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FORMER TAOISEACH JOHN Bruton has claimed that Irish independence would have been achieved without the 1916 Rising, saying the event should not be glorified.
His comments come as the country prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of the Rising next year, with commemorative events beginning in January.
In an interview with UTV Ireland this week, Bruton claimed that independence from the United Kingdom would have been achieved through constitutional means, without the need for violence, albeit not as quickly.
“If we hadn’t had the rebellion, we probably would have proceeded – maybe not quite as quickly – to full independence by constitutional methods,” he said.
He said the enactment of Home Rule had provided legislative independence and there was, in his view, no need for the war of independence which followed the Rising.
“Looking back at Irish history, Home Rule was enacted two years before the Rising in Dublin and was already on the statute book and was going to come into effect anyway.
So there was probably, in my view, no need at all for the killing that took place between 1916 and 1923.
“Of course we must commemorate and remember the heroism and the sacrifice of the people who rose in 1916,” he said.
But we shouldn’t glorify it. We should remember that most of the things that were really important – the reform of the Land Laws, the achievement of legislative independence – were already achieved without 1916.
In the same interview, the former Fine Gael leader ruled out running for the presidency.
He said “the constraints of that office are quite considerable” and that his present position allows him to say things that are controversial.
Last year, Bruton was criticised for describing the Rising as “a mistake”.
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Seems to be FG policy to play down 1916 commemorations as much as possible.
Ah now their government partners what to have a colouring competition…
Probably don’t want it giving people ideas…..Anyway, that schmuck is a bona fide traitor to humanity, helping large scale financial institutions rape the planet, including our own country.
Typical Blueshirt. One hundred years later they’re selling out to the EU.
John Bruton is a TW@
I see Edna was caught in another headlock in Brussels and him giggling like a twit this very week.
Ireland in the UK before 1916 was not an equal partner, Ireland was right to get out when it did. Another battle to get out of the EU is coming. A province once again, sigh.
Brendan.,
You mean Twaitor
Kenny is Merkel’s obedient donkey. The Blueshirts are surrendering our hard won sovereignty on a gradual, ongoing basis. It time we stand up and take our country back.
Here here
Fg the tory party.fg lick the hole off the brits there wannabe brits.time for a real republican party to run this country
Was it Merkel who had him in the headlock?
Merkel doesn’t have time to meet Enda each time he pops over. It was one of her minions.
Well said Bobby
Just 70 years prior to 1916 our English rulers left over one million of us die from hunger. I think getting rid of them before they could do more damage was the right thing to do.
Enda is the end of FG.
No one and o mean no one could vote for them after their performance the last four and a half years, a Taoseach who speaks and puts his foot in mouth every time he does and makes a laugh of our Country. Good bye Adieu etc.
John ”Bilderberg” Bruton makes my skin crawl. A repulsive creature. He is on the Peter Sutherland bandwagon folks (as are the rest of FG), he would just love to see Ireland swallowed by a federal EU. Sick to death of these traitors.
Britain never left a country willingly. They had to be kicked out. Home Rule had been promised for years but the British kept reneging on their promises. That’s why Sinn Fein was formed. To set up a Dáil Éireann independently from the Brits who wanted to keep power at Westminster. Even if they kept to the 1914 deal and allowed home rule, who knows what kind of rump state we would have got from them. It’s amazing how Bruton never revealed his views when running for election. His duplicity is sickening and if he thinks he has a shot at being president he is a actually a bigger idiot than he seems. If he feels that way then I hope he steers clear of the celebration of the men that gave their lives for our country.
Do Canada (1867), Australia (1901) and New Zealand (1907) not count? I don’t remember reading about their wars of independence.
As far as I’m aware those countries are still part of the Commonwealth which is the new name for the old empire. Some of the other countries that had to fight to get rid of the British are India, South Africa, Kenya, USA. Millions died in those struggles. In countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Iraq the British made sure that the richest commodities that they possessed were signed over to British private interests. This left these countries, although rich in gold, diamonds, oil, rubber, uranium, practically bankrupt. This has left them susceptible to rule by dictators and caused their populations to live in abject poverty.The British prefer it that way as a country with a strong government would start to look at these underhand deals and maybe dismantle them. Is that what Bruton wanted for us? Freedom at a cost that would have destroyed our fledgling state. Thankfully we had people unwilling to let the Brits crucify us and who laid their lives on the line, unlike Bruton who would have bent over and given them whatever they wanted. That’s why people from a century ago are remembered better than one of our recent Taoiseachs.
Canada, NZ and Austraila were colonies with large anglo-saxon settler populations where the native inhabitants were marginalised completely. They were always going to stay loyal and they were far removed. Ireland was a constituent part of the UK. They didn’t let us go without a fight so what makes you think they were going to let us go without a fight?
Half of them still can’t bring themselves to admit we’re a different country 100 years later
I suppose the fact that they’d reformed their constitution by changing the status of the House of Lords to facilitate the third (final) passage of the Home Rule bill suggests they were pretty serious.
But from what I can tell from Roger Casement, Erskine Childers and even Patrick Pearse, a graduated move to independence via Home Rule and then Dominion Status wasn’t acceptable to true Irish patriots. Without a violent revolution, even if they ended up in more or less exactly the same constitutional position, Ireland couldn’t claim to be a nation that had thrown off its Imperialist oppressor.
