APP - Ted Kennedy loathed Britain - so why did Gordon Brown knight him? Read more: http://

tom prendergast said:
Allow me to enlighten you as to the background of the writer, you might just agree that she is likely to know a lot more about Irish politics than some others including yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Dudley_Edwards


Here is what she wrote about Ken Loach's polemical film The Wind That Shakes the Barley back in 2006 in the Guardian.

What about making Black and Tans: the movie?

Ken Loach is being predictable and morally lazy in making yet another sympathetic portrayal of Irish republicanism. As an Irish historian living in England, I have become inured to the self-flagellation of nice, well-meaning, leftish people like George Monbiot when it comes to Ireland. They see only negatives when they consider the record of Britain in Ireland and are blinkered by ignorance and blinded by romance when they look at violent republicanism.
I began my career as a biographer of Patrick Pearse and James Connolly - two leaders of the 1916 rebellion. I viewed them sympathetically, as I view all my subjects, but I could not but conclude that they had no more justification for revolution than did the Provisional IRA more than sixty years later nor the Real and Continuity IRAs now. They were leaders of a tiny cabal: Ireland was a democracy, and Home Rule was on the statute book.
The British reaction to a revolution in the middle of a world war was harsh enough to alienate Irish public opinion, while too mild to smash violent nationalism. (Salient figures: 450 deaths, of which 116 were soldiers, 16 policemen, 242 civilians and 76 insurgents.)
Although there were only 16 executions, they aroused the sympathy of the hitherto unbellicose Irish and in 1918 won the election for Sinn Fein, though there was no mandate for future violence. Yet violence had become respectable. The unnecessary war of independence began when in January 1919, a handful of Irish Volunteers took it on themselves to kill two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. From then on it was a war on anyone in uniform - British or Irish - or with unionist sympathies. Ken Loach set The Wind That Shakes the Barley in County Cork, but I'm told there is no mention in it of the ethnic cleansing of Protestants in several villages.
To deal with IRA terror, early in 1920 the British government dispatched ex-servicemen to join the RIC. Inadequately trained and ill disciplined and without even a proper uniform (they became known as the Black and Tans because of their odd mixture of khaki and black), they met terror with counter-terror and raids with reprisals: violence and brutality escalated on both sides during 1920 and 1921. (About 1,400 died, including 600+ security forces and 550 IRA).
This was a terrible period, though not as damaging for the Irish psyche as the civil war that followed, when a minority of republicans showed their contempt for the Irish electorate by taking to the gun rather than accept the Treaty with Britain, which the Irish parliament had ratified. The atrocities of previous years were exceeded in the war of republican against republican. (Around 1,500-2,000 died.)
Ken Loach spoke of the "legendary" brutality of the Black and Tans, and indeed their nastiest deeds have gone down in story and song and have never knowingly been understated. The reason why I won't be going to his film (which I couldn't see before I wrote about it as it had been shown only at Cannes) is because I can't stand its sheer predictability.
All films dealing with Irish republicans show them as tormented idealists who sometimes do things they shouldn't: the British or unionists are portrayed as cynical, brutal and despicable (for example Loach's Hidden Agenda and Neil Jordan's Michael Collins). So Loach was doing nothing brave in taking a sympathetic look at republicans: he was being morally lazy. What would have been interesting and worthwhile would have been for this champion of the underdog to look at events from the standpoint of some wretch of a Black and Tan who had survived years of war only to end up in Ireland being shot at from behind hedges.
Loach has explained to the republican Daily Ireland that partition has failed and that the "unionist veto on change must be removed". He is, therefore, even more militant than is post-agreement Sinn Fein. The only republicans who now oppose the principle of consent in determining the future of Ireland are the dissidents who are still trying to kill and maim for Ireland. That puts Loach on the side of those who murdered 29 people and unborn twins in Omagh in 1998.
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Thanks, Mr. Argument From Authority.

