A close neighbour of mine some years ago in Howth, son of a dutiful and decent Orangeman, had no claim to book learning, being almost blind, but I suspect he had more instinctive poetry in him than he imagined. After hearing someone talking about mischievous spirits, or poltergeists, he said he’d heard some fellow going on about “Porthershites” Any o’ yez who ever had a skinful of Porther, or suffered close association with one who has, would recognise the connection with its Germanic cousin.
The spirit of the age and the fads of the moment dress them selves up in pseudo-intellectual style as the Zeitgeist. So much so garbed ,is authentic ,
(rather than Ersatz) garbage and might be dubbed by discerning Germans as “Scheissegeist”, or perhaps mistaken by those with a nose for such things as “Portershites.”
The erection in Waterford of a memorial to Field Martial Roberts comes to mind, the memorial in Glasnevin Cemetery honouring British troops killed suppressing the 1916 Rising,the adulation by Eamon Delaney of the unspeakable Winston Churchill, the grovelling imperialist nostalgia of RTE, Independent Newspapers and formerly national institutions,the sneering at and smearing of Irish patriots – these are manifestations of the Scheissegeist.
Geldof and Bono, Gay Byrne (whom Micheal Martin wanted to run as a Fianna Fail Presidential Candidate!!!!) are Scheissegeists made Flesh.
As for Feargal Keane, O.B.E. (author of Letter to Daniel) if I were writing to Daniel, I’d give him a three word message -” Full Fathom Five.”
Even some GAA elements are similarly corrupted. The eulogy for Churchill’s crony, the renegade Irishman Brendan Bracken, given by a GAA
President in Croke Park before the Queen of England was contemptible and nauseating.
Time was,when Field Marshal Roberts and Kitchener were running lethal concentration camps and up to no good in South Africa, a number of
GAA clubs named themselves after the Boer Hero De Wet. Other Irishmen were up to no good with Roberts and Kitchener (both of whom were
avowed enemies of Ireland, and the rule of democracy anywhere on earth. In gratitude for Irish help in Britain’s annexation of South Africa, Queen
Victoria instituted the IRISH GUARDS. The London Board of the GAA has an Irish Guards GAA Club affiliated to it. Presumably clubs named after
Dan Breen, Sean Treacy and other Irish Patriots will resign from or be expelled by the London Board.
A Professor at Trinity College, Dublin, Desmond O’Neill, called this week for the erection in Listowel, Co. Kerry of a memorial to Lord Kitchener. I’ve just opened an email cordially inviting me to the Royal Ulster Rifles Museum in Belfast next Sunday for the launch of “GUILTY BUT INSANE -J.C.Bowen Colthurst:Villain or Victim/” by James W.Taylor. I live in London so I won’t be there
.
Over 60 years ago I read the account written by Hannah Sheehy Skeffington,widow of the one of the undoubted victims of Colthurst on Tuesday 25 April 1916. Her husband, the most prominent pacifist in Ireland, was seized by Colthurst and soldiers under his command and marched as a hostage up the Rathmines Road while they went on a rampage, murdering innocent civilians. Colthurst and other civilians were marched back to Portobello Barracks, where the Guard was turned out and, acting as a firing squad murdered the prisoners. At least one experienced NCO, whom one might have expected to arrest an insane officer, was quite as homicidal as Colthurst. Taking hostages, military or civilian, is against the laws of war and was against King’s Regulations. Colthurst had the bodies of those murdered in the Barracks secretly buried,contrary to law.
One gallant man, Major Sit Francis Vane of the British Army, tried to have Colthurst arrested, but the rest of the British forces, to the highest level, supported Colthurst. Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, a graduate and feminist activist daughter of a Nationalist MP, was able to see Prime Minister Asquith, who did not come well out the business. He tried to bribe Hannah to keep quiet about about it. Colthurst should have been tried and convicted of murder, stripped of his Commission and hanged, Instead he spent a year in Broadmoor and emigrated to Canada where he died in 1966, fifty years after his calculated crimes It doesn’t shock me that J.W.Taylor, who appears to write exclusively and approvingly of Irish service to the British Empire, should seek to cast doubt on Colthurst’s criminality,nor that the book is being launched by Richard Doherty, a “Londonderry” Catholic who served in the RUC Reserve in 1972-1974 and has written volumes on British campaigns with laudatory if nor jingoist titles. But the publisher, MERCIER PRESS, was once as stoutly Irish
in allegiance and sentiment. I fear it too, has now the whiff of the Scheissegeist.
On January 16 2016 I had a blog posted here “Forgotten Hero of the 1916 Rising” proposing that a monument be erected in Dublin to Major Sir Francis Vane. He was a fine man and was disgracefully treated by the Empire he served with honour. Ireland should remember him and Hannah Sheehy Skeffington’s account should be reprinted and posted free on the web.
Comments are closed.