So people fought to prove a point (Irish nationhood) more than to make an actual change (Irish independence). From Casement’s speech in the dock:
“Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth, a thing no more to be doled out to us, or withheld from us, by another people than the right to life itself — than the right to feel the sun, or smell the flowers, or to love our kind. It is only from the convict these things are withheld, for crime committed and proven and Ireland, that has wronged no man, has injured no land, that has sought no dominion over others — Ireland is being treated today among the nations of the world as if she were a convicted criminal.”
The status of the House of Lords was changed because they had the power to stop legislation being passed, even though Britain was a democracy and none of these were elected representatives. The Home Rule bill may have been used as the weapon to bring about this change but the fact was that the British Government cared more about power being in their hands at Westminster than about the fate of the Irish.
John. Ireland was no more oppressed than anywhere else in the UK at the time. And Britain wasn’t “kicked out” of most countries by the way. But hey, that’s nationalist rhetoric for you, high on emotions low on facts. And the facts are Ireland didn’t need a pitiful rebellion which lead to a pointless conflict and later civil war. Ireland has more in common with the rest of Britain than anywhere else, yet handed control over to Rome then Brussels and Frankfurt.
Ah, Fine Gael. The European Party, sell us to the lowest bidder for a place at the big table.
The men and women of 1916 started a process to gain independence. FG gave that independence away very easily.
Off to Kilmanham jail with you Bruton
Bruton seems to be on a mission to rewrite 1916, f@@k off Bruton you bankers bagman and slug
Memories, this is either sabotage or very bad PR from Fine Gael, the man is a weasel.
Enda’s sitting on his knee….
Jaysus will someone just give Bruton the UK passport he so desperately wants
Perhaps we might get Bruton asylum in Britain.
Brutal Bruton is probably still looking for a knighthood.
For loyal services to the British Crown.
He should just keep his opinions to himself until 2017. Has received too much money and he thinks he is the only voice to be listened to. Will he accept an invitation to be on the steps of the GPO for Easter 2016??.P***k
The man is silly and would be better off to just stay quiet and stop embarrassing us all, he panders to all and sundry. just a few weeks ago he claimed the northern conflict was all about religion, i get really excited when people say that!
What’s going on here is that they don’t want us commemorating our dead because it draws attention to the free state this shower and their ilk have sold out from under us to private investors. Treason.
Or maybe it encourages others to try and emulate them. The provo lovers are always trying to draw comparisons and I’d guess the dissidents now see themselves carrying the torch.
Our rising will be at the ballot box.
Jesus jammin; even for you that’s terrible.
He’s no more PBP than you or I. SF to the core.
John Bruton was a mistake.
Bruton has not yet given up on his attempted legacy to Irish society; VAT on childrens’ shoes.
he should have done a runner
Lol!
I think the conscription crisis of 1918 was also a huge factor that is always overlooked. With a resurgent Sinn Fein post 1916 along with the Irish public and the church vehemently opposed to it,, it was going to drive an even bigger wedge between Britain and Ireland. I think the threat of it was enough to start what would become the Irish war of independence.
Can’t imagine a former American president ever saying such a thing about their independence day and how they fought for it. They would be run up a flagpole or would probably have to go into hiding for the rest of their lives. Maybe mr burton thinks the nazi’s would also have got out of russia if the russians had just given them a little more time to enjoy that occupation. It’s just a darn shame we didn’t manage to give them a well deserved bloody nose a lot earlier to kick them back to their own country. They were always good at turning people against each other and recruiting the snivelling wannabe.
FG dont realize hindsight is 2020? Their other problem is with insight and foresight
@Ciara, Bruton is 100% correct. We were ruled by the Crown and fellow Irishmen kept the peace and joined the British Army to save Belgium. Eoin McNeil called off the Rising as he judged the time was not right. He was the Commander in Chief and his direct orders were disobeyed. The first fatality was two unarmed Irish Policemen at Dublin Castle who were shot in cold blood. It was a horrible and bloody part of Irish History with hundreds of innocents killed and injured. Children who disobeyed orders in the trenches at the time were shot at dawn. Execution was normal practice.
Children taken out and shot at dawn! Source please.
Shot At Dawn: Cowards, Traitors Or Victims ? By Peter Taylor – Whiffen.
Over 300 troops executed for cowardice. He gives account of 16 and 17 year old kids shot and auch was the shame, their names never appeared on memorials.
David, you referred to children in the 1916 Rising in the context of criticising the 1916 Rising. The topic under discussion is the 1916 Rising. You appear instead and confusingly to be referring to the First World War in Europe, not the 1916 Rising.
Was execution of the leaders of the 1916 Rising “normal practice”. Your comment lacks clarity and appears to be directed at confusing two different matters.
Your references source has poor provenance.
The slave mentality is alive and well as we head into 2016.
You’re post is just apears to be that of a sickening apologist . The nazi’s had their stooges and gestapo/ army recruits in other countries also. Does Mr. Burton think we should be grateful for some risible land acts that had to be forced through in order to try and address the crime that the irish people had their land stolen and given to landlords in another country or that millions had died through starvation previously because they were dehumanised and forced into landless poverty while they worked to fill thousands of ships full of food to go to England. There were still sanctioning british army death squads in the of North Ireland that drove around and shot innocent 15 year old Irish men on the island of Ireland not that long ago. You are insane. This is the real face of your British/English occupations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_war_crimes#/media/File%3ALizzieVanZyl.jpg
@ Fiona. That was the mindset of the time, life was cheap and it was a terrible time. We owe a lot to the men who gave their lives for Irish Freedom but war should never be glorified. After the leaders were executed, public support only then turned in favour of the volunteers.Executions of troops continued until 1930.in other words they shot their own as well.
