Posted on 03/12/2006 6:10:22 PM PST by blam
Dublin repeals English laws designed to curb the Irish
By Tom Peterkin, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 13/03/2006)
The draconian laws the English imposed on Ireland to keep the natives at bay are to be repealed hundreds of years after they were first put on the Statute Book.
Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, has finally got round to dealing with more than 2,000 pieces of legislation drawn up by colonial parliaments following the 12th century, Norman invasion of his country.
The revision programme will see the removal of ancient acts banning the Gaelic language, prohibiting the English from fraternising with the locals and preventing Jews from owning armour.
According to some of Ireland's more archaic laws, the Irish are forbidden from marrying the English or joining religious orders.
Laws promoting an Anglo-Irish apartheid have remained in existence despite it being almost 90 years since the rebellion that led to the withdrawal of the British and the creation of the Republic of Ireland.
The overhaul of the Irish Statute Book has been initiated not only to remove relics of the past that are no longer relevant in modern Ireland but also to simplify the legal system for lawyers and the public.
"This will be the single largest body of legislation to be repealed in this way in the history of the State," said Mr Ahern. "As legislators, Governments tend to add to the Statute Book, but not to take away from it. There is a large volume of legislation that pre-dates the foundation of the Irish State, much of which is now redundant."
Many of the old acts reflect England's determination to suppress Irish nationalism.
Many still resonate today. Resentment at legislation that forced the Irish to give up their land still simmers.
Many of the laws listed for appeal are "acts of attainder", which declared certain people to be enemies of the English king.
Those decried as traitors would forfeit their lives and have their lands confiscated by the Crown.
One Act of 1798 relates to the Attainder of Lord Edward FitzGerald, one of the leaders of the 1798 rising under Wolfe Tone that attempted to sever Ireland's links with Great Britain.
Lord Edward's imprisonment in Dublin contributed to the failure of the uprising. He died in Newgate Prison, aged 35, from wounds sustained while resisting arrest.
Heh. I thought they used the toilets like everybody else.
I'm surprised this hasn't been done already.
I wish legislators across the country and throughout the nation would think like this.
The laws were there but the will to enforce them wasn't. Every country has such laws.
There really is something to that. Even the language of the law is unnecessarily comlicated. Citizens shouldn't have to hire a lawyer to answer to the government.
DeValera: "Burn everything British except it's coal!"
Sorry, the Pale being that small area of Ireland under total English control..
I see BW2221, just because I oppose the IRA I must be Unionist. If that is the case, then the majority of southern Irish Catholics must also be Unionist.
Go trolling elsewhere!!
I suppose you are still defending the Dublin riots?
We are the Irish. Lower your shields. Power down your weapons. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Seriously, you are right - Ireland is the original melting-pot!!
Éire go brách.
Old laws sound so strange to us!
There must have been liberals around in those times - they didn't want the Jews defending themselves!!
Nice one!!
LOL
The Irish weren't breaking any ground by assimilating Cromwell's soldiers. They had by and large done the same thing with Tudor, Norman and Viking conquerors. There is a lesson there too about a culture that decides that its members are too good to do some sorts of work, and allows (or forces) members of another culture to be their drawers of water and hewers of wood.
In any event this doesn't strike me as any blow for Irish freedom, but as empty political grandstanding.
Nope, it doesn't matter - I don't think those laws were being enforced!!
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