Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A pittance of time…
I’m a bit late starting the blogburst this morning, so here’s one I wanted to include before 11 o’clock today. The guy singing is a Canadian Irishman called Terry Kelly; the song is called A Pittance of Time.
Mick Fealty @ 08:25 AM
Very appropriate mick.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 09:36 AMand in similar vein is the Pogues moving version of “And the Band played Waltzing Matilda” but i’m hopeless at posting Youtube links.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 10:12 AMHere you go Mike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lE-YjjZhwc
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 11:26 AMGreat song!! really sums up how i feel about it all. I don’t agree with war of any kind but lest we forget. Myself like many other Irish people have relatives who fought in WW1 and WW2 and only for them would we have the freedom we enjoy.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 11:26 AMTwo minutes silence is not a lot to ask to mourn the passing of a brutal Empire ;0)
Britain marched into WW1 THE global superpower.
Now they cant deploy a bridade sized force.
They’ve ordered two aircraft carriers,but they cant afford the planes LOL.
Poppy wearing in British TV studios seems to happen earlier each year.
Whta is realy being mourned?
Certainly not the cannon fodder of the SommeI am truly proud and thankful that my lot were in Frongoch not Flanders.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 01:07 PMThat song isn’t going to win any prizes like.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 02:05 PMDid you know allied officers who knew that the armistice was coming on the 11th at 11, still ordered attacks up until the last hour? The feeling was the more land you could advance on and take the more prestige and chance of promotion you would get. Both British and American officers were investigated for these murderous, needless instructions but both governments thought it was better to let it lie as the public didn’t need to hear these things in the wake of celebrations. Not when they involved “heroes” like General Pershing.
One black American battalion was basically wiped out in an attack within a few hours of the armistice. Of course, the rank and file had no idea that truce was so close .
One more example of the utter lack of respect for life of Imperial elites.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 03:19 PM“the utter lack of respect for life of Imperial elites.”
Nail head hit.
I say again Poppyfest is a wake for a dead empire.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 03:43 PMRe: HappyPaddy, post 4.
Full respect to the Veterans, But
What freedom is it, that we all enjoying exactly??Hardly have thought that the Veterans including my own family fought for the ‘idea’ of freedom that the Political elites backed by the new world order, the freedom to shop ethos,Machevelian moneterism,cronyism and indeed tactical regional wars at the behest of a Zionist agenda, that agenda that sends the youth of that false freedom back in body bags or badly maimed.
Aldous Huxley rightly said,‘We love or Slavery’. I respect totally the men who fought in those wars, but they were misled, Lions led by Donkeys indeed.Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 03:49 PMJimmy:
I think those who were leading were more viper than donkey.What are the real reasons for Britain’s Poppyfest?
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.com/?p=85
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 04:11 PMPMGB
‘I am truly proud and thankful that my lot were in Frongoch not Flanders.’
So I guess I should remember only those of my ancestors who died in 1918-21 in Dublin and not those who served and died in Flanders ?
What of those who like most Irish people only had relatives who died in Flanders ?
RIP to all of them including the Germans , British , French , Russians etc etc all 20 million .
And of course the war to end wars did’nt end wars .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6RO7Tp_grM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upyN1OiuuaAPosted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 04:16 PMUnionists are quick to remind us of the Irishmen who served in the british army during the great war. What they either forget or ignore is that many of those same Irishmen were serving the exact same aim and ideal as those irishmen in the GPO. The only difference is in those they were prepared to kill. Is irish freedom an acceptable right when your prepared to kill Germans to achieve it? Does it become null and void when you instead turn your guns on those responsible for denying your freedom? One would think Unionists would be annoyed either way, after all the Germans were their friends who supplied them weapons.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 04:25 PM‘One would think Unionists would be annoyed either way, after all the Germans were their friends who supplied them weapons. ‘
lol, RepublicanStones, I once pointed out the source of arms to the early UVF in reply to a blog article on ATW about the collusion between republicans and nazis in the 40’s.
I checked back to see what reply I got about 30 mins after posting and found I’d been banned from the site!
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 05:30 PMGreenflag
the cannon fodder of the Somme died for empire.
the 1916 insurgents fought against empire.
The British generals wined and dined twenty miles from the senseless slaughter-empires are like that.
Pearse and Connolly were in the front line.
Your relatives in the British Army-post 1916-were on the wrong side of history.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 05:31 PMPhil Mac Giolla Bhain:
“I am truly proud and thankful that my lot were in Frongoch not Flanders.”
How bizarrely selective of you. So the vast bulk of Óglaigh na hÉireann (175,000 pro to 13,500 anti) that volunteered to take up arms in the Great War were not “your lot”?
Well, today I’m proud of them (and their advisories-cum-brothers-in-arms from Ulster). Come next April 13th, I’ll be proud of “your lot” (no less mine for their decision).
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 05:33 PM“Your relatives in the British Army-post 1916-were on the wrong side of history.”
Please expand.
