National Identity

[irishconfederate]

By the way,

Just googled Edwards in Dublin and Kilkenny and LOADS of businesses and professionals come up with the surname Edwards.

"Mr. Stuart Andrew Edwards is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon based in Kilkenny at the Aut Even Hospital."

"Michael Edwards Photography, Donaghmede Shopping Centre , Donaghmede Rd, Dublin"

"P J Edwards & Company Limited, Kennelsfort Rd Upper, Dublin"

Also for fun you could probably find out the Gaelic version of your name, as Edward is Eadbhard in Gaelic, if you write to Irish language organisations they may be able to help you with the best Gaelicised form of your name.

It could be Kyle Mac Éadbhard

[irishconfederate]

Hello,

Can I say I have been reading this thread with regard to 1916 and I would like to express my views on the subject.

It pains me to read when 1916 is not celebrated in writings I read because I think 1916 was so much a part of de Valera's Ireland and de Valera's Ireland was such a great time for my family. For me de Valera's Ireland was a springtime for families like my own who came from the inner city in Dublin and on seeing photos of de Valera in Galway's Eyre Square unveiling that -in my opinion- beautiful statue of -I just googled-Padraic O'Conaire, I realised that this springtime of celebrating ones own self and identity unashamedly was happening everywhere. It was a period where the Irish Catholic people had peace in their souls and being unknown for centuries.

However, as a Catholic in my gut I have misgivings with 1916. I see celebrating it has huge potential to lead people away from Christ. And I see too much glory in the actual event for me to really believe its of the highest spiritual/moral path. I see to many parallels in the Gospels, the Jewish peoples choice of the "nationalist" Barabbas over Christ, the "nationalism" of the elders when they worried about their nation and prophesied that it was better for one man to die then the nation perish, and the presence of the Zealots as an other path, etc.

I also realise again, on the other hand, that the Irish Catholic people -being a post-colonial people- haven't had a chance or much practice to celebrate patriotic events through a state, so why are we getting so wound up with us celebrating 1916? I mean in England they wear the poppy at a time, they celebrate jubilees of the queen, the industrial revolution, anniversaries of wars, all as part of a service to the nation, as building a binding national identity, and they have been doing such things for centuries.

Those wars of England weren't all that just, nor the Industrial revolution...............so why can't we just get on with it and celebrate 1916!! Wouldn't it be prudent to do so?

In addition, our debate on the value of 1916 or its celebration reveals the post-colonial condition of our nation and so the failure of the dream of 1916. For it was their dream that we would be a flourishing nation, with a fertile identity and an Irish view of the world and an Irish-made Ireland and that essentially the art and practice of building identity would become second nature to us again as it is for nations without a colonial experience.

That's why the debate pains me. Its like our self-respect is massively at stake if we don't celebrate it adequately, perhaps we could emphasise their vision of a just and flourishing Ireland in the celebration, over everything else.

[halfirishandproud]

Dear Irishconfederate,

I agree i consider myself Indian-Irish
I Love Both Of these Nations but i have to add that i Love Ireland Much More
I View Images of Ireland on Google and i hope to visit Ireland One Day Its So Beautiful.

Tell me do you know of Any way i can support Ireland From Here.

The Church i Go To Every Sunday Is Called St.Patrick
Which Church Do You go 2

[halfirishandproud]

Dear Irishconfederate,

Could You please enlighten me about what happened on 1916 ?

What is your real name irishconfederate ?

[halfirishandproud]

Dear Iroshconfederate and Young Ireland,

Thank you so much for all your help you guys are the best .

[halfirishandproud]

Dear Irishconfederate,

Please Forgive My Previous Spelling Mistakes
The Reason For Those Spelling Mistakes Was Because I was hammered.

It Would Please You To know that the people who are aware of thier Irish Ancestory here keep The Irish tradition in Mind We Celebrate The same festivals .

We Also Use The Same Slang And Vocabulary.

We have a community here in India Known As The Irish Indians You can look it up .ts on wikipedia . But Those Statistics Of Only 15,000 + is wrong our government does not bother taking a Irish Indian Census.
There are more than 1,50,000 Of Us Irish Indians Here And i interact with many Irish Indians to help them help others find out about thier Irish Ancestory .

