BS: The Fighting Irish

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 10:56 AM

Point taken.
Not my thread though. I just joined it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 10:25 AM

Without a doubt,that is the most logical post I have read on Mudcat in a long time. Well said weelittledrummer.

Pity that it may just go over his head.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 09:54 AM

Dear Keith

I don't think you will achieve very much with this thread.

I suspect the people you are aiming it at, know all the things you are saying, but it is not the emphasis they want to give history.

At some point we have to stop having arguments, never mind about winning them.

My own father fought with an Irish regiment in the 2nd world war and my grandad was irish, and fought in the Boer War and the First world war. They had a shitty time of it in all three times of unpleasantness.

i believe the Irish side of my family were involved in IRA activity in the 30's - but we lost contact.

I really don't think raking up all these old quarrels will help anybody. And if I'm seen as a fool or bufoon by both sides, so be it.

Why have this shit on the menu for the next generation. And if you don't want it for them, why do you keep warming it over?

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 08:29 AM

Careful Mick the wannabe weekend soldiers are on guard duty today !

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Les from Hull
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 08:26 AM

Some interesting articles here about involvement by Irishmen on both sides of the Spanish Civil War

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST,Mayo Mick
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:43 AM

What I find so intresting, and this cannot be denied, is that in all of the recent polls in the Irish papers each and everyone had a majority in favour of Irish unity.
The Irish Republic has one of the highest standards of living in the world, I was told for many years by my northern friends that the southern politicans hadn`t the brains to run a country, I haven`t been hearing of late, the same old cry from the Ulster Unionists.

The Irish Republic to-day can stand rock solid on it`s own, unlike Northern Ireland which continues to be more interested in disturbing their neighbours by marching behind secterian bands, the bread and butter issuses are seldom if ever mentioned, if they had thrown of the shackles of and joined their fellow Irish in the Republic they would have been much better off.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:29 AM

But then came WW2

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:16 AM

What I find so interesting, and what our Republican contributors find so hard to deal with, is that The British cause was so vastly more popular in Ireland than was the Republican cause.

Probaly true up and until the (cynical) decision to go ahead with the doomed Easter Rising in the full knowledge that this sacrifice and its inevitably brutal supression by the British would change this.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:05 AM

Thanks Daithi,
Your father was a brave and wise man.
As you say, wiser than his government, but also a million miles from the position of the IRA.
Here is what Brian Hanley, a professor of Irish History at National University of Ireland said about them.
Those who see the IRA through rose tinted glass prepare to be shocked.
Especially on the subject of Jew Cleansing.


Following the fall of France, Russell urged that the German high command make use of the IRA to strike at British forces in Northern Ireland as part of a general attack on Britain. His plans were accepted and incorporated into Operation Sealion (the plan for the invasion of Britain), a mark of the 'respect and esteem' in which Russell was held by the German military leadership. During August Russell was to return to Ireland to oversee the implementation of these plans, but on his journey home by U-boat he became ill and died. His body was buried at sea with full German naval honours.

The above information comes not from one of Russell's many critics, eager to paint him as a collaborator with the Nazis, but from the republican newspaper The United Irishman of October 1951. The article was published to coincide with the unveiling of a monument to Russell in Dublin's Fairview Park and concluded that he was a 'worthy successor to Tone and Casement'. Quite apart from that questionable assessment, what is notable about the article is the utter lack of embarrassment that the leader of the IRA was a guest of the Nazis during a period in which the German armies invaded and forcibly occupied five sovereign nations.



However, in July 1940 the IRA leadership issued a statement outlining its position on the war. The statement made clear that if 'German forces should land in Ireland, they will land . . . as friends and liberators of the Irish people'. The public was assured that Germany desired neither 'territory nor . . . economic penetration' in Ireland but only that it should play its part in the 'reconstruction' of a 'free and progressive Europe'. The Third Reich was also praised as the 'energising force' of European politics and the 'guardian' of national freedom. In response to critics such as George Bernard Shaw, who had drawn attention to Hitler's anti-Catholic policies, the IRA countered that both 'Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini' proved their lack of bias by helping to establish the 'Catholic government' of Franco in Spain.

The IRA's statements drew angry responses from Irish Freedom, published by the Connolly Association, and Irish Workers Weekly, published by the Communist Party of Ireland, who criticised the IRA for inviting 'German soldiers to come and devastate the country they talk of freeing'. These papers also noted how the IRA and their 'strange bedfellow General O'Duffy' were lauding as 'liberators' powers that held 'Abyssinia, Austria, Albania and Czechoslovakia' in subjection.

War News, the IRA's main publication, became increasingly pro-Nazi in tone, even claiming active IRA involvement in the German bombing of British cities. But more chillingly it began to ape anti-Semitic arguments. Satisfaction was expressed that the 'cleansing fire' of the German armies was driving the Jews from Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 06:25 AM

You're right Keith. My father, a Mayo man, joined th British army to fight the Nazis. He knew what would happen to Ireland if Hitler won - even if the Irish government didn't!

