IRA and Germany in WW2

[shergar]

thank you phylo roadking

joolz can i have some of what you are taking the irish republican army of the 1940 s was not in any way marxist if any thing it was pro german as the doctorine was "my enemies enemy is my friend " thats all it was , not a love for the germans it was just an opportunity to take on england at a vunerable time ,

marxist ideology did not appear until the 1960 s under leaders like a nd b and in response to this the irish government and catholic church aided the growth of the pira to counter this as marxism and indeed communism was seen as an anathma to every one catholic, protestant , irish, british , republican or loyalist , we have enough names labelled at us but please refrain from the dogma of marxism, the stickies of the late 60s and 70s followed some marxist ideologies but lined their own pockets through robberies and building scams and milked the eastern germans and russians of monetary support to supp it all in their drinking dens .

irish republicanism is about freedom from england s rule not marxism nor hatred off the english as some would portray it and thankfully our differences are being settled through talking now between the sides

[sid guttridge]

Hi Shergar,

I seem to remember that there was an internal struggle within the IRA leadership (much of it then imprisoned in the South) during the war between those who wanted to pursue a purely nationalist course, and had some ideological sympathy with Nazism, and others who wanted to adopt a more socialist approach and showed some ideological sympathy in that direction. If I remember rightly (and I may not, so please correct me) it was the outcome of WWII that started elements of the IRA on a Marxist path.

As you point out, the motive behind both leanings was essentially pragmatic - the better to be able to finish the job of driving remaining British rule out of Ireland.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. What do you think of the current discussion about stopping Irish atlases using of "British Isles" to cover both Britain and Ireland and all the smaller isles around them?

[shergar]

hi sid in response to your post

i agree that the term british isles should be completely erased from comtempory irish maps as this was a recent name given to the collection of islands ,
firstly ireland is a nation in its own right amongst other nations and had contributed much to the growth of america and england and the other nations on that island ,

when men like my grandfather were sold out by the free staters in the 1920s these men in the northern divisions of the ira were gutted , they had fought hard and their families had suffered terribly and continued to suffer under unionist rule that decreased the nationalist population from 42% to 33% by the 1960 s cathloics were discriminated in jobs and we were not permitted to speak our language in the street nor call our selves irish we were simply british citizens and that was that no further discussion .
i hated being called british as i grew up as i knew differently my heart my mind my very essence my soul knew i was gaelic and proud , it was very hard growing up and not feeling hatred for the crimes that were committed upon my country men and women by the state and its loyalist paramilitaries and to be honest i felt very embittered but as ive grown ive realised that even in evil there resides good , the people in the north both catholic and protestant really in essence have a lot more in common with each other than they realise and like in my grandfathers day people were divided i think there is a realisation that a recognition of the two nationalities within the country is a step forward for us all .i also acknowledge that we within the irish nation committed crimes against our protestant neighbours and that cannot be justified as two wrong s do not make a right

as for marxism i think that it was simply just a grasping at straws from people like o riordan and company to try and introduce a type of political movement that was an alternative to catholic / protestant politics , it failed and the ira that embraced these politics never achieved any thing except that when they died they were all buried from the catholic church and in catholic graveyards marxism and communism is a red herring in ireland always has been is now and will always be ,

[redcoat]

hi sid in response to your post

i agree that the term british isles should be completely erased from comtempory irish maps as this was a recent name given to the collection of islands ,

The term British Isles is not a recent name. The Romans used a similar term for the islands 'Britannia'.
In modern use it dates back to maps produced on the Continent during the 16th century. The first reference in English dates back to a 1621 map.

What is recent, is the use of the term British to refer only to the part of the British Isles known as United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland.

