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THE RECENT EVENTS in Charlottesville in the United States showed how history can still spark conflict in the present.
The touchstone for the white supremacist protest and the subsequent killing of a counter-protester was the removal of a statue of confederate general Robert E Lee in the state of Virginia.
The removal of the statue is one of many that is happening across the United States and is a reminder that such statues, even those in place for a century, have a controversial history.
In Dublin, one statue that has become the focus of a similar debate about whether to commemorate controversial figures is that of Seán Russell.
Since it was first placed in Fairview Park in Dublin in 1951, the statue has variously been decapitated, vandalised and even replaced – but it remains there today.
Russell was an Irish republican who fought in the 1916 Rising and was a leader during the War of Independence. He opposed the treaty and became chief of staff of the IRA in the early years of Free State Ireland.
His legacy is also very controversial, in large part because of his death.
Russell died in 1940 on a German u-boat after travelling to Nazi Germany in an effort to secure support for the IRA’s efforts to overthrow the Free State and reunite Ireland north and south.
His supporters say that he had no interest in Nazi ideology and that his discussions with Germany were simply a case of “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity”.
Objectors to the statue say that it matters little what his motivations were, the company he kept is enough to disqualify him from any kind of honour.
The u-boat is believed to be en route back to Ireland and those opposed to the Russell statue say it equates to Nazi collaboration.
The company Russell kept is certainly noteworthy.
Edmund Veesenmayer of the SS was entrusted with meeting Irish seditionists and there is evidence to suggest he met with Russell in Berlin in 1940. Veesenmayer went on to be convicted as a war criminal for his role in the Holocaust in eastern Europe from 1944 onwards.
However, as Dublin cultural blog Come Here To Me! points out, Russell’s dealings in Germany and his death came before the Wansee Conference which proposed the Nazi “Final Solution”.
Dublin historian Brian Hanley has written extensively about Russell and describes him first and foremost as “a militarist” who cared more about fighting the British in Ireland than European politics.
“He was a militarist in a lot of ways and that’s not pejorative necessarily,” Hanley argues.
He wasn’t that interested in political debate. As far as he was concerned the IRA was there to drive the British out of Ireland. In the 1930s the IRA would have seen the Free State as a puppet.
Hanley says that in his view Russell cannot be viewed as a Nazi collaborator as he did little to aid their cause but sought to take their help. He also previously sought to take help from the Soviet Union.
“Russell wanted the Germans to help the IRA and in real terms he died hoping to have some cooperation with them. But it’s not in any way comparable to collaborators in Europe who had direct involvement in atrocities,” Hanley says.
In the 1920s the IRA were looking for support from Communist Russia and he was happy with that, give us guns and give us money and in the 1940s he was happy to look to Nazi Germany for support and I don’t think he cared that much. Now that might be just as bad, if you don’t care at all. But I don’t think he had any truck with Nazi ideology.
Russell’s statue was first unveiled in the north Dublin park in 1951 after a march involving about 5,000 people and a ceremony that was attended by Brendan Behan among others.
The Come Here To Me! blog says that the statue was first vandalised a year after it was erected with some feeling that the pose was seen to be a Communist one.
The statue was replaced with a different design in 1965 and it was attacked numerous times until 2004 when the head of the statue was removed.
It was replaced with the current bronze statue in 2009 which has also been attacked with red paint and daubed with a swastika.
The self-described “anti-nazi” group that decapitated the statue in 2005 said that Russell was a “nationalist fanatic” whose quest to unify Ireland was done “at the point of the bayonets of the Gestapo”.
The statue is located on the south-western end of Fairview Park in Dublin alongside Annesley Bridge Road.
Refuse an export licence and declare it a national document etc in the public interest
paying enda and the rest of his gang of useless parasites is a huge waste of taxpayers money! !@#$
Fg are tory wannabes not a hope they would buy it history or not the west brit is a live and well with in the fg party.
@Rockclimber55: Well they wont be making any more of them.
