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A STATE FUNERAL will be held today to for executed 1916 leader Thomas Kent.
It follows on from the commemoration for Fenian leader O’Donovan Rossa.
But as debate continues over the Easter Rising, there have been calls from family members of those who died in the Royal Irish Constabulary during the Rising for their deaths to be remembered too.
It’s a difficult subject, but what do you think?
Today’s poll, Should we be remember British state forces in 1916 commemorations?
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Do the British commorate the Nazis or the Orange order commemorate the Irish Catholics who died in the Boyne. ….
That just about sums it up for me too.
sure let’s have a memorial day for Hitler while we are at it
Laterly Germany has been involved in events to commemorate World War 2. Angela Merkel attended the 70th anniversary of D-Day last year.
It’s April 20
Wouldn’t use the Orange Order as a moral standard to copy!!
The British regularly take part in joint events with the Germans to commemorate all victims of their wars.
France and Germany stood side-by-side at Verdun during the 1980s to say never again.
Dev did anyway even signed the Book of Condolence!
Brilliantly put, imagine the sheer stupidity of an article in Israel asking if Jews should commorate the poor nazi SS guards who died in the escape from sobibor. I’d guess the author might be kindly asked to relocate.
We have to be the most PC Country on the planet. Instead of celebrating the Men and Women who fought the British, we have our own Government who wanted to brush the whole ‘Fighting’ part under the carpet and on the day would have probably read out an apology to the families of the British Soliders killed during the rising…
No,fook them,they good enough at remembering themselves,I’d rather forget them thanks
Godwin’s law !!!
Diarmuid,it might be relevant to you how your masters in Whitehall go about commemorating various events but it adds little or nothing to the debate on how us Irish should go about commemorating historical events.
Maybe the Journal is not the place for you.
Not that simple here, all of the RIC were Irish and a large contingent of those in the British Army were Irish. So as well as them and us, you has us and us. Also a large proportion of the population 1/4 to 1/3 of Ireland were unionist.
So as Oscar Wilde observed about the plain and simple thruth ; “the truth is rarely plain and never simple”.The same applies to Irish history.Today some of those singing the praises of Kent will be condemning Adams tomorrow for the same activities. So take you pick.
these joint commemorations you mentioned are related to I WW . Also For jointed commemoration of II WW they never celebrate fallen Germans, indeed none of these celebration has ever taken place in a for example Military German cemetery nor a monument exists for them. They should be commemorated too has many were not Nazis but young people called to fight for their country….and they fought bravely til the end!
In 1916, Tom Barry was a corporal in the British Army fighting in modern-day Iraq. Tom Crean was a petty officer in the Royal Navy exploring the Antarctic for the British Empire. Sam Maguire, as well as being a IRB man, was a British civil servant in London.
The facts of the lives of the people of that time is more complex than we might comprehend today.
> [Do] the Orange order commemorate the Irish Catholics who died in the Boyne?
The flag that was rose over the GPO put orange alongside green. Perhaps the men who rose it were bigger men.
Of course Irish men were part of these things, a country under occupation whose populace were given no choice the same way countries whose populace was under nazi occupation had to work for the puppet state or were recruited in their armies in a much shorter time, what is so difficult to understand about that. Doesn’t mean those men didn’t always deplore the nazi’s or british actions and want them out of their countries.
@OliverMoran: It’s complex alright. SO complex people such as yourself cannot understand it. The British State had brutally colonised this island, took the land, destroyed our culture and attempted to fully subjugate the people for its own ends. It treated Irish people as second class citizens, denied them democracy. The complexity of how it carried out this out is not understood today. There is a lot of forgetting by people like you.
No matter what job Tom Barry or Sam Maguire had, in the final instant, they both fought for an independent Irish Republic. The complexity of the situation only reveals why that was the most logical choice for Irish people.
Again a bad comparison, the Nazis were German occupiers or local sympathizers. Unionist and Protestant Irish regarded themselves as British. One was a political ideology, the other an accidental of birth and background.You can’t be born a Nazi, many Irish were born into unionist and Protestant families by chance of birthright.
Those people didn’t magically appear they were just a further extension of the brutal occupation via the nazi like ethnic cleansing of the Gaels from their land/plantations in numerous further attempts to divide and weaken Ireland to maintain the occupation. The consequences which the island of Ireland still has to endure to this day.
