Ireland needs to grow up - Queen Elizabeth's visit to Ireland
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 10:55 AM
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At the risk of getting a pasting, here goes: I fully welcome the Queen’s visit to Ireland in May, or whenever it is she’s coming.
You’d think in an Ireland that has done a lot of growing up in years passed this would go without saying, and for the vast majority of people it probably won’t be an issue, but already I can hear the hysterical cavalry saddling up. Within days of the announcement, I began hearing all sorts of reasons why she shouldn’t come: the expense, the worry that her coming will cause trouble, or simply because she’s the Queen. None of these pass muster.
First of all, why so hostile? When it boils down to it, the Queen is just another head of state, like Mary McAleese with a room full of jewels, visiting a neighbouring country, as heads of state are wont to do. And if the notion that the Queen is “just another head of state” horrifies you, why on earth would it? Even when the Anglo-Irish relationship was at its most fractious, the Queen’s role in the defining moments of The Troubles was negligible. It’s not as if she ordered the introduction of internment without trial, ordered people shot on Bloody Sunday or took a horrifyingly obstinate line against the hunger strikers personally. In that respect the Queen is a victim of her position: she can’t speak out against government policy no matter how much she might abhor it, as all hell would break loose otherwise. If you have a gripe with, as Gerry Adams referred to them as, “legacy issues”, then blame Margaret Thatcher, or Jim Callaghan, or Harold Wilson, or Ted Heath. Not the woman who spends her days visiting factories and youth centres and Commonwealth countries.
Let’s consider that phrase Gerry Adams used in reference to the visit, actually. “Legacy issues”. I mean, where do you start with that one? Throughout the general election campaign I was critical of the way Micheal Martin insinuated Sinn Féin still had a whiff of dodginess about them, and how it was wholly disingenuous of him to encourage Sinn Féin into power-sharing and talking about a new future in the North while simultaneously intimating they weren’t fit for office and their old past in the South. Now sadly it seems Gerry has used that same act on the Queen. Given the fact power-sharing was delayed in the North for so long by the likes of the Democratic Unionist Party because of the legacy issues they had with Sinn Féin, it was a bizarre choice of words. Nearly two years ago to the day Martin McGuinness called the dissidents who killed the soldiers at Massarene Barracks “traitors”. That was a huge leap from the dark days of “These shootings are inevitable given the actions of the British Government”, or words to that effect. Why a woman in her eighties still bothers them so much is beyond me.
And then there’s the money issue. We can’t afford visits like this, apparently. An economic situation like ours will inevitably account for an increase in utilitarian deficit hawks, but the cost of such a trip would be miniscule compared to, say, the cost of buying and then storing voting machines. Then of course, the old Wilde maxim about the difference between price and value comes into play. Within the space of twelve months, we’ll have had the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland, and an unvarnished mea culpa from the British Government on Bloody Sunday. The Saville Report, incidentally, cost £200 million, a figure scorned by those on the troglodyte wing of the DUP. You can’t put a price on banishing old ghosts.
That the Queen coming would stir emotions is unsurprising, but it certainly isn’t logical. It is however a chance to show that Ireland doesn’t have to feel like a victim for the whole of its existence, that it can look at its past with acceptance and its future with hope, and that it can look its neighbour and former foe in the eye as equals. And even if the silent majority of Irish people don’t, as Ward Bond put it in The Quiet Man, “cheer like Protestants” during her visit, polite indifference would do much the same job. And if the loud minority could keep it down, the kind of people who shout “800 years ya c**t!” at an (Irish) DJ friend of mine with an English accent while he’s working, or who talk about the occupied six counties despite having never been further north than Athlone, that would be even better.
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britishnatzis | Apr 10, 2011, 09:22 AM EDT
by the way all who read this we never had a so called democracy..... the central banking cartel familys always determine who wins elections, its the same in every country...democracy is an ancient greek word and actually means mob-rule,, because they are the f**king mob who rule us!!!!!!!