She's a hack and she wrote an opinion piece. It's no more reputable than any other opinion piece that makes such flimsy and unjustified assertions.
 
charver said:
From the small piece about criticising Ken Loach, she also appears to be a typical Daily Mail contributor, preferring to raise herself into a lather of self-righteous outrage and bluster over films which she hasn't even bothered to watch.
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Her self righteous lather is all about how these films are shown in the US and the poor demented fools who take them as gospel and help perpetuate the myth of the iRA as freedom fighters not psychotic killers. It is a shame that Eamonn de Valera wasn't executed in 1916, the history of Ireland may well have taken a different and better course. He was the bastard that offered his condolences to the German Minister in Dublin on the death of Hitler in 1945. He was even offered a united Ireland in exchange for use of the Irish ports in WW2 but he turned it down ensuring that many thousands of merchant seaman lost their lives because of his intransigence and stupidity.
 
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911America4EVER said:
Thanks, Mr. Argument From Authority.

She's a hack and she wrote an opinion piece. It's no more reputable than any other opinion piece that makes such flimsy and unjustified assertions.
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You have already freely admitted that you know nothing about Ireland and yet you still feel able to to say that her claims are unjustified. Here are a few facts on saint Gerry Adams.

http://www.residentgroups.fsnet.co.uk/adams.htm
 
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charver said:
Well, as a "professional historian" you'd expect a certain level of professionalism wouldn't you?

Whether Ken Loach's film was predictable, or tedious, i don't know. I haven't seen the film in question and therefore don't consider myself in a position to offer any sort of critique on it. Perhaps if i were a "professional historian" then i'd feel more qualified to do so?
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She was speaking from the heart albeit with an impressive hinterland of academic works to her credit, I would suggest that you grab a copy yourself and then tell me what you think. Many facts have been glossed over down the years like the fact that the Germans had an embassy in Dublin throughout the war and the IRA was staunchly pro German. I have no doubt that Hitler would have known how to deal with them if Germany had won the war.
 
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froggie said:
Tom, I had no idea, thanks for the interesting article, I hear this comment that he was only out for himself, but if that were truly the case, why was he re-elected for so many years?
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think of it as "brand name" politics. He's elected because the Kennedy name is popular in Mass.
Oh he was. LOL
 
tom prendergast said:
She was speaking from the heart albeit with an impressive hinterland of academic works to her credit, I would suggest that you grab a copy yourself and then tell me what you think. Many facts have been glossed over down the years like the fact that the Germans had an embassy in Dublin throughout the war and the IRA was staunchly pro German. I have no doubt that Hitler would have known how to deal with them if Germany had won the war.
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I'm well aware of the romantic portrayal of the IRA among various American communities and i'm not opposed to the author's criticisms of Ted Kennedy or the decision to award him an honorary knighthood but the whole "it is a betrayal of Britain" tommyrot is more than i could stomach.
 
charver said:
I'm well aware of the romantic portrayal of the IRA among various American communities and i'm not opposed to the author's criticisms of Ted Kennedy or the decision to award him an honorary knighthood but the whole "it is a betrayal of Britain" tommyrot is more than i could stomach.
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Well a little bit of hyperbole is allowed from time to time especially when so much bullshit is spouted about the good old Oirish in places like the USA.
 
charver said:
I'm well aware of the romantic portrayal of the IRA among various American communities and i'm not opposed to the author's criticisms of Ted Kennedy or the decision to award him an honorary knighthood but the whole "it is a betrayal of Britain" tommyrot is more than i could stomach.
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I'm telling you, it was a betrayal! Like sending your dog out without a hat to leave a gift on the neighbor's lawn it is!
 
tom prendergast said:
It is a shame that Eamonn de Valera wasn't executed in 1916, the history of Ireland may well have taken a different and better course.
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xanax1mg1.jpg
 
Not sure what you two have been discussing, but I will say that the Irish have done plenty of suffering over the years. That the IRA remained active long after independence is unfortunate, but obviously, something that happened in 1916 happened before independence...
 
So you brits were all just standing around one day and the Irish came over to "peck a fight?" Oh sorry that was Mel Gibson doing shitty Scottish dialect about another time the British were just milling about minding their own business when the Scots rose up against you. Seems like you chaps across the pond have the most dreadful luck, always being someplace, minding your own, when someone out of the blue and without slightest provocation slaps the shit outta you. Well all I know is that if someone from ANOTHER fucking country came to mine and then did a good job of alienating everyone but their loyalists, I would blow their shit up too til they left my soil and the thought of ever coming back caused their bollocks to crawl past their stomach and into their lungs.