Many died. Many died pointlessly. Many came back as trained, experienced soldiers as Redmond said they would. More capable of taking the armed struggle to the British army at home.
But I don’t see how history has “sides”.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 05:37 PMRedmond’s role as a recruiting sergeant for Britain did nothing to advance his home rule agenda.
Of course many Irishmen in British uniform relaised that they were on the wrong side of history when the Rising took place.
My old friend Tom Barry was serving the British Empire in Iraq (Mesopotamia) at the time of the Rising.
The Rising was a wake up call for those who had followed Redmond.
Had all the volunteers obeyed Redmond’s call then there would have been no Rising.No Rising means no war of independene.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 05:56 PM“Redmond’s role as a recruiting sergeant for Britain did nothing to advance his home rule agenda.”
And there was me thinking Redmond’s home-rule agenda had advanced as far as it could go before the war even broke out (i.e. home rule had been achieved for the 26 counties in 1914).
“No Rising means no war of independene.”
We don’t know what would have happened if there has been no Rising. Partition would more likely have been genuinely “temporary”. Certainly, after the Rising, partition was permanent. “No Rising, no War of Independence” seems likely, but “no rising, no independence” is far from sound.
One thing is certain, however. No Rising, no bullshit about the glory of not having taken to arms in the Great War. No Rising, no bullshit shame of Irishmen at having fought at Normandy 30 years later. I, frankly, could do without the Rising and the bullshit myths it inspires every bit as much as I could do without the gas and the stench of Flanders.
Today is a day to reflect and to remember, and it would be shallow for Irishmen to only remember those Volunteers (nationalist and Ulster) that took up arms in the Great War. Those that didn’t have just an equal a place in the madness and the bloodletting. Their stories are intertwined. There is no such thing as “your lot” or “my lot”. All were Irishmen and all served and died for Ireland as they saw best.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 06:31 PMMick,
This was a clever little post, and one that you have no doubt been planning for a while.
It’s deviousness becomes more obvious when you read the comments on Sluggers Daily Blogburst, especially this one from Kensei:
“There is a narrative at work here that seems to want to drive Republicans into full participation into British ceremonies regardless of difficultie4s or honest reasons for not wishing to do so. Anything else elicits call of begrudgary, backwardness or indeed support for facism even though the relationship is tangential at best.” [Posted by kensei on Nov 11, 2008 @ 12:09 PM]
So posting a cute little song, sung by a non-threatening Canadian, and better still, an Irish-Canadian, which sets out to make people feel ‘guilty’ for begrudging a “pittance of time”, just builds on the narrative that Kensei mentioned. After all, its not as if a unionist is telling you to join in the war-fest, its an Irish-Canadian, so what kind of heartless beast could have an objection, and its only a little bit of Britishness, so you’d hardly notice it, would you?
Clever trick, Mick. But transparent.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 06:43 PMOilfear-you’re against the Rising-that much is clear.
Redmondism was defeated-get over it.Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 06:59 PM“...you’re against the Rising-that much is clear.”
You make this statement as if it’s an argument. Not the Rising per se (maybe that wasn’t so clear), but Republican mythos doesn’t do much for me.
“Redmondism was defeated-get over it.”
Wasn’t around back then.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 07:11 PMIn 1915, some Irish emigrants embarking at Liverpool for the US were mobbed as shirkers by a crowd of English civilians and the crews refused to man the ship on which they were to travel.
“Their crime is that they are not ready to die for England. Why should they? What have they or there forbears ever got from England that they should die for her? Mr Redmond will say, ‘A Home rule Act is on the Statue Book.’ But any intelligent Irishman will say ‘A Simulacrum of Home Rule’ with an express notice that it is never to come into operation.
“This war may be just or unjust, but any fair-minded man will admit that it is England’s war, not Ireland’s.”
-Most Rev Dr. O’Dwyer, in an open letter on the incident.This letter was of course suppressed in Dublin and most areas, but got out in Limerick.
It’s tragic so many Irishmen wasted their lives in this war for nothing.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 10:22 PMWhat are the real reasons for Britain’s Poppyfest?
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.com/?p=85
That is an interesting analysis, Phil.
One of the reasons that the poppy should be treated with caution is that its meaning is so slippery.
It is claimed both as an anti-war symbol (http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/rebecca-oughton-13s-poem/) and as a testament to military valour (observer’s rant about opposing Hitler - http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/sluggers-daily-blogburst11/P0/).
This mixing of muddled sentimentality and militarism is probably not healthy.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2008 @ 11:15 PM“Redmondism was defeated-get over it.”
Really? The Republicans wanted a 32 county Republic entirely separated from Britain, Redmond would settle for a 26 county government within the British Empire.
After the War of Independence which situation prevailed?
Posted by on Nov 12, 2008 @ 01:24 AMThe only offer on the table was for a measure of independence within the 26 counties that was far less than what was originally received after the Treaty. Look it up.
You’re analysis is flawed and incorrect.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2008 @ 02:56 AM
