January 13, 2016
Letters Editor
IRISH CENTRAL
Dear Editor:
Fr. Murphy’s “Rite and Reason…” (1/12) commentary is thoughtful and thought provoking. However, several points about the 100th commemoration of the Easter Rising need context.
- He claims the Easter Rising was not justified and that the commemorative events planned imply that it was. No doubt he would feel the American Revolution was unjustified because of a dispute over a Stamp tax on tea. Nor would the Declaration of Independence’s long list of grievances satisfy his criteria for a “…model of political action.” Ireland’s grievances were far greater than were America’s and the price paid for their subservience and more destructive of Ireland’s people and culture.
- He states: “A real Republic is created by voters, is established in structures of representative democracy, and the rule of law and lives in the people’s democratic practices and culture.” In the last General Election in all of Ireland in 1918, which was run by the British government, Sinn Fein and Nationalists won three quarters of the seats and the Dail created by those representatives was declared a criminal conspiracy. The British followed with assassinations and the Black and Tans. Is this the “legitimate authority” Fr. Murphy cites?
- The author declares: “ the Rising’s leaders were men of violence” and to celebrate their actions is “…to celebrate anti-democratic elitism and a bloodlust.” This is straight from the British propaganda playbook. But if it were so, how do you describe centuries of lawless persecution by a hereditary monarchy? What’s the buzzword for the single most monstrous act of a British ‘democracy’ against the Republic; the no warning bombing of Dublin and Monaghan shopping centers? Bloodlust? Isn’t it right to label the perpetrators of that crime aristocratic men of violence and an anti-democratic elite? I’ve never heard or seen those labels from religious, Fine Gael or the Independent newspaper. It seems “bloodlust” and “anti-democratic elite” are reserved for those striking a blow for Irish freedom.
In 40 years of activism I never expected sympathetic religious in Ireland or in America to support the IRA or violence of any sort. But the manifest failure of those religious to speak out against injustices and to speak truth to power of the violence done to Irish society 100 years ago and today is indicative of a church filled with careerists NOT a church filled with men and women with vocations. It’s clear Fr. Murphy represents the best and brightest of the careerists.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Cummings
12 Marion Ave
Albany, New York 12203-1814
518-650-6049
Good.story.jude.
You.Betcha.Jim.
Quite correct! In the year of the commeration of the Easter Rising we must not only explore the event itself but also what caused Irishmen and women to take up arms. The Act of Union and the refusal to repeal it despite the majority of Ireland wanting this; The founding of National Schools and the refusal to instruct the children through their own language; the forced deportations; The Famine and all the horrors and injustices that went with it; The Landleague; Britain’s refusal to implement a Homerule bill and their putting it on a statuary book as a way to coerce Irishmen into the British army. The banning of the Irish language on all public signage; the absentee landlordism. It is only a nation of slaves who would rise up against such oppression.
would not*
Representative democracy? The rule of law? Child abuse was not justified.
“Within the system, the reformatories were legitimately closer to being prisons…They masqueraded as something else and the subterfuge of Church and State, jointly responsible for the Gulag, was widely accepted by the the Irish people. It was equally well known that something quite terrible was going on. Evidence emerged regularly;…” (Arnold 2009:5-6)
Arnold, B. (2009) The Irish Gulag Gill & Macmillan
I was thinking that the third point in particular sounds like an Orangeman laying into liberal clergy and then I googled Michael J Cummings and saw that he was National Press Secretary of the Orange Order’s opposite number, the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The Ugly Sisters in our pantomime. Same predictable role every year.
‘The orange order’s opposite number’ You’re seriously trying to equate the hibernians with a bigoted and nakedly anti-catholic organisation as the orange order? I don’t recall the hibernians trying to force marches through areas where there not welcome or wanted, using threats of violence and actual violence, working hand in glove with notorious loyalist killers like Billy Wright at Drumcree.
The murder of the catholic taxi driver Michael McColdrick and the horrific murders of the Quinn children in a firebomb attack on their home. I would be very surprised if you can come up with anything similar that the Hibernians were involved with.
Sure am. Self-segregating sectarian homophobes & reactionaries. One religious denomination permitted membership, ambivalent attitude to democratic politics and ecumenical religious leaders are denounced are careerists and lundies. I can’t see any difference.
“On the trail of US funds for IRA” http://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0114/anor1.html
“In May 1981, US District Court Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. in New York ruled in a Justice Department suit against Noraid that the organization was acting in America as an arm of the Provisional IRA. Judge Haight wrote in his decision: “The uncontroverted evidence is that [Noraid] is an agent of the IRA, providing money and services for other than relief purposes.” Flannery objected. Noraid lawyers appealed the decision but lost. Half of funds diverted for weapons, Irish police suspect”
“Noraid was founded and directed by Michael Flannery, who in the 1920s was an IRA member in the North Tipperary Brigade, and has provided the Republican movement in Northern Ireland with its largest regular source of American funds ($2 million to $3 million since 1970) and unstinting moral support from a vocal minority of Irish-Americans who openly support the IRA. Irish, British, and American officials say the US has also been the IRA’s largest source of guns. `If I was young . . . I would be back on the firing line’
Mr. Flannery was … elected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians as grand marshall of New York City’s 1983 St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”
BYC
The third point is pure whataboutery.
Either the leaders of the rising were violent men or they were not. What happened in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings does not alter that.
Clearly as they used violent methods they were violent men at least at that time.
I’m not able to quote word for word but I think it was Pope Francis that said that those priests that covered up sex abuse (or even engaged in it) and yet think they can lecture and condemn others are no better than the Pharisees who condemned some people for their sins (usually the poorest and the oppressed) but others (especially the rich and powerful) they praised as grand standing citizens but yet they were indulging in the most evil of sins. Not to mention the Pharisees plotted even against Christ himself.
Now, I’m in no way whatsoever accusing Fr Murphy of abuse of any kind but I am accusing him of sheer hypocrisy and choosing the side of the oppressor instead of the oppressed, which many in the Catholic church did at the time of the Easter Rising (and many other times, too many to count). The men/women of 1916 did what they did because it was right, there was no democracy in Ireland, women didn’t even have the vote, the Home Rule bill was constantly defeated in order to please and pander to 20% of the population of Ireland at that time, aka Unionism at the expense of the rights of 80%.
I’m a Catholic but I’m not a priest, I’m sure no will be surprised to hear that lol but if I did choose to be a Priest and dedicate my life to Christ as Fr Murphy has, I would at least have the decency to stand up for the truth instead of pursuing and helping the agenda of people who wants to paint the righteous as the wrong and the wrong as the righteous.
Its strange how your asking the Catholic church to do something that your party leader was unable or unwilling to do over the issue of sex abuse.
Now, now Neill, lets not start a discussion on sex abuse, we’ll be here all day just talking about the convicted rapists that are still members of the British Army and the accusations made against Ian Paisley Snr by a woman who was part of his Church in the 1970’s in reference to child abuse at Kincorra and prominent Orange men. And lets not get started on the paedophile ring at Westminster, that allegedly involved British Royals and many other prominent members of British society….there is even accusations of children being murdered and a cover up happening to protect certain people but Unionists are very quiet about all this….
I didn’t know I was a member of any political party Neill but I’m assuming your talking about Gerry Adams? the accusations made against him was from Mairia Cahill, who was allegedly raped multiple times by a man who denies all her accusations, was trialled in a court of law and was acquitted. She then says that the IRA “covered up” her alleged abuse but yet….she says they offered to shoot the alleged abuser due to his alleged crimes, solely on her word. A very strange “cover up”…..