EDIT: I am only the tiniest bit Irish, I don't identify with the irish, and but for a charming woman with an Irish accent, I really don't give two shits about the Irish. But I do know that throughout history the Brits have, from time to time done a bit of whining about how put up they were by the people in the country that they were OCCUPYING! I mean really, the Indians brought all that shit upon themselves.

What's white and flies over the atlantic?

Lord Mountbatten's shoe.
 
Socrtease said:
So you brits were all just standing around one day and the Irish came over to "peck a fight?" Oh sorry that was Mel Gibson doing shitty Scottish dialect about another time the British were just milling about minding their own business when the Scots rose up against you. Seems like you chaps across the pond have the most dreadful luck, always being someplace, minding your own, when someone out of the blue and without slightest provocation slaps the shit outta you. Well all I know is that if someone from ANOTHER fucking country came to mine and then did a good job of alienating everyone but their loyalists, I would blow their shit up too til they left my soil and the thought of ever coming back caused their bollocks to crawl past their stomach and into their lungs.

EDIT: I am only the tiniest bit Irish, I don't identify with the irish, and but for a charming woman with an Irish accent, I really don't give two shits about the Irish. But I do know that throughout history the Brits have, from time to time done a bit of whining about how put up they were by the people in the country that they were OCCUPYING! I mean really, the Indians brought all that shit upon themselves.

What's white and flies over the atlantic?

Lord Mountbatten's shoe.
Click to expand...

First off I will say that I find myself agreeing with you usually, so I can't understand how you can be so wrong headed.

You say that you don't give two shits about the Irish and then proceed to talk pure bollocks about the British. I am first generation English with Irish Catholic parents and have heard much the same shite over and over again. It is exactly these sentiments which caused Americans to give money to Noraid so that the fucking IRA could kill and maim thousands of innocent people. I know Northern and Southern Ireland very well having been to both many times and I also know about many of the disgusting acts perpetrated by those brave 'freedom fighters' aka murderous cowards. Perhaps you would care to explain why they are continuing to attempt to kill people even now? I don't suppose you will have an answer as you don't give a shit about the Irish apparently. By the way, the Braveheart film was mostly fiction as well



Massive bomb defused in N.Ireland: police (Source)



Army experts in Northern Ireland defused a massive roadside bomb on Tuesday, averting what could have been a "devastating" explosion in the long-troubled province, police said.

Related photos / videos




Police patrol in Northern Ireland in March Enlarge photo





The discovery of the 600-pound home-made device came six months after dissident Republicans shot two British soldiers and a police officer, reviving the spectre of violence a decade after a landmark peace accord.
The bomb was found outside the village of Forkhill near the border with the Irish Republic in South Armagh, along with a command wire from the roadside where it was found to the other side of the border.
"There could have been a devastating outcome to this incident," Newry and Mourne police commander Chief Inspector Sam Cordner said.
"The actions of terrorist criminals in planting this device ... put local people and police officers at significant risk. Their actions were reckless and dangerous in the extreme."
He added: "Their target may have been the police, but they did not care who they killed or injured. It is only through the hard work and professionalism of police officers and their military colleagues that the area has been made safe."
Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said the bomb showed there was a clear and ongoing terrorist threat of terrorism.
"It shows that there are evil people out there still prepared and with the equipment to take life in Northern Ireland.
"I am delighted it has been defused, but it does show that there is still a very real and present danger. It indicated there are people who still have to be dealt with by the PSNI."
The bomb was the biggest found in Northern Ireland for a long time.
In January a 300-pound bomb was found in Castlewellan, in the southeast of the province, and in May the components of a 100-pound bomb were seized near Rosslea, in County Fermanagh in the south.
The device was found hours after officials said that the last remaining loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland had pledged to decommission weapons within six months.
The Ulster Defence Association and its breakaway faction have given the undertaking to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said.
Loyalists are Northern Ireland Protestants who want the province to remain part of Britain and are historic foes of Catholic republicans, who believe it should become part of the Republic of Ireland.
A 1998 peace accord ended most of the violence which had plagued Northern Ireland for three decades, killing at least 3,500 people.
Devolved self-rule is now in place in the British province after a landmark accord in 2007 between the Protestant Democratic Unionists (DUP) and Catholic Sinn Fein.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main republican paramilitary group, finished destroying its arsenal four years ago, overseen by the commission.
 
