A soldier from the British Army’s 36 Division at the Somme was wounded and concussed and when he came to found himself being nursed in a French hospital. As his condition improved he gradually came to the realisation that his nurses were nuns. He found their ministrations very agreeable and got to talking with one of them who spoke English. “You’ve all been very good to me and I and I’m very grateful, but I could never square that with your affiliation to the Pope” he remarked. “But the Pope is a decent old Italian gentleman” she answered. “Maybe he is, but he’s got a tarrible repytation in Portydown” said he.
To listen to the BBC you’d imagine that Winston Churchill in his lifetime was the most popular of politicians.He was hated, feared and despised by his political colleagues – for arrogance, hare-brained schemes, his family background, high-living, and spiv cronies. R.A. Butler called him ” a half-caste American” believing his mother had Native American blood. His father had died from worshipping at the shrine of Venus, his mother loved not wisely but too widely. Winston been responsible for the bloody fiasco at Gallipoli, failed adventurism in Russia, and the creation of the Black and Tans. His behaviour during the 1926 General Strike, had it gone unchecked, would have risked civil war in Britain. Great numbers of British workers regarded him as their
implacable enemy.
Which may explain why Churchill, despite his great abilities and Cabinet responsibilities over many years, was never leader of a party until May 1940. Labour leader Clement Attlee reckoned that Churchill had just the thuggish qualities needed to lock horns with Hitler and so he became Prime Minister without having to fight a General Election.
A few weeks after Hitler blew his own brains out in 1945 the British electorate had no further use for Churchill’s leadership and his party was buried by a Labour landslide.
In 1951 Churchill, for the first time led a party in a General Election victory. Though the Conservatives and Unionists won the most seats and formed a Government, the Labour Party had won the most votes.
For some reason Eamon de Valera is today derided by the Irish media and academia. He led ten Irish Governments between 1919 and 1959 and was elected to the Presidency twice, serving from 1959 to 1973. A recent study of him is subtitled “the Will to Power.” The Will in question was
that of Irish voters. So it is nonsensical to reckon that Dev was not popular. But self-hating Irishmen and women have a problem which they have displaced and transferred onto the Irish people.
On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, when Patrick Pearse was reading the Proclamation of Independence, a French officer who had been an unknown Lieutenant Colonel a couple of years before, was celebrating his 60th Birthday at Verdun, the defence of which just been entrusted to him. His name was Philippe Petain and he was to emerge from the Great War a Marshal of France and remained the most respected Frenchman for nearly 30 years. Petain was elected Prime Minister in June 1940. Parliamentarians meeting as a “Congres” established a new Constitution,
the voting being 569 for, 80 against and 18 abstention. The Constitution purported to replace that of the 3rd Republic.( The “Congres” was more representative than the “Parliament of Southern Ireland” which met in January 1922 and purported to “ratify the treaty” and appoint a “Provisional Government”. ) Petain’s popularity did not wane until 1944 when Allied armies were gaining the upper hand on French soil. Petain fled to Germany, but when Germany fell he returned to France. He was tried and sentenced to death for high treason. General de Gaulle had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment .
On 24 April 1951 Marshal Petain celebrated his 95th Birthday, and died, still a prisoner, three months later..
On 24 April 1951 Enda Kenny was born in County Mayo.
On 24 April 2011, his 60th Birthday, Enda was basking in the glory of having been elected Taoiseach a few weeks earlier.
Reputations, like bubbles, can be cruelly pricked.
Where will Enda’s be on 24 April 2046? Is Paddy Power offering odds?
A-ha, Jude. Showing off your knowledge of the Bard? I’ve read a few of his, not having had to do them at school, Hamlet and MacBeth mainly, but still don’t know what the bub ble reputation is. It was indeed astute of the British voters to kick out Churchill the first chance they got, and did the same to the unelected Callaghan as well in 1976 as I recall. Keep up the good work.
Grma, Daniel – but this blog was DONAL’s, not mine…
My great grandfather was in the 36 Division Irish Rangers.
He was never talked about in my family and it is only recently i ever found much out about him at all, his name is on the war memorials in Derry, Lurgan and in France were he died on the battlefield.
Some family members have done more research and even been to the place where he died.
What little they found, was like most of my family he was definitely a republican and like the many irishmen throughout the country, the expectation that Ireland would be treated favourably by england in terms of delivering home rule was definitely part of his decision to fight with the british army.
After the war was over, his wife my great grandmother threw his medals in the bin for the actions of britain in ireland after the war. He was rarely even talked about thereafter.
Whatever the expectations were for the many Irish who fought with the british army back then, there were plenty of their bubbles busted by the actions of the british back home.
More than that though, the actions of the black and tans and the british in general in Ireland, have for many not only tarnished their memories but left their families with a degree of shame on many genuinely good people who felt they were doing the right thing.
I can only imagine what my great grandmother must have felt reading about the tan massacre at Croke park though I imagine it was experienced first hand also in the north, but to bin her husbands medals and never speak of him again is no mean thing.