Busting the Myths Part III: The Easter Rising…

The Easter Rising has gone down in Irish History as a watershed moment. For Republicans especially it is the seminal moment in recent Irish History commemorated with parades and rallies at Easter every year. Many to this day still believe the Rising was an unexpected event from the British perspective. There is a belief that the British were taken totally by surprise by a well- disciplined force, the Irish Volunteers, as most of the Dublin Garrison had left to enjoy …

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“The centenary [of 1916] is surely a time for reflection, not celebration”

Before the year’s out it is notable of just how discretely all the centenaries of this year – so much looked forward to as a numinous year within Republicanism, and revered within unionism – were ‘celebrated’. It falls to that perennially awkward soul Denis Kennedy to ask some usefully difficult questions about the southern celebrations of the Easter Rising… Here’s two worth noting… Should, 100 years on, a modern parliamentary democracy, committed to the rule of law and peaceful settlement …

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Hundredth anniversary of Jutland

Today is the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. This was one of the largest naval battles ever fought and although a confused and indecisive battle of itself in some ways marked a major turning point in the First World War. In essence it was a tactical victory for the Germans against the deeply intellectual, apparently very caring to his men, but cautions British admiral John Jellicoe: a tactical victory snatched from what could have been the jaws …

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“I have met them at close of day coming with vivid faces from counter or desk…”

Not a comment on today so much as in point of deference to one Ireland’s (and Sligo’s) greatest ever poets, WB Yeats: I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a …

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Easter ’16, Once Again

DUBLIN—Here in Ireland, this weekend, Yeats’s terrible beauty becomes a centenarian. It might have had a letter from the Queen, were history different. It is a pleasing sign of recent Irish social change that 1916 is not being commemorated as a good-and-evil struggle, one with Ireland on the side of the angels—and evil Britain receiving its due comeuppance and ouster. Call this the Wind That Shakes The Barley view of Irish historiography. Consider halfway back, 1966, for something less nuanced …

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Towards a Unionist Rememberance of the 1916 Insurrection

IMPERIAL DEFENCE: In helping to protect what might be characterised as the Imperial achilles heel at the time, the unquestioning devotion of the Loyalist segment of the civilian population of Dublin who did not fight for a rebel proclamation, but did so from inside the barracks at Beggar’s Bush and the halls of Trinity College in defence of the United Kingdom.