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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2013 20:38:44 GMT
Here is the Politics.ie thread on the rally, which has posts both from people who were on the march and from pro-choice demonstrators. (One of the latter, I notice, calls himself "Ramon Mercader" - i.e. the Stalinist hitman who killed Trotsky. What a lovely choice of name - not that I have any time for Trotsky. Maybe he should call himself Otto Skorzeny; it would be equally appropriate.) Some stuff of interest if you are prepared to wade through it all, and once you get used to the you said-they-said playpen insults that are very frequent on Politics.ie A couple of them reference posts on this thread, including a certain Cellach who apparently thinks Hibernicus is "good crack". Thanks. www.politics.ie/forum/events/212743-pro-life-rally-6th-july-2013-parnell-square-dublin-2-00pm.html
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Post by Young Ireland on Jul 6, 2013 20:42:10 GMT
The pro-abort sites are claiming the march was dominated by elderly people. There were quite a lot of elderly people but I was also impressed by the number of young people including couples with young children. What I will say is that it seemed predominantly working-class and rural, which may reflect the YD ethos (several county flags were on display and Donegal in particular seemed very well represented; I met a Cork pro-lifer whom I know personally). The stewards seemed to want to keep us shouting slogans all the time, which IMHO is not very satisfying; a few basic songs (e.g. A Nation Once Again or hymns) might have been more impressive, since even if only a minority knew them that would still have been an impressive volume of sound. After running the pro-abort gauntlet at the Spire we went across the bridge and through D'Olier Street to College Green, then along Nassau street and up into Kildare Street. The platform was opposite the Department of Industry & Commerce and Department of Agriculture buildings, with screens further down Kildare Street and in Molesworth Street. (If anyone is trying to gauge attendance by looking at photos of Kildare Street, they should note that in addition to the overflow into Molesworth Street and the backup of people making their way up from Parnell Square, quite a few people near the platform moved into Kildare Place for the shade and these might not be visible on photos of Kildare Street.) The speakers seem to have begun soon after the head of the march arrived (unlike the earlier Vigils in Merrion Square, where the speakers didn't begin until the square had filled up.) Eoghan de Faoite, Caroline Simons, Declan Ganley, Bernie Smyth and Niamh Ui Bhriain (Nic Mhathuna as was) made speeches. I hadn't realised Ganley had such an English tinge to his accent. There was also a woman called Harkin who described being advised to abort her daughter (now six years old) who has Edwards Syndrome; she spoke passionately of how wrong it was to describe such children as "incapable of life". This was the best speech IMHO, certainly the most moving. Mr Ganley also described how his wife turned down advice to abort a child who was diagnosd as possibly having problems, to explain how passionate he feels about the subject. Mattie McGrath was announced as being on the platform but he didn't speak. There were cheers for the rebel FG and SF TDs and also for Lucinda Creighton (I saw one sign reading "Don't Mind Enda, Follow Lucinda"). Niamh Ui B emphasised the pro-life pledge not to vote for FG again and spoke of building a pro-life alternative (she introduced five volunteers who gathered such pledges.) The sun was a real source of discomfort especially for older people. It broke up about 5 and a lot of people headed for buses on Nassau Street. There were a couple of pipers and drummers on the march. I noticed a group of people flying the old gold harp-on-a-green background flag with Eire Go Brach on it (there were four flags, two of which were upside down). There used to be a fringe group of that name but I know very little about them and hadn't heard of their being active lately, so I'm not sure was it them or just a coincidence. BTW Niamh Ui Bhriain spoke of repeated attacks on YD headquarters (their bins were set on fire yesterday apparently) and of women who work in their offices receiving death threats and rape threats. Will our lamestream media who so lovingly index every item of hatemail received by pro-PLP TDs (and I condemn all such hatemail whoever it is directed towards) pay any attention to this? No they will not! I wouldn't recommend that A Nation Once Again be sung anyway, as that would play into the hands of those who wish to portray us as hypocritical republicans. Ganley's speech does appear impressive, I agree with you on that. The Eire Go Brach flag is actually quite popular amongst Republicans (I have seen it fly outside homes around North Kerry). I think that the movement that Hib refers to has long since disbanded or changed its name: we would have heard of them during the Children's Rights referendum otherwise. I agree that the abuse directed towards emebers of YD is absolutely appalling and to be condemned out of hand, no matter what their view on abortion.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2013 20:58:11 GMT
A Nation Once Again is not the sole possession of ultra-republicans and has some nice comments on the need for virtue among the citizenry. It was also written by a Protestant patriot, who was respected by contemporaries of every persuasion (I've studied the period a bit myself and it's quite remarkable how much he was respected on a personal level by Tory and Whig Unionists, by ultra-Catholics, by all sorts of people who disagreed with his views):
It whispered too that freedom's ark And service high and holy Would be profaned by feelings dark And passions mean or lowly For Freedom comes from God's right hand And needs a godly train And righteous men will make our land A nation once again.