Well played Fiona.
People tend to forget the Home Rule influence of Nationalist Party leader John Redmond up until his death in 1918. Sinn Fein used their opportunity at the 1918 general election to steer nationalists to a fresh anti British agenda once Redmond was out of the way.
A bit harsh in fairness. I’d let him off to spout his out-dated lickarsery. It’ll only come back to bite him full on, on the butt cheek. By an Irish Wolfhound.
Plenty of lads around here Charlie to get the job done, or so they like to make out.
Could they shoot him on their play stations? or with a paint gun maybe
Tom Kenny, the man who used to actively canvass for SF, and now supposedly absolutely abhors them. Are we supposed to take you seriously? I like the Journal but my goodness you do hear some tall tales.
Well Jamie it’s called maturing, must be upsetting for you when you have to turn to the personal attacks. Typical sf bully boy
@Chris. Redmond was a respected politician but his party was finished. Before he died he had also come to support the Sinn Fein stance. Anyway, Parnell’s party were hardly angels themselves. They were just as happy to use violence to achieve their goals.
You said yourself that you were once a shinner. I’m just wondering how you managed to survive the whole full-circle thing. How many pies are you prepared to bite from?
This land as much as I love it is not worth killing over. Life is to precious, some excuse in days gone by, in times of oppression. The truth is if the dissidents would fu*k off and the hard line loyalists,
in this day and age the border is very insignificant.
The constant looking back and tribal nonsense of the civil war is beyond a joke. It happened, get over it. The very ones that hark on here about the peace process and moving on are the 1st to drag up the civil war, mental stuff.
We have more in common with the brits than any other nationality and that is more important now more than ever as the world becomes more and more globalised.
Imagine if party political nonsense was set aside and people worked together for the genuine good of all and a shared future, then the possibilities are limitless.
No party believes in that, not extremes but inclusive of right, left, center values.
They all have valid arguments, this childish nonsense of we’re right you’re wrong by all parties is totally depressing. Sorry although I believe SF have good points, I also think they are the most divisive, I wish they weren’t. On my kids lives I genuinely mean that.
Now you can save that to throw back at me some other time if you wish but that will only deepen my resolve to call out hypocrisy. Good night and for the crack look at things from a different angle.
Tom in all fairness, the IRA will be confined to history one of these days. Let the people sing.
Bruton is a stereotypical politician, – a yellow belly talker, – who crawls out from under the bed when the shooting stops and the heroes have done the job, most of them having paid with their lives…
But not before the last foreign soldier has taken his weapon away from our wonderful and peaceful land.
Granted it was never a settled land, but it was our thing and is our thing a long time now. We built Newgrange long before these Celtic wanderers assailed our shores.
If it were leeches like the Brutons we were relying on to forge a path towards independence we’d be a long, LONG time waiting..
Sad to see the sacrifices of 1916 belittled so much by a former leader of the country. His party would not of existed without 1916. He should be ashamed of himself, a man that was always opposed to a United Ireland.
John Bruton is incredibly naive and wrong. The Home Rule Act, which the British government succeeded in delaying indefinitely (or until the First World War was over, but we will never know whether the British would have found another excuse to delay its implementation further even after the war’s conclusion, as the English establishment had a history of going back on their word when it came to Irish affairs), would have only given Ireland the equivalent of today’s Welsh Assembly in terms of domestic legislative power, and no power whatsoever when it came to foreign affairs. Padraig Pearse was correct that the only way that Ireland could secure its freedom and our God-given right to national sovereignty was if we were prepared to fight and sacrifice for it. And, thank God, many brave men did.
Another important success of the Easter Rising and its after-effect was that it stemmed the flow of Irish men joining the pointless slaughter of the First World War, as young Irish men now had a more worthy cause to fight for, namely their own nation’s freedom from Imperial rule.
Like Pearse’s proclamation your post has far too much God in it. Clearly God had no problem with the Brits as he allowed them to rule us for the bones of 800 years.
And what we got after the war of independence wasn’t independence anyway. We certainly didn’t secure our freedom. Indeed it is arguable that 1916 should not be celebrated at all as what the people of 1916 fought for has never come to pass.
Probably would have happened eventually..but what kind of country would we be now?..would we have suffered during the second world war?..we could hardly have been neutral..what currency would we have?..too many ifs/buts and maybes..
We would have suffered, we would have taken part, as we should have done anyway. Its abouts as polarized a good vs evil situatuon as any war has ever been fought over.
But its also true that if we had taken part we would have paid a great price and aloy of us might not exist today. We owe our existance to the fact that we did not fight, but still we should have fought.
M – you might be right in saying that Ireland should have fought in World War II.
But for the people who claim that Ireland deliberately avoided war while others nobly fought in our place, I think a few things should be borne in mind.
Certainly Britain and France declared war on Germany to assist Poland – but in actual terms, they didn’t do much to help the Poles. When push came to shove, the Germans attacked them and dragged them into the war, not the other way around.
