Wars and Conflicts听 permalink
No Irish Troubles?
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Message 1.听
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Monday, 29th August 2011
Just wondering what people might think of this notion:
The leader of the 1916 Rising Padraic Pearse, said that he would never have joined the Irish volunteers and in any case they would never have come about if the British had acceeded to Irish wishes for 麻豆约拍 Rule.
That raises the possibility that if 麻豆约拍 Rule had been implemented it may have stopped the creation of the the Irish volunteers, the subsequent 1916 Rising and War of Independence, Civil war, partition and subsequent rumbling discontent in the north which gave rise to the 30 year troubles.
IOW it would have prevented the necessity for armed struggle from c.1912 onwards and Ireland may have had a peacefull 20th century and possibly today would still be a home rule state within the UK.
Interesting notion eh! -
Message 2
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 30th August 2011
Shane O'Neal
Tragic stories are often all the more so because of the lost opportunities.. But though "the troubles" has I believe come to mean something quite specific, the lost opportunity to which to refer might perhaps have meant an end of the troubles that had already been going on for some time.. Even before Oscar Wilde's Mum called the Young Irish to take up arms in 1848.
Do you know Iris Murdock's novel "The Red and the Green" about the Easter Uprising? I am not sure how historical it is.. Her husband wrote that the Irish Question was the one topic that she could not tackle with philosophical calmness.
The trouble is that there was as I understand it a feeling of betrayal just before 1914 at the Westminster Government's refusal to honour undertakings that would have moved Ireland towards 麻豆约拍 Rule.. But there is a cultural difference between the English tradition and many others. In times of great danger and uncertainty the English stick with what they have and can use and defend rather than fly off to new adventures. Having been in France during the recent riots I have been struck by the very different reaction to such events in England compared to France. The French would tend to see them as symptoms of things needing radical, if not revolutionary, change. The predominant English attitude seems to be that such violence and cynical opportunism must be stamped out, and all must rally round.
This was the situation in the UK in the years before 1914, so much so that many people welcomed the First World War as something of a "reality check" that would create national unity. And as far as Ireland is concerned, the way that the Ulster Loyalists responded to the call to arms "For King and Country" made it politically very difficult then to ignore the Ulstermen's case, while the Easter Uprising, not long before the great slaughter on the Somme, did perhaps more than anything else to create (to borrow a phrase from Hitler) the idea that the Irish had "stabbed Britain in the back" while the country was fighting a war for Civilization against barbarity.
But the future is always our to forge.
Cass -
Message 3
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Tuesday, 30th August 2011
Interesting, but then, the Celts have an elephantine memory for any slight, real or imagined, and would have found some petty reason to have fallen out with the British...someone...anyone...at some future time?
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Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 30th August 2011
Hereword
There I was thinking of the dark poetic side of the Russians in the light of the debate on another thread about Stalinism [noting that on this day an attempted assassin shot Lenin].. But also thinking that my French family and connections are pretty strong on the darkly poetic..
And there you go reminding me of the dark poetic side of the Celts.. Perhaps from a perspective of English reserve, stiff-upperlippism etc this all appears a bit "dodgy", but then I am perhaps too English to appreciate that dark poetic minds are also much more capable of flights of poetical fantasy and optimism that kind of balance things out. Perhaps few people know how to be really festive better than the French, Russians and Irish...
Just because people do not forget their history does not mean that they must inevitably be weighed down by it.
Cass -
Message 5
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 30th August 2011
It is indeed an interesting notion, ShaneONeal
It supposes a world however in which the First World War - the primary reason why 麻豆约拍 Rule was put on ice - did not come about, and that in itself begs a shaft of pertinent questions regarding the alternative development of Europe, nationalism and the British Empire, and how any or all of these might have impacted on Ireland's history. The answer to this is nigh on impossible even to guess at with any accuracy.
But even supposing 麻豆约拍 Rule had indeed been granted as promised, I think it is fairly safe to assume that militant unionism would have played as major a role in the disruption or destruction of that aim, just as it did in reality eight years later when faced with a similar situation. After all it was the threat of a 麻豆约拍 Rule provision along the lines of your hypothesis which was the catalyst for their arming in the first place, not the actual provision of semi-autonomy which actually transpired later. It is also difficult to determine how much support this unionist militancy would have received from London compared to that which actually transpired later, but whatever British policies may or may not have been devised which might differ from those that were acted upon in reality, I think it is also safe to assume an island doomed to be immersed in civil war, albeit one with different lines of demarkation to those which actually prevailed. -
Message 6
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 1st September 2011
Hello Shane,
The problem, as I see it, was that both Conservatives and Whigs needed the Irish Protestant vote to get into government.
Look how similar the situation in the Netherlands and the UK was and how different the outcome.In the Netherlands the protestant vote was divided over several parties while the catholic vote went to the catholic party.
So the dutch catholic party became the leading party in a protestant nation. From 1918 till 1994 most dutch Prime Ministers were catholic.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 7
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Friday, 2nd September 2011
hi shane
i always think that if home rule HAD been implemented at the time - ther would have been no troubles
ireland if it had been reunited would been invented as a country and the religious bias that lasted years would have faded away
the horrendous protestant bias in ulster that carried on for years was because the power in ulster was held by the landowners and industrialists - catholics couldnt get jobs or serve in local government
i feel that in a united ireland religious divides would have faded away in the end and there would now be a stable state
or am i wrong
st -
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 2nd September 2011
stalti
Unfortunately for your interpretation, industrialists and landowners are crucial to the life of the common people since they are the source of development finance without which twentieth century standards of living are not possible.
For various reasons it can be argued that the great tragedies of Irish history generally were related to the undercapitalisation of the Irish economy with the drain of some of industry jobs and labour to the British mainland.
As I understand it that situation did not improve with the setting up of the IFS- and indeed arguments about reparations or the refunding of Irish contributions to the UK National Debt led to trade wars which did not help Ireland at all.
That problem of under-capitalisation endured until Eire began to benefit from generous development grants from the EEC and inward investment from the USA. This helped to create the Irish economic miracle. But the entry of the East European countries into the EEC made them the recipients of EEC aid, and Eire one of the countries expected to contribute to the EEC pot. Then came the Financial crash and there is apparently a new exodus from Ireland in search of jobs and a future.
With all of this, however, Belfast did become one of the great industrial cities of the Nineteenth Century UK, and, though I expect that the great shipyards suffered after the First World War like all British shipyards, I suspect that the Northern Ireland working class would have still been strongly unionist. And one has to wonder to what extent the religious divide is geniunely religious rather than tribal or just practical.
It was back in the Sixties the the Civil Rights movement began in Ulster. By the late Sixties I was teaching in Brixton and explaining to my Afro-Caribbean pupils that their problems in getting employment may have seemed racist, but that was just the consequence of how working class society worked with a them and us basis.
The School leaving age was 15 so jobs had nothing to do with qualifications. " Us" meant people we knew and had things and places in common with. "Them" meant the opposite. So when firms were looking for staff they went first to those already employed and asked if anyone knew someone suitable and trustworthy.
If the worker putting a name forwards was someone reliable and trusted then that was enough recommendation. The person got a job, and it made sense because if there were any problems or difficulties often a quiet word with the existing worker was enough. When you recommended someone personally you made sure that they did nothing to damage your reputation or position. It was in this spirit that I knew that if I punished a boy at school and the parents found out they would get a beating at home. I think this is why the boys always prefered me to beat them than to keep them in detention.
This was especially the way that things worked in "the print" in Fleet Street, and I remember spending an evening with someone in that trade who gave me details of how much money was paid for standing around with a few pints on a Saturday night watching the run of Sunday papers.. Money for nothing..
So no-one got into "the print" in the old pre-Wapping days without belonging to "the family". That is how they kept a stranglehold on Fleet Street and resisted any change from old early twentieth century machines and methods.. And as far as I am aware there was nothing religious about it, just how working class families had learned to cope with the inter-war depressions.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 3rd September 2011
Interesting, but then, the Celts have an elephantine memory for any slight, real or imagined, and would have found some petty reason to have fallen out with the British.听
Who are 'the Celts' and who are 'the British'? -
Message 10
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 4th September 2011
Shane
You can take this argument back further to Daniel O'Connell who was stitched up something chronic by the Unionists before the Famine.