As a matter of interest, what are they supposed to be called if not the British Isles

[shergar]

the term british isles is a recent term in our history

the romans referred to the brittanic isles as in reference to the brittanic peoples that inhabitted the islands however ireland was called hibernia and scotland caladonia , northern ireland is part of ireland its part of the island of ireland not part of a british mainland , just because it was annexed in 1921 like estonia lithanua or latvia where annexed in the 1930 s by stalin does not mean that it belongs to the aggressor , any how the situation now days witnesses a progressive british government dis engagement from the north of ireland and increased engagement from the republic of ireland which eventually will lead to a unified country just as night turns to day and as east germany under the rule of the communist russians was reunified with the west of the country ,
not all aspects of british rule in the north have been negetative and terrible as there is no point in being dishonest people here enjoyed a comfortable degree of living with high standards of education and medical care but a slave is never happy even in a good home until he is free

now back to the ira and marxism in the 30 s 40 s 50 s 60 s and 70 s the people that lead these factions did not amount to very much although there were cases of some of them working with the north koreans printing and distributing american 100 dollar bills and circulating them for years throughout ireland and beyond apparently they were indistinugishable from the real thing , one prominant left wing stickie was inplicated inthis and the american authorities have tried to get him extradited to face charges , but in reality as ive said before marxism/ communism are red herring in anything to do with any thing to do with ireland germany or even closer to hand in recent history as the people both catholic and protestant although at each others throats had no time for goddlessness
i know this appears bizzare but it appears to be the truth

[shergar]

sorry redcoat i forgot to answer the last part of your question about what the islands should be called

well you are free to choose what you like to call them

i for one will refer to them as ireland , england scotland wales and cornwall that way i respect their respective nationalities

my regards to you

[sid guttridge]

Hi Shergar,

As I understand it, the word "Britain" has its roots in a Celtic word for the appearance of the white cliffs of what is now Dover.

When the Romans accepted what was probably a pre-existing Celtic name for them, the British Isles were all inhabited by Celtic peoples related to the Irish. And, as you pointed out, this did not preclude different parts of the British Isles carrying their own names down to this day.

It is not therefore some imperialist English invention. The English arrived in something called the British Isles some 500 years at least after they had already been so named, probably by Celts related to the Irish.

It seems rather pointless to quibble over the name given its origins and its long apolitical usage.

If the collective name for this geographically distinct collection of islands off the north-west coast of Europe is not to be "British Isles", what else is being suggested to Irish atlas publishers?

Cheers,

Sid.

[shergar]

hi sid

i think whats being debated is that the isles are given their distinct names

ie ireland for one and the united kingdom for the other

what they decide to call any other island other than ireland has absolutely no relevence to me to be honest , the angles that arrived and from which england received its modern day name came circa 500 ad in small groups to protect the romano-celtic peoples who were no longer able to defend their shores against sea raiding peoples and eventually a subsequent migration of vast numbers arrived on those shores were the angles and jutes established kingdoms for themselves .

but other than this i hope we can close this matter and if you want you can pm me about ireland i really dont want to get my eye of the ball here either which i have done , the irish were not pro german nor pro marxist more truthful and to the point they rallied to englands cause and served with distinction in the different threaters of war , my own grand father lost a generation of friends in ww1 to the slaughter in the trenches , my grandmother lost a brother and nephews in ww2 my grand father on fathers side was an arp warden and worked building ships for combat .ireland is an enigma families that were long steeped in republicanism sent sons to fight while other sons were interned by the authorities , it still puzzles me even thought i see similar situations nowdays .

[phylo_roadking]

Shergar, i think we'd better clear up something for the general viewers lol the popular name "Stickies" refers nowadays to the rump of the "old" IRA after the Provisional IRA developed. Basically - in the mid- to late '60s and into the 1970s, with the breakdown of law and order here in Northern Ireland, - despite appeals from the Catholic community to the IRA who in the North had long styled themselves as defenders of the Catholic minority....they were unable to. Through the 1960s the movement HAD moved away from violence and into "legitmate" politics, albeit certainly more left-wing than pure Socialism, and verging very much on revolutionary Leninism-Bolshevism. So despite keeping up some drilling, training and importing of arms, the IRA in Northern Ireland were completely unable - and apparently to some extent unwilling - to act as "defenders of the people". Hence the younger members of the organisation, more steeped in their formative movement years therefore in politics, split off to form the "Provisional" IRA Hence the old split not unstandable to many people outside of Ireland of an "Official" IRA - the old group - and the new, very militant "Provisional" IRA.

After this split, there was a further split; the Official IRA divided into a very small but increasingly political organisation, colloquially known as the "Stickies".....some say its its because they stuck to their old revolutionary but non-Marxist politics, some that the only weapons they had were hurley sticks! lol......and what is now the Worker's PArty, a very left-wing politcal party that has been known by several names over the last 30 years. For the English people reading this...think of the number of different names the Liberal Party has had over the last 25 years!!!

