Posted on 12/16/2005 2:00:59 PM PST by northmoor
Those of us in the south of Ireland have, for the most part (drunken singsongs excepted!), left it behind. Those in Northern Ireland lived under a corrupt Unionist hegemony until the early 70s and a paramilitary war from 1969 until the mid-90s. There is a huge amount of bitterness on both sides of the cultural divide in Northern Ireland, and its going to take some time for the wounds to heal. Britain and Ireland have a very close relationship now, economically and culturally, and most of the residual bitterness will heal in time, providing things continue to progress in the north.
This was mere weeks after the world saw those horrific newsreels of the liberation of the death camps with piles of bodies.
And bear in mind that during the Second World War, relations between Dev and the US embassey was very strained, while relations with the Nazi embassey was good!
I like that idea!!
I'll tell you guys a funny story.
In the early 80's i was an army officer stationed in Germany. We frequently went to Grafenowoehr and Hohenfels to train. A fellow officer in my battalion was of Irish descent.
One day we all went to the officer's club for a brewski after a hard couple of weeks of training in the field. There was a British artillery regiment also training and their officers were at the club also.
This idiot in our battalion starts yelling all sorts of obscenities about the queen of England. Naturally, I don't really care one way or the other about the "royals" (they seem like attention starved spoiled people who really need to get a life...but I digress...), but I sure wasn't going to be put in the position of defending a brother officer of my battalion in a knock down bar fight for trying to antagonize the Brits. So we told him to either shut up or we would join with the Brits in giving him an a$$ kicking.
He shut his mouth.
Had DeValera not held Collins back the way he did (and then had him murdered) we might see a much different Ireland today. Collins was a giant amongst men, DeValera a mere insect.
The bullet that changed history.
Better watch out for Sean Dillon.
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