Then there was the Famine which proved that there was no economic justification for the Union of Ireland and Britain.
Then there was the Protestant Ascendancy which was up there with apartheid for cruelty and discrimination. The Ascendancy lasted into the Seventies.
Also the second leg of the Union namely Catholic emancipation was not implemented until a generation after the Act of Union.
The more I read about Padraic Pearse the more I am convinced he was too nice for the job he intended. It had to be left to Michael Collins, a far tougher character, to do the real business and as we all know that was only the start. -
Message 11
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Hi Nordmann,
But even supposing 麻豆约拍 Rule had indeed been granted as promised, I think it is fairly safe to assume that militant unionism would have played as major a role in the disruption or destruction of that aim, just as it did in reality eight years later when faced with a similar situation.听
That麓s the point which I also think made it impossible to grant Ireland 麻豆约拍 Rule without troubles with the Unionists. They麓d already decided to oppose it in 1912.
It麓s remarkable that it has been the Unionists only which apparently had shown a lack in defining themselves as being "Irish", like the Catholic Irish. I think that they still don麓t think being Irish nowadays either, for this might contravene their Unionism as to say, either British or nothing. But it would be interesting to know whether they consider themselves according to their ancestors, being Scottish or English. This leads me to another question concerning Scotland and the effect of 麻豆约拍 Rule in Ireland for demands of equal status for Scotland.
It seemed to be less risky to grant 麻豆约拍 Rule to colonies overseas, like Canada and Australia. But it was still a controversial issue to grant the same to India in the early 1930s. Too many colonies with 麻豆约拍 Rule might had an dissolution effect on the Empire. -
Message 12
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Hello all,
The Irish problem seems to me to have been the inability of the Catholic Irish leaders to gain homerule; had they succeeded the road to Irish independence would have been far less violent. But unfortunately, the British parties had no use of the Catholic Irish vote after 1870. So it was left to Sinn Fein and people like de Valera and Collins to gain independence.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 13
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Which "Catholic Irish leaders" exactly? 麻豆约拍 Rule as an aspiration worth agitating for was led politically by Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell for much of its existence as an issue before the Commons. Even when nominally led by Catholics, such as under John Redmond or James Dillon, it was coupled with the policy promoted by Balfour, "Constructive Unionism", just as it had earlier been coupled with teh aims of the Land League, a party which contained some prominent Protestants also amongst its leadership at different times.
It is dangerous to assume that the lines of political demarcation during the 19th century can be readily or comfortably aligned along a religious divide.
Also, if the Catholic Irish vote after 1870 was genuinely "of no use" to the British parties (which is a difficult concept to square with Parnell's astute exploitation of the balance of power within the Commons when possible in this period) then it could just as logically follow that such diffidence would accelerate rather than delay the granting of 麻豆约拍 Rule to a body of constituents no longer deemed "useful" within the larger British body politic. I think it is safer to assume a reticence based on potential loss of revenues to the crown and to the larger land-owning agencies as the primary reason behind any reluctance to reform either land ownership or government. Unionist militancy arose at a time when it was conceived that this reluctance had largely in fact been overcome, making 麻豆约拍 Rule inevitable. It was this that they feared and were prepared to sabotage through any means available.
Sinn Fein became the prinicipal agents of agitation for independence only when Redmond's party so spectacularly failed to deliver that which had looked a certainty in 1914, a fiasco from which it not only failed to recover but actually compounded with some inept and hugely unpopular policy decisions over the next few years while WWI progressed. The "hardening" of public opinion - something Redmond and even Dillon could be said to have accelerated - was what made Sinn Fein not only a viable option but in fact the only viable option in the minds of the bulk of the people (and a real threat in the minds of the Unionist minority). The rise of Sinn Fein saw the corresponding development of the original Unionist aspiration (complete union) into that which it became (union after partition). Once that vital element had been introduced into the political mix then a form of self-autonomy was almost inevitable, just as was inevitable the likelihood that it ultimately satisfy no one. -
Message 14
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Monday, 5th September 2011
In order for all-Ireland home rule to have been achieved peacefully, it would have had to have rid itself of the actuality and connotations of 'Rome Rule', not to mention anti-British 'Gaelicism'. This might have been possible, eg by means of a secular state such as exists in modern France, but efforts to establish such in Ireland would, no doubt, have met with at least some opposition from religious enthusiasts of all denominations throughout the British Isles. There would certainly have been no place in the leadership of such a state for the sort of bigoted fanatics of which SF/IRA was comprised - whether or not De Valera actually used the phrase 'A Catholic State for Catholic People', that was what he and his cronies delivered in the post-Union south.
As to 麻豆约拍 Rule giving Ireland a peaceful 20th century, there might have been less internal conflict, but a Westminster-friendly 'devolved Ireland' would probably have joined in the second world war on the allied side, and men (not, of course, women...
) from throughout Ireland might have been conscripted, which, some might argue, would have been a more serious example of state oppression than the sort of religious discrimination that was to be found on both sides of the border...<.anarchist_smiley> -
Message 15
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Monday, 5th September 2011
It's not clear how a devolved Ireland would have instituted conscription when, during the First World War, the Military Service Act applied only to Great Britain and excluded Ireland. (There was a later failed attempt to introduce conscription in Ireland in 1918.) And during the Second World War a devolved (but presumably 'Westminster-friendly') Northern Ireland also rejected conscription.
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Message 16
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Stormont did not "reject" conscription and in fact the Unionist Party made several overtures to Westminster to extend conscription to Northern Ireland, claiming that they had it in their power to contain the certain protests which would result from republicans. A debate on the subject in 1939 had indeed led to a violent backlash in the form of riots in Belfast (eagerly fuelled by De Valera who labelled conscription an act of "aggression" against Ulster nationalists). However Edmond Warnock, the Northern Ireland 麻豆约拍 Secretary repeatedly assured the cabinet in subsequent years, that it was nothing which could not be handled by the RUC, probably with some "help" from the military., and in fact the successful putting down of the 1939 opposition was used to illustrate the validity of this stance.
The biggest opposition to the notion outside of the nationalist community itself was from the more hard line Unionists who feared conscription would lead to an arming and training of that same community. However they were a minority within the party. In the end it was ultimately Churchill's decision not to press the matter, especially when the actual numbers of voluntary recruits (from both communities) became evident.
In a devolved 32 county Ireland I imagine the same pragmatism would have prevailed, just as it did in WWI until sheer necessity had led to an attempt to introduce conscription in the war's final year. -
Message 17
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Monday, 5th September 2011
It's not clear how a devolved Ireland would have instituted conscription when, during the First World War, the Military Service Act applied only to Great Britain and excluded Ireland...听
In the same way as rather more independent and distant places, such as New Zealand...
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Message 18
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 5th September 2011
A possible form of conscription which might have been imposed in this hypothetical 32 county Ireland of 1939 could have been one which resembled that which in reality was introduced in Australia (and for similar reasons). There, conscripts would be obliged to serve only on Australian "home" territory. Expeditionary forces would be comprised of volunteers. Over the course of the war the distinction became blurred, but the compromise proved enough initially to placate potential opposition while guaranteeing enough manpower for defensive deployment.
The level of voluntary recruitment from southern Ireland which happened in reality suggests that De Valera's assurance that he was pursuing a policy supported by the entire country was stated more in propagandistic hope than certainty. A 32 county devolved Ireland, more integrated in the "Commonwealth of Nations" than the 26 county version could choose not to be, would probably have been more amenable to conscription justified through the notion of mutual defence. -
Message 19
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Hello Nordmann and Catigern,
Nordmann, you write:
it was coupled with the policy promoted by Balfour, "Constructive Unionism听
I can鈥檛 see how this could be possible, given that Joseph Chamberlain was supported by the Irish Protestant Ulstermen. Surely, this should have led to a split in the Unionist party. Besides, I distinctly remember that in 1914 the British army was put on alert out of fear that the Unionists would throw the country into civil war over the 麻豆约拍 Rule issue.
You write:
Which "Catholic Irish leaders" exactly?听
The ones that brought down Parnell, perhaps? Besides, don鈥檛 you think that the local Irish priests were a force of their own?