The US remained neutral, until it was attacked by Japan (and even then, it was Germany who declared war on the US, not the other way around), and the Soviet Union was also neutral, until attacked by Germany.
So it is true that Ireland tried to avoid war during the Second World War – but so did all of the Allied powers.
Britain and Frances punitive measures against Germany after WW1 created the perfect environment in Germany for the rise of the Nazi party. ALL of the big powers were responsible for the epic death fest that was WW1, but only one got punished.
The Soviet Union was far from neutral 1939-1941.. Why do people keep forgetting that it wasn’t just Germany that invaded Poland? They divvied Poland up between them.
Check your facts the French were the ones who refused to lessen the the German burden of WW1 debt in the midst of huge depression and inflation in Germany.The British and USA wanted to write off that debt but the French refused giving Hitler his big opportunity.
The British just wanted to weaken France. It has been British foreign policy to weaken the must powerful country on the continent for the last 400 hundred years. Germany 1914, France in the 20′s and 30′s.
Doesn’t alter the fact they only went to war because Germany invaded Poland but ended upon the same side as russia who not only invaded poland with the germans but who grabbed the 3 baltic states at the same time.
But rights or wrongs aside it would have been inconceivable for Ireland to join with Britan in WWII less than 20 years after a violent independence struggle with them.
A FG traitor. I’m shocked.
You better look up the word traitor, a different view than your own doesn’t equal traitor but you keep mouthing off there
Peter Sutherland, John Bruton and friends have been working very hard for a long time to erase Irelands sovereignty against the will of the Irish people.. That is treachery.
Brutons view on Ireland’s History and his present assertions, ties in so beautifully with the view of The Chairperson of Dún Laoighre Council , during this week, when he ruled out of order , the hanging up of The 1916 Proclamation in The Council Chamber , as he deemed it ‘inappropriate’ .
Would Bruton and his FG Council Chairperson, like the name of Dún Laoighre to revert to its old British name of Kingstown too ?
Is Dun Laoghaire not the proper Irish spelling then?
Like I care what he thinks…
Looking at history backwards again.. Then and there context,, home rule had been fudged, lied about and promised for forty years by 1916…
I see fine gaels attempts to turn the commemoration of the rising into the gathering 2.0 continues unabated.
It won’t work. The heroes of 1916 will not be airbrushed out of the proceedings.
My god,putting down the 1916 hero’s, cannot get any lower than that.
If John Bruton had of been around at the time of the rising……he’d have wore a British uniform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHsvb7k7_ho …even Charles was embarrassed in that clip of arse licking.
Leave it to a blueshirt to second guess and disparage the founders of this great nation. His comments are as despicable as he is. Great Irish men fought and died for our freedom, something Fine Gael seems to have forgotten.
Majority of leaders in Ireland are more than happy to walk all over the graves of those who fought and died in 1916, sure look at how much they’ve given over to the EU.
Their own arse, and ours.
I think you will find the transformation of our country from a remote inward looking backwater at the edge of europe where married women couldnt work and none execept the doctor and headmaster had a phone or car at the start of the 70′s to the modern forward looking dynamic country we have now is thanks to our being part of the eu. To many people look back at the past with rose tinted glasses, but Ireland has changed dramatically and for the better.
John.. Go back to bed..
He’s right, home rule was coming in anyway. The Scottish got a vote on independence. 1916 rebellion was a waste of time.
…”waste of time”
Waste of lives I guess by that logic of yours also?
Listen to yourself, fool.
John your a dud
Ha. The UVF was set up to oppose Home Rule by force. Home Rule had been scuppered numerous times previously and was now ‘on hold’. Unionists were going to the front in droves to save Britain, a debt that would not have been ‘awarded’ with Home Rule. The rest of Europe was at war, the only certainty at the time was uncertainty and England had amply proven themselves untrustworthy in Irish affairs. Bruton is simply another revisionist west Brit, embarrassing that he is a former Taoiseach.
We would have a united Ireland now. I agree, the 1916 rebellion was a waste of life.
Revisionist nonsence, Bruton is an embarrassment to the men and women of 1916 who gave their lives for the likes of him to become taoiseach. Shameful.
The English treated this country desperately..
The Irish Banks, the Irish politicians and the Irish Roman Catholic Church have not done much better.
It’s nearly 2016 Mr Bruton and we are not yet independent. Explain your logic.
If Irishmen and Irishwomen knew about your attitude before you were elected.
We would have never known you existed.
Even if the rebels of 1916 had gained full independence through the Rising, Bruton and his Blue Shirt fanboys and girls would in one form or another still be moaning about it. It is a shame to see so many people with “small man syndrome” when it comes to their dependence on the apron strings of an Empire whether it was the British or now the EU. God forbid that Irish politicians should stand up for their country every once and awhile but from Redmond to Enda “Tussle my hair and tell me what to do” Kenny it seems that there is a particular part of Irish society that yearns for the good old days of the Queen and her rule. You just have to look at the commentators here desperately trying to out do the Unionists in attacking any and all things republican. Jesus, I’d say even the lads in the DUP HQ must blush at how virulently rabid some of the FGer’s are on here.
I’d say if Enda asked Arlene Foster as to what would be the chances of Fine Gael and the DUP merging she’d probably say that there was no chance as FG would be to hardline for the TUV never mind the DUP!
A serious question for you, is slab a traitor ?
