Posted on 07/13/2010 10:24:53 AM PDT by Stayfrosty
The fate of Cork unionists 1919-1921
‘Introduction
In 1919 the Unionist community in County Cork was prosperous, numerous and committed in varying degrees to the Unionist cause. They had their own newspaper, held parades and maintained a complex social system. Yet by 1923 their community lay decimated, torn asunder by a campaign of murder and intimidation and forced into a supposedly “Free State” which did little to protect them. What brought about such cataclysmic changes? How was the campaign of murder conducted and for what reasons?’
http://www.reform.org/TheReformMovement_files/article_files/articles/cork.htm
‘A timely reminder of the Irish Republic’s brush with a kind of ethnic cleansing’
Most of those who left were either frightened by IRA attacks or unwilling to live in a state with a dominant Catholic ethos
By Fergal Keane
‘By the time I was a teenager, the Protestants of the republic were no longer regarded, by most of us anyway, as part of some strange aristocracy. Except among the wilder elements of republicanism there was little attempt to visit the sins of the Cromwellian past on the descendants of the original settlers. Yet in the years since the foundation of the state, the number of Protestants in the south had dwindled from 10 to 3 per cent of the total population. Most of those who left did so during the period described in The Story Of Lucy Gault, either frightened by IRA and vigilante attacks or unwilling to live in a state that would have a dominant Catholic ethos. In parts of County Cork, Protestants were subjected to a brutal campaign of sectarian violence. The ethnic cleansing of the Bandon Valley is one of the most odious chapters in our history, though I learned nothing about it at school. It took a Canadian academic, Peter Harte, to reveal the full savagery of the assault in his book The IRA And its Enemies.’
Speak it in a whisper: Irish ethnic cleansing
‘An attempt to retell the story of the murder and sacking of the Protestant family is still a taboo, writes Sarah Caden’
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/speak-it-in-a-whisper—irish-ethnic-cleansing-1200486.html
‘In 1989 the influential Dublin magazine Magill printed figures showing that between the census of 1911 – the last to precede the Treaty – and 1981, the Protestant population of the 26 Counties fell by 63%. The drop up to 1989 it estimated at 68%. The causes of this dramatic decrease – from 10% in 1911 to 3.4% in 1981 and about 2.5% by the late 1980s – were listed as “alienation from the ethos of the State, emigration, and, over latter decades, mixed marriages”. The Roman Catholic Church’s decree, backed by the Courts, that children in mixed marriages must be brought up as Roman Catholics, created “social and cultural apartheid” which “more often than not, heralded the end of the line for Protestant families”.4
...widespread intimidation and the burning of their properties. The single biggest drop in Protestant numbers, says the magazine, occurred between 1911 and 1926, when a third of the Protestant population left the State – and the main factor in forcing them out is nowhere mentioned by Dr. FitzGerald: widespread intimidation and the burning of their properties.
After the Nationalists obtained possession of the 26 Counties in 1921, the pogrom against Protestants resembled the massacre of 1641 under Phelim O’Neill and the mass murder of Protestants during the 1798 Rebellion, when the systematic extermination of Protestants became a contagious disease. Within three or four years 146,000 Protestants had to flee from the new Irish State. Many more were murdered before they could manage to escape. There were 30 Orange Lodges in the city of Dublin, four District Lodges, a City Grand Lodge, Trinity College Grand Lodge, and seven Preceptories. Within a few months not a single one of them had survived. The Irish Government commandeered the magnificent Orange Hall in Dublin and used it as a Post Office. Many Protestant churches were closed for want of a congregation; numerous others had to be amalgamated. As the 1920s progressed, the anti-Protestant sectarianism of the new State increased. A memorable instance was the attempt in 1925 to outlaw divorce – which the poet W.B. Yeats, then a member of the Irish Senate, described as “a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly offensive”.
http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=treatment
‘Until recently, there was discrimination against Protestants in the labour market of the Republic of Ireland. For example, Trinity College, although a Dublin University, was mainly attended by Protestants. (Even today it is a stronghold of Irish Unionism.) In many jobs, Trinity College was not accepted as a source of education, so applicants who had attended Trinity were automatically rejected. This had the effect of preventing most Protestants from applying for the jobs. There are other, more specific, cases of discrimination. For example county Clare library service was told by the Irish President, Eamonn de Valera, that it should employ a Catholic chief librarian. This discrimination meant that many Irish Protestants had to migrate to Northern Ireland or Britain to seek employment. This also contributed to the trend between 1926 and 1991.’
http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/protestants_1861_1991.html
‘Notice how there was no unionist civil war when Britain pulled out of 26 counties? There wouldn’t have been when Britain pulled out of all 32 either.’
Nope. Theere wasnt a civil war because the vast majority of Protestants lived in the northern six counties that Britain kept. Had they tried to give away all 32, all hell would have broken loose.
Well, I see no reason to respond to each and every one of your posts since they do not disprove what I have said. Oh, I am sure there were isolated incidences of murder against Protestants/unionists/former oppressors. Yet the real reason the Protestants/unionists/former oppressors left Southern Ireland is that they wanted to.
Protestants are still there and fully share in society. Their numbers recently increased by 19% believe it or not. That might be specifically the Methodist Church, however. I am sure most of those people are former Catholics who want to live like liberals rather than traditional Christians, however.