You write:
It is dangerous to assume that the lines of political demarcation during the 19th century can be readily or comfortably aligned along a religious divide.听
Agreed, but on the other hand it has been shown that many of the nationalists movements in the second half of the 19th century were the doings of Catholics priests. Ireland was no exception to that rule.
You write:
Also, if the Catholic Irish vote after 1870 was genuinely "of no use" to the British parties (which is a difficult concept to square with Parnell's astute exploitation of the balance of power within the Commons when possible in this period) then it could just as logically follow that such diffidence would accelerate rather than delay the granting of 麻豆约拍 Rule to a body of constituents no longer deemed "useful" within the larger British body politic. I think it is safer to assume a reticence based on potential loss of revenues to the crown and to the larger land-owning agencies as the primary reason behind any reluctance to reform either land ownership or government. Unionist militancy arose at a time when it was conceived that this reluctance had largely in fact been overcome, making 麻豆约拍 Rule inevitable. It was this that they feared and were prepared to sabotage through any means available听
I meant to say that the Catholic Irish vote wasn鈥檛 useful to the British parties, whereas the Protestant Ulster vote was. It was the usefulness of the Protestant Ulster vote for the British parties that made the Catholic Irishmen an impotent electoral force. My assertion is that it was the political impotence of the Irish party that led to the Irish seccession.
You write:
Sinn Fein became the prinicipal agents of agitation for independence only when Redmond's party so spectacularly failed to deliver that which had looked a certainty in 1914听
I agree, but the reason that Redmond鈥檚 party couldn鈥檛 deliver on the 麻豆约拍 Rule issue was its political impotence.
Catigern, you write:
In order for all-Ireland home rule to have been achieved peacefully, it would have had to have rid itself of the actuality and connotations of 'Rome Rule', not to mention anti-British 'Gaelicism'.听
I can鈥檛 agree that this was a real issue; the same accusations were made against the Dutch Catholics by the Protestants, but that didn鈥檛 stop the Dutch Protestants from joining numerous cabinets that had some important Catholic members.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 20
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Polder
Re your last point surely there are vital differences between Dutch and Irish History.. The United Netherlands were/was created by a successful nationalist revolt against Spanish Authority... and I forget now just what change in the Protestant-Catholic situation was due to happen and helped to persuade the Pilgrim Fathers to leave the Netherlands and go to the American wilderness... and later the Boers to go to the Cape of Good Hope.
In so doing, of course, they opted to leave the country that was in many ways inventing the modern world, since- as has come up on the Belgium thread- right since the days of Charlemagne's division of his lands- the Low Countries were part of a "corridor of uncertainty" to use a favourite cricket term of Geoffrey Boycott.
It was a corridor that favoured movement between Italy and the North Sea, and the most significant early developments of both Capitalism and the Renaissance. These advantages made it possible for the Netherlands to invent and construct itself as the model for the modern age. Those who did not wish to be part of that left.
Ireland's situation was different in almost all respects, its isolation and remoteness from Europe creating the greatest part of its history in terms of its contribution to European and World History, that period of Celtic Christianity when amidst the barbarism that swept over Europe Ireland kept the light of Civilization burning and eventually re-introduced it to mainland Britain and Europe.
Without sharing Nordmann's doom it does seem that there were tremendous implications in living with the idea of world leadership in a "Golden Age" followed by periods when it all fell apart, the centre could not hold etc.. How do you stop the rot when it all looks like it is going downhill?
More recently Britain to some extent has the same problem with British politics always harking back to the opportunities and ideas of the Victorian Golden Age- Mrs Thatcher's Gladstonian Liberalism. Mr Cameron's One Nation Conservatism. And the Labour Party's vision of what seemed possible to the great founding fathers of the Labour Movement in that age when Britain was the workshop of the world.
Had Ireland been successful in its wars against the increasing state power of the Tudors, Irish history would surely have been very different.. But the traditional English view I suppose is that the Irish had no really unifying dynamic that could prove stronger than its fissiparous forces.. On a recent TV debate a self-confessed old cynical journalist said that she had always opposed getting involved in Libya because the society is tribal and tribal societies never forget and move on from old feuds.. This reflects an old English view of those who settled in the Viking and Danish parts of England and those who peopled Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
On another level is there any reason to believe that the Roman Catholic Church in its Counter-Reformation era would have been more tender to Gaelic culture and religion than it was to the indigenous cultures with which it came into contact elsewhere.
Cass -
Message 21
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Hello Poldertijger
Agreed, but on the other hand it has been shown that many of the nationalists movements in the second half of the 19th century were the doings of Catholics priests. Ireland was no exception to that rule.听
I disagree on that, because you can麓t claim such things happened for all European countries. At least for the creation of the second German Empire, the RCC had no say on that, because the main force was the Protestant Prussia.
Ireland and its history is something special and more complicated as it could be dealt with by simple conclusions.
Just tell you one example concerning the influence of the RCC on Irish politics in the decades of De Valera麓s policies is, that there were various political ideas within the IRB about the shape of this free and independent Ireland. Many aspects of these ideas are to be read from the Proclamation of the Irish Republic on the Easter Rising 1916. There is nothing to read about a great deal of influence of the RCC on Irish politics. To me, this proclamation has more of an modern democratic and pluralistic republic than Dev made out of it in practice. -
Message 22
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Polder
Further to my last- I reflected more on that corridor of uncertainty.. There is an island of Ireland and much of the troubles have been about whether it should be politically divided.
But really in effect what you are saying is that the Dutch people have become reconciled to a divided "Low Countries"..
(a) I seem to meet lots of people from Lille just one of those great cities of the Low Countries that are still in France..
(b) Then at the creation of Belgium the British Navy was deployed to deter Dutch moves to bring that region within its own state system, while Revolutionary France was "warned off" once more. Belgium was then set up with massive British investment that turned it into something not unlike Ulster- and at the present is riven with a Walloon/French divide. As Paul has pointed out they even had their own share of the great potato famines.
(c) Luxemburg just exists in limbo.
Eventually we had the Benelux Countries. Perhaps we in the British Isles will eventually have the ENIRULSOWA Countries.
Cass -
Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Hi Poldertjiger
While it would be foolish indeed to attempt to downplay the influence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in 19th century Irish politics it would also be equally foolish to naively assume that they led a giant herd of Catholics to do their bidding. Parnell's downfall was indeed orchestrated through a mobilisation of that hierarchy but one only has to look at the turnout for the same man's funeral shortly afterwards (in defiance of a direct instruction from Catholic pulpits) to see how discordant the church's undeniable political ambitions were at times with public opinion. And it is also worth bearing in mind that such a vindictive and self-serving policy - which made one question just whose side the Roman Catholic church was actually on - was echoed many times afterwards even after independence. The Mother and Child Scheme of the 1950s is a case in point. This in itself should lead one to mistrust blithely splitting the population into Catholic/Nationalists and Protestant/Unionists. The actions of one often benefited more the aims of the other, enough in any case to expose the frailty of such a simplistic analysis.
Rather than attempt to divide the population into two opposing political mind-sets based on their nominal religious affiliations it is far more advantageous when studying Irish history to realise when propaganda differed from reality (often), and when the simplistic number game based on that affiliation by which aspirant power mongers justified their claim to speak on others' behalf was one which was derided even at the time by political observers (just as often - read Freemans Journal editorials for some perfect examples of the genre). The later "success" of the Catholic church in getting itself embedded into the power structure of the emergent Free State allowed much of that old propaganda to become the mainstay of the new state's political doctrines, including those governing the teaching of history incidentally. In these doctrines the role of Protestant nationalism was either ignored or demonised and, likewise, the role of Catholic unionism, much like lesbianism, was deemed so unthinkable an atrocity that it didn't even rate as a sin. But that does not mean that the church ever exercised their control with quite the critical impunity they assumed or at least asserted. The same body's paranoia over the years is testament to that. -
Message 24
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
In all that, Nordmann, Dev did his very best to give the RCC their influence on Irish politics. I often wondered which road Ireland might had went if those more Socialist or Liberal powers within the Irish political system had prevailed. I think Ireland might had developed itself a bit more quicker into a modern and secular Republic, like many other countries in Western Europe after WWII.
