Record numbers of free staters flock to join British Army

[cicfada]

Maybe this could be a rare case of two wrongs making a right, ie the government giving a pardon and then the pardonees admitting that they  were wrong in deserting  the irish army! Wouldn't  everyone be reasonably happy then??

[mylestheslasher]

I agree 100% with hardy. Shatter hadn't many morals when he was inviting his Zionist mates into our country when they were using illegal weapons against civilians and indeed against the UN in Gaza, which was headed by an irishman at the time. The Irish people don't need a lecture on morals from that little p***k.

Then they shouldn't have elected him...

Imo, they should have got no pardon for deserting their own army.

The Government Pardon is more of a recognition of the wrong done to them and their families by a previous Irish Government, than an exoneration of what they (deserters) did.
Had Dev's Government moved against them in a proper, constitutional and legal manner, there would be no need for any pardon, indeed we wouldn't have been having this discussion now.
Still, let's blame Shatter and Kenny for that, eh? 

More interesting is why this is even of interest to a government minister at a time of such financial peril.

Yeah, let's wait until the deserters are all dead, er, the Republic is free of the present financial crisis, before dealing with any other matters of public policy and principle.

P.S. Exactly how much is this Pardon going to cost the country, anyhow? Will Michael Noonan have to apply to the IMF for another loan to pay for it?

You're right, they shouldn't have elected him

What terrible wrong was done to these people? Your own army (ie British one) would have shot them dead or thrown them in jail.

I don't know what the cost of this is but no doubt we have many civil servant wasting time on a nothing issue while Enda writes a cheque for 1.2billion to international gamblers.

[Main Street]

Well written reply Hardy.

Second, in the context of Holocaust Memorial Day, he expressed the opinion that the actions of the Irish government of 70 years ago (eg refusing admission to Jewish refugees, Dev passing personal condolences to the German Ambassador in the event of Hitler's death etc) was "morally bankrupt". If this opinion is unacceptable to the Government, or incompatible with his position as Minister, then we can expect Enda Kenny to admonish him. If Kenny doesn't, we must assume that he/his Government does not object to Shatter's comments. (Indeed, I suspect that Shatter may have had his speech cleared before he delivered it, but we'll see).

How on earth can you make a mess of comprehending those few sentences which were very clearly expressed by Shatter?
By putting all Shatter's words into a mixing bowl and keep stirring for 10 minutes?

It is quite clear that Shatter states Irish neutrality was morally bankrupt in the context of the Holocaust.
And that moral  bankruptcy was compounded by other actions.

Firstly Shatter said 

"In the 1930s practically all visa requests from German Jews were refused by the Irish authorities."
"This position was maintained from 1939 to 1945 and we should no longer be in denial that, in the context of the Holocaust, Irish neutrality was a principle of moral bankruptcy."

This also defies logic, Shatter claims the position of neutrality 1939-45 was bankrupt because of a then unknown context.
Reports of the evidence of the Holocaust were even supressed by the British and the Americans until some leaks were reported by the NYT in mid 1944.

Then Shatter goes onto  state
"This moral bankruptcy was compounded by the then Irish government who, after the war, only allowed an indefensibly small number who survived the concentration camps to settle permanently in Ireland and also by the visit of President de Valera to then German ambassador Edouard Hempel in 1945 to express his condolences on the death of Hitler"

[Rossfan]

Did the Brits ever pardon the "Connaught" Rangers who protested ( called a mutiny by the Brits) in India in 1921 over the misbehaviour ( to put it mildly) of the Brit Army/Tans/Auxies in Ireland?
One of them ,James Daly from Co Westmeath (Tyrellspass I believe ) was executed.
Or is standing up for your own Country a lesser thing altogether?

"Whataboutery".

If you want to discuss the Connaught Rangers, you can always start another thread - I'm sure they'll all thank you for it...

Try to avoid the obvious comparison between the way the British Government treated their soldiers who didnt stick with it to the way the Irish Govt is treating theirs.

[mylestheslasher]

A 15 year old Romanian girl kipnapped, held in a house, raped for days and then murdered and buried in the mountains. Today a corpse of a woman left on the street in a hold-all bag. Gardai numbers decreasing, crime on the up and this is the shite our minister for justice is prioritising.

[Evil Genius]

Well written reply Hardy.

Second, in the context of Holocaust Memorial Day, he expressed the opinion that the actions of the Irish government of 70 years ago (eg refusing admission to Jewish refugees, Dev passing personal condolences to the German Ambassador in the event of Hitler's death etc) was "morally bankrupt". If this opinion is unacceptable to the Government, or incompatible with his position as Minister, then we can expect Enda Kenny to admonish him. If Kenny doesn't, we must assume that he/his Government does not object to Shatter's comments. (Indeed, I suspect that Shatter may have had his speech cleared before he delivered it, but we'll see).

