Post by Wasp on Apr 16, 2010 22:25:09 GMT
Republicans are twisting history
(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)
Unionists urgently need to stop republicans kidnapping Protestants!
This is not a warning about increased dissident terror attacks as the General Election campaign hits top gear.
It really pisses me off big time to see the way hardline republicans are hijacking the cause of Protestant nationalism.
They portray such Protestants as akin to Provo terrorists who butchered almost 3,000 people for the guts of a generation.
Take the recent so-called commemorations to mark the anniversary of the failed Easter Rising – the republican equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Militarily, the Rising was a complete balls-up. Captured republicans were spat upon by Dublin Catholics as they were marched to prison.
The daft decision to execute the leaders swung Irish opinion behind the rebels.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read the report from West Tyrone Sinn Féin's gathering in the Drumragh Old Graveyard. The event saw Provisional republicans gathered at the grave of Protestant poet Alice Milligan.
The rebel report noted: "On Saturday, Republicans assembled at the graveside of poet, playwright and Republican, Alice Milligan. The Cathaoirleach of the Milligan/Harte Sinn Féin Cumann, Sean Donnelly, chaired the commemoration.
"During his address, Donnelly reflected on the life of Alice Milligan, who was born into the Unionist tradition but became a strong advocate for Irish Republicanism.
"The Milligan/Harte Cumann is named jointly in memory of Alice Milligan and brothers Gerard and Martin Harte who were killed in action with Vol. Brian Mullin in August 1988.
"Veteran Republican James McElduff also attended the commemoration. James was interned in the 1950's and again in the 1970's and his father James (Senior) was a close personal friend of Alice Milligan."
What republicans seem to forget is that Alice was a separatist, who wanted a form of home rule government in Ireland similar to the current power-sharing Executive at Stormont.
She was helped by other Protestant separatists, such as her fellow author and poet Anna MacManus. Anna, from Ballymena in the heart of the Co Antrim Bible belt, used the pen name Ethna Carbery.
Together they launched the publications 'Northern Patriot' and 'Shan Van Vocht'.
They were pals of two other high-profile Protestant separatists – son of an army officer Roger Casement, who tried to stop the ill-fated Rising, and Douglas Hyde, who became the first Irish President.
Lisburn journalist Ernest Blythe, later a leading Blueshirt, also tried to put the brakes on the 1916 rebellion.
There is no difference between these Protestant patriots and those Unionists who prepared for an independent Ulster.
This was the aim of Carson's Provisional Government in 1912; Vanguard Unionist policy after Sunningdale in 1973, and the Ulster Clubs' agenda following the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985.
But for republicans to stain these Protestants' memories by trying to link them to sectarian IRA slaughter campaigns is nothing short of cultural ethnic cleansing.
Unionists need to stop their petty squabbling and reclaim the good names of bygone Protestant patriots.
How long will it be before republicans claim Ian Paisley Senior as a true Irish patriot for working with the Shinners?
(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)
Unionists urgently need to stop republicans kidnapping Protestants!
This is not a warning about increased dissident terror attacks as the General Election campaign hits top gear.
It really pisses me off big time to see the way hardline republicans are hijacking the cause of Protestant nationalism.
They portray such Protestants as akin to Provo terrorists who butchered almost 3,000 people for the guts of a generation.
Take the recent so-called commemorations to mark the anniversary of the failed Easter Rising – the republican equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Militarily, the Rising was a complete balls-up. Captured republicans were spat upon by Dublin Catholics as they were marched to prison.
The daft decision to execute the leaders swung Irish opinion behind the rebels.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read the report from West Tyrone Sinn Féin's gathering in the Drumragh Old Graveyard. The event saw Provisional republicans gathered at the grave of Protestant poet Alice Milligan.
The rebel report noted: "On Saturday, Republicans assembled at the graveside of poet, playwright and Republican, Alice Milligan. The Cathaoirleach of the Milligan/Harte Sinn Féin Cumann, Sean Donnelly, chaired the commemoration.
"During his address, Donnelly reflected on the life of Alice Milligan, who was born into the Unionist tradition but became a strong advocate for Irish Republicanism.
"The Milligan/Harte Cumann is named jointly in memory of Alice Milligan and brothers Gerard and Martin Harte who were killed in action with Vol. Brian Mullin in August 1988.
"Veteran Republican James McElduff also attended the commemoration. James was interned in the 1950's and again in the 1970's and his father James (Senior) was a close personal friend of Alice Milligan."
What republicans seem to forget is that Alice was a separatist, who wanted a form of home rule government in Ireland similar to the current power-sharing Executive at Stormont.
She was helped by other Protestant separatists, such as her fellow author and poet Anna MacManus. Anna, from Ballymena in the heart of the Co Antrim Bible belt, used the pen name Ethna Carbery.
Together they launched the publications 'Northern Patriot' and 'Shan Van Vocht'.
They were pals of two other high-profile Protestant separatists – son of an army officer Roger Casement, who tried to stop the ill-fated Rising, and Douglas Hyde, who became the first Irish President.
Lisburn journalist Ernest Blythe, later a leading Blueshirt, also tried to put the brakes on the 1916 rebellion.
There is no difference between these Protestant patriots and those Unionists who prepared for an independent Ulster.
This was the aim of Carson's Provisional Government in 1912; Vanguard Unionist policy after Sunningdale in 1973, and the Ulster Clubs' agenda following the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985.
But for republicans to stain these Protestants' memories by trying to link them to sectarian IRA slaughter campaigns is nothing short of cultural ethnic cleansing.
Unionists need to stop their petty squabbling and reclaim the good names of bygone Protestant patriots.
How long will it be before republicans claim Ian Paisley Senior as a true Irish patriot for working with the Shinners?