tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14394056.post114141064481239294..comments2023-11-02T11:41:07.541+00:00Comments on Liz McManus: 1916 Commemoration Should Honour all CombatantsLizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11714381258740193440noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14394056.post-51646865216996733762007-02-03T14:20:00.000+00:002007-02-03T14:20:00.000+00:00I think you should publish the poem you wrote abou...I think you should publish the poem you wrote about the walk on you blogAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14394056.post-1144232125396289932006-04-05T11:15:00.000+01:002006-04-05T11:15:00.000+01:00It is not, nor will it never be, possible to have ...It is not, nor will it never be, possible to have an equal celebration of the others who died during the period of the 1916 rising, if the main focus of the celebration is the 1916 rising, and the reading of the proclamation. There is an intellectual deceit in saying that commemorating them at the same time ends a commemorative apartheid. In fact it serves to emphasise the divisions that there are historically between the different sections of Irish History.<BR/><BR/>There are two competing legacies in Irish History as you rightly noted, namely physical force, and the constitutional movement. It is not possible to celebrate both, they were, and shall always be, diametrically opposed. Any attempt to meld them together is a deliberate attempt to bastardise history in order to make it fit a cosy conception of common will on the part of the people fighting for a free Ireland. <BR/><BR/>The methods that they used are everything. One side was committed to peaceful means, come what may. The other saw force and violence as the only way to get across their message. The irony of having the 1916 commemoration march down O'Connell Street should not go un-noted. As a nation we can choose to commemorate one side or the other. However the role of the state should not be to give a reading of history. The rising cannot ever be commemorated (a word which associates itself not just with remembrance, but also with celebration) alongside the constitutional movement, and those who also fought and died for Ireland in their tens of thousands at the Somme. They are mutually exclusive historical entities, and celebrating one can only ever be done to the detriment of the other, unless one seeks to re-write history.Stephen_Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15582003661448372723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14394056.post-1143067347355432032006-03-22T22:42:00.000+00:002006-03-22T22:42:00.000+00:00I commend your courage in raising this point of vi...I commend your courage in raising this point of view. It is worth considering.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14394056.post-1141417926003402732006-03-03T20:32:00.000+00:002006-03-03T20:32:00.000+00:00I don't agree that the 1916 events should be about...I don't agree that the 1916 events should be about commemorating loads of anonymous people, including the military, who are in any case dead for so long that almost no one alive today could remember them anyway. <BR/><BR/>I believe the events should be a celebration of <BR/><BR/>1. our (admittedly incomplete) attainment of national independence and self-determination;<BR/><BR/>2. our progression from being a monarch's subjects to being sovereign citizens;<BR/> <BR/>3. reclaiming the honourable name of republican from the abuses it has suffered over the past thirty-five or so years.<BR/><BR/>A bit like July 4th in the USA or July 14th in France. And we shouldn't be making any apology for the fact that history is red in tooth and claw.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com