The Poppy

[Tony Baloney]

They wear and sell them in Canada

The tentacles of unionism reach even the unsuspecting Irish taigs working in Canada...

[The Iceman]

Was there ever an official count on the number of Irish men who died in WW1??
I heard it was close to 30,000 but that may have been a huge exaggeration.

Does anyone know if its true that the majority of Irish men went to fight on the promise that Ireland would be granted independence as recompense for their service?

What was the total number of English killed during WW1? Not counting Irish who made up a lot of their troops.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

British Empire had over 800,000 deaths according to Wiki

[Maguire01]

Does anyone know if its true that the majority of Irish men went to fight on the promise that Ireland would be granted independence as recompense for their service?

First time i've heard that one. Surely they have looked for more than a verbal promise before risking their lives, if that had been their motiviation.

[ardmhachaabu]

maybe, but do ya think if the unionist were not in power in the north and the nationalist held sway in the shipyards and aircraft factory, would unionists feel alienated and discriminated against?

like i've said in the past, i dont let these things annoy me, i've bills to pay holidays to take and kids to worry about. oh and the odd hurling and football games to play.

There was me thinking you knew nothing about the bigger ball too 

I KNOW NOTHING, I'M FROM BARCELONA

Don't tell him anythnig about the horse

[milltown row]

thats true, there was two sides fighting for promises of independence. unionist keeping the north orange, and the nationalist for ireland free from Britain, was win win for Britain

[muppet]

Does anyone know if its true that the majority of Irish men went to fight on the promise that Ireland would be granted independence as recompense for their service?

First time i've heard that one. Surely they have looked for more than a verbal promise before risking their lives, if that had been their motiviation.

The Home Rule Party went on the promise of Home Rule.

3rd Home Rule Act from Wiki with the usual caveats.

On 11, April 1912, the Prime Minister introduced the Third Home Rule Bill which foresaw granting Ireland self-government. Allowing more autonomy than its two predecessors, the bill provided for:

A bicameral Irish Parliament to be set up in Dublin (a 40-member Senate and a 164-member House of Commons) with powers to deal with most national affairs;
A number of Irish MPs would continue to sit in the Imperial Parliament in Westminster (42 MPs, rather than 103).
The abolition of Dublin Castle, though with the retention of the Lord Lieutenant.
The Bill was passed by the Commons by a majority of 10 votes but the House of Lords rejected it 326 votes to 69. In 1913 it was re-introduced and again passed the Commons but was again rejected by the Lords by 302 votes to 64. In 1914 after the third reading, the Bill passed the Commons on 25 May by a majority of 77. Having been defeated a third time in the Lords, the Government used the provisions of the Parliament Act to override the Lords and send it for Royal Assent.

With the outbreak of what was expected to be a short Great War in August 1914, looming civil war in Ireland was averted. Both mainstream nationalists and unionists, keen to ensure the implementation of the Act on the one hand and to influence the issue of how temporary was partition to be on the other, rallied in support of Britain's war commitment to the Allies under the Triple Entente. See also: * Department of the Taoiseach - Irish Soldiers in the First World War.

The Irish Volunteers split into the larger National Volunteers and a rump who kept the original title. The NV and many other Irishmen, convinced at the time that Ireland had won freedom and self-government under the Act, joined Irish regiments of the 10th (Irish) Division or the 16th (Irish) Division of the New British Army to "defend the freedom of other small nations" and to fight in France and Belgium for a Europe free from oppression. The men of the Ulster Volunteers went on to join the 36th (Ulster) Division, and unlike their nationalist counterparts who apart from Irish General William Hickie, lacked prior military training to act as officers, were allowed their own local reserve militia officers.

However, a fringe element of nationalism, represented by the remaining Irish Volunteers, opposed Irish support for the war effort, believing Irishmen who wanted to "defend the freedom of small nations" should focus on one closer to hand. In Easter 1916 a rebellion, the Easter Rising, took place in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in view of the heavy Irish war losses on the Western Front and in the disastrous Gallipoli V beach landing at Cape Helles (the main nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent, demanded the execution of the rebels), the British government's mishandling of the aftermath of the Rising, including the protracted executions of the Rising's leaders by General Maxwell, led to the rise of an Irish republican movement in Sinn Féin, a small previously separatist monarchist party taken over by the rebellion's survivors, after it had been wrongly blamed for the rebellion by the British.

Interesting view of Sinn Féin as a 'previously separatist monarchist party'.

[ardmhachaabu]

muppet, that's exactly the ideology Douglas deHide had envisaged for SF as a political party

[Jim_Murphy_74]

Interesting view of Sinn Féin as a 'previously separatist monarchist party'.

Why is it interesting?  I don't think anyone has ever questioned the origins of Sinn Féin.  Arthur Griffith (not Douglas Hyde as stated below) founded the party on a policy of dual monarchy, based on his study of Austria/Hungary.  Essentially 2 separate states with one monarch. 

/Jim.

[Zapatista]

Interesting view of Sinn Féin as a 'previously separatist monarchist party'.

Why is it interesting?  I don't think anyone has ever questioned the origins of Sinn Féin.  Arthur Griffith (not Douglas Hyde as stated below) founded the party on a policy of dual monarchy, based on his study of Austria/Hungary.  Essentially 2 separate states with one monarch. 

/Jim.

While that was his ideal he did not found the SF political party. He founded SF, but as a political News Paper and had no intenetions of organising SF as a political party. The ideas and name of his news paper was infiltrated and taken over by the IRA before it became a political party.