How on earth can you make a mess of comprehending those few sentences which were very clearly expressed by Shatter?
By putting all Shatter's words into a mixing bowl and keep stirring for 10 minutes?

It is quite clear that Shatter states Irish neutrality was morally bankrupt in the context of the Holocaust.
And that moral  bankruptcy was compounded by other actions.

Firstly Shatter said 

"In the 1930s practically all visa requests from German Jews were refused by the Irish authorities."
"This position was maintained from 1939 to 1945 and we should no longer be in denial that, in the context of the Holocaust, Irish neutrality was a principle of moral bankruptcy."

This also defies logic, Shatter claims the position of neutrality 1939-45 was bankrupt because of a then unknown context.
Reports of the evidence of the Holocaust were even supressed by the British and the Americans until some leaks were reported by the NYT in mid 1944.

Then Shatter goes onto  state
"This moral bankruptcy was compounded by the then Irish government who, after the war, only allowed an indefensibly small number who survived the concentration camps to settle permanently in Ireland and also by the visit of President de Valera to then German ambassador Edouard Hempel in 1945 to express his condolences on the death of Hitler"

I really don't understand what point you are trying to make. 

Shatter quite clearly states that in the context of the Holocaust, for Eire to maintain a policy of "neutrality" between the Allies and the Nazis was "morally bankrupt". I agree entirely.

For even if you ignore the refusal of the Irish Government to accept Jewish refugees, including children, before the war; even if you ignore the refusal to accept then during the war, and even after news of the Holocaust started to emerge, consider this.

On 15th April, 1945, Allied troops (including at least one Irish Army deserter, btw) liberated Belsen-Bergen Concentration Camp. They were accompanied by a BBC Film Crew, who broadcast details of what they saw. Here is an excerpt of the description of Richard Dimbleby of the scene:
"Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life."

A British Army bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave at Belsen. 19 April 1945


Dr. Fritz Klein stands amongst corpses in Mass Grave 3
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4445811.stm

A fortnight after the BBC publicised this around the world, President De Valera went round in person to the German Embassy to pass his condolences to the Ambassador for the death of Hitler.

And even after the war ended, and the full extent of the Nazi atrocities were exposed to all, his Government still  refused to accept Jewish refugees...

[muppet]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

[Evil Genius]

Did the Brits ever pardon the "Connaught" Rangers who protested ( called a mutiny by the Brits) in India in 1921 over the misbehaviour ( to put it mildly) of the Brit Army/Tans/Auxies in Ireland?
One of them ,James Daly from Co Westmeath (Tyrellspass I believe ) was executed.
Or is standing up for your own Country a lesser thing altogether?

"Whataboutery".

If you want to discuss the Connaught Rangers, you can always start another thread - I'm sure they'll all thank you for it...

Try to avoid the obvious comparison between the way the British Government treated their soldiers who didnt stick with it to the way the Irish Govt is treating theirs.

For once, I shall indulge your "whataboutery" and point out the following.

1. There is a difference between a Desertion, where someone leaves his post to go to another country, and a Mutiny, where (in the case of the Connaughts) some members replaced the Union Flag with the Tricolour, and stormed the armory in an attempt to seize weapons;
2. When the Deserters left Eire in 1939 etc, Eire was not at War, nor did those Deserters join an Army which was threatening Eire. Whereas when the Connaughts mutinied, it was out of sympathy for people who were waging war (in Ireland) upon their fellow British Army colleagues.
3. Above all, when the British disciplined the Mutineers, it was entirely in accordance with the law of the time, namely the Kings Regulations* under which they had signed up. Whereas the treatment meted out to the Deserters was entirely unlawful, indeed illegal, with no right of appeal or clemency. Worse still, it impacted directly upon their families (eg children being sent to Industrial Schools), and for an indefinite period.

Now to widen the context, I am not criticising the Mutineers, any more than I am absolving the Deserters - those were terrible times and it is far too easy for us to condemn from the comfort of our easy, 21st Century life.

But the point I have been trying to get across, and to which you seem oblivious or unmoved, is that I am instead  criticising the reaction of Dev's Government to the desertions, for which the Pardon is now being granted, some 70-odd years later.

* - With regards to Kings Regulations, if you consider what the British Authorities actually did, if not lenient or merciful, it appears at least to have been legally proper and correct. For of the 70 originally charged, 7 got a sufficiently fair trial to be found "Not Guilty". And of the 63 found Guilty, 50 received prison sentences, varying according to the seriousness of their part in the events. Which meant "only" (I know, I know) 13 Mutineers were sentenced to death. And even then, clemency was shown to 12 of these, so that their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, with "only" the ringleader actually executed. And finally, from what I can tell, all survivors from the 62 prisoners, including the "lifers", look to have been released anyhow within a few years (i.e. early 1920's), to return back to the Free State (or wherever). 

