I’m still in shock. Can you imagine anything more inappropriate? It’s a bit like that time Prince Harry went to a fancy dress thing wearing a Nazi uniform. Not funny. That kind of thing could get the Royal family a bad name, associating them with German Nazis. Whereas in fact the Royal family have always shunned the German Nazis….Apart, of course, from that photo of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson with Adolf Hitler. No, it wasn’t photoshopped, Virginia – they hadn’t got that back then. What it was was a moment of forgetfulness, best forgotten.
But back to today and a truly shocking event. It’s been revealed that at a recent Halloween party held by Lanarkshire Loyalist Flute Band Culture Day night, several photographs were taken of a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit sitting beside a woman. Naturally the Lanarkshire Loyalists were horrified and issued a statement on Facebook:
“Lanarkshire loyalist fb are saddened to hear of an article that has appeared on the daily record (sic) web page this evening regarding some photos taken at our culture day/halloween (sic) party these photos were not ment (sic) to offend or hurt anyone and we sincerely apologise to anyone who has been offended”.
Can’t do clearer than that, can you? Well you can, actually. Edward Hyde (would he be any connection of…Nah. Impossible), Grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland said: “What I have seen gives us great concern. It’s unacceptable in any form – the Orange Order would distance itself from anything of that sort”.
That’s cheering on a wet November day. We now know that next time some sectarian idiot attends an Orange Order Halloween party, the Order will be quick to spot him and will make it clear that they are implacably opposed to people wearing white hoods. And they will be quick to apologise to anyone who might take offence. If there’s one thing the Orange Order will not tolerate, it’s giving offence to black people.
Jude get out of bed the wrong side this morning or perhaps the cheque from the Nolan show not large enough? ; )
Isn’t it great to get a history lesson on the faux pas made by members of the Royal Family, especially the one made by Edward eighty odd years ago. Maybe I could add to that history lesson briefly.
I think everyone is aware of the RoI’s shameful neutrality during World War 11, no doubt based on their hatred of Britain, and not because of any particular moral compass.
Andrija Artukovic, Celestine Laine and Pieter Menten are to name just three of the many Nazi war criminals who de Valere gave safe haven to after the war. This was the morally corrupt regime of de Valera’s that refused entry to fleeing Jews, most of whom ended up in the Nazi death camps.
The shameful position of the RoI was further compounded by de Valera’s visit to the German Ambassador in 1945 to express his condolences on the death of Hitler, and flying the flag at half mast.
General Eoin O’Duffy, the leader of the Irish ‘blueshirts’ met Nazi agents a number of times, whilst plotting to invade NI, de Valera was fully aware of O’Duffy’s antics, and afforded him a state funeral on his death. Tom Barry and Sean Russell were openly pro Nazi fascists and plotted continually with the Third Reich in order to assist Sinn Fein/ IRA against the British. Indeed, from memory, Mary Lou McDonald gave the key note address at a Sean Russell rally around the same time as anti fascists decapitated the statue in his memory.
It was to their personal conscience, that around 60,000 southern Irishmen joined the British Armed Forces during the war, and an estimated one in five of the southern Irish army deserted to fight for the noble cause. After the war, under an emergency act dubbed the “starvation order”, their names were added to a formal blacklist by de Valera’s government, barring them from employment, refusing them pensions and any state aid.
Shame on you Jude, to use today of all days to try and score political points. These are only a few incidents in the RoI’s shameful history, there are many, many more, and you wonder why Unionists don’t want to be a part of it. Why did you not use your Remembrance Day entry to honour all the Irish killed in wars?
Sweet William – I’ll choose whatever day I like to write about whatever I like. I’m sure you’d allow me that freedom. I take your point about the 26 counties being neutral: isn’t that something independent states are allowed to decide? Like, um, Switzerland? I don’t remember people talking about Switzerland’s shameful decision. I think Tom Barry (who of course served in the British army) would take the view that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Sounds logical to me. I assure you, I don’t want to be ‘part of’ the RoI – I want a new Ireland, free of past bigotry, free of past corruption and chicanery, where people reach out to each other rather than try to cry ‘Shame!’ when everyone doesn’t see things their way. Open up, sweet William. You’ll feel the better for it.
Thanks Jude, maybe when members of Sinn Fein don paramilitary regalia to honour their murderous dead in the near future you will have the same opinion. They are every bit divisive as that idiot who put on the kkk outfit. The Northern republican does not want Unionism in your ‘happy, happy land’, many of them espouse that attitude even on this blog.
Sweet William- I promise you, you’ve got that wrong about Northern republicans not wanting unionists in a new republic – no, not a happy-happy land – that’s another example of your attributing to me things I didn’t say. Stop it, please.
Jude, I’ve been to and taken part in many debates, and the hatred and venom directed towards both myself and others when the rhetoric doesn’t meet that required is quite disturbing. There are a large percentage of northern republics who have no tolerance for unionism, and I read it daily and experience it regularly.
Name names, sweet William. And please don’t say I have directed ‘hatred and venom’ because I haven’t.
A faux pas, William? Are you suggesting this contact withthe Nazis by Edward VIII was a one off? If you are I suggest you read some history.