Meanwhile - the Provisional IRA continued its armed struggle, and their political organisation became more Marxist-Leninist, in the sense of how it was organised, how the armed struggle dovetailed with the politcal etc. In fact, if anything it was very openly Maoist for several decades, in the way it resided in the community and both supported armed revolutionary cells AND a grass-roots politcal movement.

Regarding the name Britain.....When the Romans arrived - after being in contact after all with the Britons for MANY years - remember, Odysseus and co. even encounter what is identifiably these islands in Homer's Odyssey!!! And in ancient times provided 94% of the world's tin for alloying with copper to produce bronze. Anyway - the locals styled themselves the Brythonic peoples, referring basically to the Celtic civilisation inhabiting all of the mainland up to the line from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Above that it was predominantly Pict, the earlier inhabitants of much of the island. The generic name comes from there - Brythonia.

S., Its been years since I covered this stuff, its been years since QUB, but I think the Irish Gaels are the SECOND-from-last invasion wave that passed through the islands , the most Western outlayer of all those historical migrations. They were historically the THIRD to enter Ireland - after the VERY hazy Tuatha and Fomorians - but they were essentially the people driven there or rolled over the top of on the mainland when the Brythonic Celts arrived in England from the continent about 400BCE Thats why Gaelic isnt QUITE the same as Scottish Gallic, Cornish, Breton - and the British Celtic submerged under the Welsh in the Mabinogion.

The Bretons were the ones who stayed on the mainland of Europe, when the rest of the Brythonic Celts went to.....well, over the Channel LOL Scottish gallic speakers are the Scottii from Northern Ireland who migrated BACK to the mainland and Scottish Islands during the Dark Ages, founding the remarkably successful Kingdom of Dalriada using the North Channel the way the Romans used the Mediterranean. Hence the peaceful environment that Celtic Christians and monks enjoyed until the Vikings arrived - it was under the auspices of a really quite stable nation-state for a while hidden away in the back-of-beyond during the Dark Ages. The Scots later displaced the remaining Picts entirely and the rest is history.......

Further South, after the Angles, Jutes, Saxons etc. cut Mainland Britain in two, the Brythonic Celts fnd themselves sundered - the South-West, Devon and Cornwall, retaining a separate identity for centuries. Were you aware there was a very violent resistance movement there as late as Henry VIII and Elizabeth I??? And traces of THAT stayed around even longer - look at the clan violence in Lorna Doone on Exmoor, or even the fact that the Duke of Monmouth declared his rebellion there and was able to rally considerable "native" support.

And the Welsh - why are they different? noone really invaded them successfully OR subdued them until the end of Owain Glendywr's revolt. They may have started to be Anglicised long before that, as far back as Edward I, but that huge rebellion showed it hadn't really taken. Anyway, the Romans never intruded very far into Wales, or very successfully, and although the Brythonic Celts were driven back into Wales, they were absorbed there VERY quickly. So the Welsh are the least "celtic" of all the peoples whose origins were all thrown into the melting pot around then.

The term "British Isles" may not be politically correct, but as it has to have a generic name its close, in the one sense that ALLthe islands have been onfluenced over the years by the rise and fall of those Brythonic Celts and what happened to them and where they all went; The United Kingdom comes a VERY close second, in that it totally reflects the present reality...given that NONE of the politcal rejigging under the Good Friday agreement ever came to pass. There's no Council of the Isles worth the name, no devolution again - yet, and in England.....when was the last time regional devolution was mentioned......? As long as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland get financed by England.... then its a United Kingdom under the Queen's head on the pound note LOL

[shergar]

hi phylo

once again ive enjoyed your post s

the subsequent invasions of ireland were as legend says were

the partholians , then the nemedians , then the tuatha de dannan , then the fir bolg then the formenans at the second battle of maigh tura the formenains and fir bolg "sack clothed men" were defeated by the army of the tuatha de dannan under the leadership of nauda airgid lamh and luaghaid of the long spear where breas the beautiful was killed the half blood of the tuatha who aligned himself with balor olc na suil " of the evil eye"
next came the gaelic invasion or the mileasians the sons of mil one of whom was amergin and from this invasion from the iberain penninsula our peoples arrived , until the 9th century ireland was relatively untouched by outside wars or conflict then came the viking the loughlin and the dubh

the fair haired warriors and the dark warriors in black leather hides they integrated into gaelic society with the defeat ofthe northern hodes on good friday 1014 ad by brian mac cinneide "boru" who died that fateful day to .