(A story I heard years ago - two old fella's discussing the war in 1940 over a pint in a Dublin pub:

"We should   be staying out of this, Pat - it's England's war not ours!"

"Easy to say Mick - but what would you do if Hitler's navy sailed up the Liffey tomorrow?"

"Don't be ridiculous - Mr Churchill would never allow that!" )

No simple answers, hey?
Slán - Dáithí

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 06:19 AM

What I find so interesting, and what our Republican contributors find so hard to deal with, is that The British cause was so vastly more popular in Ireland than was the Republican cause.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 05:27 AM

I would never suggest that the Irish volunteers fought out of loyalty to the Crown.
But then, neither did the British volunteers.
They were inspired to volunteer because they believed in the justice of the cause.
Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 03:02 AM

No place for the faint hearted
Off to the war to end all wars
But nothing's solved, when wars are started
They only sow the seeds of more

Those that kept the home fires burning
Watch as dreams all fall to dust
But the lesson's there for learning
Take care where, you place your trust

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 10:26 PM

Quite right about the contributions of the Irish in the US Civil War. They were some of the greatest units. Some of the Union units were the 28th Massachussets Irish Volunteer Infantry, the New York Fighting 69th, and the Irish Dragoons. Maybe one of the most highly regarded by both Grant and Lee was the Louisiana 6th, otherwise known as the Fighting Tigers of Ireland. Our own Jed Marum chronicled their prowess in his song "Fighting Tigers of Ireland" on his "Streets of Fall River" CD, as well as a later collection for which this fine song was the title track. It is available on his website.

Bloody Lane, at the Battle of Antietam, was one of the places where the Irish suffered incredibly, and demonstrated their reknowned fighting ability. 5500 men on both sides died in that gully, with the largest percentage as Irish. Ironically, the Irish Brigades on both sides of the conflict often ended up fighting each other.

Of the Irish in the US Civil War, the Irish Brigade Association has the following to say on their website:

During the American Civil War, six grandsons of George McCook, a United Irishmen, were Union Generals and another six were field officers. Irish-born Meagher, Corcoran and Shields were Union Generals and for the Confederacy, Corkman Patrick Cleburne was one of their finest commanders. More that 150,000 Irishmen served in the US army, most notably with the Irish Brigade, and some 50,000 more worn the grey of the Confederacy. Fifty three percent of the 600 Nuns who served as nurses during the War were born in Ireland, and no doubt many more were Irish-American.

They were truly, as poet Emily Lawless said: "Fighters in every clime --- Every cause but our own."

At Gettysburg, there is one of the most beautiful memorials to the 69th that has ever been erected. It shows a huge celtic cross with a wolfhound lying at its base.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 09:06 PM

As for the "Wild Geese" in "The Foggy Dew" it is pretty clear that Father O'Neill when he wrote it was indeed referring to the Irish who had joined up to fight the Germans.

Otherwise what could these lines have meant?

It was England bade our Wild Geese go,
That small nations might be free.
But their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves
On the fringe of the great North Sea
............
My own father saw no contradiction between fighting for the Irish Republic in the Civil War and fighting in the British Army in World War II. When in a civil court case one time many years later a magistrate expressed surprise at an IRA veteran having being willing to put on a British uniform, he said "I always
was one to stand up for the rights of small nations. Even my own." And I'd be pretty sure he had that song in his mind when he said that.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 07:01 PM

The Irish poet and Redmondite MP, Captain Tom Kettle, served in the British army on the Western Front. He had been appalled by German atrocities in Belgium in 1914, and believed sincerely that he was fighting in the cause of liberty with which England might keep faith. He was a Volunteer, and knew personally many of those involved in the Easter Rising such as Thomas MacDonagh. When he heard of Rising he predicted sadly, (and correctly), that its leaders "will go down to history as heroes and martyrs, and I will go down - if I go down at all - as a bloody British officer".

In his last poem, written for his baby daughter shortly before his death on the Somme in 1916, he wrote of his own motives for fighting:-

"Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for the Secret Scripture of the poor."

The notion that Tom Kettle, and the thousands of other Irishmen who served in Gallipoli and France, simply fought out of loyalty to the Crown is belittling to their memory. At the time it was only George Russell who recognised the equality of the sacrifices made by the fellow poets Tom Kettle and Thomas MacDonagh, but now at last we can all acknowledge that:-

"High words were equalled by high fate,
You paid the price. You paid the price."

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:57 PM

The Irish were also key players in the Union victory at the Battle of Bull Run and likewise key players in the Battle of the Wilderness, a gruesome mess of a fight during the American Civil War.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:28 PM

Got a pm from a friend and member about this thread, asking me my views on the Irish in the Great War. Like many others over here there were a couple in my family killed in action. In my own town there were four battalions raised in 1914. After the events in Dublin in 1916 fewer came forward from the area.

