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The poppy , to wear or not to wear?

  • 09-11-2013 8:31pm
    #1
    eejoynt
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭


    Good article by historian Brian Hanley in today's times on this issue

    Stronger article by Robert Fisk in yesterday's london independent on the same issue.
    Fisk's father who fought in the war stopped wearing a poppy as he reflected on the use it was put to in later years


«13

Comments

  • #2
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    More suited to this thread? http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057067411


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


    I think it is a subject suitable for discussion here also. There are several reasons why people may object to the poppy, much more nuanced than the illogical anti british reasoning for objection.

    Judgement Day wrote: »
    More suited to this thread? http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057067411


  • #4
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,663 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    My own opinion, is the Poppy is an internal matter for the UK and if people wish to show support to the excellent work of for ex-soldiers in Ireland, then to visit the official Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and Women, site.


  • #5
    riffmongous
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,624 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    I have a genuine question and I'd rather not ask it in that other train wreck. As far as I know, if you buy a poppy the money goes to the Royal British Legion, who help ALL serving members of the British Armed Forces correct? So they will offer assistance to that Marine who murdered the Afghan prisoner (to pick just one example)?

    Regardless I wouldn't wear a poppy myself as I have no one specifically to remember and therefore I would rather commerate all the war dead rather than just some, but depending on the question above I would have no problem with people wearing a poppy not bought from the RBL or wearing a poppy bought from the RBL.


  • #6
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Manach wrote: »
    My own opinion, is the Poppy is an internal matter for the UK and if people wish to show support to the excellent work of for ex-soldiers in Ireland, then to visit the official Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and Women, site.

    Which is precisely why this subject is more suitable for the AH forum. What exactly do the above organisation do to support ex.British forces personnel from Ireland?


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  • #7
    first doyle
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 42 ✭first doyle


    A lot of Irish people who are in favour of wearing the poppy seem to forget that the majority of Irishmen who fought in WW1 did so for Home Rule which was never delivered. That's probably a good enough reason not to wear one.


  • #8
    Andrew_Doran
    Registered Users Posts: 227 ✭✭Andrew_Doran


    first doyle wrote: »
    Home Rule [..] was never delivered.

    At best inaccurate and at worst wrong.

    Government of Ireland Act 1920 aka the 4th home rule act.


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


    That's grand. Let those countries honour those who wore their uniform, to commemorate their ex-service personnel - this is not an Irish matter. My point is we have our own soldiers (of which I'd kinfolk) with their own duty that is paid in service of this state. Honour them appropriate emblems. Do not seek to airbrush them out of the debate, here not referring to yourself, but to politic types like Shatter who seem to fit to pardon those who deserted Irish service in WWII.


  • #10
    riffmongous
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,624 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Andrew_Doran wrote: »
    At best inaccurate and at worst wrong.

    Government of Ireland Act 1920 aka the 4th home rule act.

    That's also quite misleading as what was delivered was not what would have been considered as proper Home Rule


  • #11
    first doyle
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 42 ✭first doyle


    Andrew_Doran wrote: »
    At best inaccurate and at worst wrong.

    Government of Ireland Act 1920 aka the 4th home rule act.

    I'm open to correction, but all Sinn Fein TDs had pretty much set up the Dail by the time that was passed. Hardly the democratic endorsement of the Irish people.


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  • #12
    gobnaitolunacy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,073 ✭✭✭gobnaitolunacy


    As far as I'm concerned if you want to wear one, wear it...if not, don't. I have no reason to wear one as none of our family participated in any Commonweath forces, but I wouldn't wear an Easter Lily either. I don't feel the need to 'advertise'.

    I'm really annoyed at the poppy bullying in the uk media, presenters/footballers etc. you would be looked at as if you've got two heads if you chose not to wear one. People being sent death threats and rubbish like that.


  • #13
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    I wear a poppy because I was deeply impressed at the work the British Legion did when a grand uncle of mine (ex-RN) was terminally ill a few years ago........in contrast to his treatment at the hands of the HSE.

    But each to their own - I never understand the annual debate around wearing it or not wearing it. If it matters to you, wear it, if it doesn't don't.


  • #14
    Sligo Quay
    Registered Users Posts: 727 ✭✭✭Sligo Quay


    Remembrance day in July was surpose to kill off this debate once and for all, then we don't have to wear an Easter Lily or a Poppy.
    The Poppy has be hijacked by the Loyalists extremists and the Easter Lily has been hijacked by Irish Republican extremists.
    I don't wear ether, July Remembrance Day should have put all this nonsense to rest.