Rockclimber that’s a good comment and let them make an offer within reason for the item then
@Rockclimber55:
Somehow, this seems to sum up Enda Kenny & his Fascist buddies quite well.
No patriotism, no loyalty, – just betray the people & stuff the pockets.
Hopefully this is a ruse by the government. If you were bidding for a document why would you tell the other bidders that you were in there as this would most likely just push up the price
@Ray Breen: apparently it’s no ruse.
State cultural institutions declined to acquire it before it goes for public auction.
@Bobby Phelan:
FG claim Michael Collins as their Leader.
Collins died over 10 years before FG was formed.
Eoin Duffy the Hitler loving Fascist Blueshirt was the FG Leader.
Rewrite history with lies, that’s FG for you.
In terms of national spend it is a snip. But I agree don’t show your hand. Either way its a lot cheaper than more recent surrenders. Especially the 30bn for Anglo.
The Absence of our 1916 Rising Ghosts
The absence of our 1916 Rising Ghosts
Amongst the hallowed GPO columns and meaningless Spire post
No sacred Pearsely native fire nor holy Ceanntly determined ire
did stir the soul nor move the heart of a 2016 razing funeral pyre
Ancestral Spirits looked on with horror
Witness to the wreckage of a familiar monster
New names, same shame of a Cromwellian dishonour
The Irish more subjugated, fettered now by insidious yellow star
Shocked at their people’s defilement, a warped mocking mirror
Was it all in vain, the altar offering of their sacrifice in error?
Stunned by soft surrender to the Slavemaster’s usury rule
His foreign cheap labour flood, refashioned, but to fool
But our Ghosts are not fooled, the multicult tool is to destroy
and a Greek Dawn have seen the Moneylenders make an austerity Horse of Troy
Our Patriot’s torment? A servile broken Irish nation, whose pride in themselves is no more, but alien.
Would that least within relic statues our Hero’s Spirits divinely awaken,
Resurrected to the ranks of vengeful Angels and God Incarnate, The Risen Champion.
Alas the Rising’s Spirit here no longer reigns, griefstricken at the sight their ancient people returned to chains
Immigration-invaded, globalist debt-slaved, replanted, tricked, recolonised,
No Sovereign Nation once again.
Our Fenian Dead looked on, boiling with anger
Surveying the grasping hands, the grandiose respectability sham, in self-entitled clamour
Disloyal vipers without righteous purity to the hard blood-won Proclamation Page
Our Ghost’s memory trampled by pretenders with conceit and unearned privilege
The traitors betray, a Master’s bidding they relay, the austerity and immigration annihilation sacrilege.
2016 liars, imposters, lackeys, actors, tools, fools, hypocrits, fakers, powermakers and takers.
Irish Spirits outraged to see infestation of plague, of an arrayed arrogant multitude
Unworthy to darken the likeness of a dying Chulainn, laying waste their gift-work and Ireland to servitude.
The enemies’ dogma: “Austere Multicult For All”; not for these commissars to practice, a pious poison to preach
Our Ghosts left dejected, twice-pierced and broken-hearted: despairing depths they did find, the Stonebreaker could not reach.
Horrified at false gatherings, a debased sordid rabble, the lowly self-servers and undeserving mob
Our wrathful Phantoms seeking desperately, praying inexorably for retribution
For justice, execution, for Éire’s blood-loyal Mortals, to finish the job.
Disgusted, dismayed, furious and enraged
with The Treacherous who violate Ireland and our Kin heritage
Watching aghast, our 1916 Ghosts turned their backs
’til Fianna’s true heirs complete Ireland’s freedom from bondage
Now gone and needed most, pray thee, “Come back Ethereal Host”
The eerie absence of our 1916 Rising Ghosts.
1916,You might recall that one of your ’1916 ghosts’ was James Connolly an immigrant himself. He would treat your xenophobic ultra nationalist guff with the contempt it deserves. Nationalisation serves to divide the working class and has been used for centuries to send us to slaughter each other. Our real enemies sing the same national anthems as our soldiers.