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Message 25
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
One might argue that De Valera employed (or thought he could employ) the Roman Catholic church in exactly the same way and for the very same reasons that the Roman Empire once had. The question of who was the dog and who was the tail became very hard to answer in a very short time.
But don't run away with the idea that either De Valera or the church enjoyed univeral or even majority support at all times. Irish society had developed through necessity over centuries a well honed duplicitousness when it came to regarding whatever authority was in power, something which led to quite justifiable charges of hypocrisy against its people. The De Valera / McQuaid set-up was just very astute in understanding and exploiting this. One only had to compare what was being said in the pubs as opposed to what was being preached from the pulpits to see how this worked.
The tragedy for Ireland was that it worked at all, and for all too long a time. -
Message 26
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
Irish society had developed through necessity over centuries a well honed duplicitousness when it came to regarding whatever authority was in power, something which led to quite justifiable charges of hypocrisy against its people.
One only had to compare what was being said in the pubs as opposed to what was being preached from the pulpits to see how this worked.
The tragedy for Ireland was that it worked at all, and for all too long a time.听
They were probably left with no other choice, through these "700 years". One could say, that at the point when they were fed up by this, they revolted, and failed for many times until the Irish war of independence.
I wouldn麓t blame them, because it麓s not that easy to change the habits of a society, even harder these which were set up in times of oppression. But it is on the political leaders to set up the frame in which they work on their agendas for the future. This was probably just possible on a free scale after 1949 when Ireland left the Commonwealth and became that Republic they fought for in 1916.
It must have some reasons for why it has been stated that it was De Valera who held responsible for the stagnation in the Irish Republic when he was the leading politician. But it can麓t all be wrong what he did for Ireland, but to find the balance between it, seems to be rather difficult. There are more aspects to consider on how he had made things better, because some of them were domestic, some of them were on a international level, for the latter one has to deal with uncertainties.
A man with many contradictions, but also a successful one in hindsight considering that he was in his place when it came to key-decisions, like to mention the suspending of the Oath of allegiance in 1936 and the declaration of Neutrality of Eire in WWII. -
Message 27
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011
It's not clear how a devolved Ireland would have instituted conscription when, during the First World War, the Military Service Act applied only to Great Britain and excluded Ireland.听 In the same way as rather more independent and distant places, such as New Zealand.听
This doesn't say if the New Zealand Defence Act 1909 is being admired or criticised.
That said - Nordmann makes a valid suggestion that an Australian or Canadian system (in which conscripts would only be used for home duty and only volunteers sent for overseas service) could possibly have been a model for a self-governing dominion of Ireland.
With regard to the opening poster's notion that the failures between the 1880s and the 1910s to turn the British Isles into federal state represented a terrible missed opportunity - then this is absolutely correct. It is indicative, however, of the reactionary mindset of the UK establishment who are seemingly quick to cut off their own noses in order to spite their own faces. And the worst of it is that they rarely learn the lessons. And so 77 years after the bitter sectarian partition of Ireland in 1922 (and the ticking demographic timebomb which that set-up), the UK establishment again 'settled' for asymmetric devolution (this time in Great Britain itself) in 1999. -
Message 28
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Hello Nordmann,
You write:
While it would be foolish indeed to attempt to downplay the influence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in 19th century Irish politics it would also be equally foolish to naively assume that they led a giant herd of Catholics to do their bidding.听
Point taken.
Here is an interesting link:
About the conduct of Asquith Lord Cecil said:
Let them bring in their amending Bill under the Standing Orders before next Tuesday. It is perfectly manifest that somebody is going to be tricked. There is no genuine honest reason for making a secret of this kind. My hope is that it is the Nationalist party who are going to be tricked. It may be them, or it may be us, but that somebody is going to be tricked is perfectly plain..听
The same article says about Asquith鈥檚 ammendment to the 麻豆约拍 Rule Act that would temporarily exclude Ulster from Irish rule:
Redmond fought tenaciously against the idea of partition, but conceded only after Carson had forced through an Amending Bill which would have granted limited local autonomy to Ulster within an all-Ireland settlement. The British government in effect accepted no immediate responsibility for the political and religious antagonisms which in the end led to the partition of Ireland, regarding it as clearly an otherwise unresolvable internal Irish problem.听
That is stretching the English language beyond its limits; by searching for a compromise over Ulster the British government accepted responsibility. Now why would they do this unless they exspected electoral gain?
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 29
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Re: messages 20 and 22.
Hello Cass,
Dutch television began showing the Troubles at a particular time in Dutch history; The Dutch Catholic and Calvinistic parties were merging into a Christian party eventually called CDA. It took me a long time to understand why the Irish and Dutch history took such different paths.
The Dutch nation was forced upon the Dutch people by the French soldiers that invaded the Dutch Republic in 1795. Events seem to have conspired to strengthen the Dutch nation since. The Dutch nation has been an Act of God rather than a carefully carried out scheme.
However, unlike you seem to suggest, the Dutch Catholics experienced a lot of discrimination in the 19th century. Some Dutch Catholics were elected to defend local interests. Out of these nuclei a Dutch Catholic party emerged that was to lead the process of Catholic emancipation. Actually, the Dutch Catholics didn鈥檛 put a stop to Catholic emancipation until 1923, the year of the foundation of the Catholic university in my hometown Nijmegen.
The way that the Dutch Catholics sought emancipation is interesting. Calvinists demanded a state subsidized Protestant education for their children. The Catholic party joined the Calvinist request to have a state subsidized education for the Catholic children as well. The Calvinists had to accept the Catholic support to make their dream of a Protestant education for Protestant children come true.
The education of the Catholic elite did a lot to put an end to discrimination of Catholics and the upside of state subsidized Catholic education was that the Dutch found the educated Catholics more bearable than the uneducated ones.
All鈥檚 well that ends well? I can鈥檛 help feeling that in an increasingly democratising state the Catholic emancipation came down to a number game and in this game the Dutch Catholics had the upper hand. I imagine that the defeat of the first 麻豆约拍 Rule Bill and the suspension of the third 麻豆约拍 Rule Bill was a number game as well, in the sense that the number of Irish Catholics was too small to succeed.
In message 22 you say:
But really in effect what you are saying is that the Dutch people have become reconciled to a divided "Low Countries"..听
Yes.
You say:
Luxemburg just exists in limbo听
Given that these people are the wealthiest of the European Union I imagine them to cry all the way to their bank.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 30
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Re: message 21.
Hello Thomas_II,
I was refering to the Catholic education of the Flemish, Croatian and Irish elites that caused nationalism to emerge in these three regions. Interestingly, the Catholic education of the Catholic Dutch elite had the opposite effect of increasing the strength of the Dutch nation.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 31
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
This doesn't say if the New Zealand Defence Act 1909 is being admired or criticised.听
It wasn't even being referred to - I was commenting on the introduction of conscription in WWI...
Besides which, this is a history board, not a political blog, which means it's more appropriate to remark on a phenomenon's real or potential impact than to label it a 'Good/Bad Thing'. This goes for the creation and maintenance of the UK, as well... -
Message 32
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Polder
Thanks as ever.. it is always interesting to learn more Dutch history.. But perhaps understandably I know more up to William of Orange.. Actually I am currently writing something in which the difference between "elective" monarchy and "legitimate inheritance" monarchy is an important theme.. It seems that the latter method encourages divorce between the pursuit of qualties worthy of the role.. a point which I illustrate from Europe East of the Rhine where elective monarchy- Holy Roman Emperor + Pope and loads of others did make it easier to appoint a suitable "man for the hour".
One could arge that the English Revolution of 1688-9 was in effect almost an exercise in elective monarchy. And I recall reading David Ogg's "William III" in my teens which makes it quite clear that England benefitted a great deal from his ability to compromise and fit in with the shared Crown and also his background understanding in Dutch financial devices that had pioneered the modern age. One wonders whether the Bank of England would have been established with so little fuss without that Dutch input.
