Jim Carroll - 19 May 16 - 09:36 AM

How dare you write a post based upon attributing me with holding the view that Ireland was not entitled to independence.

Although you have accused me of holding such a view - I have never ever said anything like that and you have now been asked God knows how many times now to come up with the post in which I stated any such view - To date you haven't - because you can't - be honest enough to simply admit it. If you cannot admit it then you are in fact guilty of "inventing stuff".

You have questioned Ireland as a united nation therefore you have suggested that it is not entitled to full independence

The above is a perfect example of someone putting words into someone else's mouth.

You put forward that that Ireland was only a united nation up to Norman times

No I most certainly did not!! Exactly the reverse in fact - Ideas and any concept of a national identity only started to form AFTER the Normans arrived, prior to that, Ireland had consisted of a number of small kingdoms, a collection of tribal groups with no concept of nationality at all.

Six Counties were the invention of a foreign power and have only been in existence for less than a century.

Northern Ireland was the invention of those who lived there, it came into being because those who lived there freely exercised their right to self-determination.

Great Britain only became a unified sovereign state in 1707. around six-and-a-half centuries after the Norman invasion - does that invalidate Britain as a unified entity - of course it doesn't it it is crass to suggest otherwise.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain came into being with the ACTS of Union in 1707, in forming that Union neither England or Scotland lost their sovereignty, national identity or their laws. From that date an additional sense of being British was born.

Independence is full independence, not just for Ireland but for any nation - that's what the word means - free from restraints and interference of any other nation - and that is what both of you have consistently opposed.

So on 6th December 1921 the Irish got their independence as a single 32 county nation, free from the restraints and interference of any other nation. Also in 1921 on 7th December the six northern counties that formed part of Ulster exercised their right and seceded from that independent Ireland. If you demand and support the right of self-determination then you must support and defend that right for all. The Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War all ensured that the Unionists in the North would never come into the fold of a united independent Ireland.

By the way; enforeced or inveigled, or brought about by necessity conscription of one form or another is always a possiblity in wartime - that was the situaltion from August 1914 onwards

Conscription, as we are talking about here is relatively new and came from the "levee en masse" introduced by the French during the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic War. Other countries in Europe copied the French but the British did not. The first time Britain reluctantly introduced conscription was in 1916, the practice ended in 1920. Conscription was re-introduced in 1939, what was called wartime service remained until 1948 and then continued until 1960 with what was known as National Service.

Your idiotic statement about it being an issue immediately war broke out is laughable.

Jim Carroll - 19 May 16 - 12:49 PM

Two simple questions:

When was ANY Conscription or Military Service Act EVER enforced in Ireland or anywhere else for that matter outside of mainland UK?

How many Irishmen were conscripted in Ireland for service in the British Armed Forces?

As for the Government of Ireland Act 1914 - it was never enacted. It was repealed, abandoned and replaced by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an Act that called for the creation of two Home Rule States, Northern and Southern Ireland. To attempt to imply that conscription played any part in the decision to instigate the rising in Dublin it is not the minutes of a 1918 Cabinet meeting we want to see - its the minutes of the IRB meeting held in September 1914 where they resolved to rebel while Britain was at war with Germany and to seek German help to do it.