Commonly believed historical inaccuracies

vriesmays · 08-03-2021 3:02pm

John Condon from Waterford was the youngest soldier in WW1 to get killed. There in no record in the census of his birth to match his age.

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 3:27pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

unless people start quoting (reputable) sources, i'm pretty much at the point where i think this thread is being used to peddle the very opinions it was set up to chop down.

Were the owners of the 'charcoal producing ironworks' referenced in your 'source' (which does NOT - in passing -appear to have been written by an academic historian) Gaelic speakers?

If not then it confirms that 'the English' cut down our woodlands. Richard Boyle may have been many things but he was not an Irishman.

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 3:31pm

whisky_galore wrote: »

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/irish-slaves-early-america/

What's True
Like impoverished people of other nationalities, many emigrated from Ireland to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries as indentured servants; a smaller number were forcibly banished into indentured servitude during the period of the English Civil Wars; indentured servants often lived and worked under harsh conditions and were sometimes treated cruelly.

What's False
Unlike institutionalized chattel slavery, indentured servitude was neither hereditary nor lifelong; unlike black slaves, white indentured servants had legal rights; unlike black slaves, indentured servants weren't considered property.

Prisoners of War post the war of the three kingdoms were treated as chattel slaves in the west indies ; I don't know if royalist english prisoners were also so treated. this status was not hereditary but it was overwhelmingly lifelong.

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 3:37pm

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

The point I was making no one makes this point when talking about Native Americans unfree labour or modern day bonded labour which both are not chattel slavery.

Native Americans practised chattel slavery.
The Comanche certainly seem to have been practising it by the late 18th and early 19th century (chattel slavery is here defined as servitude that is involuntary and where one's owner can be changed without one's permission and where this will change the place and nature of one's work:
The Comanche did not enserf their captives they enslaved them.

I would accept that slavery among the comanche was not inherited.) .

I think it is indisputably proven that the Cherokee held black people specifically as slaves the same sense as white people held slaves.

magicbastarder · 08-03-2021 3:51pm

marieholmfan wrote: »

If not then it confirms that 'the English' cut down our woodlands.

i never claimed otherwise. i originally referred to the claim that our woodlands were cut down to build the british navy.
then someone claimed they were cut down to remove hiding places for the rebel irish, a claim i also queried.

(the book shown - 'reading the irish landscape' by mitchell and ryan - specifically shows the mention of the charcoal making in the context of the plantation of munster.)

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 4:18pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

i never claimed otherwise. i originally referred to the claim that our woodlands were cut down to build the british navy.
then someone claimed they were cut down to remove hiding places for the rebel irish, a claim i also queried.

(the book shown - 'reading the irish landscape' by mitchell and ryan - specifically shows the mention of the charcoal making in the context of the plantation of munster.)

Without wishing to be tendentious I'm not sure of the utility of the distinction.

magicbastarder · 08-03-2021 5:52pm

there is a distinction between 'the irish chopped our trees down when we were running the place, as did the british, for things you'd expect like clearing land for agriculture and normal processes like charcoal burning' and 'the british took our trees for their navy'

Fritzbox · 08-03-2021 5:56pm

I would imagine it was the people who owned the forests and woods of Ireland who chopped all the trees down. I would imagine that your average Irish peasant - landless or otherwise - would not be in a position to help themselves to the lumber growing in the nearest forest. I always thought turf was the most common domestic fuel?

RandomViewer · 08-03-2021 6:41pm

Fritzbox wrote: »

I would imagine it was the people who owned the forests and woods of Ireland who chopped all the trees down. I would imagine that your average Irish peasant - landless or otherwise - would not be in a position to help themselves to the lumber growing in the nearest forest. I always thought turf was the most common domestic fuel?

That would be my view as well, few dozen aristocrats owned everthing

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 7:52pm

Fritzbox wrote: »

I would imagine it was the people who owned the forests and woods of Ireland who chopped all the trees down. I would imagine that your average Irish peasant - landless or otherwise - would not be in a position to help themselves to the lumber growing in the nearest forest. I always thought turf was the most common domestic fuel?

Yes and those people were the British.

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 7:57pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

there is a distinction between 'the irish chopped our trees down when we were running the place, as did the british, for things you'd expect like clearing land for agriculture and normal processes like charcoal burning' and 'the british took our trees for their navy'

Richard Boyle and the rest of the 'entrepreneurs' referred to in your source were not Irish.

Your source was not written by an historian. It isn't a source.

How about this 'the British murdered large numbers of people created a series of famines ; criminalised the traditional aristocracy and then destroyed the Irish biome so they could burn it'.

Here is what appears to be a commonly believed historical inaccuracy:

Richard Boyle was an Irish entrepreneur.

magicbastarder · 08-03-2021 8:01pm

um, okay.

marieholmfan · 08-03-2021 8:54pm

Here's a commonly believed myth:

If some trees are cut down for charcoaling and the production of coke this demonstrates by a process of sympathetic magic that NO trees could have been cut down for the production of ships.

Del.Monte · 08-03-2021 9:43pm

Thread still heading for AH territory I see.

Esel · 08-03-2021 9:52pm

whisky_galore wrote: »

The figures say otherwise.

Commentators here shy away from the uncomfortable, they want us to be on the right side of history, pardon the pun.

I was under the impression that very few, if any, of O'Duffy's crew saw combat in Spain?

Manach · 08-03-2021 9:58pm

MOD Note
This has been mostly a good-natured thread. So asking to post in a spirit of the forum charter, politely.

