A few
weeks ago a United Nations agency reported that Norway enjoyed the best
standard of life on earth. And that Ireland enjoyed the third best.
In the early 20th Century most of Norway’s electors voted by referendum for
Norway to separate from Sweden. The Government
in Sweden was minded to resist the separation by the use of military
force. It was dissuaded by the Labour Movement
in Sweden which threatened, or called a General Strike. The separation
proceeded without bloodshed and both neighbouring
states have rubbed along amicably for over a century.
In 1940 Adolf Hitler’s troops, to forestall a British seizure of Norway
occupied that country and in 1942, Vidkun Quisling, a former Norwegian Cabinet
Minister, was installed as a collaborationist Prime Minister in Oslo. The
fortunes of war didn’t favour him, for he was shot as a traitor at war’s
end.
So far as I know nowhere on earth is he or any of his adherents commemorated, nor do their names appear on any “national” newspaper’s Roll of Honour.
In December 1918, in a General Election, “described on all sides as a plebiscite” according to THE TIMES (of London), Ireland returned 26 Unionist, 73 Republican Separatist and 6 Irish “Home Rule” Nationalists. Half the winning Republican candidates were in British Jails. Nevertheless those Republicans not in jail honoured their mandate and set up a National Parliament in Dublin, appointed a cabinet and ministries, republican courts, and functioned as the people’s recognised government. In little over a year most municipal, council and other local authorities had majorities of freshly elected republicans giving allegiance to Ireland’s national Government. The handful of “Home Rule” MPs abstained from Ireland’s Home-Made Parliament, and sat with the Unionist MPs in London.
The London Government continued with its never ended suppression in Ireland, and inflicted ever more murderous repression.
And its most loyal and most deadly agent was the Royal Irish Constabulary, the rank and file of whom were Irish Catholics and
many of whose chief officers were members of the Orange Order. Their most vociferous supporter amongst Dublin’s Daily Newspapers was THE IRISH TIMES, which well into the 1960s commemorated District Inspector Swanzy , who murdered
the Republican Lord Mayor of Cork, in the Mayor’s own home, in front of his family one night in March 1920.On its ” Roll of Honour.” McCurtain’s was not the first murder in which Swanzy participated.
The current Irish Government, which would never have existed if Swanzy and his ilk not been challenged by patriots, is set to celebrate the RIC and categorise Dail Eireann, whose non-prisoner members in April 1919 called on the population to ostracise the RIC, as murderers. Thus Eoin MacNeill, Arthur Griffith, Sean T O’Ceallaigh, Eamon de Valera and the generations which established and supported the State, are to be condemned as murderers.
There’s no similarity there with developments in Norway since the shooting of VIdkun Quisling.
Incidentally, in FEBRUARY1933 the IRISH TIMES warned its readers of the perils of returning de Valera to power, following
a year in which he had led a Fianna Fail Government supported by a handful of Labour TDs. The voters gave Fianna Fail
an overall majority and continued re-electing de Valera to power in subsequent elections until 1957, with two three-year
exceptions, and Fianna Fail to power in all further elections until 1973. De Valera retired from Government in 1959 and did
two Laps of Honour, (7 year terms) as President, until 1973.
In MARCH 1933 the IRISH TIMES welcomed the accession to power in Berlin of ADOLF HITLER. Its Editorial, “HERR HITLER’S WAY” was particularly effusive of how he treated the LEFT, actually citing the Thuggish motto that “ONE CANNOT
MAKE AN OMLETTE WITHOUT BREAKING EGGS”.
If Vidkun Quisling’s Ghost has wandered abroad I think it might be found in the Editorial Chair of THE IRISH TIMES.
But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Drew Harris to lay it.
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