On the centenary of the 1916 Rising a contributor to the IRISH TIMES “Rite and Reason” slot
assured its readers that Daniel O’Connell never shot any man.
Two hundred and one years earlier, in February 1815, Daniel O’Connell famously shot dead John
D’Esterre in a public duel. The Catholics’ political champion, had for his Second a Protestant,
one of whose own pistols was called “Bas gan Sagart” – Death Without a Priest.
Later in that same year, O’Connell was arrested on his way to Ostend to meet a challenge to
a duel with pistols issued by Robert Peel, the later founder of police forces in Ireland and Britain
and Prime Minister, a constant opponent of O’Connell and Irish Liberation, dubbed “Orange Peel”
by O’ Connell.
The contributor then mounted a low-minded, corner-boy attack on the 1916 Insurgents, singling out
Patrick Pearse, contrasting Pearse with his feigned idol O’Connell, who “had never shot anyone.”
I have never heard even a rumour that Pearse, MacDonagh, Clarke, or Connolly personally shot
anybody. They were not charged with doing so. They were shot without a jury trial by British
Firing Squads.
In 2016 after nearly 30 years of war in Ireland arising from British misrule it was fashionable to
disown Pearse and his comrades.
In 1916 on the 50th Anniversary of the Insurrection the British media from the Daily Telegraph,
to the Sunday Times were full of the praises of the Insurgents. President de Valera received as
a guest the British Officer who had taken him prisoner in 1916. Hugh Leonard produced a television
re-enactment for RTE which was aired on British television. My English work colleagues in London,
most of whom had done National Service and many of whom were WWII veterans were full of admiration.
Some years later Hugh Leonard led a posse under Gay Byrne’s direction in an attempted
TV lynching of Gerry Adams.
The Corner-Boy commentator is back in the “Rite and Reason” slot today. And the poor slob
has not learned a thing,
He says that Ireland’s neutrality from 1939 to 1945 was shameful and sinful and that refusal
to gang up with the Americans against Russia is a disgrace.
He has no words of condemnation for United States neutrality prior to December 1941, nor
Soviet neutrality prior to June 1941, nor any of the countries which refused to join the Phoney
War against Germany in September 1939.
The man earns his living in the US, though, God Help us! he is Irish born.
Today he tells us that “The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has shaken the five neutrals Finland and Sweden are abandoning neutrality. Austria, Ireland and Switzerland agonise over
its moral ambiguity and political implications.”
Finland was allied with the Third Reich in the Second World War. Sweden supplied the Third Reich with iron ore.
The Soviet Union liberated Austria amongst other countries in 1945, And unilaterally withdrew in 1955 on the understanding that it would not join NATO. Austria had an old Nazi made UN Secretary General and then elected him to the Presidency of Austria.
On June 4 1942 Adolf Hitler secretly visited Finland to congratulate Field Marshal Gustaf Von Mannerheim, Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Armed Forces, on his 75th Birthday. I understand
that there is a Youtube recording of the meeting. The only one in which Hitler speaks in a conversational tone.
Ireland during de Valera’s leadership condemned Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia and was prepared to
contribute Irish troops as part of a combined League of Nations force. Dev was described by Sir Anthony Eden as a Firebrand. Britain made Mussolini pay – Canal Dues to the British-owned Suez
Canal Company, for the passage of the aggressors, bag, baggage and lethal equipment.
When Germany stripped Jewish citizens of their rights – the Nuremberg Decrees- De Valera condemned the NAZIS.
In both instances De Valera was attacked by Fine Gael Blue Shirts.
In February 1934 THE IRISH TIMES Editorially predicted the ruination of Ireland if Fianna Fail was
returned to power.
In March 1934 the paper acclaimed the accession to power of Herr Hitler.
There is no moral ambiguity whatever in the “Rite and Reason” comment today.
It is as morally rotten as it was in 2016.
It is unworthy of any support.
It was written by Seamus Murphy, an Irish Jesuit Priest and Professor of Moral Philosophy at Loyola
University, Chicago,
OOPS!
A TYPO
1966 was the 50th Anniversary of the Easter Insurrection.
I suppose 1847 was Seamus Murphy’s heyday.
Such a Blighter!
A ROTTEN SPUD
Would this be the same Fr. Seamus Murphy SJ who condemned the 1916 Rising and called for the USA an Britain to invade Iraq? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/irish-theologian-condemns-easter-rising-unchristian