[irishconfederate]

Dear halfirishandproud,

That's amazing.........I checked out that Wikipedia page.

And its incredible to think you use the same slang and vocabulary.

I'm not sure if its ok to do this on here but perhaps we should continue our discussion by e-mail.

Here's an alias email I just set up

[e-mail]

If you email that we can chat, I set up the alias so I don't put my main email address up for sensible reasons.

Take care

[pugio]

Oct 25, 2015 7:01:19 GMT irishconfederate said:

Hello,

Can I say I have been reading this thread with regard to 1916 and I would like to express my views on the subject.

It pains me to read when 1916 is not celebrated in writings I read because I think 1916 was so much a part of de Valera's Ireland and de Valera's Ireland was such a great time for my family. For me de Valera's Ireland was a springtime for families like my own who came from the inner city in Dublin and on seeing photos of de Valera in Galway's Eyre Square unveiling that -in my opinion- beautiful statue of -I just googled-Padraic O'Conaire, I realised that this springtime of celebrating ones own self and identity unashamedly was happening everywhere. It was a period where the Irish Catholic people had peace in their souls and being unknown for centuries.

However, as a Catholic in my gut I have misgivings with 1916. I see celebrating it has huge potential to lead people away from Christ. And I see too much glory in the actual event for me to really believe its of the highest spiritual/moral path. I see to many parallels in the Gospels, the Jewish peoples choice of the "nationalist" Barabbas over Christ, the "nationalism" of the elders when they worried about their nation and prophesied that it was better for one man to die then the nation perish, and the presence of the Zealots as an other path, etc.

I wonder, was that the reason the crowd chose Barabbas?

It's an interesting thought. Not least because Christ was probably seen by some as a nationalist rabble-rouser Himself. This was incorrect, though He certainly kept some very shady company.

It has been suggested that the reason the Jewish leadership conspired against our Lord was because they feared His provocative claims about himself would encourage a hopeless rebellion against Roman rule among ordinary Jews, leading to the destruction of the nation. Were they wrong?

[Young Ireland]

I've started up a new blog that people here might be interested in. My first post, given the week that's in it, is about the 1916 Rising. Feel free to comment on it either here, or on the blog itself:

youngirelandsblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/1916-rising-was-not-pro-life.html

[maolsheachlann]

Congratulations on the new blog, Young Ireland. I hope it is a success.

In your maiden post, you complain about the promotion of the Rising in schools through providing a copy of the flag and the Proclamation. You say: "Surely the whole function of school is to broaden people's minds, not to push a one-sided view of history such as we have seen over the last few months, especially at the expense of the taxpayer." Isn't this the same argument people make to push religious instruction out of schools? I agree that you should teach a questioning attitude and broad-mindedness, but I don't think scrupulous neutrality in education is possible or even desirable. There has to be some point of departure at least.

I don't personally have a position on whether the Rising was justified or not. I think it's an open question. But it's interesting to me how different people have different perceptions of media and political bias. My father takes any questioning of the Rising as pure revisionism and wrote a rather entertaining ballad entitled 'The Brits of RTE' lamenting it. I thought there was plenty of criticism and discussion. In fact, I think Ireland has finally come to a mature assessment of the Rising, beyond jingoism and revisionism.

Your claim that Home Rule had been achieved is also something that I think is open to question. The Bill may have been passed but there was no guarantee it would have been enacted, and plenty of reason to doubt it given previous history.

[pugio]

My own cynicism about the commemorations was confounded actually. The weekend was lovely, well orchestrated, and generally struck just the right tone.

I wish you good luck with your blog, Young Ireland, though I'm struggling to see much evidence of the simplistic and jingoistic presentations of the Rising that you are worried about. I admit I haven't been following the coverage religiously, but it really seems to me that most contemporary reflection is quite balanced. Even the most positive presentations seem to be informed by a certain awareness of the moral ambiguities involved. Certainly, criticising the Rising hardly qualifies as courageous at this point. That has been a well-worn theme in Irish public discourse for decades now.