then came the norman under the invitation of the arch traitor dermott mac murrough cavannagh in may 1169 with knights and footmen this pathed the way for english interference in irelands affairs and the destruction of the irish /celtic church helped by nicholas breakspear pope adrain , years of struggle for gaelic survival lead to centuries ,.
like you said this all cuminated into the modern struggle in the late 60 s were the marxists stickies would not provide support forthe defence of the people , and from the ashes of the old ira was born the provisional ira "unbowed and unbroken" they were supplied by arms from the dublin authorities via the cdc catholic defense committees that apparently were set up with support of the catholic church and others , yes at first they did emulate the lenin/maoist poliicies of being at one with the people and striking at the enemy from the shelter of the people , as time went on they started to become alienated from the people but the hunger strikes and the way the prisoners were treated brought in much needed support and volunters into its ranks and swelled the organistion to bursting point , but as the years passed it appeared to be a mexican stand off neither side able to deal the final decisive blow until we have what we have now a limbo were acts of faith are required , all the decommissioning in the world will not stop thekilling as guns are useless inert objects its whats in the hearts of people and the actions of people that kills , but regardless of this i believe in the peace process and firmly support it and believe in policing and that we have a shared future as for a united ireland phylo it will come in time and i will welcome it until then i shall wait and respect the views of others and try to understand were they are coming from and as for money with or without the queens head i shall spend it and enjoy myself and shall buy you a cup off coffee when we meet , your posts are always well read and informative as are many others on this forum

my regards to all off you mairtin

[sid guttridge]

Hi Phylo,

Once again you are inventing facts and delving pseudo-scientific nonsense.

No. There is absolutely nothing identifiable about the British Isles in the Odyssey and he wasn't Roman, he was Greek. The first plausible Mediterranean contact with the British Isles is by neither of these peoples, but by the Phoenecians.

No, No. The Bretons weren't "the ones who stayed on the mainland of Europe". They were migrants from Cornwall to what is now Brittany after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Must go, library closing.

Sid.

[shergar]

hi sid your actually correct the first plausdable contact with these isles was the phoenecians looking for tin to make bronze and therefore to make weapons etc etc ,
they never discovered tin in ireland but apparently mined tin i cornwall once heard an interesting comment that on the 26th column on stone henge there is carved into it a greek type/ phoenecian dagger or short thrusting sword
corrrect me if im wrong in this , it may well be that these phoenecians where indeed the legendary formenians that arrived to our shores in the 5th and 6th centuries in search for mineral wealth i cant discount ,

the welsh or p celtic people like the bretons and cornish who are also p celtic peoples where pushed into wales by the subsequent roman invasions although a significant number assimilated with romano britain others who did not travelled to brittany and into wild wales .
we in ireland belong to q celtic peoples like the isle of man and scotland , in the year 570 approx king fergus lead his army from the kingdom off dialradia which stretches along the co antrim coast uop towards and past modern day ballycastle and invaded the kingdom of the calidonians and conquered the pictish and cruthanic peoples thus establishing the gaelic ascendancy in alba "scotland" and the development of the clann system like in ireland and the brehon laws , the scotti who lived in the kingdom of dalriadia gave their name to the kingdom of scotland .
therefore scotland was for many a year an extension of a kingdom in the north eastern part of ireland but over time became a gaelic nation in its own right with its own unique adminisrtative system ,
unfortunately the gaels where a very fragmented people and unity was not one of their strong points in the face of an enemy , thats a valuable lesson that the nazis learnt very quickly that the development of an effective 5th column to attack the british was a pipe dream and would not materialize as there was too much internal bickering and seperate agendas within the ira to look upon then for any type of help in the war against england

[sid guttridge]

Hi Shergar,

I think we shall learn a lot more about our Celtic ancestry as DNA analysis becomes more refined.