Under the yolk for nearly a millennia – eh no – I think we’ll remember our own!
don’t think it would be right to commemorate the black n tans. they brought vile to a whole new low.
The RIC were Irishmen….
The tans weren’t around in 1916. They came later. Formed in 1919. But I agree that we shouldn’t commemorate the deaths of people who fought to keep Ireland British. Doesn’t make sense.
RIC served first the British crown faithfully and ruthlessly – doesn’t matter were they came from.
I’m all for moving on but your post regarding the low life black & tans influenced my decision to vote no.
The Black and Tans were sub human criminals who assisted in the British plan to ethnically cleanse the catholic minority.The atrocities committed by the British should not be a part of the 1916 celebrations.
Yes but the B&Ts weren’t in existence in 1916.
You do know the history you are celebrating ?
It would be an insult to the memory of our ancestors.
Which ones? The ones who fought in the trenches or the people who spat on the rebels after the rising?
I’m not dating British atrocities for you Larry,I’m sure you get the point!
They were Irishmen fighting for a foreign Empire So that makes them Irish traitors
Shit well and truly stirred.
Looks like the language filter doesn’t apply to polls!
Thank God or my comment would be shit otherwise
Shit isn’t bad language any more
Bullshit.
Well, what do ya know? You can say bullshit now. Nice one, I won’t have to use dollar symbols for shit, bullshit and horseshit anymore. Cheers folks :-)
@vinheffer The shit will really hit the fan now.
The John Brutons of this country will probably want to apologise to the British.
I get a sick in my mouth when I think of John Bruton and his longing to be a British subject.
How did we let such a man become Taoiseach of this country? Think of the pensions he collects, pensions for positions that would never exist if he had his way and Ireland rejoined Britain. Nauseating West Brit…
First you ask if we should change the National Anthem and now this? It’s clickbait central around here these days.
This should be interesting
I agree with a hierarchy of victims.
32%! West Britons are alive well old chap
In a word, no.
Would Afghanistan remember all the Taliban that died when it celebrates its independence. No. no they would not. Same principal applies.
Is Afghanistan independent??
We tend to forget that the origins of the Garda Siochana were members of the
(RIC) Royal Irish Constabulary
The civil service didn’t even move offices.
Of course Chris, national amnesia strikes again when it comes to this type of thing.
West Brits should have their own celebration, put up a Union Jack and sign God save the queen. Leave us Gaels celebrate the volunteers who fought the enemy. Ireland 32
I think you mean the Union flag, it is also of note that it was the British that came up with the 32 counties of which you are so proud.
All Ireland Final tomorrow based on Counties established by the Brits! Come to think of it one of the founding members in Thurles was an RIC man! And the opening shots of the War of Independence involved the killing of two Irish RIC members at Solohead in Tipperary! It’s okay though. The CCCC and the DRA will adjudicate.
The Cross of St. Patrick is in the Union Jack!
Gael and proud
it was the Normans who devised the county system.
It was Henry II of England that divided the country into shires or counties in the late 12th and early 13th centuries
Commemorating your enemies is just plain ridiculous.
It isn’t when you’re the winner!
The Vietnamese have no issue with remembering the Yanks and the French from those wars for that reason.
Well if winning is letting the church into schools and the country being an economic cesspit with generations having to emigrate then yes, we were indeed the winners.
I think you might confusing remembering with gloating.
why should we???they where the oppresser so why would we,wgat a joke.thisvis about irishmen who gave their lives for freedom
They were also young men who were press ganged into fighting by their overlords, something symbolic should be done.
Press ganged? How so?
Same as today in poor estates all over Britain and the US, young kids with no future signed up.
I think you need to look up the term Rod. There was a huge tradition in Ireland that young men join the army. There was a multitude of reasons, most being adventure I would say. Join the army and go see the world etc.
Fair enough they weren’t press ganged, mostly because they weren’t in the navy. The volunteered technically but it a distinction without a real difference.
Who are the 33% of disgraceful ‘Irish’ who voted yes?!! We have a serious problem with understanding nationalism and having pride in our country in fair Eire. Now, let’s go sing Ireland’s Call tomorrow… Sigh
You sound like a Yank.