Nationalism serves to……
@1916RisingGhosts: true colours mate. No wonder you have been ran so many times, yet straight back with a new account. Afraid to put your name to your comments.
I reckon I know who you are and all, always leaving links to your hate-filled, laughable homepage.
@Billy Mooney:
Nice one 1916Ghosts
Anyone surprised, we don’t value our Irish people. AAA / PBP say the Irish don’t exist and have no right to exist. FF and other Open-Border Extremists say Ireland is “Free for All”
Btw AAA, Connolly was born in an Irish slum in Edinburgh[note 1] in 1868.[4] His parents had moved to Scotland from Monaghan, Ireland. Meaning AAA, Connolly was ethnic Irish, and being Scottish he was closely related to the Irish ancestrally and culturally. And he was not part of a flood of mass-immigration either. So you are incorrect AAA, he was related to the Irish and came back home to Ireland as an ethnic Irish person from Scotland, where tribes from this island also lived in ancient times. In fact Scotland was called Scotland for the Roman name for the Irish which was Scotti.
Connolly would have been wholly against globalism, against the multicultural scam policy devised by the super-rich. Their slogan was unite against the forces that exploited them, not Workers of the world physically be uprooted so the resources of your countries can be stripped by globalist capitalist entities, and thus the worker be used as cheap labour and become part of an exploited global workforce.
Unlike AAA Connolly had enough independent will to think for himself and see when political agendas were foisted on them and they were being used by higher motives to further the exploitation of the worker by the rich, something you have failed to do. You have become the lapdog of the super-rich and their tool for globalism. As Lenin may have said you are a “useful idiot”.
“In political jargon, a useful idiot is a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.”
@Jamie McCormack:
What’s this now? Why has he been “run so many times”. First time I have seen them on journal, google reveals one entry. Btw Jamie, how do we know you are jamie, or that jamie is jamie McCormack of the McCormack McCormacks?
Get real though, plenty of people including pro-immigration people, who prefer anonymity online especially with stalker loopers like yourself.
You’re full of bluster but haven’t the courage of your convictions to post under your own name. Good luck to you.
And at least you admit to being banned multiple times, all the while using made-up names. Desperate.
That is a truly awful verse. You must have a very high threshold for embarrassment to post this dirge.
Are we not using tax payers money to help Mary Robinson’s vanity/tax loophole project in Mayo? Surely this letter is of more significance to the state and a better investment?
@Dave Elliott: SO TRUE
@Dave Elliott: Exactly. This letter is more in the national interest than any crap she wrote while as president.
FG has always had an ambivalent attitude to 1916.
Considering this government are constantly squandering taxpayers money . I am perplexed why something that is historical significant is not being bought. Bizarre decision.
It’s currently on display in the GPO.
It is absolutely essential that it should be held by an Irish cultural institution. It would be a terrible pity if it left the country,” said leading historian Diarmaid Ferriter.
State cultural institutions declined to acquire it before it goes for public auction.
@LITTLEONE: I wonder could they cut back on the Robinson Stach in Mayo
@Elizabeth Mcgill: sure they could if they wanted. they won’t though .
Its hard to believe that this piece be allowed leave the state…but in fairness we did need to bail out the banks and top up politicians pensions….sure we can always buy it back in few years for ten times the cost no rush….ffs sad sad affair
If only some wealthy potential buyer had the foresight and dignity to buy the letter and donate to the state for us. It’d be a wonderful gesture and ensure the survival of the letter for historical purposes.
@Séamus Ó Súileabháin: You mean the sort of person who has four houses?
@Ben McArthur: The type of person that has 4 houses made by running a success business ? or just anyone that is more successful than you?
@Séamus Ó Súileabháin:
You mean the patriot who likes controlling Irish information Denis O’ Brien or the other patriot Peter Sutherland who wants to genocide the Irish, end Irish ethnicity?
158 t.d.in the dail.by 5000 raise…you are more that half way there…..
