"Koncorde on Tue May 1 2007 15:09:03
Regarding the British "transplanting" people to Ireland. The fact is some people believe Ireland (and we're talking since the Roman era) to be no more a seperate nation from the rest of Britain than you would consider Sicily less part of Italy.
The true trouble between the "nations" pre-dates anything to do with transplanting settlers, stretching back to the ages when Irish chieftans, in exchange for gold and weapons, would happily supply troops to any rebellion or uprising on the mainland (much the same way as the Scots routinely offered their help to any Frenchman with a claim to the English throne).
The true origin of the hostility is probably lost in time - but suffice to say that if the roles were reversed, there's no doubt the Irish would have done the same, and the Scots, and the Welsh.
The fact is we're all of the same race and stock, no matter how the Irish/Scots try to claim 'Celtic' roots we're all Britons who have since been muddied by invasion and inbreeding."
I must address this. I have not read anything this insidious, false and offensive for a long time. Even Hitler was true to his character and his ideology in 'Mein Kempf'.
Seriously? I must ask. Did you actually think this wishy-washy excuse would actually stand up? Really? Do you imagine that this makes England seem less like a despotic European principality with a recently lost Empire? Are you trying to impress your American friends?
I have to assume that you are British or irredeemably ignorant or just prone to telling ridiculous lies. Forgive me if I am wrong in either case.
I cannot speak for the Scots or the Welsh but I will speak for Ireland.
The "plantations" of Ireland by Cromwell (and previously executed plantations by Mary, Elizabeth I and James I) were criminal acts that contradicted English law and practice regarding property - let alone the moral ambiguity that it entailed. And it was ideologically unsound - it was the English philosopher John Locke who suggested that government had no right to arbitrarily dispose of private property. Notably, there were never such plantations in England. Seizure of private property by extra-legal means was far more rare in England but continually occured in Ireland. It was racism and theft from the very beginning. Irish people were quite simply the wrong kind of white for English politicians, aristocrats and monarchs. Just the same as Native Americans, Africans and Asians could never be white enough for the Empire that Britain amassed in subsequent years. We were not the kind of white that made one English/British. And we probably never will be. Your rather pallid justification that Irish chieftans were essentially part of a warlord culture neglects to mention that that is how the English nobility continued to function in England well into the eighteenth century. It is how all European nations functioned at the time.
Ireland and Britain may be geographically aligned but the continuing aggression, greed and smug self-importance of England has changed that alignment irrevocably. Mr. Cromwell's vision for Ireland was not that of Mr. Gladstone. He was a tyrannical, militaristic bigot and Ireland and the Irish were merely pawns in English political games. His little enterprise in Ireland exacerbated a long standing division beyond repair and created the conditions for future social, political and economic relations between England and Ireland that would continue to be based on a sometimes official, sometimes unofficial policy of sectarian exclusion. Conditions that were further exacerbated by the generations of British bully-boy tactics that we had supposed ended with Margaret Thatcher. These conditions forged the Irish nation in direct contradistinction to England. England made Ireland a separate nation by virtue of English greed, English spite and an unimaginably bloated sense of self-importance.
England created the hostility. A friend or a kinsman ceases to be a friend or a kinsman when he becomes a bully. That is where the hostility originates. Just in case you're still wondering.
And please do not presume to re-write Irish history with your own moral distortions. Ireland never made any claim to any territory outside of Ireland itself since it became a nation. The High King of Ireland exacted a tax upon the divided kingdoms of Britain but never actually occupied, claimed or planted Irishmen on one acre of Britain. England, on the other hand, was continually at war to prove it claims over Ireland and France from its very inception. And then went further afield in building their Empire. Theft, Murder and Tea sanctioned by a sanctimonious national character. Hmmm. Classy.
Who, might I enquire, are these "some people" who believe Ireland to still be a part of the UK? Are they Irish? Are they weak willed Irish Lady Di devotees? Marching enthusiasts from Ulster? Or are they British people who cannot imagine a world without their old benevolently racist Empire?
I am an Irishman. Yet, I make no claim to some mythical Celtic origin. These Celtic origins are largely a construct of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British and Anglo-Irish scholarship that sought to romanticise, historicize and sanitise our mutual histories. I am Irish because Oliver Cromwell decided that my ancestors were not the right kind of white for England. I am Irish because I refuse to be British. I am Irish because I must refuse to be a slave.
I am Irish for the same reasons that some British people abroad pretend to be Irish: it would be too shameful to be English. So, I am glad Cromwell didn't think we could be British.Please, and I must stress this with absolute conviction, do not ever claim that I am a Briton on my behalf, without my express consent ever again. And, I assure you, you do not, and will not, have my consent to do so ever again. I hereby secede from your little fairy-tale nation of Greater Britain where historical facts are the ravings of mad Irishmen and we all live in happy-go-lucky lovey-dovey dreamland where the pixies and the unicorns go prancing through the fields of lollipops.Seriously. Grow up. Be a man. Accept what you are and what you have been. Change if you can.
But, at the very least, stop telling sly little lies to salve your own conscience while trying to impress the simple-minded.
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LeonardPine
12 years ago
"I am Irish for the same reasons that some British people abroad pretend to be Irish"
No English person would ever pretend to be Irish. Why would they pretend they were from a BANKRUPT country instead of a country that once ruled the civilized world?!!!
Don't forget its the Brits who have helped to bail out your skint country.
'Celtic tiger'...don't make me laugh
I asked my 15 year old nephew who is half Irish and has lived there for 8 years what he was going to do when he left school. He said "Getting out of this country and coming to England"
Smart lad.
"Charlie don't surf!"
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