The Dublin Rising 1916

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Of course, Holohan wasn't the commander at Four Courts. Be that as it may:

It was he [Holohan] who noticed the Playfair lad, aged about seventeen, running out of the Park, to raise the alarm at the Barracks. He pedalled madly, calling him to stop, but he took no notice. He came level to the lad as he arrived at the soldiers' billets and was banging on a door .................. Holohan took careful aim and shot him three times.

De Rosa, p. 262.

You consider the shooting of someone trying to raise an alarm during a military operation to be "murder"? As to being a boy, Sean MacLoughlain was made the Commandment of the Dublin Division after the O'Rahilly's death. He was 15 years old.

Originally posted by no1marauder
was the Dublin Rising morally justified?

Yes on that day 93 years ago (theirfor aincient history now) the English (who are now all lovely people) where in a country that wasn't their own so we had every right to try our best to get the English out because they had no right to be in OUR country..it's that simple!

Originally posted by DrKF
So when the Home Rulers were losing ground to the separatists, were they losing the majority position?

Support for immediate Home Rule isn't inconsistent with support for eventual independence as even Fitzgerald implicitly concedes.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
There were two by-elections in 1917, both won by Sinn Fein.

Many factors account for the swing towards Sinn Fein. Apart from resentment at British reaction to the Easter Rebellion, the conscription issue already mentioned (which Sinn Fein successfully claimed credit for stemming) and the natural sympathy young voters felt towards the Young Turks th ...[text shortened]... of factors coming to a head, really. All credit to Sinn Fein for taking full advantage of them.

Undoubtedly there were many factors at work as there always are. My initial statement was: It seems difficult to believe that this [i.e. the overwhelming electoral victory of Sinn Fein] would have occurred absent the Rising.

Do you disagree with that statement?

Originally posted by Jamesqt
Yes on that day 93 years ago (theirfor aincient history now) the English (who are now all lovely people) where in a country that wasn't their own so we had every right to try our best to get the English out because they had no right to be in OUR country..it's that simple!

And now you wish they were back, so you could have someone to blame for the state of the economy.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Support for immediate Home Rule isn't inconsistent with support for eventual independence as even Fitzgerald implicitly concedes.

Then your previous posting makes no sense: that the separatists 'thought the tide was running their way' vis-a-vis the Home Rulers suggests an important distinction between the two camps, otherwise I'm not sure why you brought it up.

And the part you put in bold in the original quotation certainly suggests that support for Home Rule wasn't inconsistent with support for eventual independence, "our people might well have settled down for a time at least within a Home Rule system" but equally certainly doesn't lead to the conclusion you seem to think it does, with 'at least' being important enough for you to have put in bold.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Undoubtedly there were many factors at work as there always are. My iitial statement was: It seems difficult to believe that this [i.e. the overwhelming electoral victory of Sinn Fein] would have occurred absent the Rising.

Do you disagree with that statement?

But that's what we're trying to say to you: that the Rising was a massive catalyst towards arousing separatist fervour, and that, perhaps, this was not the majority opinion prior to the Rising.

Originally posted by DrKF
Then your previous posting makes no sense: that the separatists 'thought the tide was running their way' vis-a-vis the Home Rulers suggests an important distinction between the two camps, otherwise I'm not sure why you brought it up.

And the part you put in bold in the original quotation certainly suggests that support for Home Rule wasn't inconsistent with ...[text shortened]... m to think it does, with 'at least' being important enough for you to have put in bold.

Of course there's an important distinction and one I've mentioned several times - supporters of Home Rule were willing to accept a limited autonomy in the immediate future, while the Sinn Feiners wanted immediate independence. But even Fitzgerald concedes the obvious; that Home Rule was not the ultimate goal of the majority of the Irish people.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Of course there's an important distinction and one I've mentioned several times - supporters of Home Rule were willing to accept a limited autonomy in the immediate future, while the Sinn Feiners wanted immediate independence. But even Fitzgerald concedes the obvious; that Home Rule was not the ultimate goal of the majority of the Irish people.

To the contrary, as he says:

"up to 1914 there was little public support for Irish independence: as I have just said it was despair at the absence of such a spirit that provoked the Rising. It is a failure of imagination on our part, together with a mythic view of history, that make us think otherwise. The truth is that without 1916 our people might well have settled down for a time at least within a Home Rule system."

Originally posted by DrKF
But that's what we're trying to say to you: that the Rising was a massive catalyst towards arousing separatist fervour, and that, perhaps, this was not the majority opinion prior to the Rising.

Then you are claiming what you said you never did i.e.

That the Irish desired to be ruled by the British right up until 1916 when they suddenly and amazingly had a complete change of heart?

For reasons given, I don't agree with your assessment.

Originally posted by DrKF
To the contrary, as he says:

"up to 1914 there was little public support for Irish independence: as I have just said it was despair at the absence of such a spirit that provoked the Rising. It is a failure of imagination on our part, together with a mythic view of history, that make us think otherwise. The truth is that without 1916 our people might well have settled down for a time at least within a Home Rule system."

You're just being stubborn and/or a bit thick now. Fitzgerald's statement that the Irish people "might have settled down for a time at least within a Home Rule system" is a double concession: 1) They "might" not have; and 2) That they would have settled for Home Rule (if at all) for only a "time". How that supports your assertion that the majority didn't support ultimate independence is hard to fathom.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Then you are claiming what you said you never did i.e.

That the Irish desired to be ruled by the British right up until 1916 when they suddenly and amazingly had a complete change of heart?

For reasons given, I don't agree with your assessment.

Nope, never said that. No doubt there were times when the desire for Irish independence represented the majority opinion. I'm just saying that, contrary to your assertion, that was not always necessarily the case and that, with FitzGerald, I think the pre-Rising period may have been one of the periods when desire for Independence was not necessarily the majority opinion. The majority opinion before the rising seems to have been in favour of Home Rule; for you to claim to know the 'real' desires of the Irish people at that time is pure speculation.

Originally posted by DrKF
Nope, never said that. No doubt there were times when the desire for Irish independence represented the majority opinion. I'm just saying that, contrary to your assertion, that was not always necessarily the case and that, with FitzGerald, I think the pre-Rising period may have been one of the periods when desire for Independence was not necessarily the majorit ...[text shortened]... you to claim to know the 'real' desires of the Irish people at that time is pure speculation.

So you say. Of course, you are ignoring the subsequent and prior history and asserting with absolutely no evidence to support such a claim that for some reason 1914 was an extraordinary period in Irish history where the majority didn't want independence. That's a hoot.

BDN also points out an important fact; that the franchise in Ireland was expanded so that the electorate went from 700,000 in the prior election to 1,900,000 in 1918. I don't think it's any coincidence that when more people got the vote, support for immediate independence benefited. It's hard to claim what majority opinion is when there is vast disenfranchisement of an electorate.

Originally posted by no1marauder
So you say. Of course, you are ignoring the subsequent and prior history and asserting with absolutely no evidence to support such a claim that for some reason 1914 was an extraordinary period in Irish history where the majority didn't want independence. That's a hoot.

I'm not ignoring neither, and note that you have provided no evidence for your assertion (despite the fact that it appears you accept the Home Rulers were ascendant around 1914) that the desire for Independence at that time, around 1914, represented majority opinion. That's a hoot, too.