John Redmond

Easter ’16, Once Again

Pádraig Belton on March 26, 2016, 2:50 pm

| Readers 1108

DUBLIN—Here in Ireland, this weekend, Yeats’s terrible beauty becomes a centenarian. It might have had a letter from the Queen, were history different. It is a pleasing sign of recent Irish social change that 1916 is not being commemorated as a good-and-evil struggle, one with Ireland on the side of the angels—and evil Britain receiving its due comeuppance and ouster. Call this the Wind That Shakes The Barley view of Irish historiography. Consider halfway back, 1966, for something less nuanced …

Ireland, WW1 and our great false choice.

David McCann on November 3, 2013, 2:10 pm

| Readers 964

Since independence, Ireland or more importantly Irish nationalism, has struggled to find a way properly remember those who died during the First World War. This is largely due to how we have chosen to interpret the 1916 Easter rising. It has been written into Irish folklore that those who took part in the rising were no less than patriots of the highest order while those who fought in the trenches in France and Belgium were considered at best misguided or at …