Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Top Ten Tuesday - Worst ever Britons
Last Tuesday I compiled a top ten list of the worst ever Irish people.This week I figured it would be a good idea to compile a top ten list of the worst ever Britons!
So without further ado...
1. Oliver Cromwell - A heinous individual who brutally suppressed Royalists in Ireland. He massacred nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda and over 2,000 people in Wexford including men, women and children. The Irish were to him, "barbarous wretches" and as he sought to take Irish land, the choice for the native Irish was "to hell or to Connaught". An evil man.
2. Henry VIII - From 1536, decided to re-conquer Ireland and bring it under control. Not only that but he married six times and renounced a religion in the process. An odious individual.
3. Elizabeth I - Brutally put down the second Desmond Rebellion in Ireland where almost the entire population of the north-western part of the province of Munster died. She also fought the Gaelic chiefs from Ulster, the O'Neills and the O'Donnells, during the Nine Years War. A disgraceful, power-mad Briton.
4. William III - Also known as 'King Billy' to some. A sick, power-hungry individual who infamously defeated the forces of King James II at the Battle of the Boyne. After the battle, the peace Treaty of Limerick was signed which promised Irish Jacobites generous terms if they were willing to stay in Ireland and give an oath of loyalty to William III. However these terms were not honoured and the penal laws were imposed on the people by parliament. A popular contemporary Irish saying went, "cuimhnidh Luimneach agus feall na Sassanaigh" ("remember Limerick and English treachery"). William is also praised by the Orange Order to this day which tells you all you need to know about this horrible man.
5. Lloyd George - A deceitful man who tricked Irish delegates like Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith at the Treaty talks into believing that a Boundary Commission would give huge pro-nationalist areas to the Free State government but which ultimately proposed giving territory of the Free State to the Northern entity. Earlier in his career he promised Home Rule leader John Redmond that any Ulster counties excluded from Home Rule would be excluded temporarily but who likewise told Edward Carson, in wriitng, that exclusion for counties would be permanent. A liar. Later in his career he went on to praise Adolf Hitler saying, "Yes, Heil Hitler. I, too, say that because he is truly a great man."
6. Margaret Thatcher - A truly despicable woman who callously gave no regard to the Hunger Strikers like Bobby Sands. She also destroyed the mining industry in her country and was a bully when it came to foreign affairs. One of the very worst British Prime Ministers.
7. Randolph Churchill - Father of Winston Churchill, Randolph Churchill toyed with the tense relationships that existed in Ireland and utilised sectarianism for his own ends. He gave fiery speeches in Ulster that led to deaths in the subsequent sectarian violence. During this time he coined the phrase "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right". Also coined the phrase which became Tory strategy, "The Orange card is the card to play" which sums up his sectarianism pretty well.
8. Oswald Mosley - Founded the British Union of Fascists and supported the Nazi regime. Nuff said!
9. Winston Churchill - Not higher on the list for his admittedly great oratorical skills however this man was part of a British delegation intent on denying Ireland freedom and partitioning the country. He also tried to deny Ireland its treaty ports when de Valera sought them, he tried to deny Irish people aid during WW2 in an effort to get Ireland to join the war effort thus putting Irish people's lives at risk over a political dispute and he criticised Eire's role during WW2 in his victory speech as well as de Valera despite knowing full well that the country had given him far more assistance than a neutral country should have including around 60,000 of its citizens. Churchill also said of Hitler prior to the war, "One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations". Telling stuff.
And here's Churchill's thoughts on race: "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." - Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937
His thoughts on Mahatma Gandhi: "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." - Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931
Churchill also felt that the mentally ill should be sterilized writing to Asquith in 1910: "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."
Clearly one of the most overrated Britons in history and no friend of Ireland's!
10. Robert Kilroy-Silk - A very silly man with very worrying ideas. He said of Muslims, "Muslims everywhere behave with equal savagery. They behead criminals, stone to death female — only female — adulteresses, throw acid in the faces of women who refuse to wear the chador, mutilate the genitals of young girls and ritually abuse animals."
He said of the Irish people, "A country peopled by peasants, priests and pixies."
His talk show was shite too.
So there you have it. The top ten worst Britons. Feel free to comment on my choices or to offer up some of your own.
# posted by United Irelander @ 1:52 AM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