  • #15
    Rebelheart
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,077 ✭✭✭Rebelheart


    Jawgap wrote: »
    I wear a poppy because I was deeply impressed at the work the British Legion did when a grand uncle of mine (ex-RN) was terminally ill a few years ago........in contrast to his treatment at the hands of the HSE.

    A terminally-ill person who fought for the glories of the British Empire is still somebody who fought for the British Empire and all its supremacism over other peoples. As such, it is only fitting that all British people who support imperialism should have a right to support those who fought for it, just as all Germans who support Nazism should have a right to support those who fought for it.

    Let's not try to dress up commemoration of such people as something it never was, and never will be.


  • #16
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,428 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    A lad at work had one on Saturday... Doubt most people noticed,even less cared...I never wore on while working in England,never was pressured either, but that's a while ago...
    Don't like the media pressure that those in the public eye in the Uk come under to wear a poppy,after all it's harking back to the world war 1 trenches to pay for victims of a modern conflict...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • #17
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Rebelheart wrote: »
    A terminally-ill person who fought for the glories of the British Empire is still somebody who fought for the British Empire and all its supremacism over other peoples. As such, it is only fitting that all British people who support imperialism should have a right to support those who fought for it, just as all Germans who support Nazism should have a right to support those who fought for it.

    Let's not try to dress up commemoration of such people as something it never was, and never will be.

    I've no idea what you are driving at.

    As far as I know he worked for about 50 years (leaving school at 14 and joining up at 18) - and spent about 7 years in the RN and about 11 years in the UK before returning to Ireland and working for a number of transport companies here.

    In summary, when it came to his (and his family's) months of greatest need his decades of paying taxes here weren't worth a fraction of the few years he spent "supporting imperialism" - which inluded a stint on destroyers on the Arctic Convoys protecting ships ferrying supplies to the Soviets and in the Atlantic defending the sealanes along which Irish food supplies were also conveyed.

    The quite interesting thing for his family is that the totality of his service only became known once the nice people from the British Legion became involved. He never sooke much of it.


  • #18
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭MRnotlob606


    my grandfather was in ww1, i do not where the poppy as the money goes to the legion , its too political


  • #19
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Rebelheart wrote: »
    A terminally-ill person who fought for the glories of the British Empire is still somebody who fought for the British Empire and all its supremacism over other peoples. As such, it is only fitting that all British people who support imperialism should have a right to support those who fought for it, just as all Germans who support Nazism should have a right to support those who fought for it.

    Let's not try to dress up commemoration of such people as something it never was, and never will be.
    It requires a special logic to compare Imperialism (of whatever kind) with Nazism. There is no doubt Rebelheart you are special.


  • #20
    Rebelheart
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,077 ✭✭✭Rebelheart


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    It requires a special logic to compare Imperialism (of whatever kind) with Nazism. There is no doubt Rebelheart you are special.

    There's that endearingly little enormous chip on the shoulder from you again, pedroeibar. Someday you might, just might, get over your self-declared British settler-colonial personal baggage in Ireland and be able to look at Irish history without being constrained by that perennial need to defend that imperialism here and elsewhere. Ah the remnants of the British colony, Ireland's own pied-noir: more to be pitied than laughed at, as they say.

    Anyway, nice job your side did running the British concentration camps in South Africa at the start of the 20th century, and with the almost 1,000,000 Kenyans in the gulags of Kenya in the 1950s. Fantastic work, old bean. You're right: British imperialism, how gloriously distinct from fascism was it in its view of "lesser" people. It ran 25% of the planet by believing everybody else had the same human and civil rights as the British. Yes, at least in the world according to pedroeibar and his fellow apologists for the British Empire. Speaking of "special"...


  • #21
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,078 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    The main 2013 Poppy thread is here > http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057067411

    Everything is discussed there from the very strong Irish connection to the poppy, featuring the massive loss of Irish lives in the Great War in Flanders poppy fields, to the Irish who fought in WWII against the Nazi's, to Irish peace keepers in Bosnia, plus everything else in between!


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  • #22
    Andrew_Doran
    Registered Users Posts: 227 ✭✭Andrew_Doran


    first doyle wrote: »
    I'm open to correction, but all Sinn Fein TDs had pretty much set up the Dail by the time that was passed. Hardly the democratic endorsement of the Irish people.