It turns out that Edward VIII was leaking information to Ribbentrop (German Ambassador to Britain/Nazi Foreign Minister.
When World War 2 broke out, the Duke of Windsor gave an infamous interview, where he called for the defeat of Britain at the hands of Nazi Germany. Indeed, there were and still are rumours (the FBI claimed to have evidence) that his wife, Wallis Simpson, has an affair with Ribbentrop while he was posted in England.
The FBI, in a report on the abdication, stated: “The British government were anxious to get rid of the Duke of Windsor, first and foremost because of his fondness for Nazi ideology.” They were even more scathing about his wife.
Don’t fret about war criminals being given a safe haven after the war in Ireland. Britain and America took the most valuable war criminals to work for them when it suited.
Ceanaire, I was merely pointing out that when one continues to point the finger, you will be exposed for your own inadequacies.
Britian also refused entry to many German Jews fleeing the Nazis….. as did most countries in Europe at the time
Clans, clowns and conflict
European nations were ruled by monarchies for most of their history, half the wars in Europe’s past may be described as dysfunctional families at war, however, most monarchies fought to the last drop of the commoners’ blood. The Ku Klux Klan led by “Grand Wizards”, enjoyed wearing pointy hats and dresses late in the evening as they engaged in murder, rape, theft and destruction. It would appear that the Klan was alive and well in Belfast on 2 July 2014. A blue flag representing the New Order Knights or KKK was spotted displayed from a lamppost off Island Street in east Belfast. It was illustrated with words Ku Klux Klan, an Aryan eagle and the red KKK logo. The current political vacuum enables the “Wizards” to perpetuate sectarian and racist attacks behind a plethora of flags erected by the symbol minded. Unfortunately, this is not just a case of rooting out a few bad apples. The orchard is the problem.
‘A blue flag representing the New Order Knights or KKK was spotted displayed from a lamppost off Island Street ‘, ha, good bit of detective work there, do you want me to mention the Hamas flags, or am i not allowed to mention them.
So you see the KKK and Hamas as equivalent, sweet William?
I am surprised, I always thought the KKK were a cultural organisation, not in the least racist…..or was that the Order???
Very droll, Jude. It shouldn’t escape anyone ..i think I referred to it way back when…that the Klan probably had its origin story in the hillbilly culture around them in good old boy Tennessee… Now where did that “billy” reference come from.? Great buddies of the Republicans{ That would be those other republicans….the USA kind } and opposed to blacks, Jews , Catholics and various themmuns. …Oh and of course they were appalled by Civil Rights too. No surprises about the Establishment cosying up to Fascists and Nazis either . The Mitford girls almost had a monopoly on that one, if memory serves …taking in both Hitler and Mosley. …..The Establishment obviously had a soft spot for that sort of thing. too..eh?
I think everybody is giving the Klu Klux Klan a bad press when used in the context of the Orange Order. Just look at the steps the Klan have taken in trying to open it’s doors to others by being less racist and Sectarian.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/09/ku-klux-klan-rebrand-open_n_6129274.html
It would seem the Klu Klux Klan are far more progressive than the Orange Order!
Who knows there may be hope for the Outdated Order yet!
Ever the optimist, Pointis…
Thanks Jude. Would you not agree that although it is a source of bigotry and that it perpetuates sectarianism here that there are probably a significant minority in the organisation who see Catholics as equals, perhaps even to the extent that they would consider cherishing them in their own family and could be in the organisation for historical family reasons?
It is difficult for those on the receiving end of sectarianism to understand the thinking of any decent individual to sign up to organisations such as the Klu Klux Klan, Orange Order or national Front but I always remember “Mr Cunningham” who was part of the mob who came to lynch Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. Maybe it is just naivety on my part but I think there can be something peculiar to the thinking of some people in this part of the world that prevents them from understanding that from the point of view of the rest of the civilised world that it is simply wrong to sign up to the beliefs of such organisations!
I agree completely, Pointis – there are a great number of Orangemen who don’t hug feelings of bigotry or hatred. The organisation they belong to doesn’t help them much, though, in that respect.
Rotten apples are red and so is the hair of Prince Harry.
Or Henry C.A.D. Windsor to give him his full name. C.A.D. standing for Charles Arthur David. A most obliging lot, these far-seeing Royals for providing such appropriate initials. Standing is right, if one is to believe even a fraction of the stories, not least the vulgar fraction about Harry. Or Hank, as he’s known in Las Vegas.
Why ought this be? Has it, perhaps, something to do with the colour of hair, a fine Kilmallock shade of red, as if Red Hugh O’D on his way down from Donegal to Kinsale had dallied with a local Dilly time enough to sow a packet of his wild oats. In all truthiness, Perkie’s inner pretender has long pondered the russet shade of the hair on the caravan-sized head of the heir to the Crown of das England. Both at the going down of the sun and in the morning.
These ponderous ponderings somehow bubbled to the surface of what a proud-to-wear-a-poppy Perkie is still pleased to call his ‘mind’ at today’s vowel-moving ceremony in St. Anne’s C of I on Dawson Street, Dublin 2. This is not to be confused with the Dawson trail to the Klondike, though there was indeed a veritable seam of bling on display, not in the least unseemly.