Contrast that with the Deserters, all of whom were placed on a secret Blacklist, without distinction, disclosure or appeal, for (what was for almost all of them) the rest of their life.

[Evil Genius]

A 15 year old Romanian girl kipnapped, held in a house, raped for days and then murdered and buried in the mountains. Today a corpse of a woman left on the street in a hold-all bag. Gardai numbers decreasing, crime on the up and this is the shite our minister for justice is prioritising.

Don't you mean: "A man shot, decapitated and left on the streets of Oldham, teenagers being stabbed daily all over London. Police numbers decreasing, crime on the up, and Prime Minister Cameron is prioritising shite like apologising for Bloody Sunday"?

Aye, right...

[Evil Genius]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

Well how about this for a deal, then?

You find me some survivors of Cromwell's massacres, or of the Famine, or the Caribbean slave trade etc, and I shall apologise unreservedly to them.

So that in return, if I can point you to some of the surviving members of De Valera's Black List, you will apologise to them.

Is that fair?    

[muppet]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

Well how about this for a deal, then?

You find me some survivors of Cromwell's massacres, or of the Famine, or the Caribbean slave trade etc, and I shall apologise unreservedly to them.

So that in return, if I can point you to some of the surviving members of De Valera's Black List, you will apologise to them.

Is that fair?   

Why would you apologise to the survivors of atrocities and completely ignore the dead?

[Evil Genius]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

Well how about this for a deal, then?

You find me some survivors of Cromwell's massacres, or of the Famine, or the Caribbean slave trade etc, and/or close relatives of the dead and I shall apologise unreservedly to them.

So that in return, if I can point you to some of the surviving members of De Valera's Black List and/or close relatives of deceased Deserters, you will apologise to them.

Is that fair?   

Why would you apologise to the survivors of atrocities and completely ignore the dead?

Fixed that oversight for ya.

Is the Deal still on, then? 

[muppet]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

Well how about this for a deal, then?

You find me some survivors of Cromwell's massacres, or of the Famine, or the Caribbean slave trade etc, and/or close relatives of the dead and I shall apologise unreservedly to them.

So that in return, if I can point you to some of the surviving members of De Valera's Black List and/or close relatives of deceased Deserters, you will apologise to them.

Is that fair?   

Why would you apologise to the survivors of atrocities and completely ignore the dead?

Fixed that oversight for ya.

Is the Deal still on, then? 

You fixed nothing. You dodged the issue as usual. While pontificating about Hitler's unquestionable atrocities, you dodge Britain's atrocities by trying to hide behind the fact that their victims are all dead.

[Evil Genius]

Listen Evil, you have no claim to the high moral ground in Ireland of all places. Cromwell's genecide has never been acknowledged by Britain, the famine received a 'We're sorry' 150 years too late and there is never any mention of the British and Jewish merchants selling Irish into slavery in the Caribbean plantations.

I am always open to opinions that are not always popular among all of my own and I have no time for De Valera, but reading you on your high horse about Hitler is getting nauseating.

Well how about this for a deal, then?

You find me some survivors of Cromwell's massacres, or of the Famine, or the Caribbean slave trade etc, and/or close relatives of the dead and I shall apologise unreservedly to them.

So that in return, if I can point you to some of the surviving members of De Valera's Black List and/or close relatives of deceased Deserters, you will apologise to them.

Is that fair?   

Why would you apologise to the survivors of atrocities and completely ignore the dead?

Fixed that oversight for ya.

Is the Deal still on, then? 

You fixed nothing. You dodged the issue as usual. While pontificating about Hitler's unquestionable atrocities, you dodge Britain's atrocities by trying to hide behind the fact that their victims are all dead.

No dodging at all.

The distinction which is so obviously eluding you, is that when the likes of Tony Blair "apologises" (sic) for something for which he and his Government can have no responsibility (i.e. Famine), he is merely posturing; and when he then refuses to apologise for something about which he/his Government should  still bear responsibility (e.g. Bloody Sunday), he is being hypocritical.

Quite simply, just as Cameron was able to apologise to the injured and bereaved of Bloody Sunday, then Shatter should be able to apologise to those directly affected by Dev's Black List and both are to be commended for doing so (imo).

Whereas banging on about past grievances from hundreds of years ago is at best silly and at worst just keeping open old wounds.

[mylestheslasher]

Shooting of innocent protesters is equivalent to army deserters being black listed for state jobs and pension. Only in your bizarre world EG!