A2LUE42 · 08-03-2021 11:01pm

An Claidheamh wrote: »

George Orwell was some freedom loving anti-right wing rebel

He was a British imperial policeman, deeply racist and occasionally anti-Semitic

He was pro-British imperialist with all the trappings

And his recounted youth was wildly inaccurate.
Source - 'Eric and Us'

JayRoc · 08-03-2021 11:25pm

A2LUE42 wrote: »

And his recounted youth was wildly inaccurate.
Source - 'Eric and Us'

But he DID join the Republican forces and saw action in the civil war? Hardly the actions of a right-wing militant

Peregrinus · 09-03-2021 3:38am

Esel wrote: »

I was under the impression that very few, if any, of O'Duffy's crew saw combat in Spain?

They didn't see much combat, but they saw some.

But "combatant" doesn't generally refer to those who engage in front-line combat, but those who are available to do so, or are committed to be available. Pretty much everyone serving in the forces is a combatant, even if some of them spend the entire war back at base checking the quartermaster's supplies. The only exception would be people specially assigned to exclusively non-combatant roles — e.g. conscientious objectors serving as stretcher bearers.

Fritzbox · 09-03-2021 8:45am

A2LUE42 wrote: »

And his recounted youth was wildly inaccurate.
Source - 'Eric and Us'

That's if we are willing to accept the writer of "Eric and Us" account of Orwell's youth over Orwell's version. But why should we - and why would we want to?

marieholmfan · 09-03-2021 10:10am

The history of the Eighteenth century in Ireland is the history of it's despised , alien and culturally inferior Herrenvolk.

riffmongous · 09-03-2021 10:21am

Esel wrote: »

I was under the impression that very few, if any, of O'Duffy's crew saw combat in Spain?

Well they struck one minor blow for the Republic, killing a few Falangists during a firefight in their way to the front ( they were on same side though of course)

After that they occupied trenches under shelling for a while before being ordered to attack a Republican held village. They got hit by artillery with loss of life while moving into position so they refused to continue and were withdrawn from the front.

riffmongous · 09-03-2021 10:24am

marieholmfan wrote: »

The history of the Eighteenth century in Ireland is the history of it's despised , alien and culturally inferior Herrenvolk.

Mod:
Enough. Give it a rest.

Captain Havoc · 10-03-2021 3:01pm

I just listened to a thingy on the radio the other day about "The Match of Death" in Kiev during WWII. It's the story escape to victory is based on but it gathered legs after the war. The Ukrainian players were told by a German at half time that if they won, they would be killed at full-time. The Ukrainians played on and won the game, three of them were killed at full-time and eight escaped into the crowd.

The reality is that the Germans played a team of bakers, who were I think Dynamo Kiev (or another top team) players before the war broke out. They played the Germans twice and beat them twice. The Germans were expecting to lose the games anyway, they never visited the Ukrainians at half-time and nobody was killed at full-time.

There is a statue commemorating the assonated players outside the Dynamo stadium, so it's believed. Again the truth is that it commemorates the players from that team who died in WWII, in combat.

magicbastarder · 10-03-2021 3:58pm

99pi did a good podcast about the tomb of the unknown soldier in the states, and why all is not as it seems.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-known-unknown/

El Tarangu · 13-03-2021 2:54pm

riffmongous wrote: »

Well they struck one minor blow for the Republic, killing a few Falangists during a firefight in their way to the front ( they were on same side though of course)

After that they occupied trenches under shelling for a while before being ordered to attack a Republican held village. They got hit by artillery with loss of life while moving into position so they refused to continue and were withdrawn from the front.

Is there any neutral-ish, authoritative source on O'Duffy's/the Blueshirts intervention in Spain being as catastrophic a comedy of errors as it is often portrayed?

I have heard it anecdotally in several accounts of the period, but usually from people who would be very hostile to the Blueshirts (Brendan Behan is the one who springs to mind).

El Tarangu · 13-03-2021 2:57pm

An Claidheamh wrote: »

George Orwell was some freedom loving anti-right wing rebel

He was shot in the throat fighting fascism in Spain; I'm not sure how much more he could have done to be considered 'anti-right'.

breezy1985 · 13-03-2021 3:05pm

El Tarangu wrote: »

Is there any neutral-ish, authoritative source on O'Duffy's/the Blueshirts intervention in Spain being as catastrophic a comedy of errors as it is often portrayed?

I have heard it anecdotally in several accounts of the period, but usually from people who would be very hostile to the Blueshirts (Brendan Behan is the one who springs to mind).

Don't know of any sympathetic accounts but reports on O' Duffy from WW2 would suggest he had become a bit of a joke partially due to alcoholism. The Gardai seemed to think investigating him would be to give him unwarranted elevated respect and exposure

riffmongous · 13-03-2021 9:05pm

El Tarangu wrote: »

Is there any neutral-ish, authoritative source on O'Duffy's/the Blueshirts intervention in Spain being as catastrophic a comedy of errors as it is often portrayed?

I have heard it anecdotally in several accounts of the period, but usually from people who would be very hostile to the Blueshirts (Brendan Behan is the one who springs to mind).

I've never heard or read any other description of it. I know many of the sources are actually from the Spanish side, there was a lot of friction between Duffy and Col. Yaguë and eventually Franco too

Manach · 13-03-2021 9:25pm

Peter Kemp, a Nationalist volunteer in the book "Mine were of trouble", had a negative view of Mr. O'Duffy's leadership but he did mention a number of other Irish soldiers who served with distinction having been assigned to the brigade from other units.

Commonly believed historical inaccuracies

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