Saturday, March 04, 2006
Mandate schmandate!
I just caught the end of the debate on RTE's The Late Late Show where the Easter Rising was discussed. How disappointing that we have so many people in this country who buy into the bullshit spouted by the revisionists! Thankfully there were people there who were proud of the Rising and looking forward to the parade this year but there were a fair few intellectuals from D4 in the studio bemoaning the awful attitude the 1916 rebels showed to the country that invaded us, conquered us and denied us our rights for so long. Aw shucks!Some of the arguments put forth by the anti-Rising brigade, who I will now nickname 'the downers' (Get it? Rise/Down? Oh never mind), are truly silly beyond belief. Take this old chestnut, uttered tonight by a couple of people, that the Easter Rising was a bad thing because it had 'no mandate'. Well I have three things to say to the 'no mandate' downers...
1. It was a REVOLUTION. Most revolutions don't have mandates. The rebels couldn't exactly go around Dublin and canvass for an armed revolt against the state!
2. Did the Brits have a mandate when they took Irish land in the first place and when they made the natives settle elsewhere? No.
3. Forget the fact that the rebels had no mandate, Ireland had no parliament! The majority of the Irish population had sought Home Rule since the late 19th century and yet as late as 1912, and again in 1913, the unelected House of Lords were denying it to the people of Ireland! Was self-government a right or a privilege? Was it fair that the Irish people should have to wait until the British deemed it acceptable for the Irish to run their own affairs? I say hell no! The British had messed the Irish around for far too long and the 1916 rebels felt enough was enough and so decided to take authority by force if the British continued to oppress.
The mandate argument thus is a microcosm of the downer's anti-Rising beliefs in general. In other words, idiotic in the extreme!
This is one Irish citizen who is very much looking forward to this year's 1916 commemorations.
God save Ireland!
# posted by United Irelander @ 12:50 AM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
