SOME MEN WHO DIED IN FLANDERS FOR HOME RULE by Donal Kennedy

The ballad makers never sang of The Men Who Died in Flanders (nor off Jutland or Suvla) For Home Rule, nor, more pertinently, for John Bull. The fallen and maimed Irishmen fulfilled the destiny chosen for them by John Redmond in his London speech on St Patrick’s Day 1913 – Imperial Cannon-Fodder. (See my BLOGS 16th & !7th September 2016).

As for the Irish mothers, lovers and sisters of the cannon-fodder, some years previously Redmond explained to C P Scott of The Manchester Guardian, he did not want them to be enfranchised or active in public affairs. Apparently they were to sit demurely at home sewing socks  for soldiers.

A recent correspondent in THE IRISH TIMES, who teaches history in a North Dublin School, strikes me as a reincarnation of John Redmond, and to regret the developments which transformed Irishmen, women and children from British subjects into citizens of a sovereign Irish State.Apparently he has been

trying to persuade his charges, under the guise of promoting debate, that it was shameful for De Valera not to join with Britain in 1940 to resist Hitler.

De Valera, together with Dail Eireann and Seanad Eireann (with James Dillon dissenting) were quite willing to resist Hitler or his minions if they attacked the 26 liberated Irish Counties, or any other aggressor within them. Dillon wanted Dev  to stand shoulder to shoulder with Churchill though Churchill was the shorter, and, very much the lesser, man.

The teacher apparently shares with George W  Bush and Tony Blair the conviction that Britain went to war with Germany in 1939 and the USA  with Germany in 1941 because of Nazi persecution of the Jews. That conviction is a nonsense. Hitler declared war on the USA in December 1941 after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Concern for  Jews was never a motivating force in British Government circles, and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, like British moves for Irish Home Rule, were wholly inspired by British Imperial considerations.

The conference near Berlin in January 1942 where the Nazis determined to murder all the Jews in Europe was almost contemperanous with Churchill’s decision to deny sustenance to Japanese forces entering India from Burma by inflicting a famine on Bengal which caused millions of Indian deaths.

Britain simultaneously imprisoned India’s democratic leadership. Churchill hated Indians.

In 1948 when, after leading Irish governments following 6 successive General Elections, de Valera was out of office, he visited India where he was given a great welcome. Churchill, who had never led a party to a General Election victory, was out of office from 1945 to 1951. He didn’t visit India, where he would probably have been lynched.

Out of office, in 1950 De Valera also visited Israel, whose Chief Rabbi had been Chief Rabbi of Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War and a long-standing friend of Dev.  Dev met the leaders of the new Israeli state. Though never a Zionest, he respected Jewish people and the respect was reciprocated.

In Ireland de Valera had faced down the bog-fascism of the Blueshirts and their attempt to intimidate the electorate. In the League of Nations in 1932 he appealed for international sanctions against Japan which attacked and annexed Manchuria. The leading powers of the League, Britain and France, were happy to let Japan proceed with the rape of Manchuria.

Later, when Italy. led by Mussolini, attacked Abyssinia, De Valera called for military sanctions against Italy and offered Irish troops to support the League in following its charter. Italian troops and munitions on their way to the rape of Abyssinia regularly passed through the British-operated Suez Canal. The League was happy to let them continue, and Anthony Eden denounced De Valera as a dangerous firebrand.

I would hope that students of history would check these remarks for accuracy, and, if they find them useful, cite them in debate.