After reading many of these comments, especially those by robinbanks911, I feel compelled to respond to the utterly false assertions that while campaigning in Ireland Cromwell's egregious actions against the Irish People are mere confections of extreme and/or hyperbolic Irish Nationalists. In fact, they are so patenly false as to reduce the entire discussion to the realm of the absurd. Any scholar, British or otherwise, or anyone who has ever studied this period with any degree of seriousness (my Masters Thesis was on the Ulster Plantation of Ireland under James I) is aware of the basic facts concerning the actions conducted in Ireland by Cromwell. It is also well known by any honest student or scholar that the Irish were subjected to some of the worst discriminatory actions in the history of any European population. This cruel treatment didn't begin or end with Cromwell, though his actions do stand out in bold relief since he was so adamant to suppress the Irish and, yes, this was significantly due to their being Catholic during his brief tenure as Lord Protector. Offensive, ignorant and insulting characterizations such as those expressed by this commentator, e.g., Plastic Paddies and other implicit references to illiterate, inferior people, merely serve to illustrate the enduring prejudice of such people born by demonstrable ignorance. Such racist and insulting comments as these can be equaled by southern racists in the years following the American Civil War. Incredible as it seems, such ignorance still persists in the 21st Century. While the British people of today bear little responsibility for the horrors inflicted on the people of Ireland, the British Government from the 17th through the early 20th Century certainly do. Consult any library for voluminous references and well documented instances of three hundred years of inexcusable discrimination. At one point in the 17th Century, a bounty in Connaught, the western part of Ireland, was levied on wolves...the same bounty was levied on Catholic priests. Not confected, not rumor, not hyperbole, documented fact. Ireland's population was subject to the cruelest discrimination of all, prohibition to practice their religion openly for over 200 years...a fact not known by most people. Irish children were denied a basic education for an equal number of years, similar to what the southern plantation owners imposed on black slaves. Anyone can look this fact up, simply Google the word Hedge Row School and read how children came to the edge of the road and were educated by roving priests and others. Any enlightened people who refuse education to an occupied population demonstrates the most uncivil behavior possible. Remember, it was the Irish scholar monks who saved preserved much of Christian Civilization's intellectual and religious heritage during the dark, barbaric ages. Yes, these were all overturned, but not after decades upon decades of pressure from inside and outside Ireland. Anyone want to verify if others suffered under English rule...just ask the Scots, Welsh, Indians. Talk about confected history, ever hear of the so-called Black Hole of Calcutta, the scene of atrocities against British citizens in India that every school child learned about...until the British finally admitted it was totally false and even removed the "monuments" in India after documentation became so overwhelming that it became an embarrassment to the British Government...and this was in the 20th Century. As I stated, the present British Government bears no responsibility for these atrocious actions, but honest historians all admit they existed and the unimpeachable, historical facts are there for anyone to see in hundreds of dissertations, theses, articles and books. It's time anyone who employes ignorant characterizations of a people, with no knowledge of any underlying facts, and resorts to both implicit and explicit denigrations of events and persons, realizes that this is the 21 Century. We either move forward with charity and intelligence or, we turn things over to the Orcks.
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