    Very good but my intention wasn't to strike a position nor start a debate. My intent was to call you out on stating something as fact when it is not fact. :)


  • #23
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Rebelheart wrote: »
    There's that endearingly little enormous chip on the shoulder from you again, pedroeibar. Someday you might, just might, get over your self-declared British settler-colonial personal baggage in Ireland and be able to look at Irish history without being constrained by that perennial need to defend that imperialism here and elsewhere. Ah the remnants of the British colony, Ireland's own pied-noir: more to be pitied than laughed at, as they say.

    Anyway, nice job your side did running the British concentration camps in South Africa at the start of the 20th century, and with the almost 1,000,000 Kenyans in the gulags of Kenya in the 1950s. Fantastic work, old bean. You're right: British imperialism, how gloriously distinct from fascism was it in its view of "lesser" people. It ran 25% of the planet by believing everybody else had the same human and civil rights as the British. Yes, at least in the world according to pedroeibar and his fellow apologists for the British Empire. Speaking of "special"...

    And you would equate the people responsible with that, with the 18 year old conscripted into the army and killed at the Somme?


  • #24
    tac foley
    Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    I thought that, having had a flaming session from a post or two of my own in the recent few days, that I might have become inured to posts like the ones I'm seeing here.

    So I looked over on the other thread, now well over 120 pages long, and was truly horrifed at the wave of desperate hatred, revulsion and near psychopathic loathing for the British and things British, past and present, that pervades that thread.

    How sad it all is. People from this country go over to Ireland, see and meet the Irish people on their own ground, and never, it seems to me, get to realise how desperately they are loathed and hated by at least half the population, if the posters on the other thread are anything to go by. You must be the world's best actors, that's for sure.

    I'll certainly be giving any visit to Ireland again some very close consideration, and here's me with an Irish name from end to end.

    For those of you with your life-long hatred to keep you warm, here on THIS part of the forum, and elsewhere, note that any person from the UK reading those awful hate-filled pages will probably choose a more friendly place to visit.

    Like Afghanistan. Just like Ireland used to be in the old days that so many of you miss so badly, over there they can smile at you with a twinkle in their eye as they press the button.

    tac


  • #25
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    I think your tar brush might be a bit wide there tac.

    As with most countries, the bigoted minority are, unfortunately, the most vocal. I wore my poppy on Sunday and Monday and received only passing comments of curiosity.


  • #26
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    tac foley wrote: »
    I thought that, having had a flaming session from a post or two of my own in the recent few days, that I might have become inured to posts like the ones I'm seeing here.

    So I looked over on the other thread, now well over 120 pages long, and was truly horrifed at the wave of desperate hatred, revulsion and near psychopathic loathing for the British and things British, past and present, that pervades that thread.

    How sad it all is. People from this country go over to Ireland, see and meet the Irish people on their own ground, and never, it seems to me, get to realise how desperately they are loathed and hated by at least half the population, if the posters on the other thread are anything to go by. You must be the world's best actors, that's for sure.

    I'll certainly be giving any visit to Ireland again some very close consideration, and here's me with an Irish name from end to end.

    For those of you with your life-long hatred to keep you warm, here on THIS part of the forum, and elsewhere, note that any person from the UK reading those awful hate-filled pages will probably choose a more friendly place to visit.

    Like Afghanistan. Just like Ireland used to be in the old days that so many of you miss so badly, over there they can smile at you with a twinkle in their eye as they press the button.

    tac

    I wouldn't be a bit concerned about those hypocritical scum, cursing Britain as they roar on United and many of them well subsidised by the UK taxpayer


  • #27
    Potatoeman
    Registered Users Posts: 4,209 ✭✭✭Potatoeman


    tac foley wrote: »
    I thought that, having had a flaming session from a post or two of my own in the recent few days, that I might have become inured to posts like the ones I'm seeing here.

    So I looked over on the other thread, now well over 120 pages long, and was truly horrifed at the wave of desperate hatred, revulsion and near psychopathic loathing for the British and things British, past and present, that pervades that thread.

    How sad it all is. People from this country go over to Ireland, see and meet the Irish people on their own ground, and never, it seems to me, get to realise how desperately they are loathed and hated by at least half the population, if the posters on the other thread are anything to go by. You must be the world's best actors, that's for sure.

    I'll certainly be giving any visit to Ireland again some very close consideration, and here's me with an Irish name from end to end.

    For those of you with your life-long hatred to keep you warm, here on THIS part of the forum, and elsewhere, note that any person from the UK reading those awful hate-filled pages will probably choose a more friendly place to visit.

