The Easter Rising, Dublin City, Easter 1916

[Solaris]

Allow us to take the time to remember those who gave their lives in the name of Irish National and Economic liberation against the British imperialists in Easter 1916.

In Easter week, 1916 Irish revolutionaries siezed control of Dublin city center and issued the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

They did this with just over a thousand men and women. They knew they would in all certainity die but placed the cause of the Irish people higher than their own lives.

In my opinion, this is the most inspiring and greates event in history and I will be remembering it this day and ask my fellow Irish men and women and socalists everywhere to join me in this.

I leave you with the last words of James Conolly, given hours before his execution by the British for his part in the rising.

To the Field General Court Martial, held at Dublin Castle, on May 9th, 1916:
I do not wish to make any defence except against charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners. These trifling allegations that have been made, if they record facts that really happened deal only with the almost unavoidable incidents of a hurried uprising against long established authority, and nowhere show evidence of set purpose to wantonly injure unarmed persons.

We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe.

Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress.

I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be.

JAMES CONNOLLY,
Commandant-General, Dublin Division,
Army of the Irish Republic

 

[<RJMC>]

easter of 2008

inocents citizen of tibet are mindwashed by imperialist forces directed by the facist dalai lama in a campaign to spread murder and chaos among the nation

but we could kill them and force them back, join us to eliminate this threat to peace and squash the facism of the west

 

[Solaris]

I don't support China?

Why would I?

 

[Gray Fox]

Why would he?

 

[<RJMC>]

well isnt china a big socialist country?

however you never said you not suported china you just said "I am not sure tbh"

 

[Solaris]

No, china isn't socialist.

I'm not sure on the whole tibet situation because I no nothing about it, I am very suspicious of China though.

 

[<RJMC>]

that china isnt socialist?

them what is a socialist country? country ruled by chavez or castro?

china is called the people's republic of china that sounds similiar to any socialist country

and theyr have theyr socialist policies of no private property and stuff,or it cuz china does let some private property in it?

 

[Mr Stabby]

The Easter rising was apart of a plan by the Germans to invade Ireland, the Germans pulled out of the idea, but the republicans went along with their part of the plan. It was never going to have worked without German support.

 

[Bob_Marley]

Meh, just a convenient political action to stir up trouble for the British forces away from the Western Front. No different from the US's covert support of Aparthied South Africa.

 

[Solaris]

I'm tolerant of people celebrating the Easter Rising but quoting Connolly? The man was a nut...

He was a hero who helped liberate your country.

Even after being shot by the British soldiers he heroically issued orders from the GPO whilst dying.

 

[ríomhaire]

The Easter Rising was a fiasco. The ship carrying the guns sank, a lot of the rebels pulled out, it happened on the wrong day and they didn't even take Dublin Castle when there was only 2 guards on duty. Instead they went for the bloody post office and biscuit factory.

Home rule was going to be granted once WWI was over anyway. The Rising actually delayed a bloody Irish government being set up.

 

[Mr Stabby]

He was a hero who helped liberate your country.

Even after being shot by the British soldiers he heroically issued orders from the GPO whilst dying.

I reckon you admire him because he was a socialist.

 

[Raziaar]

In my opinion, this is the most inspiring and greates event in history

Wow. You don't aim high do you?

 

[Tagaziel]

The Easter Rising was a fiasco. The ship carrying the guns sank, a lot of the rebels pulled out, it happened on the wrong day and they didn't even take Dublin Castle when there was only 2 guards on duty. Instead they went for the bloody post office and biscuit factory.

Home rule was going to be granted once WWI was over anyway. The Rising actually delayed a bloody Irish government being set up.

This.

 

[Solaris]

The Easter Rising was a fiasco. The ship carrying the guns sank, a lot of the rebels pulled out, it happened on the wrong day and they didn't even take Dublin Castle when there was only 2 guards on duty. Instead they went for the bloody post office and biscuit factory.

Home rule was going to be granted once WWI was over anyway. The Rising actually delayed a bloody Irish government being set up.

If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.


England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.


England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed.


Nationalism without Socialism ? without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin - is only national recreancy.

It would be tantamount to a public declaration that our oppressors had so far succeeded in inoculating us with their perverted conceptions of justice and morality that we had finally decided to accept those conceptions as our own, and no longer needed an alien army to force them upon us.


As a Socialist I am prepared to do all one man can do to achieve for our motherland her rightful heritage ? independence; but if you ask me to abate one jot or tittle of the claims of social justice, in order to conciliate the privileged classes, then I must decline.


Such action would be neither honourable nor feasible. Let us never forget that he never reaches Heaven who marches thither in the company of the Devil. Let us openly proclaim our faith: the logic of events is with us.
-James Connolly.

 

[Mr Stabby]

Had Home Rule been granted to Ireland, then Ireland would have ended up like Canada or Australia, who have the option of cutting all ties with the Crown if they wish.

 

[ríomhaire]

If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.


England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

That still happens. The Irish economy relies on the US and the UK. "When Britain sneezes, Ireland gets pneumonia."

And the rest of the speech is just Nationalist and Socialist rhetoric.

Had Home Rule been granted to Ireland, then Ireland would have ended up like Canada or Australia, who have the option of cutting all ties with the Crown if they wish.

Indeed. We might have even ended up with 32 counties. Hell. If were were still part of the UK it would mean better roads. If you drive across the North/South boarder there is supposed to be a noticable difference.

 

[Tagaziel]

If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.


England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.


England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed.


Nationalism without Socialism ? without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin - is only national recreancy.

It would be tantamount to a public declaration that our oppressors had so far succeeded in inoculating us with their perverted conceptions of justice and morality that we had finally decided to accept those conceptions as our own, and no longer needed an alien army to force them upon us.