The cries of ethnic cleansing are silly at best. Take for instance the banning of divorce in the 1920s. That was bantied about as an anti-Protestant move. Perhaps that’s more telling about the failure of Protestant marriages at that time than anything else.
The truth be told the movement of Protestants/unionists/former oppressors out of the South began in 1911. I think many knew that after 300 years of oppression a sad comeupence might be coming their way. Sad isn’t it? And sure enough it happened in a few isolated cases much like the vengence Jews exacted on German civilians and POWs after WWII.
The real reason for the decline in Protestant numbers since 1926 onward is intermarriage. The Catholic Church always insisted that children of mixed marraiges be raised as Catholics. Thus, Protestant numbers declined rapidly.
And all the isolated cases of Protestants/unionists/former oppressors being murdered pales in comparison to the enormous amount of suffering endured by the Irish over several centuries. The Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division murdered people, committed arson and brutalized innocent people - and they were the properly appointed and publicly funded authorities! Then again the Bristish Army itself set fire to towns like Mallow so we can’t expect much self-control from these thugs.
The fact that Douglas Hyde was unanimously elected the first president of Ireland and that his face ended up on the bank notes of Ireland would seem to show that the South was far more genial to Protestants than the Protestant North ever has been to Catholics. If N.I. became an independent country with a Protestant majority would they elect a Catholic president do you think?
‘The cries of ethnic cleansing are silly at best’
Funny, the modern day Irish dont think so.
You wrote:
“Funny, the modern day Irish dont think so.”
Actually the Irish in the Republic do think that cries of ethnic cleansing of Protestants in the south are silly.
We know who wanted to practice ethnic cleansing:
“Dateline: LONDON At the height of bloodletting in Northern Ireland, the British government considered trying to end the sectarian conflict by forcibly moving hundreds of thousands of Catholics to the Irish Republic, according to records released Wednesday.
But the top secret contingency plan _ dated July 23, 1972 _ was rejected out of concern it would not work unless the government was prepared to be “completely ruthless” in carrying it out, and that it would provoke outrage at home and abroad, especially in the United States.” http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-70708496.html
So the British govt thought about then decided it wasnt the right thing to do. I wont note in my ‘bad things we did in Ireland’ notebook then.
No, just note it in your “bad things we wanted to do in Ireland but were forced to reconsider because we were afraid of bad press” notebook.
I think its hilarious to take lectures from Americans on the morality of ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of the enemy.
Perhaps you could loan me your old Native American notebook, esp the chapter of the Trail of Tears?.
You wrote:
“I think its hilarious to take lectures from Americans on the morality of ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of the enemy.”
Right, especially since it was the British who practically invented such things in the modern era. Think of the concentration camp. That too was a British invention during the Boer War. You don’t have to take lectures from anyone on ethnic cleansing. The british are some of the world’s greatest experts on destruction of cultures, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, etc.
“Perhaps you could loan me your old Native American notebook, esp the chapter of the Trail of Tears?.”
At least the Cherokee were given a new homeland. What did the Irish get from the British? Oh, right, just the ethnic cleansing part for more than 300 years.
The British did not invent the concentration camp. That was the Spanish in Cuba in 1895. The word itself is an Anglisation of the original Spanish word. And you have a PhD you say?.
Also, neither the British nor Spanish camps were anything like the concentration camps we think of now ie the Nazis, the Gulags, Bosnia. You know that.
You wrote:
“The British did not invent the concentration camp. That was the Spanish in Cuba in 1895. The word itself is an Anglisation of the original Spanish word. And you have a PhD you say?.”
You know you might be right. The British might not have been the first to invent modern concentration camps. They were just the first to impose them on a foreign innocent population of women and children. I can easily live with my error. Sadly many Boers did not survive the British error.
“Also, neither the British nor Spanish camps were anything like the concentration camps we think of now ie the Nazis, the Gulags, Bosnia. You know that.”
I do know that. I also never claimed that. Still, tens of thousands of completely innocent people died because of the British actions. And sometimes it’s pretty darn hard to tell the difference between what the Brits and Nazis did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LizzieVanZyl.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_van_Zyl
And sadly most nations, including my own, have such examples of cruelty to their discredit. The British acted much the same way in Ireland. They just used different tactics.
—Re the Boer War.
As unpleasant the camps were, they cannot be compared to later incarnations. The Nazi and Soviet camps were deliberate death camps, designed to exterminate particular races or groups.
The British camps suffered death because of British incompetence, they were badly run. Very. But there was no intent to exterminate. Thats the difference.
I might I point out that when the news of the camps appalling conditions broke in Britain, that there was a HUGE public and official outcry. The British govt immediately ordered a review of the camps, the newspapers went ballistic, and there was huge public disgust at the running of the camps.
Britain immediately sent tons of food and supplies to SA, and hundreds of doctors and nurses were despatched to SA to tend the sick. And civilian authorities were immediately despatched to SA with orders to take over from the military and run the camps and to sort out the appalling problem, which they did. The camps were thereafter properly run and the problem dropped dramatically then ceased.
And here is perhaps the most important aspect of the Boer controversy: WHY the Boers died...
Firstly, those who died were old men and women, mothers and children.
WHY?. Simple.
Mothers, the elderly and esp children in the self-breeding Boer community had, because they only bred with Boers, not other Europeans or Westerners in SA, a lack of immunity to certain diseases and viruses such as typhoid.
Hence that is why so many tragically died so quickly, as they simply had no defence literally to the outbreaks caused by the poor British running of the camps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