Who is slab and what country did he commit treason against?
And a serious question for you. Do you still stand by your comment that Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork and every other republican hunger striker since 1916 are the same as Islamic State suicide bombers?
What I said was they died for what they believed in, that is the same. If somebody decides to commit suicide through starvation that’s their choice. I don’t applaud it, as for Isis if they all blew themselves up is be happy about that. Nice deflection from slab Thomas Murphy. Your not to quick to call him a traitor, even though he has (among a long list of things) defrauded the irish people of serious amounts of money. He never had a mandate for any of his actions yet he’s classed as “a good republican and not a criminal” by gerry and sf. More Hypocrisy
I’m not deflecting from anything Tom I just wanted to be sure who you were referring to as “slab”. If he he was to conspire with a foreign government then I would certainly say that the was a traitor but I can’t see him kissing the Queens arse anytime soon.
You made a comment earlier on “You better look up the word traitor, a different view than your own doesn’t equal traitor but you keep mouthing off there” Maybe you should take your own advice on that. If your definition of traitor is someone who has ” defrauded the irish people of serious amounts of money.” then that covers a serious amount of people doesn’t it? Certain TD’s would be the first port of call and then you can start on this http://www.revenue.ie/en/press/defaulters/ There is about 1,500 people there for the first three quarters of 2015 alone who defrauded the State so in your book I presume that they are traitors also.
You weren’t sure who slab is, yeah ok. He’s a traitor to the irish people because he has no problem defrauding the irish people for his own wealth, that’s a traitor. Not a good Republican because a true Republican puts the Republic 1st. Funny how all the sf “republicans” didn’t even recognise the Republic until recently, (some of the sf stooges here still refer to it as the free state) the hypocrisy on every level is so plain.
As for tds I have no problem saying bertie, lowry etc are crooks and traitors, phoney false etc etc. It’s cross party, some good and some bad. That clown in Monaghan should be prosecuted if it’s at all possible. Bertie should have been nailed by revenue and someone should have to answer why he wasn’t. Destroying the country
Well then Tom was wasn’t he along with every other tax defaulter charged under the Treason Act of 1939? By my reckoning if we used your definition of treason we would have at least 3,000 people or more up for treason every year and that’s not not even starting on the banking and developer sectors.
That’s my point, calling Bruton a traitor is plain stupid. To the best of my knowledge he has a clean record, which is something coming from the era he did. You can disagree with him, call him stupid, arrogant maybe, but a traitor ? Ott bull
I don’t think slab is a traitor, just showing the hypocrisy, he’s a crook though
Sure Tom the place is crooked from the top down. You take your lead from your leaders right?
what are you on about Jamie, neither Slab or Gerry are my leaders
Slab isn’t a politician either Tom. Jaw jaw is better than war war right?
Squireen Bruton, the agent for the British ascendancy, forelock tugger to his British betters, devoid of nobility and dignity, eye on the main chance, a money grubber seeking to regain a public profile.
What else would you expect from a fart only a bad smell
F**k off you muppet.
Bruton your an ignorant pr1€k.
He should not be allowed stand as a politician in this country with remarks like that. No wonder our government is useless. What do they say…….sure someone will do it
Through this the beloved Bruton stabbed.
Doubt you would read that a ex prime minister criticizing the storming of the Bastille ,What a disgusting creature Bruton is How many pensions to the Irish people him ?,So it would be ok for the Irish to be sent to be slaughtered in W.W.1 . to free Belgium but it was wrong to fight for the freedom of your own country ? Bruton and his party and its present day leader have sold out this country and its citizens to banks ,and to the Germans .wonder how Micheal Collins would have dealt with them in his time ,?
No need to wonder where hogan and kenny stand as it is a stable little country as they say in fg land. Utv and fg are mutually beneficial friends or is it just the autor acting the go between
Brutal Bruton.
Many historians would say the rising was actually a failed rising that resulted in senseless deaths.
100% of historians have hindsight, can we hear the view before the rising with all the crystal balls floatin around at the time.
I’ve enjoyedcDiarmuid Feirriter’s analysis.
It was the post Rising executions which transformed what resulted.
There was no shortage of sensless deaths in 1916 but most of them were in europe.
I wouldn’t say the 1916 rising led to independence, but it was one step in a long evolving process and it did contribute to the end result, which was independence. Things would certainly have been different if it hdidn’t occur, but how different , no-one cn tell. But its not likely it would have been a live happily ever after peaceful devolution of a united Ireland from the UK.
Anyone who thinks the British would have given us independence without a fight should ask himself why then did they fight so hard to deny us independence?Throwing everything they could at us until international revulsion against their methods made the position untenable.
Deal with the facts. Is anything he said incorrect?
There are no facts. Everything he is quoted as saying is conjecture.
The Land Acts & Home Rule are conjecture?
The irony is the the Land Acts conferred more statutory protection of tenant farmers from 1880 inwards in relation to their farms and their homes than urban tenants enjoy in respect of their rented homes in 2016.
The Irish Banks and Irish landlords will give less mercy that the19th century rack landlords.
Fair rent and fixity of tenure are not exactly features of Irish Landlord and Tenant law.
No, the Land Acts & Home Rule of themselves are not conjecture.
This is conjecture:
“If we hadn’t had the rebellion, we PROBABLY would have proceeded – maybe not quite as quickly – to full independence by constitutional methods.”