As a Socialist I am prepared to do all one man can do to achieve for our motherland her rightful heritage ? independence; but if you ask me to abate one jot or tittle of the claims of social justice, in order to conciliate the privileged classes, then I must decline.


Such action would be neither honourable nor feasible. Let us never forget that he never reaches Heaven who marches thither in the company of the Devil. Let us openly proclaim our faith: the logic of events is with us.
-James Connolly.

I see a lot of big words used and nothing really important.

No evidence of planning any economical recovery, long term political objectives, basically using Ireland as an excuse for propagating socialism.

 

[Solaris]

I see a lot of big words used and nothing really important.

No evidence of planning any economical recovery, long term political objectives, basically using Ireland as an excuse for propagating socialism.

It's not an economic budget, it's a speech.

He's saying that nationalism without socialism is pointless. He wants a free, socialist Ireland, because without socialism, the workers would be just as bad off, just due to Irish capitalists rather than British ones.

 

[Mr Stabby]

So Irish independence was pointless then, as Ireland is capitalist?

 

[Solaris]

So Irish independence was pointless then, as Ireland is capitalist?

Not pointless; it put an end to the brutal occupation of the British, for most of Ireland anyway.

The free state should never have been accepted, it was traitorous to the Irishmen in the north, left to the mercy of loyalist mobs and British soldiers and it betrayed the working class of Ireland as a whole to a lifetime of servitude and misery.

 

[Solaris]

Anything more than the Free State would have meant war with Ulster, a war the South would have lost seeing as industry, army, police, finance and British support was concentrated there.
And then it would have been worse - a vengeful Belfast controlled Ireland at worst or at best a situation where the progress since the 1880s would have been utterly wiped out. Idealism is no substitute for pragmatic logic.

That's ridiculous, if I'm correct, at the time 30-40% of Ulster were catholic, so Ulster would not have been functional, had the IRA expanded and continued to wage guerrilla war, Ireland could have been liberated in it's entirety.

 

[Tagaziel]

That's ridiculous, if I'm correct, at the time 30-40% of Ulster were catholic, so Ulster would not have been functional, had the IRA expanded and continued to wage guerrilla war, Ireland could have been liberated in it's entirety.

Uh, what?

It's not an economic budget, it's a speech.

He's saying that nationalism without socialism is pointless. He wants a free, socialist Ireland, because without socialism, the workers would be just as bad off, just due to Irish capitalists rather than British ones.

So basically he's spouting bullshit instead of presenting a viable way for Ireland to develop.

 

[Solaris]

So basically he's spouting bullshit instead of presenting a viable way for Ireland to develop.

Stop being such a spin doctor. Surely your not being serious with this line of argument.

 

[Mr Stabby]

That's ridiculous, if I'm correct, at the time 30-40% of Ulster were catholic, so Ulster would not have been functional, had the IRA expanded and continued to wage guerrilla war, Ireland could have been liberated in it's entirety.

There is no way that the South could have conquered the north in a civil war. The north was industrialized, backed by the British and had been stockpiling weapons for years. You don't seem to know Irish history.

 

[Solaris]

There is no way that the South could have conquered the north in a civil war. The north was industrialized, backed by the British and had been stockpiling weapons for years. You don't seem to know Irish history.

The North would have collapsed, 40% of it's population would have been hostile to it's existence, there would be no NorthvSouth civil war, instead it would have just been IRAvBritish forces, with some negligible loyalist mobs running pogroms in the north.

 

[Mr Stabby]

The North would have collapsed, 40% of it's population would have been hostile to it's existence, there would be no NorthvSouth civil war, instead it would have just been IRAvBritish forces, with some negligible loyalist mobs running pogroms in the north.

That's completely wrong. There would have definitely have been a civil war, the UVF was formed in 1912 due to the very possibility of rule from Dublin, and it had to be limited to 100,000 men to stop it getting too powerful, it could have recruited 5 times as many, The vast majority of protestants did not want to be ruled by Dublin. Also after WW1 ended, the majority would have had military training.

 

[ríomhaire]

Stop being such a spin doctor. Surely your not being serious with this line of argument.

Surely you weren't being serious when you posted a propaganda speech in response to me stating that the Easter Rising was a fiasco?

 

[Solaris]

I was, becuase you said the aims of the rising could have been acheived through other means.

I showed that the aims of the rising were not just independance from Britian.

 

[Mr Stabby]

Connolly wasn't in charge of the rising though. Padraig Pearse was and he wasn't a socialist.

 

[Solaris]

Pearse did practically nothing in the rising, he was merely the figure head as the president of the new republic. He took this role reluctantly and nervously.

It wasn't a socialist rising per se, but it certainly inspired socialist militancy amongst Irish men for years to come.

 

[Mr Stabby]

Pearse was still the leader, not Connolly. It wasn't a socialist uprising at all.

By socialist militancy, you mean the PIRA?

 

[Solaris]

And the officials.

This is the worst discussion I've been involved in for a while so I'm going to resign and concede everything and no longer take part in it. All though, I do not renounce my views.

 

[ríomhaire]

This is a stupid discussion anyway seeing as you titled it as being about the Easter Rising but just used it as an excuse to say that socialism rocks.

 

[<RJMC>]

This is a stupid discussion anyway seeing as you titled it as being about the Easter Rising but just used it as an excuse to say that socialism rocks.

well thats his point as socialist

 

[Tagaziel]

Pretty much every thread in Politics made by Solaris is when he gets a raging hard on due to his discovery of something borderline related to socialism.

I phear his mighty socialist cockslap.