
    author of The Rebellion in Wicklow 1798 (1998), Robert Emmet and the Rising of 1803 (2003); The
    Irish Famine (2008) and the editor of The Impact of 1916, Among the Nations (2008).

    Hart may just have been too focused on what he wanted to find to be objective.


  • Registered Users Posts: 108 ✭✭Dr.Nightdub


    John M.Regan recently revisited the topic of the "Bandon Valley Massacre" which was one of the most controversial parts of Hart's book "The IRA and its Enemies". He covers Hart's work, criticisms of it and also brings in new (to me) evidence; it's long but well worth a read

    The "Bandon Valley Massacre" as a historical problem


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    CDfm wrote: »
    Meda Ryan was not really unfair and she would have set herself up by raising the questions in 2003 or so.
    While Kilmichael
    veterans were dead in 1998, there were individuals and family members who had heard
    them venture opinions on events in which they had participated, opinions that Hart
    contested. For example, they reportedly spoke of a false surrender by British forces at
    Kilmichael leading to Irish fatalities. This included Meda Ryan, whose uncle, Pat
    O’Donovan, had fought at the ambush
    http://aubanehistoricalsociety.org/troubled_history.pdf

    If you don't like Ryan try John Borgonovo quoted in the same pamphlet.

    I think it is fairer to say that Hart used journalistic as opposed to history methods.

    Hart may just have been too focused on what he wanted to find to be objective.

    Surely being this close to a participant would influence ones opinion of it? I did not realise her uncle was involved in it. She would not be human if this did not influence her. Its not a question of not liking someone, its a matter of trying to get a balance between which account is more realistic. If we leave aside Kilmichael where Hart seems to have fallen short in backing up his views do we then discount his acounts of Dunmanway and other things he wrote about?

    EDIT> Are we focusing to much on Kilmichael, what did Meda Ryan write on the Bandon Valley incidents as per Dr.Nightclubs link?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Surely being this close to a participant would influence ones opinion of it? I did not realise her uncle was involved in it. She would not be human if this did not influence her. Its not a question of not liking someone, its a matter of trying to get a balance between which account is more realistic. If we leave aside Kilmichael where Hart seems to have fallen short in backing up his views do we then discount his acounts of Dunmanway and other things he wrote about?

    Why wouldn't Meda Ryan be a tad biased and it is fully disclosed so people can interpret her work.

    The Bandon Valley Massacre was fairly awful. As was the murder of Admiral Somerville.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056375171

    And there were spies and informers

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74016080&postcount=12

    But all that does not make the motives of the nationalists sectarian -some may have been.

    So Hart gets disputed on factual grounds and on his subsequent interpretation.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    CDfm wrote: »
    Why wouldn't Meda Ryan be a tad biased and it is fully disclosed so people can interpret her work.

    Most analysis of the 'debate' between Ryan and Hart does not mention this fact so it is not fully disclosed by some.
    CDfm wrote: »
    So Hart gets disputed on factual grounds and on his subsequent interpretation.

    Yes. But is that the only reason that he gets so much attention?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Most analysis of the 'debate' between Ryan and Hart does not mention this fact so it is not fully disclosed by some.

    That's because it is an academic squabble and it is no secret.

    I highlighted it for your benefit.
    Yes. But is that the only reason that he gets so much attention?

    I think so. It does not make sense.

    Just to give you an example. The Colthursts of whom Captain J C Bowen-Colthurst who executed Sheehy-Skeffington didn't get shot. The Sheehy's were from Kanturk. Burnt out maybe.

    Don't they still own Blarney Castle.

    Michael Collins & Sam Maguire ?

    So the sectarian tag doesn't really fit in West Cork.

    I might be wrong but I think the reason he was challenged on it was "truthiness" and if it were true it would have been a nasty little secret.

    I think a more correct comparison for Bandon would be the Ballyseedy Massacre .

    No probs with Kilmichael for me.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    Off topic, but the signs pointing in the wrong direction warms the cockles of my heart.

    Glad to see the youth keeping one tradition going


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 593 ✭✭✭V480


    Off topic, but the signs pointing in the wrong direction warms the cockles of my heart.

    Glad to see the youth keeping one tradition going


    You wouldn't be saying that if you were driving around in circles for ages trying to find the damn place. It's not off-topic either, that's what the thread was meant to be about! That and the overall condition of the place which is terrible.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    V480 wrote: »
    You wouldn't be saying that if you were driving around in circles for ages trying to find the damn place. .

    Is it wrong that I still get as much fun out it now in my forties as I did when I was a teenager.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Is it wrong that I still get as much fun out it now in my forties as I did when I was a teenager.

    So its you :eek:


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