This is also conjecture:
“So there was PROBABLY, in my view, no need at all for the killing that took place between 1916 and 1923.”
“Everything he is quoted as saying is conjecture”
Where did Bruton refer to the Land Acts and in what context?
Fiona – more of your rubbishy
Comments
Powerabbey, I’m in awe of your intellect and powers of expression. Your intellectual arguments defeat me.
John Bruton, the biggest West Brit of them all is also a patron of the Reform Movement, which advocates returning Ireland to the UK or at the very least the British Empire. Despicable man and despicable party.
And I recon the titanic wouldn’t have Sunk if it hadn’t have hit an iceberg ….school of the obvious
Yeah, just like Sco… oh wait.
Bought a great c.d. today for my husband
“101 Irish Rebel Anthems”
It’s a 100 year commemorative collection 1916-2016
Does anyone really care what Kermit the Frog thinks……..
Remember those embarrassing scenes in Dublin Castle when John Bruton nearly wet himself with emotion when proposing a toast to Prince Charles. Even Charles was embarrassed by the fawning antics of Bruton. The truth is Bruton would be quite happy if Ireland had stayed within the UK. Talk of Ireland becoming independent anyway is nonsense – Bruton would be happier with a Home Rule solution.
Lord Bruton of Meath is proud of his status as a vassal to the Prince of Wales.
A more relevant issue is whether we can truthfully say that we have lived up to and realised in 2016 any of the ideals of the 1916 Proclamation.
Almost 2,000 children will be in emergency style accommodation over Christmas, 1 in 5 children are brought up on the poverty line, our society is unequal, we have a housing crisis and we have many serious and pervasive social problems.
We have elevated the Banks and plutocrats in the social order, we have had massive emigration and we prefer the wealthy over the poor in access to health services.
I don’t feel that we have lived up to the ideals of 1916.
As for 1916, it happened. Counter factuals are a waste of of time. The Nazis did not win in the Second World War and the Bank bail out happened.
Bruton is looking backwards, not forwards.
On the contrary. Ireland was a priest ridden, Catholic, backward kip for decades after 1916 so I would suggest that the ideals espoused by Mr. Pearse and others were more than adequately lived up to.
@Fiona
“Almost 2,000 children will be in emergency style accommodation over Christmas..”
Because their parents cannot afford accommodation in the cities.
The solution is for these families to move to rural areas, where rents and house prices are lower. Many parents already live with their children in rural areas and commute to and from work in the cities. Don’t take my word for it. Read some of the comments on the following page.
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/housing-crisis-families-2360092-Oct2015/
Poor Alan, that was all that you could take from the comment.
You and Bruton have a lot in common in relation to your shared glibness and superficiality.
Ciaran, what a load of tosh and piffle on your part.
The prospects of employment are in Dublin, the children are in schools in Dublin, their connection and social context is in Dublin and many are simply employed in under paid employment.
Like it or not most services are Dublin centric as services has increasingly Ben shut down outside of Dublin.
Banishment to the provinces was favoured by Cromwell.
Fiona there is nothing you have to say that I would take seriously.
I, for one, am quite glad that the ideals of lunatic Catholics who wrote poems about blood sacrifice and were, in fact, going to turn this country into a province of the Vatican (which their good friend De Valera did anyway) have died a death and I’ve no real interest in celebrating them.
Alan I think you have a very simplistic view of Pearse.
Certainly he was a practicing Catholic, but that is not to say he kowtowed to the Church. In particular, he wrote a number of scathing editorials in An Claidheamh Soluis about the Church hierarchy when it opposed compulsory Irish for the new national university.
No doubt that after death he was held up as the ideal link between Catholicism and Republicanism, but that says more about those who came after him than the man himself.
@Fiona
So you’re saying that there are no adequate public services outside Dublin? Get real! The movement of children from one school in one area to another school in another area happens every year.
You need to get to the rural areas of Mayo, Donegal, Cork and Kerry, counties I’m familiar with. The progressive unravelling of services, school closures, public transport infrastructural cutbacks, Post Offuce and Bank closures, GPs shutting down, Community Health Centres increasingly under resourced, teaching vacancies not filled, shops going out of business, basic services unavailable and rural misery and you might start getting real.
Your highly conservative, reactionary, and ideologically driven support for the FG party has blinded yiu to reality.
Look at Sarah’s story today on 98fM.
Talk to rural social workers.
@Fiona
Why don’t you read the following comment, which was made by Jo45 on the following page?:
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/housing-crisis-families-2360092-Oct2015/
“Move to a county where you can afford to live, like working people, and commute to see family, like working people. Limit the number of kids you have to what you can afford, like working people. Live within your means, like working people.”
British John if he had his way we’d be still under England’s rule. They got their land and money from the Brits while others were fu.ed off their land remind you of anything vote fg/Tories
WestBrit, Dublin, Ireland…
Did people know that at the time? Only other countries get to commemorate such things. We should be ashamed of ourselves apparently.
Yeah it would have happened eventually. It’s still nice to mark something that happened a hundred years ago. Scotland got to vote on independence in 2014 and voted no so ya never know how things would have turned out.
Bull shit John ! What about the big fellow ? You the minister who brought down a government on putting tax on school children shoes !
Says the blueshirt, history shows us that the British Empire understood one thing and that wasn’t a auld chat.
