Quite by accident I came across a diatribe by Ruth Dudley Edwards against various bodies which parade at Easter, calling themselves Oglaigh na hEireann . She described them as traitors. Most people are careful about using such terms, even when their own loyalties have been constant.
Ms Dudley Edwards, in her obituary of her late former husband, Patrick Cosgrave, said he became an ardent English patriot.Born of Irish parents in Dublin in 1941, he was reared and educated to graduate level there and employed by the Irish National broadcasting station, mutating into a British imperialist jingo of Victorian vintage and a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher. Were I a cataloguer of curios I might find a charitable word for him. But it would be false to describe him as English – or a patriot.
Ms Dudley Edwards purports to resent the use of the title Oglaigh na hEireann by anybody other than those under the control of the Dublin government. Such resentment is tenable in a citizen with an unbroken record of “fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State” as required by the Irish constitution. But it is eyebrow-raising, hilarious, ironic, odd, ridiculous and rum, in someone as fickle in their favours as Ruth Dudley Edwards.
For Ms. Dudley Edwards’ adult choice to travel on a British passport, revealed for a profile in the book Leading Lives, suggests lapses in fidelity and loyalty disqualifying her from pronouncements on allegiance and betrayal.
I flatter myself that I’m better qualified. I was a soldier in the FCA, the part-time reserve of the government-controlled Oglaigh na hEireann, having joined the same platoon on the same day as a later Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces. I marched down O’Connell Street to The Pride of Petravore a number of times and presented arms at the GPO at Easter once on a Presidential Guard of Honour. However, those forces discontinued their Easter commemoration at the time of the Cosgrave government elected 1973 .
Whenever possible other claimants to the title Oglaigh na hEireann the other Oglaigh did.
Here, the internet is most instructive.
The ITN and British Pathe archive of worldwide motion picture newsreels from 1896 is available free to schools, libraries, and educational institutions. For many months it was free to everyone.
The Battle of Kursk, Pearl Harbor, El Alamein are all there. So too is footage of the Russian revolution, the Irish civil war, Jack Dempsey and Jack Doyle, John McCormack and Mick the Miller, John Dillinger and Dixie Dean, and Caughoo winning the Grand National in 1947. There’s even film of the unveiling of a statue of Lenin by the London Borough of Finsbury.
Concerning Irish parades, Dev, Brugha and Mulcahy reviewing the First Western Division just before the Treaty and Terence MacSwiney’s funeral in London and Cork each have about 20 minutes of footage. There’s also film of Irish government forces parading on St Patrick’s Day during the early years of the Free State, one shows a protest, and then, at Easter 1932, following Fianna Fail’s accession to power, the Dublin Brigade IRA, 5,000 strong, parading through Dublin.
In 1935 a parade of 1916 veterans, some of whom line the parapet of the GPO to fire a salute, are inspected by Dev, who as head of government has a Free State army escort.Immediately afterwards de Valera reviews Free State Army troops, many of whom were also 1916 veterans who, a mere 13 years before that 1936 parade were shooting at troops who had sided with de Valera in the Civil War.
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Such complexities Ms Dudley Edwards, in her crude, mercenary, tabloid mode chooses to ignore. .
Ms Dudley Edwards is most scornful of the ‘Continuity’ republican movement. It’s ironic, considering her empathy with Victorian jingoes, that those republicans may be the last repositary of the less ignoble values of those times.
A Frenchman could comment that the Charge at Balaclava was “magnificent, but not war” but Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, urges us to “Honour the Light Brigade”. Perhaps the Continuity policy is magnificent, but not politic?
And perhaps, like that other Victorian exemplar, the boy who stood on the burning deck, when all but he had fled, Ruairi O Bradaigh was not well advised. But, like the late General Tom Maguire, whom O Bradaigh profiles in Dilseacht(Loyalty), O Bradaigh was a sincere and consistent patriot.
Deplore their politics if you will, but honour the Old Brigade.
A timely article. RE seems to be just Alrene Foster in drag
We all know Ruth hates everything the men/women of 1916 stood for. Would she say that George Washington was wrong for what he did? Would she find the courage to write articles in an American newspaper on the run up to 4th July parades?
Ruth Dudley Edwards comes across to me as an “English wannabe”. She says shes Irish but I don’t think I can think of anyone less Irish than her. She makes no effort whatsoever to hide her agenda against Irish nationalism, especially her unhealthy obsession with Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein. But I suppose if you are in Margaret Thatcher’s company for too long you would come away with a bigoted and vicious mind set.
As anyone who has ever heard of Ruth will know, shes a big fan of the Orange Order. In her latest article (yes, on Sinn Fein….again….) she condemns Sinn Fein “trolls” for attacking the likes of Mairia Cahill (even though the man Mairia accused was acquitted in a court of law) and Ann Travers, the same Ann Travers who teamed up with notorious Unionist bigot Jim Allister. Ruth attacks and condemns all pro-SF twitter users but she still hasn’t mentioned her own Loyalist cheerleader trolls whom many of which sport UVF emblems on their twitter pages. Of course I cant blame Ruth for that…..but on the same note you can hardly blame Sinn Fein for what republicans (most of which more likely aren’t even members of SF) say or do too. But of course we know Ruth doesn’t think logically or fairly, she is an Orange Order supporter, after all….
Ruth will continue her agenda against Sinn Fein I’m sure but I’m equally sure that it will be a failure just as It has always been in the past……
As long as Doddery Edwards is paid by the Indo to spew her anti-Irish bile she will do so.
Her only loyalty is money – that’s how Brits are!
The above piece first appeared about 10 years ago in the on-line version of THE IRISH DEMOCRAT under the title “WHEN ALL BUT THEY HAD FLED”. I believe the Pathe Newsreels are all free on YOU TUBE.
The sole reason that Ruth Dudley Edwards gets published is due to her anti Irish nationalist viewpoint which reflects the view of the periodicals that publish her and their owners own narrow political and business self interests.
If any expression of national pride, identity and political thought ceased to exist on this island then so would Ruth as she has nothing else to offer but bitterness.