Having said that, the fact that many Irish could not accept that pragmatic and practical solution, preferring "legitimate inheritance" of Divine Right Stuarts and the ultimate authority of an elective Papacy - and were prepared to take up arms in support of both, goes right to the heart of the problem. To the English the Irish were supporters of the enslavement that the English had fought and defeated, and against Liberty and Human Rights- or perhaps they were just anti-English.
Cass -
Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Further to the legacy of William III
Of obvious significance was the discovery of John Churchill and the invading William of Orange that they could "do business" together.. Churchill later became an integral part of William's Grand Alliance, and after William's death Churchill came to have a commanding role in England's involvement in Europe, with his Blenheim Campaign deciding the fate of Europe. French tyranny would not prevail.. Meanwhile at the court of Queen Anne Sarah Churchill played a similar role for much of Queen Anne's reign.
Later on as the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, Lady Sarah spotted the potential of the then young William Pitt the Elder and settled money upon him to ensure that he could continue his political carreer. In the next really great war against France, the Seven Years War, Pitt perfomed the Marlborough role as a brilliant strategist and a daring and intuitive selector of the right man for the job. Though sidelined by George III not long after his succession in 1760, everyone knew that the great victories of that war were down to Pitt.
But Pitt's made sure that his son was properly educated to his role as a future PM, George III turning to him at the age of c23 in the last year of the unsuccessful American War.. Pitt was the first PM to have been properly educated to that role he set in train a "Tory Revolution" that transformed Britain as it had become after the great victories of Marlborough into Great Britain- the most powerful state in Europe.. For Revolutionary France had revised lost dreams of dominating Europe. The French even sent a token force to support the Irish rebellion in 1798, which persuaded Pitt to push for the Union with Ireland.. He was convinced, however, that Catholic Emancipation was a prerequisite for its success.. George III allegedly educated with ideas of Divine Right could not reconcile this with his duty as Head of the Church in England.. Pitt resigned from office over the affair.
Pitt's reform programme was put aside in time of war and in the difficult period after the war. Other politicians revived it in the late 1820's when Roman Catholic Emancipation was granted, along with the lifting of the Test Acts which had sidelined Nonconformists.
The Churchill's came back into politics in the last decades of the Victoria Era, Winston's ambitious America mother determined to make a "great man" of his father, a project that left no time for her son.. But after her husband's death she decided to try to make a great man of Winston Churchill.. The rest is history.
And at this point I must think of when we buried my old colleague whose first names were Winston Churchill about 5 years ago. He had been born in British Guianna in 1939. He was very much a "British" man.
Cass -
Message 34
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 8th September 2011
This doesn't say if the New Zealand Defence Act 1909 is being admired or criticised.听 It wasn't even being referred to - I was commenting on the introduction of conscription in WWI.听
Message 15 clearly questioned how conscription in a hypothetical devolved Ireland would have been 'instituted'. The fact that in actual history the UK either sought to avoid or else failed to introduce conscription in Ireland is indicative that the concept of conscription was never instituted there.
This contrasts markedly with New Zealand (the example provided in Message 17) where the introduction of conscription in 1916 was a relatively seemless affair precisely because the concept of compulsory military training had already been instituted in that country in 1909.
Besides which, this is a history board, not a political blog, which means it's more appropriate to remark on a phenomenon's real or potential impact than to label it a 'Good/Bad Thing'.听
I'll take it from this then that the drafters of the New Zealand Defence Act 1909 are not to be seen as 'cronies' and 'bigoted fanatics' enforcing 'a more serious example of state oppression'. -
Message 35
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 9th September 2011
Hello Cass,
You write:
The French even sent a token force to support the Irish rebellion in 1798, which persuaded Pitt to push for the Union with Ireland.. He was convinced, however, that Catholic Emancipation was a prerequisite for its success.. George III allegedly educated with ideas of Divine Right could not reconcile this with his duty as Head of the Church in England.. Pitt resigned from office over the affair.听
This reminds me of a quote from the Wikipedia article to which I have given a quote in message 28:
The British government in effect accepted no immediate responsibility for the political and religious antagonisms which in the end led to the partition of Ireland, regarding it as clearly an otherwise unresolvable internal Irish problem. To them, the Nationalists had led the way towards 麻豆约拍 Rule from the 1880s without trying hard enough to understand Unionist apprehensions, and were instead relying on their mathematical majority of electors.听
But shouldn鈥檛 the British and Unionists in particular try to understand the apprehensions of the Roman Catholics, as well? I鈥檓 not saying this lightly, because there is a population time bomb ticking that is not going to explode in favour of the Unionists.
Pitt鈥檚 and Gladstone鈥檚 errors in their attempts to deal with the Irish problem seem to me to have been caused by their ineptitude to make their case to the British people. Making the case for home rule to the British wasn鈥檛 necessary after1910, because these had finally gotten it, but now Asquith made the mistake not to make the case for home rule to the Unionists.
There seems to me to be no reason why Roman Catholics and Calvinists shouldn鈥檛 get along, as the examples of the Netherlands and Germany clearly show. Now seems the perfect time for the British government to make Roman Catholics and Calvinists get along, before the Calvinists find out that they will have to deal not with the likes of flexible Nordmann, but with the likes of intractable Shane.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 9th September 2011
Polder
I think what I have just posted on the other thread is relevant..
Once again your Dutch example highlights the shared prosperity in the Neterlands, whereas there were aspects of the Irish Roman Catholic tradition that seemed very much a threat to prosperity..
I have mentioned several times over the years the crucial role of landownership in England's industrial revolution.. The investment wealth for venture Capitalism was based upon it.. But the Irish legal system- I think swept away initially by Henry VIII- was based upon the different tradition of "Tannistry" in which someone's wealth is divided up amongst their relatives on their death..
In England primogentiture meant that the eldest son got everything, and the rest had to make their way in the world.. But the wealth that stayed in tact made it possible to lend money to those subblings if they came up with ideas that would make their fortune and pay back the loans.. This obviously made for a dynamic situation.
From the situation in Eighteenth Century Ireland this tradition of dividing and sub-dividing of wealth was applied to the whole pyramid of letting and sub-letting, for though the English absentee landlord is usually regarded as the villain of the piece, the people who rented from him usually sub-let to people who sub-let, etc. .. because no-one had the capital to fund really commercial farming for the market, which would have then created investment capital through profit reinvestment- the way that early Victorian businesses grow.
After the Union and the French Wars there were some attempts by Irish farmers to exploit the new market potential, and many of them tried to withdraw the potato plots that served as wages in kind for their workers..Commercial farming would have paid just cash wages.. But these commercial farmers were the targets of campaigns of arson, violence and murder, to which the British Government responded by passing very harsh new laws.
Nevertheless the basic trend of large Irish families living with an ultimate dependence upon very small plots that really only sufficed to produce enough potatoes to feed them carried Ireland into the agony of the Great Famines.
The inheritance laws in France since the Revolution also seem to be based upon equitable division and in my wife's region of Burgundy, where we have a house, I am constantly struck by the contrast with rural England..
The remnants of the great and prosperous days of Burgundy are potentially beautiful, but where a property has stayed in the family it is obvious that the person inheriting the real-estate did not also get the wealth necessary to maintain, repair and impove it.. One must guess that it was quite common to borrow money in order to satisfy the claims of the other inheritors, so that the new occupants did not even have their own incomes-whole.. As French people often tell me, you can tell all the houses that have been bought up by the "English" for they are being renovated.
Respect for property is so deeply ingrained in the English psyche- as instanced by the gut-reaction to the recent arson attacks.
Cass -
Message 37
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Friday, 9th September 2011
Message 15 clearly questioned how conscription in a hypothetical devolved Ireland would have been 'instituted'.听
Message 14 clearly suggested, and I stand by this, that a hypothetically devolved Ireland that was at peace with itself would have been an entirely different beast to any ebtity that has ever existed there. The non-history of conscription in Ireland in 'real life', under entirely different, and indeed contrasting circumstances is therefore irrelevant.
The fact that in actual history the UK either sought to avoid or else failed to introduce conscription in Ireland is indicative that the concept of conscription was never instituted there.
This contrasts markedly with New Zealand (the example provided in Message 17) where the introduction of conscription in 1916 was a relatively seemless affair precisely because the concept of compulsory military training had already been instituted in that country in 1909.听
The UK managed to introduce conscription without a precedent such as the NZ 1909 Act, so it seems reasonable to assume that NZ might have done so also, especially given the overwhelming support the 1916 imposition received from NZ MPs.