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Yeah Braveheart didn't make much sense. He cried "freeom" at the end and I was like WTF? Freedom for what? To be a servant to a different king?
 
tom prendergast said:
First off I will say that I find myself agreeing with you usually, so I can't understand how you can be so wrong headed.

You say that you don't give two shits about the Irish and then proceed to talk pure bollocks about the British. I am first generation English with Irish Catholic parents and have heard much the same shite over and over again. It is exactly these sentiments which caused Americans to give money to Noraid so that the fucking IRA could kill and maim thousands of innocent people. I know Northern and Southern Ireland very well having been to both many times and I also know about many of the disgusting acts perpetrated by those brave 'freedom fighters' aka murderous cowards. Perhaps you would care to explain why they are continuing to attempt to kill people even now? I don't suppose you will have an answer as you don't give a shit about the Irish apparently. By the way, the Braveheart film was mostly fiction as well



Massive bomb defused in N.Ireland: police (Source)



Army experts in Northern Ireland defused a massive roadside bomb on Tuesday, averting what could have been a "devastating" explosion in the long-troubled province, police said.

Related photos / videos




Police patrol in Northern Ireland in March Enlarge photo





The discovery of the 600-pound home-made device came six months after dissident Republicans shot two British soldiers and a police officer, reviving the spectre of violence a decade after a landmark peace accord.
The bomb was found outside the village of Forkhill near the border with the Irish Republic in South Armagh, along with a command wire from the roadside where it was found to the other side of the border.
"There could have been a devastating outcome to this incident," Newry and Mourne police commander Chief Inspector Sam Cordner said.
"The actions of terrorist criminals in planting this device ... put local people and police officers at significant risk. Their actions were reckless and dangerous in the extreme."
He added: "Their target may have been the police, but they did not care who they killed or injured. It is only through the hard work and professionalism of police officers and their military colleagues that the area has been made safe."
Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said the bomb showed there was a clear and ongoing terrorist threat of terrorism.
"It shows that there are evil people out there still prepared and with the equipment to take life in Northern Ireland.
"I am delighted it has been defused, but it does show that there is still a very real and present danger. It indicated there are people who still have to be dealt with by the PSNI."
The bomb was the biggest found in Northern Ireland for a long time.
In January a 300-pound bomb was found in Castlewellan, in the southeast of the province, and in May the components of a 100-pound bomb were seized near Rosslea, in County Fermanagh in the south.
The device was found hours after officials said that the last remaining loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland had pledged to decommission weapons within six months.
The Ulster Defence Association and its breakaway faction have given the undertaking to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said.
Loyalists are Northern Ireland Protestants who want the province to remain part of Britain and are historic foes of Catholic republicans, who believe it should become part of the Republic of Ireland.
A 1998 peace accord ended most of the violence which had plagued Northern Ireland for three decades, killing at least 3,500 people.
Devolved self-rule is now in place in the British province after a landmark accord in 2007 between the Protestant Democratic Unionists (DUP) and Catholic Sinn Fein.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main republican paramilitary group, finished destroying its arsenal four years ago, overseen by the commission.
Click to expand...
You did nothing to explain to me what pissed of the Irish enough to want to do this and simply posted about somebody planting bombs.

Socrtease pretty much stated what we understand to be the reason behind their urge to fight your government. If you think they do it just because they want to maim innocents then tell me why you believe that.

It's like posting about Palestinians bombing someplace in Israel, without the reason they want to do something it seems like a horrible act, but these are people and there is a motive behind it. What is that motive?

Have the British always been perfect in how they treated the Irish or the Scotts? Or do they maybe have some reason to be hacked off at y'all, and in fact have incentive to perpetrate these actions?
 
Damocles said:
You did nothing to explain to me what pissed of the Irish enough to want to do this and simply posted about somebody planting bombs.

Socrtease pretty much stated what we understand to be the reason behind their urge to fight your government. If you think they do it just because they want to maim innocents then tell me why you believe that.