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britishnatzis | Apr 10, 2011, 09:17 AM EDT
i think the queen and her wicked pharohonic bloodline are among the most disgusting devils this earth has ever known.... i think its quite sad that sheeple dont realise how evil this bitch really is due to their silly hypnotic robot way that every person must serve and pay their taxes!!!!!!!!!.... her evil family are responsible for most wars... the royals of europe and america ie. the bushs!!!! are blood related back to the pharohs of egypt....she is currently involved in a canadian court battle about abduction and murder of aborinal children,,, like the pope they get their power from others pain especially children... wake the f up sheeple.... we need massive non-compliance protests all over the globe to rid these wicked wierdos from the world
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barneyjo | Apr 08, 2011, 08:01 PM EDT
@redrocks - heres another few lyrics for you; "And we're still at it in our own place. Still trying to reach the future through the past. Still trying to carve tomorrow from a TOMBSTONE!!!............"The twisted wreckage down on Main street, will bring us all toghther in the end. And we'll go marching down the road to Freedom........Freedom!!!!!" (Paul Brady)
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barneyjo | Apr 08, 2011, 07:43 PM EDT
@redrocks - are you not amazed like me as to how easlily some posters on this page manage to talk abaolute b###s!!
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redrocks | Apr 03, 2011, 07:00 PM EDT
heres a song and a few lyrics might bring you back to earth paddy:
You took what was not yours
Went against your own bible
You broke your own laws
Just to out do the rival
But did you ever apologize
For the hundreds and millions of lives
You destroyed and terrorised
Or have you never realized
Did you never feel shame
For what was done in your country's name
And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane
And still they teach you in your school
About those glorious days of rule
And how it's your destiny to be
Superior to me
But if you've any kind of mind
You'll see that all human kind
Are the children of this earth
And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out
You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free.
(Damien Dempsey; Colony)
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redrocks | Apr 03, 2011, 06:50 PM EDT
Paddy, i joined this site to communicate my annoyance at your blissful ignorance. The crown and its custodian are whats coming to Ireland and we are supposed to accept it with open arms?
Shes a representative of the same family who starved our ancestors, shot us in the back, put us down, stole our culture, music, language, art, treated us like animals and you want me to sit back and applaud her?
catch yourself on, yes we can accept a visit, yes we need to move on, but while theres no apology and no regret, i will not welcome a custodian war lord to my country
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sirpeter | Mar 28, 2011, 03:29 PM EDT
Paddy Duffy..Maybe you should read a little more about the royal family and what a bunch of racist fu*kers they are. Anyone who does will find it quiet logical to dislike them. This is a family who has no problem using the term wogs and paki's and nig-nogs. Just Google it!! So don't be telling us Ireland needs to grow up. For alot of us,it's not just our history.As a bunch of arrogant racist's.They don't deserve the respect they demand. I don't use the term deserve because they don't use a word that imply s earned.Royalty demands!!
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sirpeter | Mar 28, 2011, 03:01 PM EDT
Creakygate..No Ireland wasn't in debt at the time of the last Royal Visit. But thousands of Irish people were in death and close to death in the slums of Dublin and every major city. To use that as an point to ponder. To compare Ireland to 100 years ago,like it was better or something.Take off those Royal blinkers and go away and read up about the history of your own city.
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geminicw | Mar 26, 2011, 06:04 PM EDT
Mary McAleese should be ashamed of herself!!! has she forgotten what was done to our Ancestors?? what they went through? what they fought and so many people died for?! us republicans do not want her here it is and insult to our ancestors! it will cause murder on our streets stay where you are!!! the queen is not welcome!!!
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Towngate | Mar 19, 2011, 08:46 PM EDT
MALONEY: I hope I live to see 'america' returned to its rightful owners.
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maloney | Mar 18, 2011, 04:06 PM EDT
Paddy Duffy..just another head of state from a country who had kicked people from their own land and replaced them with people who do not belong. Never say die, take back the country. Return it to the rightful owners.
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Towngate | Mar 18, 2011, 02:30 PM EDT
@ Patriot: Just a thought, and a point to ponder: At the time of the last Royal Visit; Ireland wasn't in 85 Billion Pounds debt! Where did it all go wrong?
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Towngate | Mar 16, 2011, 10:17 AM EDT
IF THE LAST visit ended our Royal connection ~ maybe this Visit will Restore it! ( We might need Her and Great Britain badly when we are kicked out of 'Europe'. Be careful,Paddy,my dear old friend, be very careful! The Queens visit will tell the entire world that Ireland is ready to play with the big boys at last! If we blow this chance to show Statesmanship and courtesy to a friendly Visitor, then default on the EU/IMF Loan and we Irish will be called the 'Bailout Bogmen' forever more!
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patriot | Mar 15, 2011, 04:46 PM EDT
James Connolly and Constance Markievicz formed a group to protest the last royal visit. This group was the seed kernal of the Easter Uprising led by the brand new IRA (which was composed of the IRB's Irish Volunteers and, more importantly, the Union founded Irish Citizen's Army). Let's hope this unwanted royal visit also stimulates another renaissance of the Gael in our never ending struggle to rid the island of the sassenach.
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