I'll take it from this then that the drafters of the New Zealand Defence Act 1909 are not to be seen as 'cronies' and 'bigoted fanatics' enforcing 'a more serious example of state oppression'.听
For the sake of consistency, you'd better decide whether or not they were part of one of those dreadful UK conspiracies that exist in your imagination before deciding that...
-
Message 38
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
a hypothetically devolved Ireland that was at peace with itself would have been an entirely different beast to any ebtity that has ever existed there. The non-history of conscription in Ireland in 'real life', under entirely different, and indeed contrasting circumstances is therefore irrelevant.听
If it is indeed irrelevant then this doesn鈥檛 explain why in Message 17 the institution of conscription in a hypothetically devolved Ireland was being likened to that of New Zealand.
The UK managed to introduce conscription without a precedent such as the NZ 1909 Act听
The UK only introduced conscription in Great Britain 鈥 not in Ireland. When the UK did try to introduce conscription in Ireland in 1918 they failed.
it seems reasonable to assume that NZ might have done so also, especially given the overwhelming support the 1916 imposition received from NZ MPs.听
New Zealand may well have done so. But New Zealand, however, is not Ireland. The UK establishment made sure of that with its hysterical opposition to Irish 麻豆约拍 Rule (and to Scottish 麻豆约拍 Rule and to English 麻豆约拍 Rule etc) during the 30 years before 1914.
you'd better decide whether or not they were part of one of those dreadful UK conspiracies听
I鈥檓 not sure what exactly a 鈥楿K conspiracy鈥 is. That said - New Zealand has never been part of the UK and so it鈥檚 not clear how Members of the New Zealand Parliament should be considered to be part of the UK establishment. You seem to be conflating 鈥榯he UK鈥 with 鈥榯he British Empire鈥 here. They鈥檙e 2 different things. -
Message 39
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
Hello Cass,
You are right that the Dutch are a people that value order. We鈥檝e had our share of disorder in the eightties of the 18th century and decided that we didn鈥檛 like it. The new Dutch elite that was brought in by the French invading army made clear that it wouldn鈥檛 tolerate religious violence. The Dutch came to terms with this limitation of the right to express oneself.
From the beginning of the United Kindom of the Netherlands until the first Catholic Calvinistic cabinet in 1883 the Protestant and Catholic elites were engaged in a dialogue. As there were no Catholic or Calvinistic parties at the time, this was done in a literary setting because most members of the Catholic and Protestant elite were writers as well. Many of the limits of the Catholic and Protestant dialogue were established during these discussions.
At the time the Catholic and Protestant lower classes had to communicate, as well. This was done rather more harshly, but ultimately the rules that were set by the elite permeated the comunication of the lower classes.
This kind of dialogue seems to have been lacking in Ireland, although Nordmann might know better.
The other day I have been watching 鈥淎mazing Grace鈥, the movie that deals with the way slavery was abolished in Britain. You have written about Wilberforce, Cass. The way I see it is that Pitt engaged Wilberforce to campaign against slavery. Pitt knew that in order to abolish slavery he had to bring his cause to the country to convince the ditherers that abolishing slavery was a cause that was well worth fighting for.
Pitt鈥檚 careful handling of the slavery issue seems totally lacking in the way he, Gladstone and Asquith dealt with the Irish issue. Four times it was thought that the matter could be dealt with in parliament without having to bring the cause to the country and to the people that would be most concerned.
I鈥檝e seen documentaries that show how daily life has changed for the Protestants in those parts of Ulster that now have a Catholic majority. I can well see that it would incense people like you or catigern, who must ask himself whether this is what he has been fighting for.
But regardless of the feelings of injustice, it is imperative that the Protestants engage in a real dialogue with the Catholics. You don鈥檛 need to engage in a dialogue with the people you like; you need to engage in a dialogue with the people you dislike in order to get along.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 40
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
If it is indeed irrelevant then this doesn鈥檛 explain why in Message 17 the institution of conscription in a hypothetically devolved Ireland was being likened to that of New Zealand.听
The point was that a peaceful, independent Ireland might have had more in common with other Dominions than with the island as it was during each world war...
The UK only introduced conscription in Great Britain 鈥 not in Ireland. When the UK did try to introduce conscription in Ireland in 1918 they failed.听
The point was that New Zealand's institution of conscription cannot be assumed to have been dependent upon the 1909 Act...
But New Zealand, however, is not Ireland...听
As I've observed repeatedly, we're not talking about Ireland as it actually was, but about a hypothetical entity that would have been very different...
I鈥檓 not sure what exactly a 鈥楿K conspiracy鈥 is.听
It might help if you were to make up your mind what one is, given that you seem to see them everywhere...
That said - New Zealand has never been part of the UK and so it鈥檚 not clear how Members of the New Zealand Parliament should be considered to be part of the UK establishment. You seem to be conflating 鈥榯he UK鈥 with 鈥榯he British Empire鈥 here. They鈥檙e 2 different things.听
Good to know that you've grasped that. Perhaps, next time, I won't need to point out, eg, that the UK was not created by the Union of 1707...
-
Message 41
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
"the fact that many Irish could not accept that pragmatic and practical solution, preferring "legitimate inheritance" of Divine Right Stuarts and the ultimate authority of an elective Papacy - and were prepared to take up arms in support of both, goes right to the heart of the problem. To the English the Irish were supporters of the enslavement that the English had fought and defeated, and against Liberty and Human Rights- or perhaps they were just anti-English."
I doubt it was ever the case that the Irish rebelled because they "couldnt accept a pragmatic solution (the 'Irish are always bad' theory)". More realistically, it was because they used whatever the political atmosphere threw up - Stuarts, Papacy, American/French revolution, WWI etc in order to pursue the idea which was indeed close to their hearts, that of independence from London.
The "Irish were supporters of (the) enslavement..against Liberty and Human Rights"? And yet these are the very things that the Irish have said for several centuries that they were fighting for; the difference as always is that the British wished for the Irish to fight for 'British' liberty, human rights and anti-enslavement, while the Irish were determined to fight for 'Irish' liberty, human rights and anti-enslavement.
This seemingly, to unionists like cass, simply doesn't compute. -
Message 42
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
Shane
But do you really think that had the Irish supporters of James II had won in the aftermath of the 1688-9 revolution that they would have persuaded their King and his sponsor in France, Louis XIV, NOT to then use Ireland as a launch-pad for winning back the throne of England?
And would the Irish Catholics then have risen up against James II because, though a Roman Catholic, he would rule Ireland from Westminster?
Whatever the answer- I do not think that this was a risk that many English people were prepared to take... Item the historical episode of Titus Oates and the Popish Plot about 20 years before when London barricaded itself for fear of an invading Irish army..
It all looks a bit extreme these days.. But the Thirty Years War that killed something like one third of all the inhabitants of greater Germany in the name of religion had only ended in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and great struggles for England lay ahead to frustrate and defeat the plans of the Sun KIng to achieve European domination.
As for Irish "liberty" the English have always failed to see that a solid and competent Irish state existed capable of guaranteeing the rights and liberties of the Irish people within Ireland- and of the English people both in England and as visitors in Ireland..Liberty is something that is be created by a State which is capable of coercion and compulsion. That is the way that States work..
As Henry VII accomplished the changes of the Age of Despotism in England producing a Tudor State capable of coercion and compulsion, was Ormonde the Irish leader who first supported the military uprisings by the "pretenders" against the Tudor monarchy, but then accepted to rule Ireland as a kind of Tudor-viceroy?