It was a complex time in Ireland and those who died and served faced great hardship. It should have been the war to end all wars as was promised.

Traditions have the right to recall and honour the dead from their own areas. It was a terrible loss of life.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 02:45 PM

Is Large Taws the Portugese player whose taws are still swollen after Rooney caressed them, so what the hell does he know about the fighting Irish

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Brakn
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 12:33 PM

John 'Giok' MacKenzie
Yes they are the 'Wild Geese' referred to in the song 'The Foggy Dew'. ;-}

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 11:19 AM

Wild Geese
G.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST,Large Taws
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 09:44 AM

Redmond was sold a pig in a poke. He later admitted this.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 09:42 AM

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin and about two thirds of his men during his Peninsular Campaign in Portugal and Spain were Irish. Nothing new about the "Fighting Irish" they make good soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Les from Hull
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 09:31 AM

GUEST, Large Taws:

'Home Rule' is not the same as independence. That's why they have different names. You could say that with the re-introduction of the Scottish Parliament the Scots have 'home rule'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Fiolar
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 09:09 AM

There were 33 Irish winners of the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 08:09 AM

yes its a weird business. oscar Wilde apparently was a great supporter of the English in the Boer War - (The war my Grandad - a Dublin man fought in, as well as the first world war).

Quite why Ocsar shuld have felt anything but hatred for the British establishment, after what they had done to him - I really can't work out.

i think maybe these issues are more confused than zealots of either side would have us think.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:25 AM

So many were being fooled.

It is ironic that so many Irishmen were off fighting the Germans when the part played by the Germans in the Easter Rising was so instumental in both its planning and its failure.

Their promised support was not as hoped and when the material support that was given was scuttled, the rising had no real hope of being anything other than yet another valiant and bloody sacrifice.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:01 AM

http://www.reform.org/TheReformMovement_files/article_files/articles/war.htm

This article gives an estimate of 210 000 Irish volunteers in WW1 and 70 000 from the Republic in WW2

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: The Walrus
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:36 AM

GUEST,Large Taws,

You conveniently forget to mention that the promise of Home Rule was made in 1914, a full TWO YEARS before the Somme and under the administration of ASQUITH and two years before conscription was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales (it was NEVER introduced in Ireland).

The youth of Ireland was as caught up in the early war euphoria as those of the other parts of the 'Three Kingdoms' and, while Hunger and Unemployment were traditional recruiting serjeants, (and this was as true in Yorkshire or Perth as it was in Donegal) it was the War which boosted recruitment.

It was Asquith's promise of Home Rule at the end of the War which led John Redmond to offer the National Volunteers to the Government to speed victory, the offer of the NVs led Carson to offer the UVF.

W

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:20 AM

My mistake.
The tens of thousands I referred to above was of free Irishmen from the Republic who flocked to Britain to sign up in WW2.
What British trick was used then?
(Remember that the IRA was supporting the Nazis.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:18 AM

Agreed, they were fooled into joining.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: GUEST,Large Taws
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:09 AM

The Brits needed more 'cannon-fodder' in France, where they were under attack from a German offensive.   Lloyd George ( British Prime Minister ) looked at Ireland and wanted conscription on the books he knew a ' sweetener ' such as 'Home Rule' after the war would assist his endeavours.

The British offer of 'Home Rule' was nothing of the sort a reading of the 'small print' (ie the hidden "terms and conditions") of the ' Home Rule 'Bill exposed it for the fraudulent offer it was. Lloyd George was willing to offer only local government powers , under the British Crown , to Ireland , with only a small , if any , ' suggestative ' input into issues of law , education and finance . Westminster would still have the final word and British troops would still be on the ground . Irishmen were fooled by the British, they enlisted in answer to British lies.

The youngest casualty of the First World War had not yet reached his 14th birthday when he was killed on the fields of Flanders in Southern Belgium. John Condon came from Waterford City.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Brakn
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:04 AM

John 'Giok' MacKenzie
No they not the 'Wild Geese' referred to in the song 'The Foggy Dew'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: gnomad
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:02 AM

I knew about the involvement, but not that statistic, interesting.

Eric Bogle has written about the hostility between the two camps Click on "the lily and the poppy" (pdf) nice song i.m.o.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 03:52 AM

Are they not the 'Wild Geese' referred to in the song 'The Foggy Dew'?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 03:49 AM

In the thread, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, I referred to tens of thousands of Irish men signing up (not counting the Ulstermen) and was not initially believed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 03:46 AM

They put up a memorial in Dublin, about 70 years later.

Subject: BS: The Fighting Irish
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 03:23 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/07/03/dl0302.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/03/ixuknews.html

The following from the above.

Here is a statistic that you won't hear quoted often: more Irishmen died in British uniform during the first two days of the Somme offensive than participated in the Easter Rising. The reason it is rarely cited is that it doesn't really suit anyone.