You may be right that there is more criticism from Catholic quarters than in the past. But I suspect this reflects a growing awareness of the potential tensions between national and religious commitments, now that Catholicism has ceased to be a popular marker of Irish identity, rather than a sudden and erratically applied interest in just war theory.

[maolsheachlann]

Apparently there is a recognised phenomenon called 'hostile media effect'. I know Young Ireland wasn't only talking about the media, but the same thing might apply. (And not just to him, but to all of us.)

I sometimes read commenters on the Irish Times or the Journal.ie or Politics.ie complaining about the Irish media's bias in favour of the Catholic Church, and I feel gobsmacked, but this explains it.

[Young Ireland]

Mar 29, 2016 9:25:49 GMT maolsheachlann said:

Congratulations on the new blog, Young Ireland. I hope it is a success.

In your maiden post, you complain about the promotion of the Rising in schools through providing a copy of the flag and the Proclamation. You say: "Surely the whole function of school is to broaden people's minds, not to push a one-sided view of history such as we have seen over the last few months, especially at the expense of the taxpayer." Isn't this the same argument people make to push religious instruction out of schools? I agree that you should teach a questioning attitude and broad-mindedness, but I don't think scrupulous neutrality in education is possible or even desirable. There has to be some point of departure at least.

I don't personally have a position on whether the Rising was justified or not. I think it's an open question. But it's interesting to me how different people have different perceptions of media and political bias. My father takes any questioning of the Rising as pure revisionism and wrote a rather entertaining ballad entitled 'The Brits of RTE' lamenting it. I thought there was plenty of criticism and discussion. In fact, I think Ireland has finally come to a mature assessment of the Rising, beyond jingoism and revisionism.

Your claim that Home Rule had been achieved is also something that I think is open to question. The Bill may have been passed but there was no guarantee it would have been enacted, and plenty of reason to doubt it given previous history.

Thanks Maolscheachlann, I hope I don't disappoint.

I was mindful of the fact that my point could be used to secularise religion in schools, though I wasn't sure how to qualify it. I meant in a similar manner to the way that Catholic schools must now, I believe, teach their students about contraception, and the way some subjects, like Geography, are used to push a population control agenda. I think that the education system is better off not being involved in promoting nationalism, unless the school has a specifically Nationalist or Republican ethos.

To be fair, some criticism has been aired, but the positive interpretations far outweigh the negative in my view. Maybe that's to be expected, but I had hoped for more balance than there has been. As for Home Rule, I accept that the National Unity government may have been less willing to advance Home Rule, but I think that the Rising certainly made them much less accommodating to nationalist demands than they might have been.

[assisi]

Mar 28, 2016 21:29:26 GMT Young Ireland said:

I've started up a new blog that people here might be interested in. My first post, given the week that's in it, is about the 1916 Rising. Feel free to comment on it either here, or on the blog itself:

youngirelandsblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/1916-rising-was-not-pro-life.html

Young Ireland, good luck with the new blog.

Your reference to John Hume as an exemplar of peaceful political achievement is fitting. Indeed his house was attacked more than a few times at the height of the troubles so what he stood for put him and his family in a difficult position. However a great part of what he achieved in laying the groundwork for the Good Friday agreement involved helping to bring Sinn Fein and the IRA to the discussions table. So the element of violence, or the threat of it, was always there. Indeed you could say that, consequently, the threat of violence that came from the IRA (and of course Loyalism and the British forces) ultimately won out in that Sinn Fein and DUP have prospered at the expense of the SDLP and Ulster Unionists ever since.

Ironically, it could be said that Hume's SDLP sacrificed a large element of their party's future success in order to achieve peace (by helping to bring Sinn Fein in from the cold).

[maolsheachlann]

I don't think schools should promote nationalism, either. The question is then, what's promoting nationalism? Is teaching traditional Irish music, dance, mythology etc. promoting nationalism? I think it's reasonable for schools here to give those things a special emphasis.

Personally I am very squeamish about inculcating any kind of ideology on children or teenagers. I don't even like seeing children at rallies or demonstrations, including those with which I agree.

Of course, I am not talking about passing on the faith to children here. That is very important. But even there I think that, if it is done in a heavy-handed way, it can easily backfire.