Cass -
Message 43
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
<QUOTE POSTID='110218863'>Polder<BR /><BR />I think what I have just posted on the other thread is relevant.. <BR /><BR />Once again your Dutch example highlights the shared prosperity in the Neterlands, whereas there were aspects of the Irish Roman Catholic tradition that seemed very much a threat to prosperity..<BR /><BR /> I have mentioned several times over the years the crucial role of landownership in England's industrial revolution.. The investment wealth for venture Capitalism was based upon it.. But the Irish legal system- I think swept away initially by Henry VIII- was based upon the different tradition of "Tannistry" in which someone's wealth is divided up amongst their relatives on their death..<BR /><BR /> In England primogentiture meant that the eldest son got everything, and the rest had to make their way in the world.. But the wealth that stayed in tact made it possible to lend money to those subblings if they came up with ideas that would make their fortune and pay back the loans.. This obviously made for a dynamic situation.<BR /><BR />From the situation in Eighteenth Century Ireland this tradition of dividing and sub-dividing of wealth was applied to the whole pyramid of letting and sub-letting, for though the English absentee landlord is usually regarded as the villain of the piece, the people who rented from him usually sub-let to people who sub-let, etc. .. because no-one had the capital to fund really commercial farming for the market, which would have then created investment capital through profit reinvestment- the way that early Victorian businesses grow. <BR /><BR />After the Union and the French Wars there were some attempts by Irish farmers to exploit the new market potential, and many of them tried to withdraw the potato plots that served as wages in kind for their workers..Commercial farming would have paid just cash wages.. But these commercial farmers were the targets of campaigns of arson, violence and murder, to which the British Government responded by passing very harsh new laws. <BR /><BR />Nevertheless the basic trend of large Irish families living with an ultimate dependence upon very small plots that really only sufficed to produce enough potatoes to feed them carried Ireland into the agony of the Great Famines.<BR /><BR />The inheritance laws in France since the Revolution also seem to be based upon equitable division and in my wife's region of Burgundy, where we have a house, I am constantly struck by the contrast with rural England.. <BR /><BR />The remnants of the great and prosperous days of Burgundy are potentially beautiful, but where a property has stayed in the family it is obvious that the person inheriting the real-estate did not also get the wealth necessary to maintain, repair and impove it.. One must guess that it was quite common to borrow money in order to satisfy the claims of the other inheritors, so that the new occupants did not even have their own incomes-whole.. As French people often tell me, you can tell all the houses that have been bought up by the "English" for they are being renovated. <BR /><BR />Respect for property is so deeply ingrained in the English psyche- as instanced by the gut-reaction to the recent arson attacks.<BR /><BR />Cass </QUOTE><QUOTE POSTID=鈥110218863鈥> I have mentioned several times over the years the crucial role of landownership in England鈥檚 industrial revolution.. The investment wealth for venture Capitalism was based upon it.. But the Irish legal system- I think swept away initially by Henry VIII- was based upon the different tradition of 鈥淭annistry鈥 in which someone鈥檚 wealth is divided up amongst their relatives on their death..<BR /><BR /> In England primogentiture meant that the eldest son got everything, and the rest had to make their way in the world.. But the wealth that stayed in tact made it possible to lend money to those subblings if they came up with ideas that would make their fortune and pay back the loans.. This obviously made for a dynamic situation.<BR /><BR />From the situation in Eighteenth Century Ireland this tradition of dividing and sub-dividing of wealth was applied to the whole pyramid of letting and sub-letting, for though the English absentee landlord is usually regarded as the villain of the piece, the people who rented from him usually sub-let to people who sub-let, etc. .. because no-one had the capital to fund really commercial farming for the market, which would have then created investment capital through profit reinvestment- the way that early Victorian businesses grow. <BR /><BR />After the Union and the French Wars there were some attempts by Irish farmers to exploit the new market potential, and many of them tried to withdraw the potato plots that served as wages in kind for their workers..Commercial farming would have paid just cash wages.. But these commercial farmers were the targets of campaigns of arson, violence and murder, to which the British Government responded by passing very harsh new laws. <BR /><BR />Nevertheless the basic trend of large Irish families living with an ultimate dependence upon very small plots that really only sufficed to produce enough potatoes to feed them carried Ireland into the agony of the Great Famines.<BR /><BR />The inheritance laws in France since the Revolution also seem to be based upon equitable division and in my wife鈥檚 region of Burgundy, where we have a house, I am constantly struck by the contrast with rural England.. <BR /><BR />The remnants of the great and prosperous days of Burgundy are potentially beautiful, but where a property has stayed in the family it is obvious that the person inheriting the real-estate did not also get the wealth necessary to maintain, repair and impove it.. One must guess that it was quite common to borrow money in order to satisfy the claims of the other inheritors, so that the new occupants did not even have their own incomes-whole.. As French people often tell me, you can tell all the houses that have been bought up by the 鈥淓nglish鈥 for they are being renovated. <BR /><BR />Respect for property is so deeply ingrained in the English psyche- as instanced by the gut-reaction to the recent arson attacks.<BR /><BR />Cass </QUOTE><BR /><BR />I think you are conflating several different time periods and and leaving important aspects of the story completely out here cass. <BR /><BR />If you are discussing Tanistry then I think it is fair to examine the whole system that existed prior to English colonisation. But even if one were to examine it in isolation let鈥檚 be fair about it, a system which was designed to give equal parts to the offspring and not allow one to 鈥榳in鈥 everything leaving the others to starve seems like a basically good, 鈥榗ivilised <SMILEY TYPE='smiley' H2G2='Smiley#smiley'/>鈥 idea. <BR /><BR />The important aspects you leave out are the fact that the English colonisation project is consistently and aggressively undermining the Tanist system and forcing the replacement of same with primogeniture and the other English systems. Tanistry etc don鈥檛 exist on a plane of their own down to the famine. The Gaelic systems are being eroded violently by the colonisation effort over centuries. The language is also an important aspect of this erosion; those who accept and/or are forced to, adopt English are allowed to advance, while those who hang on to or have no access to English language learning are forced further to the margins where they await the arrival of the famine. <BR /><BR />The wealth of the Irish had long since been expropriated by the colonial system and was not there to be invested in an alternate system, which in any case would not have been acceptable to the coloniser.
-
Message 44
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
Cass
I think you are conflating several different time periods and and leaving important aspects of the story completely out here cass.
If you are discussing Tanistry then I think it is fair to examine the whole system that existed prior to English colonisation. But even if one were to examine it in isolation let鈥檚 be fair about it, a system which was designed to give equal parts to the offspring and not allow one to 鈥榳in鈥 everything leaving the others to starve seems like a basically good, 鈥榗ivilised
鈥 idea.
The important aspects you leave out are the fact that the English colonisation project is consistently and aggressively undermining the Tanist system and forcing the replacement of same with primogeniture and the other English systems. Tanistry etc don鈥檛 exist on a plane of their own down to the famine. The Gaelic systems are being eroded violently by the colonisation effort over centuries. The language is also an important aspect of this erosion; those who accept and/or are forced to, adopt English are allowed to advance, while those who hang on to or have no access to English language learning are forced further to the margins where they await the arrival of the famine.
The wealth of the Irish had long since been expropriated by the colonial system and was not there to be invested in an alternate system, which in any case would not have been acceptable to the coloniser. -
Message 45
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 10th September 2011
Shane
Whether things are more civilised and superior is not the question.. To starve together in poverty, chastity and obedience has often been seen as the very highest way to live. And I make no mockery of the Celtic Monks who stayed in their beehive huts and kept the light of civilization flourishing.. But Irish resentments against England and the British often focus on the poverty and lack of economic development and the famines..
An Englishman can only say this is how we dealt with those problems.
But the British could see the disatrous implications of this system in India during a period when populations were doubling every fifty years. As was the case in England, Ireland and India. An increased population density can only be supported by economic advance, and that means investing wealth, and dividing up wealth means that you have no wealth- since wealth by its very definition means "of great value"..
What I am writing at the moment argues that England especially was able to benefit from the marriage between legitimacy and wealth that emerged during the Middle Ages, and has been the dominant and driving force in the modern world- to the detriment of "Christian Civilization", but to the benefit of concepts of human rights and material wealth..
For the alternative historically seems to have been [from an English perspective] the tyranny of arbitary and absolute government based on Divine Right with rulers above the law and the only people with any rights of ownership. And this threat in its traditional forms lasted until and beyond the Vatican Decrees of 1870 that declared the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and the claims of totalitarian regimes of the inter-war period.
Cass -
Message 46
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Monday, 12th September 2011
IMHO, if Irish 麻豆约拍 Rule had been granted to Ireland, then it would probably have led to the Troubles being avoided....
