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State murders of children in Ireland's early years

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    #2
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    That's is very informative article about an incident which I had not heard of before. I was familiar with Charlie Dalton. The killing of young people, who may have been more mature, than those of the same age now was not unusual though. Look at the age of many of the soldiers killed on the Western Front. Also during the War of Independence a number of young Protestant Boy Scouts were killed by IRA in Cork city on suspicion of gathering information for the enemy. State killings was not unusual in that time either. Look at the executions


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    #3
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Santa, do you have a citation for those boy scouts killed in Cork?


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    #4
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    Santa, do you have a citation for those boy scouts killed in Cork?

    Check out Political Killings in Cork 1920/1921 recently published. A number of teenage members of the Protestant scouts were picked up and disappeared


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    #5
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,663 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Santa Cruz wrote: »
    Check out Political Killings in Cork 1920/1921 recently published. A number of teenage members of the Protestant scouts were picked up and disappeared
    Is this the book on Amazon ?- link. The reviews are polarised.

    It is terrible that these events that happened in war, but in the context of the upheavels in Europe in the post WWI period, such incidents were the norm in most effected countries. At least in Ireland, it was brief.


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    #6
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    A long review of the book cited above, written by Niall Meehan, head of the journalism faculty in Griffith College, Dublin:

    http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/northern-ireland/item/4187-an-amazing-coincidence-that-could-mean-anything-gerard-murphy-s-the-year-of-disappearances

    and a letter to the reputable History Ireland from someone quoted at length in the book:

    http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/gerard-murphys-the-year-of-disappearances-2/


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    #7
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    Manach wrote: »
    Is this the book on Amazon ?- link. The reviews are polarised.

    It is terrible that these events that happened in war, but in the context of the upheavels in Europe in the post WWI period, such incidents were the norm in most effected countries. At least in Ireland, it was brief.

    That is the book. I have read the book and would not necessarily agree with all it's conclusions. However having read a lot of material, newspapers reports of the time, statements from the Military Bureau I have come to the conclusion that the W.O.I. was no glorious event. On both sides there were terrible atrocities committed. Innocent people shot dead by British forces and similar by the Irish side. As Richard Mulcahy said "at the end we were as bad as the Tans"
    Of course some people will not accept that because the methods used then were only too similar to those used in the North over the last 40 years


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    #8
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Santa Cruz, I think the War of Independence can't be judged as a single thing; there were a lot of different people and different kinds of people involved.
    The trouble with war as a general principle is that it involves taking away people's lives. Our job is to find out how to change society without doing that, and how to make a just society (and by extension, and equal society).
    By the way, does anyone have that book? The publisher doesn't allow a 'search inside', only a 'look inside', drat 'em. If anyone has it, can you see if the alleged boy scouts are named?


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    #9
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    Santa Cruz, I think the War of Independence can't be judged as a single thing; there were a lot of different people and different kinds of people involved.
    The trouble with war as a general principle is that it involves taking away people's lives. Our job is to find out how to change society without doing that, and how to make a just society (and by extension, and equal society).
    By the way, does anyone have that book? The publisher doesn't allow a 'search inside', only a 'look inside', drat 'em. If anyone has it, can you see if the alleged boy scouts are named?

    I got the book at the library. The two young men are named, They weren't "alleged" boy scouts. They were actual boy scouts. What is alleged is that they were gathering intelligence for the British via some form of local loyalist group in Cork. While there is no absolute convincing evidence that they were doing so the atmosphere of the time was such that if they were suspected of doing so then they became legitimate targets having aligned themselves with the enemy. Being in their teens it is the adult who put they young boys in such a position must bear the responsibility for their fate. There was a reign of terror in Cork and both sides were going to extreme means to survive; The fate of the Fianna Boy Scouts in 1922 was just as awful but all the actions must be judged by the standards of the 1920s.


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    #10
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    My "alleged" referred to the allegation of their having been killed; if I had their names I'd skoosh through a few contemporary newspapers for reports.
    Yes… the standards of the 1920s. And yet the standards of the 1900s would have made such a thing inconceivable. Once you have "men who intend to do killing", the attitudes change.


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