Perkie’s inner commemorator been a busy boy of late. If last Sunday was Poppy Day then today was a sort of Mummy Day, presided over as it was by Sisters-in-Arms, Heather and Arlene.
It was thus an all-inclusive, not-excluding service, sublime in its very solemnity and simplicity of symbolism, if not embolism. For not only was the rapt congregation (have yiz no jobs to go to?) reminded by the droning vicar that Windsor was only adopted (no, not fostered, Arlene dear) by deed poll as recently as 1917.
On account of the rudimentary though lethal heavy aircraft on a tag fahrt/ day trip from Germany to indulge in a spot of lethal lederhosen-coughing over London. In a deplorable display of dry Deutchsland wit der bummer/bomber had its name painted on the fuselage: Saxe-Coburg-Gotta. As it was painted in Kilmallock red it is believed that the Red Baron might well have been in the cockpit. But reputable historians and other part time hacks of the Dublin media, dismiss this, erm, out of hand.
This could well account for Harry the C.A.D.’s inclination to dress up in Nazi regalia from time to time. D.N.A., dontcha know.
Coincidentally the very name by which the then residents of the Buckingham Halting Site were known by. Georgie-porgie wasn’t long legging it down to the local deed pollster around the corner for a spot of the surname endgame, fore and aft, whistling past the graveyard of his ancestors as he went, ‘You gotta know when to hold ’em, and to know when to fold ’em.
Windsor some, lose some.
One of those ancestors, of course, was Queen Victoria, aka, the Ma. And as the droning vicar pointed out in a modulated voice of remarkable lamentation, King Leopold of Belgium was a first cousin (cousint in the Dublin dialect) of Old Vic. The same laid-back Leo who had a hand in devising the intricate steps of the dance macabre known as the Belgian Congo One-hand Reel.
A gasp of appreciation erupted in unison from the newly enlightened audience as the penny dropped (with a tail on one side and a head on the other) that the Great Donkey Derby 14-18 was in fact a family affair, such as might be witnessed at the Ballinsasloe Quadruped Fair, any year. Though on a somewhat grander scale.
Which neatly segues one to the other piece in the jigsaw that is the genetic profile of Harry the C.A.D. His Ma, as distinct from his great-great-grand ma. The tragic Princess Diane was always destined to come to a unseemly end. Fate was not on her side. Between her own family, the Spencers, who never quite forgave her for marrying down and the Windsors who resented her superior airs from night one. (Sandringham has seven corridors and fifteen bedrooms more than the paltry sized Buckingham).
Seemingly, these little things matter in the landmine of aristocratic whataboutery.
In an interview which the distinguished bowsey, David Icke conducted with a close confidant of Di, a lady who had been in-waiting for a long time to spill the old Heinz-sight, divulged some of the Princess’s insights into her in-laws. It read like a report from the Reptile Enclosure of the Human Zoo.
Here’s how she reported what Di had to say: ‘The Royal Family know the vibrations of life and because they are cold-blooded, they are reptilian. They have no wish to make the Earth the perfect harmony it could be’.
Wow !
There’s more: ‘Balmoral is a very nasty place. That’s somewhere the Royal Family like to dig underground. They find reptilian fossils there. It goes back that far’.
Wow!
There’s more: ‘The Queen Mum, now she’s a serious piece of wizardry. The Queen Mum is known as ‘Chief Toad’ in this part of the globe but there are creatures like her in other parts too’.
Wow!
(A rather rattled Perike methinks: ‘And Liz is not only short for Lizard but also Elizabeth’)
There’s more:
‘Don’t think of people like the Queen Mum and Queen Victoria as different people. Think of them as the same person who after a while have had to change their coat. When the flesh dies all that imperial energy while it is dying will be inserted up some person’s jacksie (sic). It’s all very vampire’.
Enough !
The very use by a lady as porcelain-brittle as Princess Di of such a vulgar obscenity as the j-word (see above) convinced Perkie’s inner genealogist of a theory he had been long being formulating. That the Smooth One did, indeed, as the vernacular and the, erm, Red-tops, had it: ‘like a bit of rough’.
Enter John, stage left, surname first. Not Elton, but rather, the extreemly heterosexual Sullivan John. Their path’s (SJ’s and PD’s) crossed it would appear at the hairy ass fair in the County Clare exactly – according to some reputable astrologers, nine months to the night before the birth of Harry – and the rest is mystery.
To most, but not to Perkie.
When, at the most formal moment of this morning’s remembrance service in St. Anne’s, a hames was carried to the altar by a dignified ragamuffin from Pavee Point, during the offering of gifts, a great deal of umbrage was taken by the unknowing congregation and indeed, threats could be heard being muttered ‘to leave in high dudgeon’.
But, not the knowing Perkie. He recognised the historical significance of the piece of horsey harness. It was, in fact, the very same hames from which O’Sullivan John’s brother James got a rap, on that fateful night of Knights to be at the hairy ass fair in the County Clare.
All Hail, Red-haired Harry, heir to the King of the Tinkers – Harry of the Halting Sites !