    Like Afghanistan. Just like Ireland used to be in the old days that so many of you miss so badly, over there they can smile at you with a twinkle in their eye as they press the button.

    tac

    You shouldnt be surprised. Invading and occupying countries gets peoples backs up.


  • #28
    tac foley
    Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    Fratton Fred wrote: »
    I think your tar brush might be a bit wide there tac.

    As with most countries, the bigoted minority are, unfortunately, the most vocal. I wore my poppy on Sunday and Monday and received only passing comments of curiosity.


    The problem there, FF, lies with the 50/50 split that is so evident on the other thread. Not exactly a minority as I see it.

    I'm proud to wear my poppy and maple leaf badge, and to go to my nearby churchyard and stand for a couple of minutes beside the graves of four of my fellow countrymen who never got to go home. The funny thing is, while I'm there I don't think about imperialism, enslavement and eviction, let alone colonial agression. I just think how nice it would have been to have sat down with any of them in a pub and have a laff, instead of visiting their graves.

    Another of my visitees, Tom Foley, who died when his Liberator ditched in the North Sea in 1945, had eyes of such an astonishing blue that his girlfriend, who never married, called him Bonny, after the song 'The bonny blue flag'. Tom, alas, is now just a name on a wall, like so many.

    I'd be amazed if this post didn't get flamed by the usual people, so rather than give them any more satisfaction I'll end there. Thankfully, I had the good sense to put them all on my 'ignore' list, so that they can seethe in silent isolation.

    It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that all those who died, died for them as well, so that we are not all now reading this post in German, if at all.

    tac


  • #29
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Potatoeman wrote: »
    You shouldnt be surprised. Invading and occupying countries gets peoples backs up.

    I agree - down with perfidious Albion and all it stands for.

    Out with the imperialist scum......begone and take your trappings of a faded empire with you.......

    Just make sure you leave us your wallet when we need it........

    ......and if you if you wouldn't mind not being so reasonable in setting the interest rate in future, that would be a great help - you're showing up our European 'friends.'


  • #30
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Rebelheart wrote: »
    There's that endearingly little enormous chip on the shoulder from you again, pedroeibar. Someday you might, just might, get over your self-declared British settler-colonial personal baggage in Ireland and be able to look at Irish history without being constrained by that perennial need to defend that imperialism here and elsewhere. Ah the remnants of the British colony, Ireland's own pied-noir: more to be pitied than laughed at, as they say.

    Anyway, nice job your side did running the British concentration camps in South Africa at the start of the 20th century, and with the almost 1,000,000 Kenyans in the gulags of Kenya in the 1950s. Fantastic work, old bean. You're right: British imperialism, how gloriously distinct from fascism was it in its view of "lesser" people. It ran 25% of the planet by believing everybody else had the same human and civil rights as the British. Yes, at least in the world according to pedroeibar and his fellow apologists for the British Empire. Speaking of "special"...
    Firstly, I am neither imperialist nor an apologist for the British Empire. I do not have a chip on my shoulder, but I like to think that I have the ability to judge history and its events in the context – social, political and economic – of the appropriate era, giving me a truer perspective. The content of your recent posts suggests an entirely blinkered view of history and a racial hatred that IMO infringes common decency, as for example your comment on the assistance provided by the RBL to a terminally ill veteran who was a conscript.

    Secondly, in describing me as
    Rebelheart wrote: »
    Ireland's own pied-noir: more to be pitied than laughed at, as they say.
    shows your ignorance of the term – les pieds noirs were those French Algerians who returned to France after independence.

    Thirdly, in another example of your lack of knowledge, the poppy is not a British symbol; it also – among others - applies to Australians and Canadians, many of them with Irish ancestry.

    Finally I have reported your post as I believe your opening paragraph is a personal attack on me and contributes nothing to the thread.


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  • #31
    jonniebgood1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    Rebelheart wrote: »
    There's that endearingly little enormous chip on the shoulder from you again, pedroeibar. Someday you might, just might, get over your self-declared British settler-colonial personal baggage in Ireland and be able to look at Irish history without being constrained by that perennial need to defend that imperialism here and elsewhere.

    Personal abuse is not allowed here. I construe point above to be directed at another user directly which is not the purpose of this forum. You have been warned previously so its a week ban now. You should really try and discuss topics without delving into the same type of rhetoric each time that badly lets you down.

    Moderator


This discussion has been closed.
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