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Wednesday, July 2, 2014

1916 Easter Rising made Irish violent, says former Irish leader

John Bruton

An article in IrishCentral.com dated 2 July 2014 by James O'Shea stated:

The Easter Rising damaged the Irish psyche and made people more pro-violence, former Irish leader John Bruton has said.

He was speaking in London at a conference on the 1914 Home Rule Act passed by the British houses of parliament but never enacted.
People must consider the damage to the Irish psyche, Bruton said of the Easter Rising.
"If there hadn’t been the introduction of violence into nationalism in that demonstrably dramatic fashion then there wouldn’t have been a Civil War," Bruton said.
He also slammed Irish Republican hero Patrick Pearse, saying his bent towards violence had later been used to justify the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
“I read what Pearse had said about violence, he praised the Ulster Volunteers (armed loyalists)…saying this was a great day that they were armed. He couldn’t have been more wrong,” Bruton said.
The event was originally meant to be held at the House of Commons Speaker’s residence, but John Bercow refused to allow Sinn Fein saying they had refused to take their seats in the House of Commons.
It was held at the Irish Embassy instead.
The issue I have with Bruton is that he does not consider the hundreds of years of British occupation. While Pearse may have been pro-violence toward the occupiers, he was also pro-Ireland.

2 comments:

  1. I absolutely adhere to William Karr's belief that Bruton failed to consider the approximately 800 years of British domination in Ireland before the 1916 Rising. 5,000 British troops remain in the 6 Counties today making it legal for the Republican Armies to resist them, and there is still no intent to withdraw by the Brit invaders.

    Ronnie Austin

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  2. More tendentious and bigoted rubbish from this pompous and self-regarding fool.
    By any conservative estimate, at least 4 million Irish people died during the English conquest of Ireland, by war, famine and pestilence.
    Was it Britain that reduced almost our entire nation to a condition of beggary - to the status of serfs in our own land - or did we imagine it?
    Was it Britain that justified this brutal and outrageous tyranny by assuring themselves that, being no better than animals, we deserved no better treatment - or did we imagine that too?
    Was it Britain that, since independence, has (until very recently) sneered at us at home and, belittled us abroad? Did we imagine all this, Mr Bruton?
    Whose was the violence, Mr Bruton? Whose the tyranny and whose the oppression? Whose the contempt and whose the injustice?
    It's a great relief entirely that this shameful story can now be re-labelled as "Our Shared History", a piece of euphemistic nonsense that is, no doubt, appealing to Mr Bruton and to those who share his view of 1916, Mr Kevin Myers among them.
    If he wanted to find a reason for damage to the Irish psyche, Mr Bruton might look no farther than the social, economic, cultural, demographic and linguistic evisceration of our people.
    "Mother Ireland, ye're still rearing 'em.."

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