But would it have ended Irish independence? I don't think so....
I believe Ireland would've gone the way of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, then. -
Message 47
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Monday, 12th September 2011
Hello Cass,
You are right that the Dutch are a people that value order. We鈥檝e had our share of disorder in the eightties of the 18th century and decided that we didn鈥檛 like it. The new Dutch elite that was brought in by the French invading army made clear that it wouldn鈥檛 tolerate religious violence. The Dutch came to terms with this limitation of the right to express oneself.
From the beginning of the United Kindom of the Netherlands until the first Catholic Calvinistic cabinet in 1883 the Protestant and Catholic elites were engaged in a dialogue. As there were no Catholic or Calvinistic parties at the time, this was done in a literary setting because most members of the Catholic and Protestant elite were writers as well. Many of the limits of the Catholic and Protestant dialogue were established during these discussions.
At the time the Catholic and Protestant lower classes had to communicate, as well. This was done rather more harshly, but ultimately the rules that were set by the elite permeated the comunication of the lower classes.
This kind of dialogue seems to have been lacking in Ireland, although Nordmann might know better.
The other day I have been watching 鈥淎mazing Grace鈥, the movie that deals with the way slavery was abolished in Britain. You have written about Wilberforce, Cass. The way I see it is that Pitt engaged Wilberforce to campaign against slavery. Pitt knew that in order to abolish slavery he had to bring his cause to the country to convince the ditherers that abolishing slavery was a cause that was well worth fighting for.
Pitt鈥檚 careful handling of the slavery issue seems totally lacking in the way he, Gladstone and Asquith dealt with the Irish issue. Four times it was thought that the matter could be dealt with in parliament without having to bring the cause to the country and to the people that would be most concerned.
I鈥檝e seen documentaries that show how daily life has changed for the Protestants in those parts of Ulster that now have a Catholic majority. I can well see that it would incense people like you or catigern, who must ask himself whether this is what he has been fighting for.
But regardless of the feelings of injustice, it is imperative that the Protestants engage in a real dialogue with the Catholics. You don鈥檛 need to engage in a dialogue with the people you like; you need to engage in a dialogue with the people you dislike in order to get along.
Regards,
Poldertijger
听 Cass always seems to work Wilberforce into any topic....
I beg to differ slightly on Pitt and Wilberforce and the way they approached slavery.
Wilberforce was apparently having a personal crisis over his partying lifestyle, and wrote some lines from 'Amazing Grace'. A couple of weeks later, he went to see the hymn's author, a certain John Newton, a former slave trader who now denounced the practice. Newton persuaded Wilberforce to join the campaign to end the slave trade, and introduced him to James Ramsay, Granville Sharp and the Middletons, who were already leading the anti-slavery campaign. The way these guys saw it, Wilberforce would lead the campaign against the slave trade in parliament, while Thomas Clarkson would galvanise public opinion with his tireless campaigning and writing. "Rough Crossings", Simon Schama, pp172-4.
The idea was that Wilberforce would use his friendship with Pitt to push the campaign to end the slave trade, and while Pitt was sympathetic, he stepped back from early promises to end the trade when the French Revolution and Napoleon took hold in France. Also, Sharp wanted the campaign to be to end slavery completely, but his colleagues - including Wilberforce - felt that was a step too far, and believed they should focus on the realistic goal of just ending the slave trade. So, Sharp was voted down....
When the slave trade was ended in 1807, WIlberforce thought the goal had been achieved. He felt that the planters of the Caribbean should be persuaded to accept the Amelioration proposals, thus meaning that slavery itself would not have to be abolished. As a result, he and a lot of his colleagues believed that slavery would eventually fall apart, and slaves would become free some time in the distant future. It was a very naive approach, probably born in the natural conservatism of Wilberforce and his friends, and had no grounding in reality. Wilberforce and his friends were probably fearful of a general conflagration when this uncivilised blacks got their freedom, and that they would massacre the whites in the West Indies.
By that time, Sharp had died, which was a shame, because he was the only campaigner who did not compromise on his principles, and he had demanded the end of slavery unconditionally. After his death, the anti-slavery movement meandered along, as the Amelioration proposals were nothing but hot air, while the slave owners pretended to alleviate conditions, while in reality they were just as oppressive as ever.
In the end, it was the slaves themselves who pushed the movement towards its final hurdle. The slaves believed that the planters were deliberately withholding the 'free paper' that the King was granting them, and they took matters into their own hands, rebelling in huge numbers throughout the Caribbean. The main revolt was started by the educated slave, Sam Sharpe, in Montego Bay, and when the rebellion failed, Sharpe was executed by vengeful planters. Sharpe's statue stands in the heart of Montego Bay today....
This revolt was in 1832, and it so frightened the newly-elected Liberal government, which came on a campaign of reform, that they quickly passed the 1833 Emancipation Act. Of course, it helped that the Reform Act swept out those rotten borough seats which were bought by the West India Lobby, and brought into parliament a lot of industrialists who had little or no connection to the West Indies sugar industry. So, it was easy for them to pass this Act of Emancipation.
But, while Wilberforce et al can take credit for abolishing the slave trade, it was circumstances out of their control which led to the abolition of slavery itself, which swept Wilberforce along with the tide to a solution he was reluctant to achieve.... -
Message 48
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
In reply to shivfan:
I believe Ireland would've gone the way of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, then.听
I don麓t believe that, because within the IRB there were enough political leaders who weren麓t satisfied with being a Dominion within the BE, let alone to remain within the UK. In either way, 麻豆约拍 Rule had been the stepping sone towards the Irish Republic as the Free State was used to be.
But without the Easter Rising 1916, there probably wouldn麓t had been a Eamon De Valera to become the key politician in some events in the 1930s and 1940s as it went by his policies.
If Westminster had let the Unionists down, by granting 麻豆约拍 Rule in 1912, they were probably left with no other choice than to either live with that status or (more unlikely) move to Great Britain.
You can麓t exclude the Troubles in NI because who would say that the Unionists wouldn麓t had started it for their own cause?
Wait a minute, I think I know at least one who would dare to say so. -
Message 49
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
Hello shivfan,
You write:
A couple of weeks later, he went to see the hymn's author, a certain John Newton, a former slave trader who now denounced the practice. Newton persuaded Wilberforce to join the campaign to end the slave trade, and introduced him to James Ramsay, Granville Sharp and the Middletons, who were already leading the anti-slavery campaign. 听
Thanks for the input.
You write:
But, while Wilberforce et al can take credit for abolishing the slave trade, it was circumstances out of their control which led to the abolition of slavery itself...听
I knew this and should have written end of slave trade instead of end of slavery. I鈥檓 sorry if I had put anyone on the wrong foot.
You write:
The idea was that Wilberforce would use his friendship with Pitt to push the campaign to end the slave trade, and while Pitt was sympathetic, he stepped back from early promises to end the trade when the French Revolution and Napoleon took hold in France.听
That may be, but the Tory grandees must have assented to the devious way that Wilberforce used to end the slave trade and without the propaganda of the abolishers in the early years the country would not have stand for the implications of the measures, i.e. the abolishment of the slave trade.
My assertion still stands; if a government measure is essential but unpopular, the government has to make its case. Wilberforce has shown how to do this.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 50
Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
If Westminster had let the Unionists down, by granting 麻豆约拍 Rule in 1912, they were probably left with no other choice than to either live with that status or (more unlikely) move to Great Britain.
You can麓t exclude the Troubles in NI because who would say that the Unionists wouldn麓t had started it for their own cause?
Wait a minute, I think I know at least one who would dare to say so.听
Hear the measured beat of Ulstermen marching,
Through the green fields and streets of the towns,
Called up to arms by bold Edward Carson,
To stand for the Red Hand and Crown.
These were the seed of mighty CuChulainn,
These were the sons of Congal Claen,
Determined that Gaels and Rome should not rule them,*
And England if need be withstand.
Those were the days of Ulsters defiance,
Those were the days of passion and strife,
Those were the days when England denied us,
And Ulster stood for her life...
*Yes, I am aware of the irony of the words "the seed of mighty CuChulainn... the sons of Congal Claen, Determined that Gaels... should not rule them,"
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