You seem to mistaken pride for nostalgia, easily done
Carlsberg don’t do clickbait but if the did…
And that would be a no.
I’m not sure about this but we should keep a couple of things in mind:
-At this stage public desire for a republic had not yet arrived, that was not until 1918, home rule is the furthest many wanted to go at that time
-Besides the RUC many of the ”British” troops attacking the rebels were Irish
@Ryan Anthony,
Once they had British uniforms on they were fair game.
Well said. We tend to forget that the vast majority of the population were content to be in the British Empire. Prime example, Irish men fighting in WW1 went to war as heroes, applauded by the population. They returned in 1918/19 as villains such had public opinion changed.
This is untrue. Home Rule was sold on the basis that it would lead to ‘freedom’. This was popularly understood as getting out from under the British yoke.
No.
Difficult one this but it would go a ways to helping in reconciliation with our closest neighbours after all that has gone on between us.
Funny how the Brits never feel obliged to undermine their national traditions in the name of reconciliation.
No.
Americans don’t commemorate British soldier’s who died opposing their right to independence. The English for that matter, I’m sure, would treat with derision, the mere notion of commemorating pilots from the Luftwaffe who wrought death and destruction on countless English cities during the battle of Britain.
#ForWhatDiedTheSonsOfRoisin
An emphatic naaaw from me,you will find anything with pro British connotations and happened since 1690 the order and loyalist paramilitaries will have it covered and commerated at some interface or other.
Let Britain commemorate their war dead. The Easter Rising commemorations are for men and women who died for Ireland. We shouldn’t have to dilute our own patriotism to please people like John Bruton and Co.
You cannot pick apart our history in an a la carte fashion. Irish history is complex and full of dichotomies.
Ireland only existed as a single United entity under British rule. Prior to that it was a melting pot of warring factions and tribes.
Our police, military, civil service, judiciary, fire brigade, postal service and much of our parliamentary systems are basic unchanged models of the systems set in place under British rule.
210000 Irishmen volunteered to join British armed forces in WW1, 50000 died in combat, thousands more shortly after the war from injuries both physical and psychological not to mention the post war Spanish flu which ultimately claimed more lives than the combat itself.
1916 rising was unpopular and unsupported apart from widespread looting. 20000 British troops were rushed to the city to quell the rebellion, most were drawn from 3 battalions of the Royal Dublin Fuseilliers who were overwhelmingly Irish in makeup. Civilians and police were shot dead for nothing by trigger happy teenagers in St Stephens Green. The rebels were jeered and spat at on the March to Kilmainham Gaol. Our current view is a simplistic romanticized revisionists version which airbrushed out anything unfriendly to the post 1916 narrative.
My opinion of our history is based on a lengthy study of history and mass psychology over many years. It’s not Google snapshots collated together to form a fantasy.
The opinion that rebels were spat and jeered at is highly debatable and was only carried in British editorials at the time. The fact is the rising would never have reached even the planning stage if it weren’t for national and international support. It wasn’t the rebels who flattened the city, it was British artillery that killed most of the civilians, they targeted what was at the time their own civilians.
Phil,
Well the Brits always did blame their victims for causing a need for violence, from their point of view (to this day) they can’t rationalise why someone wouldn’t want to be colonised and have ethnocide committed against them – they have a major superiority complex.
Basically, they used the media to try and destroy the image of ÓnahÉ but it only backfired (this procedure is much, much more refined today).
I think that the adversity that ÓnahÉ 1916 had to face makes them greater heroes than in the whitewashed narrative. They knew they were going to be mocked, they knew they were going to lose; but they fought anyway in an effort to light a fire in the hearts of Sliochtaigh na hÉireann.
We can be diplomatic here and have a commemoration after the Easter event for the British forces some who may have well been Irish. The main event belongs to the freedom fighters and civilians that lost their lives. These British soldiers were nit Black and Tan mercenaries they were poor working class lads like the Irish who fought them. The 1916 rising was fought against the system not the individual . We can show we are the more sophisticated society by paying respect to all even if it is on separate occasions. We have always been told we are the lower class cousin now as we he’s towards 2016 its time to make a new republic built on intelligence and social cohesion and a healthy respect for Irish culture endeavour and economical redistribution.