Per year
And yet it’s the left that are slagged for being economically illiterate…
More populist garbage from the Shinners.
If the government did buy It it they would be the first to complain.
And what would the complaint be Dave?
Dunno, but it’d probably include some reference to an ‘illegitimate republic’ and furious condemnation upon the government for purchasing it while the island still has a border dividing it.
Plenty ‘Northern rock’ sloshing about.
Fine Gael – the cost of everything/ value of nothing people.
@For Connolly:
They value the life of a mother of 10 more than some others do.
So sinn feinn are actively involved in robbery? Down to the local garda station you should go with your evidence. Although they might be more interested in the much larger robbery of the Irish taxpayer by FG/FF/Lab over the last few years.
Why doesn’t Sinn Fein Buy it and donate it to the Irish people?
That would involve them spending their own money. The farcical average industrial wage charade wont allow them to put their money where their mouth is. How much cash did they raise duping people with their 1916/ hunger strike shoehorn at the ambassador?
If the shinners bought it then they would be rounded on by the same West Brits who gave out about them “hijacking” 1916 just because SF put more effort into celebrating 1916 than the europhile Queen loving FG government.
Indeed Brian. Saving face should definitely take precedence over them buying then donating the surrender order from Pearce. “West Brits” is a bit twee isnt it? Speaking of the queen – gerry personally benefitted from just shy of a million sterling in expenses from her. Funny old world when you demand brits out – but keep the snout in the uk treasury trough, gorging, belching and burping their way to a devolved pantomime in the north.
Dobby could save the day.
And the fund raising dinners in New York
@Rory:
Forgot about those Rory, thanks for reminding me.
What can one expect from the Blueshirts?
@Frederick Burden:
Well except now, they aren’t blueshirts anymore, the blueshirts would have defended Irish heritage, these guys are globalists, as are AAA / PBP.
Well we all know now what sort of gobsh–ts are running this country into the ground and taken 100k.a year of us for doing it.if this letter is to leave IRELAND we should march on government buildings and stop it.
Maybe the Friends of Sinn Fein could buy it? After all, they have all that money which they know can’t legally be used to fund the party. I’m sure there would be daily queues all round Parnell Square to see it, and they could raise money by selling lemonade and P O’Neill t shirts to the waiting crowds.
Abstentionist party who take millions from British taxpayer in expenses for not turning up, tell us about best uses of taxpayers’ money.
@Ben McArthur: and they SF collect their TD money to sit on their arses in opposition doing nothing but whine
Ben you will find they turn up, they have a room in the of commons
*house
I imagine then Ben you would have no problem swearing an oath to the Queen then?
It is very sad that the comments here have sunk to a squabble about party politics. This is a piece of our heritage. It should be kept in Ireland and displayed for future generations. The cost is only a drop in the ocean and the seller will have to pay tax on the price paid plus the earnings of the auctioneer are taxable and so the price achieved at auction will not be the actual cash the Government will have to spend.
Who is in possession of this document presently?
@Brianog2: sure the government know who currently owns it. It’s currently on display in the GPO so I guess they had to do a deal with the owner to get it and display it.
Total disrespect to the men , women and children who gave their lives for our freedom and to become a nation once again. This document is a national treasure and should be sought to stay in the hands of The Irish People.
@The Viking: we were only ever united under foreign rule. Ireland never was a nation before.
It would be even more bizarre if they wasted money on this with the state of the health system.
@Dan Keane: yet they had no problems wasting millions on a billing system for Irish water.
Agreed. Besides, who doesn’t know what it says by now? If you had a quiz on Irish history most would recite it verbatim. We know our history. Why not let others share the discovery?
@Fiona Fitzgerald: yep much better to hang in some wealthy overseas home than generations of youngsters getting to see and read it here in Ireland. Sure why don’t we sell everything that’s our heritage, sure what’s the point in keeping it here.
Think you miss the point Fiona. Others should come here and read and see our heritage. Not ship our heritage abroad for others to enjoy..