It's like posting about Palestinians bombing someplace in Israel, without the reason they want to do something it seems like a horrible act, but these are people and there is a motive behind it. What is that motive?

Have the British always been perfect in how they treated the Irish or the Scotts? Or do they maybe have some reason to be hacked off at y'all, and in fact have incentive to perpetrate these actions?
Click to expand...

The Irish and the Palestinians have a motive for doing what they do. Understanding this motive can help us in future situations so as to not provoke things like this. But a motive is not an excuse.

Vengeance is evil. Collective vengeance is especially evil.
 
Damocles said:
You did nothing to explain to me what pissed of the Irish enough to want to do this and simply posted about somebody planting bombs.

Socrtease pretty much stated what we understand to be the reason behind their urge to fight your government. If you think they do it just because they want to maim innocents then tell me why you believe that.

It's like posting about Palestinians bombing someplace in Israel, without the reason they want to do something it seems like a horrible act, but these are people and there is a motive behind it. What is that motive?

Have the British always been perfect in how they treated the Irish or the Scotts? Or do they maybe have some reason to be hacked off at y'all, and in fact have incentive to perpetrate these actions?
Click to expand...

Damo, if you want an explanation for the Irish problem then it's going to take a little more than a few paragraphs on a messageboard, even if both Tom and i were channelling the ghost of AJP Taylor. I'm not setting out to do that.

As you've adopted present tense i'm not sure whether you're referring to the actions of the IRA, who have ceased their terror campaign, or the current splinter groups (Real IRA, Continuity IRA, and the rest), or both.

The IRA have no reason to fight our government. They agreed a peace settlement, joined the government of Northern Ireland, decommissioned their weapons and ceased terrorist action. Their representatives now condemn terrorism. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, still aren't huge fans of being a part of the United Kingdom but campaign through the ballot box now, in preference to the Armalite. One day, they will hold a referendum in Northern Ireland where the majority will express a wish to break with the United Kingdom and unite with the Republic of Ireland. At present that majority expresses a desire to maintain the status quo.

The British government will abide by the decision of the people of Northern Ireland. In fact the British government would like nothing better than to palm off Northern Ireland to the Republic as it costs the UK a bloody fortune. Moreover, if unification occurred tomorrow it would bankrupt the Republic and obliterate its already fragile economy.

The splinter groups carry on their violent campaign to "end British occupation", very much in the same mindset as those who decided it would be a splendid idea to fly those planes into the towers in order to "end American occupation" of Muslim holy lands. They are dinosaurs refusing to accept the reality of 21st Century Ireland. They have no support in the North or the South and their frequent targeting of Irish civilians is universally condemned. They can cite the same grievances the original Irish nationalists and the IRA used but they're fooling nobody, except for those uneducated souls who know nothing of Ireland or its history (that's not intended as a dig btw :)).

All manner of crimes have been committed on Irish soil, whether it was rival monarchist factions killing each other, Republican terror campaigns, loyalist terror campaigns or terror campaigns by the British government itself. The Catholic/Republican minority in Northern Ireland used to face outright discrimination in all walks of life at the hands of a Protestant/Loyalist majority and nobody in their right mind would defend that. Initially British troops were sent into the North to protect the Catholic minority from Protestant rioters and were welcomed as protectors. As we all know, that didn't last long. All sides transgressed, all sides witnessed and perpetrated brutality.

But now we are where we are. With the end of catholic discrimination in the North, the withdrawal of British Army patrols and the dismantling of checkpoints, the end of the IRA's terror campaign, cross border co-operation, Sinn Fein sharing power with Unionist parties, a revamped Police Service of Northern Ireland (comprised of Protestant and Catholics together replacing the Protestant dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary) and absolute self-determination for the people of Northern Ireland to decide their own future, there is now no justification whatsoever for any terrorist violence.

We, the British, have accepted and embraced reality, the people of Ireland have accepted and embraced reality, which only leaves those wistfully romantic souls, who dream of simple Irish folk bravely facing down the behemoth of the British Empire by killing civilians out shopping with their kids. I still hold particular loathing for the past actions of the IRA, but i'm not proud of the past actions of my own nation either. I prefer the present, the peace and the friendship. And for those who want that to end i have only contempt.
 
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