No, because the Irish observance of the laws of hospitality will make it about the British visitors. Irish patriots who fought for independence should share no stages. I mean no offence to the British with this point. Let them present their support in attending commemoration ceremonies at the Irish Embassy in London.
Many of the British State forces were Irish!!
The nazi’s had plenty of collaborators also.
Yes, people like Sean Russel.
Or even that nazi wannabe lapdog known as George VI
Don’t forget Dev and Lord Haw Haw
De valera was only following a protocol of state. He wasn’t anything like that British nazi poodle George VI who was holidaying with Hitler and goebels in his mountain retreat and calling Hitler a great man.
Dev would have jumped at the chance to mingle with the likes of Hitler. Anything to get back at his former jailers.
So you can to me travel and mind read now claiming all sorts of rubbish. De valera would probably have thrown both of those sick nazi’s off the mountain if he got the chance, like I would have.
* time travel
Would’ve thrown them off a mountain hahahahaha now who can time travel and mind read?
many of them were Irish men so of course we should.
In correctly honouring and remembering the struggle for national independence which began in 1916, it is also appropriate to acknowledge that there were many Irishmen on the other side of the fight who got caught up in something that they had never envisaged would happen.
The local RIC were an integral part of the community all over the country being as Catholic and Irish as their neighbours.
My grandfather commanded and organised the Irish Volunteers in Carrick on Suir. He knew Dan Breen and Sean Treacy very well.
Yet he always said the two unfortunate policemen killed on the first day of the War of Independence in 1919 at Soloheadbeg were ordinary decent Irishmen who had no idea that they were now enemies of the People. The tide truly went out on them.
The descendants live all around us. Is it not time to reconcile and forgive?
Yes, but at another ceremony in November when all war dead are remembered. 2016 commemorates The Rising, not the War of Independence.
This country is gone to pot. They will be asking us should we out a crescent moon on the flag next. Will ye ever cop on.
Are ya having a laugh?! Seriously? Would the Polish remember the Germans that died?
Move on swiftly to 2017, and leave all this behind us!
Don’t bite lads and lassies.
It wouldn’t seem right – that said amazing how some people in this country still have a chip on their shoulder over British – they were the only country that stood up for us during the bailout – France, Germany and Yanks (who we embarrassingly think are such great mates) shafted us
I don’t know what all the celebrations are about, we lost in 1916.
We should never lose sight of the thousands of Irishmen who died during 1916 at the Battle of the Somme and in other dreadful battles during the First World War. No blame to them that their efforts for Ireland were later removed from the history books in favour of the Dublin 1916 rising.
Agreed Chris, slowly it is changing. More people are finding out about their own family history and waking to the fact our history is not black and white. Some schools even do trips to Belgium and France to visit the battlefields.
War is not about goodies and baddies, the sooner people realize this the better. It’s all about power and control sending poor people into battle to mangle each other so more profit can be made….Follow the money, that’s what war is about!
No.
Most people here are as deluded now as back in 1916. You fight and die to decide who shall be your master and strive to commemorate that fight upon the 100th rotation of the earth around the sun.
There is no missing link, it’s us, one step removed from the apes.
Americans don’t commemorate British soldier’s who died opposing their right to independence. The English for that matter, I’m sure, would treat with derision, the mere notion of commemorating pilots from the Luftwaffe who wrought death and destruction on countless English cities during the battle of Britain.
#ForWhatDiedTheSonsOfRoisin
will the british lay wreaths at Kilmanham, Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy memorials?
Its completley illogical to suggest we should also be remembering the oppresors, the very people we were forced to fight against for National freedom and Independance come on seriously like what a ridiculous suggestion does that mean britain should remember the Nazis?!
What kind of stupid question is this?
We should commemorate all those brave men who gave up their lives so nobly to keep China British.
Only some of RIC were Irish… fact
Is this poll question serious? Why on earth would we commemorate murderous British state forces who killed and tortured so many innocent people and undemocratically occupied our country??
I would support remembering the civilian victims not the enemy forces maybe that can change when the English Government’s Soldiers Leave our land for good.
Enemy forces? What? the majority of Ireland at the time? Also the army packed up and left years ago Eamonn.
as a great man once said ‘down with that sort of thing!’
Any guesses as to how many times Godwins Law has been invoked among the comments here?
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Yes, let’s commemorate the people and the people that supported them for killing, starving and humiliating us for 800 years…
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