Big farmer Wa ## er.
The truth hurts, fair play Michael :)
Another passenger on the 1st carriage of the gravey train!!
The State has been very generous to Mr. Bruton.
Mr. Bruton has not been quite as generous to the Irish State.
Absolutely agree. No mandate for action til 1919, & we lost any hope of a negotiated way forward with Unionists.
There was never going to be a negotiated way forward with unionists. Enough of the romance, research the facts. The British Army mutineed, saying they would not allow the unionists to be forced outof the union. The first gunrunning was done by the unionists who were able to march home with their guns unmolested, long before any nationalists ever had a gun. The Conservative party was forever playing the “Orange card” to whip up jingoism in Britan. Google the Ulster covenent and ask yourself, does this sound like people who were going to negotiate an end to the union.
His teeth are disgustingly yellow and he’s about 40 lbs overweight.
A more useful and relevant exercise in 2016 would be a critical and robust self evaluation by the Irish people of what has been achieved since 1916 and what can be improved.
What would or would not have happened if the 1916 Rising had not happened is a counter factual exercise and meaningless. 1916 happened.
Not let us examine if we want a free market economy of survival of the fittest or a more humane and fair society with equality of opportunity for all children.
Should it be all about money and materialism or are their finer and nobler aspiration we should aspire for and work towards achieving?
Bruton and his ilk want to focus on a arid exercise of what might have been instead of what will be.
Bruton exhibits the mind and reactionary spirit of the conservative wishing to reinvent a narrative of Ireland without the 1916 Rising. It’s pointless and meaningless, like Bruton himself.
Revisionist, Redmondite.
Bruton has no right to tell the people of Ireland how to think, i have had enough of FG telling us what they think get lost the lot of you and the rest will follow after the the GE.
Bruton doesn’t sound like an Irish surname to me. A trawl through his family history might be enlightening.
It was the Irish who showed the English how to read and write.
The Germans remember that.
Austrians remember that
The Swiss remember that.
French remember that
Italians remember that.
The English don’t.
Thats strange, because the English spoke a completely different language to most people in Ireland until after the Famine, by which time literacy levels in England were far higher than in Ireland. In them days only the rich went to school and rich plaves don’t lose half their population in a few decades. Besides i would imagine the Romans brought a few books with them.
Without 1916 probably would have had dominion status like Canada by 1930 but then we would have been part of WW 2 which would have been bad.
However the heavy lifting for independence was done on the constitutional side and then all the credit taken by men of 1916 at the end. Some credit should also go to the constitutional side. O Connell Parnell the Irish party in Westminister also contributed to eventual independence.
Now now don’t be taking a balanced view, you have to have an entrenched one sided view around here
Partition would still have occured. Canada was a colony at the other side of an ocean, we were a constituent part of the UK.
John Bruton doesn’t know what he’s talking about, end of discussion!!
Braying Bruton.
What donkey laugh forgets, or more likely choses to ignore, is that the Irish people voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1918 and the wishes of the people were surpressed by the British government.
And he’s happy to glorify the so called Great War. Hypocrite.
Pr#ck
Can’t see how that could possibly be. The 1916 rising laid the seeds of Independent 6 years later..
We spent over a decade talking about home rule , not like everyone suddenly got pissed off . The Brit’s went back on thier word and bingo 1916.
If anyone here ever read the novel ‘Castle Rackrent’ by Maria Edgeworth, ‘old’ Thady Quirke and his family can be compared to the Brutons.
And what’s his opinion on Eoin O’Duffy creating a fascist militia within the police and plotting a military coup, you know the ACA, the blueshirts, large numbers of which where drawn from the Dublin Guard, a unit so notorious for war crimes during the civil war that they where known as the Green and Tans?
The ones that would go on to form Fine Gael.
The so called General EoinO’Duffy, the notorious fascist.
John Bruton, a failed politician, with a failed legacy, with a failed imagination and failed political conscience struggles to find some relevance in 2016, but fails again.
Fiona tap is “Richie” five pension johns brother
I think that you are right!
In the immortal words of Father Jack Hackett “Feck off Gob**ite”!!!!
John you obtuse little man, always remember that the elite you seek to impress across the water only see you as another dumb Paddy.
Ireland is not independent.
A work in progress a chara, stepping stones. The Big Man talked about those before they assassinated him. They needed Collins out of the equation because the man was far from finished fighting, unlike others who already had their political empires built in their mind’s eye. Charlatans.
The two parts of Ireland are independent, the people in the republic decide what they want to do and the people in the north decide what they want to do (or not as the case may be )
Grow up, shared future my ar*se
His people would have lost a lot of their ancient ill-gotten gains as a result of the insurrection 1916-1923. He is a Royalist. His people were traditionally supported by a foreign monarchy who upheld their illegal claim to our land.
Of course John Bruton is correct. Only an idiot would disagree with him. Idiots totally accept the nonsense fed to them as children and are unwilling and incapable of processing contradictory evidence. They reject anything that disturbs their simplistic viewpoint.
Once Tap Solny endorses John Bruton, Bruton’s status as a buffoon is thereby assured. Well done Tap!
Bruton really needs to shut the fcuk up
Mr Bruton is away with the fairies
You wouldn’t hear any ex-america president saying not to celebrate the 4th of July or that the fight of independence from England was wrong. What a complete Ass and an embarrassment to the post he previously held???