That is a lesson we all should take to heart.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jul 6, 2013 21:02:57 GMT
A Nation Once Again is not the sole possession of ultra-republicans and has some nice comments on the need for virtue among the citizenry. It was also written by a Protestant patriot, who was respected by contemporaries of every persuasion (I've studied the period a bit myself and it's quite remarkable how much he was respected on a personal level by Tory and Whig Unionists, by ultra-Catholics, by all sorts of people who disagreed with his views): It whispered too that freedom's ark And service high and holy Would be profaned by feelings dark And passions mean or lowly For Freedom comes from God's right hand And needs a godly train And righteous men will make our land A nation once again. That is a lesson we all should take to heart. Of course it isn't but this is what the media and probably much of the pro-choice lobby think. The fact that it is most associated with the Wolfe Tones doesn't help either. Agreed on the last bit though.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2013 21:09:06 GMT
BTW despite Mr "Mercader's" obvious bias - I know of at least one Ph.D. on the march, so who are you calling slack-jawed idiots, Mr Assassin - note that he admits that there were significant numbers of Africans and Asians on the march. I'm afraid this admission makes his claim (expanded in later posts) that he personally witnessed some marchers using racist language in arguments with the pro-choice demonstrators somewhat more credible. I might add that his fellow demonstrators did not exactly look or sound like voices of sweet reason, or anything else either sweet or reasonable: EXTRACT Today, 09:14 PM #587 Ramon Mercadar Join Date May 2006 Posts 4,498 Some of the lifers used racist abuse against coloured people on the counter-demo which was bizarre as there were a considerable number of Africans & Asians, including priests & nuns on the Lifer demo.
As well as many children being present,it looked as if nursing homes for the elderly, institutions for slack jawed idiots, psychiatric hospitals and prisons had been emptied to build the march.
The lot below picked an appropriate backdrop. END
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2013 21:13:54 GMT
On A NATION ONCE AGAIN - fair enough. The fact that I am old enough to have learned it by heart in primary school (dates me a bit, I fear) may influence my attitude towards the song. I still think it's a good robust marching song and belongs to all of us and never mind the Wolfe Tones.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2013 21:18:46 GMT
I'm surprised to hear of republicans using the green harp flag as it was associated with the old Irish Parliamentary Party (though that may have been forgotten now). I suspect it may have been re-imported from Irish-America where it doesn't have such associations. Justin Barrett and some of his fascist friends tried to promote the green harp flag as representing a specifically Catholic Ireland because it doesn't have the orange element as the tricolour does. (Of course it could equally be argued that the harp flag represented the old Kingdom of Ireland, Protestants included, as distinct from the republican tricolour.) Justin's misuse of it makes me regard its contemporary use with some suspicion, I'm sorry to say.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 6, 2013 22:59:15 GMT
Was amused that the MC's got a version of The Wild Rover going, but changed to "I will never vote Fine gael again". Then on the way out of the rally saw a group of pro-life Fine gael people (as their banner proclaimed them) looking rather bemused.
