Those of you who remember the COLD WAR (against the Soviet Union and the countries it liberated from from the Nazis) may remember hearing “This is the BBC Light Programme (or was it Home Service?) and the British Forces Network in Germany.”
In Ireland, although uniformed British Forces vacated the Twenty-Six Counties between 1922 and 1938,.their network of influence NEVER WENT AWAY. But I cannot presume to round off this assertion with -“YOU KNOW.” So pervasive and insidious is that influence that a great many legitimate holders of Irish passports, living in Ireland, are blissfully unaware of it.
Thus Britain’s lying narrative about the history of the world, including that of Britain and of Ireland, is accepted and relayed by universities, newspapers, television and radio stations.
Ruairi Quinn, a former Education Minister and enfant terrible nicknamed Ho Chi Minh when at UCD, could repeat the slur that the Second World War was described in Ireland as The Emergency. The Irish State was not at war, but the European situation in 1939 created a real Emergency for the State, whose Parliament, in accordance with the recent, popularly enacted Constitution declared an Emergency.
Britain has waged savage wars of repression, described as ” Emergencies” and thus not bound herself by the Geneva or any Convention (except the Convention of misbehaving as she pleased) . Another advantage was that her tea planters, rubber extractors, tin mining companies were saved the high insurance premiums which declarations of war would attract.
Napoleon’s sneer that the English were a nation of shopkeepers may be unfair. Her Imperialists have been, and remain, murderous shoplifters and chronic liars.
Winston Churchill, who advocated using poison gas on “savages” in Iraq, seat of an ancient civilisation, and praised Musssolini’s Rape of Abyssinia. He also had the gall in 1945 to accuse Eamon de Valera of “frolicking” with the Fascists. To read some Irish commentators including a Professor David Murphy (see my BLOG “An Irish Passport, nice and handy of 15 Nov 2015) you would think that Ireland had a duty to take part in England’s wars.
While it must be stressed that Churchill was out of office when Mussolini’s forces were raping Abyssinia, and using mustard gas to annex it, it should also be remembered that Britain made Mussolini pay for the crime. His forces and equipment accessed Abyssinia through the British-owned and controlled Suez Canal. And like Good Shopkeepers the British exacted tolls for their passage.
You may ask what Ireland was doing at the time. You might ask Fintan O’Toole or Fergal Keane, or Ruth Dudley Edwards, Eoghan Harris or Bob Geldof or Professor David Murphy, or Seamus Murphy SJ till the cows come home but you wouldn’t get an answer.
Apparently the Irish Free State in 1932 (like Ireland as a whole in 1918 TOOK A WRONG TURNING.
At that time it elected 70 Fianna Fail TDs and 7 Labour TDS and put Fianna Fail in Government. In 1933 the Dail was dissolved and in February of that year “THE IRISH TIMES VIEW” was that great evil would ensue if Fianna Fail was to resume Government. The electorate, being unwise, if not evil, gave Fianna Fail an overall majority in the Dail, and continued in every general election until 1948 to vote that party into power.
In 1936 as head of the Irish Government, and President of the Council of Ministers at the League of Nations, Eamon de Valera supported the demand of the Abyssinian Emperor Haile Selassie, made at its Geneva HQ, that all members of the League, honour their solemn Covenant and come to the aid of their attacked member. He offered troops sworn to allegiance to Ireland to participate in a common endeavour.
Dev and Abyssinia had no backers.
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