I dont really agree. The Land Acts he talks about were part of the Balfour/Salisbury govts policy of “Killing Home Rule with Kindness”. It did not indicate a conciliatory move on Home Rule itself. Furthermore, the Liberal Party dropped support for Home Rule under the Campbell-Bannerman govt. It only officially supported it again when Asquith needed support from Redmond because of being a minority government, and they parked it for the duration of WW1. After WW1 it still didn’t happen until the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and that was only forced by the War of Independence. Personally I think without 1916, we would still be part of the UK, but we mightnt have been partitioned.
The only reason fine Gael got in last time was a protest vote. Don’t forget that people;-)
Who cares what john “unionist” bruton thinks.This is the man who managed to unravel the first IRA ceasefire. He still hasn’t a clue that he was played by the British establishment when he was in government yet now he’s suggestingthe UK would have given us independence without a fight. Well if thats so true, why didn’t they give us independence instead of fighting?
No doubt the poll on here tomorrow will be asking the same question, instead they should be quizzing the rest of FG asking do they stand by what Lord Bruton said.
Er and regards.
Without a doubt..,and possibly without the terrible civil war. Until the 1970s all we had was sweet damn all.. Damn those who thought all we needed was the cupla focaill and maybe two meals a day. The sacrifice that was imposed on a duped population amounted to a hill of beans when the almighty dollar arrived in earnest. Till we joined the EEC we had nothing and those who think otherwise we’re not around then.
Independence won by violence did not serve us well.
Post colonial evolution takes a long time,,, even America was a basket case of slavery, poverty and civil war a hundred years after its war of independence..
Yes remind us how the forerunners of FG/ACA acted during the civil war?
Look at Africa.
What Planet do these idiots live on
It’s great that we live in a country where different view points and opinions are so civilly discussed. Sometimes politely disagreed with using reasoned argument, sometimes agreed with.
Thankfully we aren’t ignorant pig savages, quick to kneejerk into angry ugly riposte and ad hominem attacks from the arrogant armchair of tradition and ignorant assumption.
Ireland should be proud we can explore our history in such a mature manner.
Bruton, the braying buffoon, set the tone of the discussion by his servile sycophancy.
OneTrueVoice: are you getting paid to come out with this drivel?
This man has turned into a complete lunatic.
Is it not deeply offensive that this awful man can come out with this rubbish while he lives off benefits. Wouldn’t work and still grabs as much as he can!! We should be so ashamed f. Why are people answering without being angry at the traitor
He’s entitled to his opinion. Militarily holing up in a large building is just asking for trouble, they really were dreamers but they started the process of independance and no one can take that away from them….
The process of independence was already well underway.
That’s just an assertion of bare opinion.
While I’m no fan of John, he is probably right on this one, it of course would have been an all Irish parliament within the UK in the 1920s and would have progressed to full independence in the 1950s or 1960s.
Never would have happened. No British Goverment would have forced the unionists out. The British army mutineed over it and nothing was done. The whole British establishment heaved a collective sigh of relief when the Austrians invaded Serbia, it stopped things coming to a head.
01/11/1169. The day Erin lost her sovereignty.
The first of May 1169 even. What’s 6 months between friends? The partial conquest of an ancient land.
Feudal times, no such thing as nation states and soveriegnty as you imagine it. There was only levels of overlords and interlocking webs of fealty. The British nobility didn’t even speak the same language as the peasants
The Irish knew they were a nation and a people long before the invaders arrived.
How much grant aid did this guy get from all the different sources? Will the Journal please disclose it. I doubt if there is anyone better at using all that is available to him. Typical politician.
A post WW2 America would have caused that I would think?
Especially Kennedy if not other Irish American senators?
The truth hurts so it seems. Bruton is of course correct. But decades of brainwashing about “we’re so oppressed” and now any mention of anything that contradicts the myth is akin to heresy. Irish people had the same rights as anyone else in the UK. Ireland had 100 democratically elected MPs in Westminster. The Home Rule bill had already been passed. Yet that wasn’t good enough for a minority who relished bloodshed to baptise Ireland before turning the country into a backwards Celtic/Catholic caliphate. Even post WWII Britain – the land of the “oppressors” – still with rationing, was a better bet for tens if not hundreds of thousands of Irish who immigrated from the economic austerity and cultural straightjacket that was Ireland. Independence? Nothing wrong with that. But went about it completely the wrong way. Then gave it away to Rome, Brussels & Frankfurt.
If you kook at the legacy of 1916 on the history of Ireland over the last 100 years, you certainly have to ask the question would Ireland be better off if the Rising had never happened?
My reading of history is that we would now have a free, united Ireland, without the virulent bitterness caused by the civil war or the war of Independence, or the ongoing enmity with England, with the gun taken out of Irish politics and the role of the Catholic Church much reduced in the running of the state.
It is easy to get swept away on a wave of patriotic fervour but the results of 1916 were pernicious for life in Ireland and we have ended up with a divided country still.
You can understand why the Rising took place from an emotional perspective but from a strategic perspective it was not helpful.
We should honour the bravery of all the people who fought over that time period but let’s no get carried away over the benefits to Ireland of their actions
Every member of the Dail is a traitor to the memory of the 1916 leaders and to us – the REAL people of Ireland. If you want to help save our People, Culture and Country then JOIN US: http://www.cppireland.org
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