@Littleone – the Irish Water response lol
@Fiona – well said. It’s an irrelevant document of a lost cause.
@Dan Keane: typical blue shirt Tory response. Good man.
Dan it’s so irrelevant yet the government have it on display in the GPO.. what the fg government just like putting things irrelevant on display in the capital in the GPO. Ok so
No, Dan. We won. Just saying there is far more to Irish heritage. To me it’s a military dispatch, humanely and thoughtully written by a man who valued the living. But why not invest government money in living writers?
@littleone – so relevant they are allowing it to be sold. Case closed.
All this nonsense and money wasted celebrating a failed rising is bad enough.
Should we also purchase the works of Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville?
@Paddy Lions:
“The pseudo-Freudian interpretations of the English poem began with the British apologist school of Irish historians and journalists in the 1970s/’80s, ideologues desperate to tear down the most iconic figure of the Irish Revolution and by extension the revolution itself. Originally the claims centred on Pearse’s alleged homosexuality (when “homosexuality” was considered immoral/perverse in popular culture) now it is alleged paedophilia.
The poem A Mhic Bhig na gCleas is typical of a whole body of maudlin, child-centred poems and ballads in Victorian/Edwardian Ireland and Britain. It was part of the cultural zeitgeist, authors addressing their own inner thoughts on matters relating to love, nature, society, politics, etc. in the child-framework (the poem above all reflects Pearse’s interest and frequent emulation of William Blake, in this case “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” and poems like “The Little Boy Lost” or “The Little Boy Found”). The secrets referred to are of course Pearse’s own morose nature (his troubled family life – his father’s deceased first wife, half-siblings, alcoholic brother-in-law, etc. – as well as his unrequited love for the scholar Eibhlín Nic Niocaill who drowned while on holiday shortly before he wrote the poem) and his increasingly dangerous attraction towards Irish Republican politics. It was the death of Eibhlín which probably did more than anything else to turn Pearse onto the path he followed. Her loss haunted him:
“O lovely head of the woman that I loved,
In the middle of the night I remember thee;
But reality returns with the sun’s whitening,
Alas, that the slender worm gnaws thee to-night.
Beloved voice, that wast low and beautiful,
Is it true that I heard thee in my slumbers!
Or is the knowledge true that tortures me?
My grief, the tomb hath no sound or voice?””
source for above
@Brian Ward: they SF demanded the release of the killers of Garda Gerry Mc Cabe who was killed during a post office van robbery
He should go back to his own country and stop bothering us with this type of nonsense.
@Paddy Lions: why dont you go home to Britain for your self and let the irish be Irish spewing your tripe about Gerry Adams is getting old now.pure nonsense stuff.
@bobby, Gerry was born British, he was reared British and he will die British.
Don’t expect Bobby to understand this, he is spouting the same rubbish here daily, thinking that Gerry or Mary Lou gives a hoot about him, what a bellend
I’m not surprised they don’t want it given Pádraig’s grá for paedophilic poetry.
It would be a laugh to see Dennis O’Brien buy it and donate it to the state.
165 TD,s pay increase over 2 years = €10,000 equates to €1,650,000 problem solved
In all fairness they should burn anything to do with this despicable person. How could you explain to your children that it is acceptable for a grown man to write about kissing young boys.
I forgive you, child
Of the soft red mouth:
I will not condemn anyone
For a sin not understood.
Raise your comely head
Till I kiss your mouth:
If either of us is the better of that
I am the better of it.
There is a fragrance in your kiss
That I have not found yet
In the kisses of women
Or in the honey of their bodies.
Lad of the grey eyes,
That flush in thy cheek
Would be white with dread of me
Could you read my secrets.
@Paddy Lions:
“When then reach the nub of the lies relating to Pearse, the suggestion that he was a Paedophile. In 1909 he published his now famous poem “A Mhic Bhig na gCleas” although many may know it as “Little Lad of the Tricks”.
It must be remembered that “little lad of the tricks” was a translation of “A Mhic Bhig na gCleas”. It was first published As Gaelige and was well received, it was only when it was translated into English that questions were raised.