Saw one counter-demonstrator on O'Connell Street shouting in reponse to chants of "pro-life", "Liars! You don't care!". With enemies like these, who needs friends? In a sane world, that is.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 6, 2013 23:13:30 GMT
Regarding "A Nation Once Again", I remember as a kid being so baffled by the line, "our fetters rent in twain". The only words I understood in that line were "our" and "in". I like the song, the lyrics are accomplished.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 7, 2013 14:27:54 GMT
One little detail - as I was heading up towards Parnell Square for the demo I saw an elderly man in green standing by himself on the traffic island some distance down from the pro-choicers (i.e. further north, towards Parnell Square). He was holding a placard which read on one side HITLER WAS A CATHOLIC BUT NOT A CATHOLIC FASCIST DICTATOR and on the other NO-ONE'S LIFE IS SAFE IN SATANIC CATHOLIC IRELAND. Later on as the procession was moving down along O'Connell Street I saw a couple of marchers arguing with this man, again up on the traffic island. Admittedly quite a wide range of lunatics can be found in our own dear country if you look hard enough, but I suspect this gentleman was affiliated with the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, who are devoted to the principle that God has chosen them to preach the Gospel worldwide in order that humanity may be justly damned for rejecting it. Although their principal preoccupation is revealed in the name of their web homepage, godhatesfags.com, they have also set up an anti-Catholic site entitled Priests Rape Boys, and have been paying particular attention to Ireland in recent years for reasons too painful for us to need to be reminded of them. The "satanic Catholic IReland" sign is very like some of the slogans they have been using recently. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church I mention this person because some of the haters on other discussion sites have been claiming he was part of the pro-life march. Clearly he wasn't or he would have been up at Parnell Square - he was just there to provoke and cause trouble.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 7, 2013 14:59:18 GMT
Oh, and just before I go, here's another example of how those brave, sensitive pro-choicers would NEVER resort to death threats which - so our lamestream media inform us by implication - are only produced by those EEEVUL pro-lifers: www.politics.ie/forum/events/212743-pro-life-rally-6th-july-2013-parnell-square-dublin-2-00pm-86.htmlEXTRACT Today, 12:08 PM #856 LamportsEdge Join Date Jan 2012 Posts 12,695 Another chance missed. A few machine-guns and we could have raised the nations IQ in less than half an hour. Will that do? To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. END I'm sure the Marines will be so relieved to hear it.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 7, 2013 15:02:09 GMT
The first placard you quote baffles me. What point do you think he was making with the second clause? Why not just leave it at "Hitler was a Catholic"?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 8, 2013 8:39:48 GMT
Re: the Wolfe Tones and 'A Nation Once Again', I recall what a work colleague said about Sinn Féin: they think they own the tricolour. Hibernicus is right to say that the sort of nationalist philosophy in schools between independence and the troubles was flawed - it was deeply flawed. So was much of the reaction against it through the troubles. I recall Hibernicus once emphasising a 'culture first' strategy among Irish Catholic patriots (I use patriot rather than nationalist - the terms are not necessarily interchangeable, even if I would not personally reject the labels nationalist and republican myself. I am not republican in the same way as either Gerry Adams or Aodhán Ó Ríordáin or Fintan O'Toole are when they say so, meaning very different things). Abortion comes into this and we will have to confront several ignorami like the anti-lifer who would have machine gunned the march, to whom it never occured that he might raise the nation's I.Q. by turning the gun on himself first (to which I would suggest counselling, which he needs anyway even without suicide ideation).
Anyway - Thomas Davis. The first verse of "A Nation Once Again" illustrates a problem in the current culture. 'When boyhood's fire was in my blood, I read of ancient freemen; of Greece and Rome who bravely stood, three hundred men and three men' This of course refers to Leonides and the 300 Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae and Horatius Cocles and his two companions on the bridge at Rome. Well, the only connection a lot of people would make to the first is the film "300", the second is all but forgotten. This illustrates the different world's we are living in and why Hibernicus' "culture first" idea is so necessary and needs to be developed. Hate to disappoint the loner with gun fantasies on politics.ie, but it normally takes a stronger character and higher IQ to kick against the culture than to drift along with it.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 8, 2013 8:58:40 GMT
The first placard you quote baffles me. What point do you think he was making with the second clause? Why not just leave it at "Hitler was a Catholic"? This was a case of a dictator who happened to be Catholic. In reality he was neo-pagan.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 8, 2013 9:03:13 GMT
Well said, Alasdair. I think "culture first" could apply to a lot more than patriotism. I'm beginning more and more to see how cultural impoverishment makes people an easy prey for ideology, and for slavery to the idols of the day. This is not to suggest that culture is the same as morality or that you can't have highly cultured villains (of course you can, as history shows). But some acquaintance with poetry, philosophy, history, and the liberal arts in general tends to expand our worldview and our sense of awe, so that we are not simply "the flies of a summer's day" (to quote Burke's wonderful phrase). Specifically, scientific materialism and the crudest formula of liberalism become a lot less tenable when we develop our sense of the sublime, of the mysterious, and of the enigmatic nature of existence.
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