I think all the p- and q- Celtic stuff is derived from linguistic studies, as is the adjective "Brythonic". This is not what the people are thought to have called themselves at the time. Indeed, it is not clear that they had a self conscious collective identity at the time either as Britons or Celts.

I don't think we can currently disentangle many of the peoples from Celtic legend before about 500 AD and identify them firmly with peoples of historical record.

I think it was the Anglo-Saxon invasions, not the Roman, that drove Celtic culture and language back into Wales, Cornwall, then known as West Wales, and to what is now Brittany. Celtic language and culture survived under Roman rule to produce Romano-Britons like Arturus shortly after they left. It is from this root stock that the Welsh language is largely descended.

(For many years the only Welsh language programme on TV was called "Ffennestri", meaning windows. Its root was the Latin word "Fenestra" meaning "Window". Welsh, Cornish and Breton have large numbers of such Latin loan words not present in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.)

The Welsh, like the Cornish, were successfully conquered by the Romans, but their largely mountainous territory was sparsely populated and not as exploitable as what is now England. The Roman presence there was therefore less pervasive. (There is also evidence of Irish cranogs in south Wales, implying an Irish invasion there too after the Romans left).

Another peculiarity of recent years is that the oldest house remains so far dug up in Dublin have Anglo-Saxon features, not Viking. This opens up the possibility that the city was not a Viking foundation at all, but taken by them off Anglo-Saxons. Thin evidence so far, but time should tell whether this possibility has legs.

It is unlikely at this late stage that there any significant number of English without some Scots and Irish ancestry, any significant number of Scots without some Irish or Anglo-Saxon ancestry, or any significant number of Irish without Anglo-Scots ancestry. Differences between us are largely in the mind, where culture, language, myth, folklore, propaganda, religion, etc., lie.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. I have a West Saxon surname associated with West Devon, my paternal line have lived in Cornwall for at east 500 years, I have an essentially Celtic look, and Cornish is the ethnicity that I consider basically describes me. One grandmother's surname was Norman in origin. My other grandmother was born in Cork. Further back we have the Scottish surname Finlay. I don't know of any Welsh connection, but there are almost inescapably several. (Does banking with Lloyds Bank since the 1880s and my mother being for a while the secretary of the local Welsh Society count?).

I would suggest that my situation is similar to that of virtually everyone in the British Isles, (or whatever else people may choose to call them), whose family has been here for more than 50 years. To some degree or other our mixed ancestry, traceable or not, makes us all Britons, even if the adjective "British" has too much historical baggage for the Irish, in particular, to find acceptable.

[phylo_roadking]

Sid, things must have changed terribly then since I did my joint honours in Dark Age and Medieval History. Crannogs are not "irish" theyre actually found all over the "British Isles" (sorry S!), they just happen to be found in greater number in Ireland as a defensive option. The terrain provides more "debatable" land for occupation but requiring defensive works...and more lakes, crannogs for the use of. In turn, in the rest of the island, we have a higher percentage of ring forts per measured area than mainland Britain.

Brittany DID benefit from a great influx of Romano-British from the late 5th century onwards, but this is recognised as a returning-home after an early diaspora nowadays, the then-Bretons having become to an extent romanised in the intervening centuries, just like the Romano-British.

By the way, in my post I never said Odysseus was Roman, I believe?? I did say that as early as Homer The British Isles are mentioned in literature. The Phoenicians were not the first to arrive in Britain looking for bronze, they were flowing earlier tentative trade routes set up by the Beaker People of the southern Iberian penisula and the Balearics, one of Westen Europe's earliest trading nations as is now recognised. The Phoenicians did not intrude very far into the island, they found a trading system moribund but already in place, bringing the tin to them.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Phylo,

Indeed, crannogs are widespread, but that at Llangorse, for example is post-Roman and reminiscent of similar Irish royal constructions.

There was no "Brittany" or "Bretons" until Britons migrated there in the immediate post-Roman period. (From memory, was it not the Venetii who lived there at the time of Caesar's conquest?)

You wrote, "When the Romans arrived - after being in contact after all with the Britons for MANY years - remember Odysseus and co. even encounter what is identifiably these islands in Homer's Odyssey!!!". This is obscure and misleading on several levels, not least because the inference may reasonably be drawn that Odysseus was Roman.

Cheers,

Sid.