His co-signers of the Proclamation, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett, expressed their concerns about how this poem could be construed in English to Pearse. He was hurt at the mere suggestion that it was a paedophile poem.
When this poem is viewed in the Irish language it is fine, it’s only when it’s read in English that a problem occurs. It has to be acknowledged that English is one of the worst languages to translate anything into, it lacks tenses and can form crude and even opposite meanings of the original language.”
http://gaskinbalrog.blogspot.fr/2007/11/pdraig-pearse.html
Come on lads, even the Chinese have this one figured out. You can’t just pilfer a nation’s treasures and historical artifacts. In China they won’t even let you take rocks out the country (speaking as a geologist).
@Seán J. Troy: China rocks
@Scarlett Milton: Yeah, China is really Gneiss.
@Seán J. Troy:
But what is Chinese.
Chinese…Irish…Irish….Chinese aren’t we all the same, aren’t we all one race, AAA / PBP told me so.
Why don’t Sinn Fein buy it and present it to the nation, place it in the GPO.
Wonder what FF think.
i wonder if there is a petition set up online? it is a disgrace that they are letting this document go out of the country ! with all the 1916 celebrations that went on and yet they don’t give a damn about this letter …
Surrender monkey
@The spokesman: Jarry has a lot in common with Pearse they both surrendered to Crown forces
@scarlett Milton. Nice cans
@The spokesman: locker room comment
Sinn Fein are one of the greatest con job’s ever pulled on the Irish people,
It’s pure & simple … this document is 1 of the last links that we gave with the signatories of the Rising . We’ve allowed Moore Street to become a disgrace & Dillard & dallied over the property where the letter was written… how in the name of reason can we expect this government to stand up & grow a pair & just buy the letter … no they’d rather waste money on stupid things … like voting themselves a pay ruse while everyone else still struggles
165TD,s wage increase over 2 years equals €10,000 per person. Works out at €1,650,000 problem solved.
Don’t worry will buy it back in a cpl of years time at exceptional cost to us then
Please be careful when posting comments there are descendants of 1916 still alive
Very upsetting for them to read offensive comments
@karen inight: What does that even mean? There are living descendants of Genghis Khan as well.
The shinners should set up a crowdfunding website to purchase it. That’ll test their theory as to how valuable this is to Modern Ireland.
I heard Kevin Barry’s sock might be up for auction next month.
Just wondering why gerry and Martin wouldn’t buy it! Surely Sinn Fein have a few quid saved,don’t they? They have to ! Er,you know what I mean!
Friends Of Sinn Fein NY should buy it. They’ve over $10million ‘to help the cause’.
Gerry A needs to speak to the SF fundraising arm if he wants it purchased.
Surely they can tap into their dollar funds, or even the ” northern” sterling cash for such a worthy project!
Our tax money needs to go to pay nurses & Gardai a decent wage.
It does seem that the state undervalues the significance of this particular piece of national heritage immensely. Should Sinn Fein themselves go on a fund raising drive, in order to make the purchase, we’d see how fast they could be spurred into action.
I think I saw this letter in WW1 display in the Imperial War museum in London last year.
If it is true that an Irish government previously turned down an offer of sale at £50K then its them that should be taken out and shot !
What price do you put on national heritage ?
Nothing by the look of it. It should be easy to deva,i.e. This item to sensible money by refusing an export licence “in the national interest ” obviously which should shorten the market somewhat. It is without doubt a very important document indeed and deserves to be retained for the country and for future citizens to examine and to reflect on the beginnings of the true Republic
Erin Go Bragh ?
Maybe the Shinners should buy it with all that spare cash from the cigarettes and diesel sales they have!
Who’s selling this? Would have thought that it the surrender monkey letter which was delivered to the British officer commanding is the property of the British Government by virtue of that general being an agent of the government. Shouldn’t it be in the Briish National Archives? Someone is selling stolen property.
have your say