The Wearing of the Poppy – by Michael Lagan

Most of the Irish soldiers who fought in World War One were duped into doing so by John Redmond and rogue politicians into fighting for Britain. Many of them regretted what they had done when they came home.  In total, approximately 140,000 Irish men enlisted in the British Army, 50,000 of them in the first six months of the war.  In the end, Redmond’s war-mongering resulted in the deaths of about 50,000 Irishmen.  To say those Irish men who fought in WW1, whether for Britain or not, were not brave is a great disservice to them as Irish men and as individuals.  They were as brave as they come, but they died for a lie.

It’s a source of embarrassment that while many Irish elitists and Irish Unionists fall over themselves to commemorate the men from the likes of the 36th Ulster Division, the Dublin Fusileers, and the Connaught Rangers, ultimately, many of those Irish men who fought for Britain did so because they were told they would attain Home Rule for doing so.  Many came home to disappointment.  Over 50,000 didn’t return at all and put their lives on the line for a lie.

The problem with the poppy isn’t that it commemorates and symbolises those who died in WW1, but that its significance was changed and warped by the Royal British Legion to commemorate all British soldiers, in all theatres of war right up to the present, and most controversial of all, it has even been changed to commemorate the RUC, a police force Catholics were told they should trust but in the end colluded with Loyalist terrorists to kill innocent Catholics and Nationalists.  The poppy is even used on Loyalist terrorist murals to commemorate Loyalist paramilitary dead.

The reality is, many Nationalists couldn’t care less whether someone wears a poppy or not, but what stirs anger is when public figures like James McClean and Paul Mescal are set upon verbally and berated for not wearing one.  I’m sure no one needs to be reminded that James McClean hails from Derry, a city touched terribly by the conflict here and the epicent of a murderous rampage by the 1st battalion of the Parachute Regiment.  Why should James McClean commemorate an army which laid waste to his home city and to his friends and family?

What also doesn’t help is Ministers and elected representatives from the South of Ireland attacking those from NEI who refuse to wear a poppy.  If nothing else it shows utter disregard and a total lack of understanding of what Nationalists and Catholics endured at the hands of an army which actively attacked a population simply for being Catholic.  It shows total ignorance regarding what the RUC did in the North, how they actively targeted Catholics who they knew were innocent but thought them troublesome.

The British army, which this new poppy aims to commemorate, terrorised the Nationalist and Catholic population in NEI. It killed at will and faced no repercussions for doing so…and yet there are those, both North and South of this island who think we should be wearing a blood-stained poppy to commemorate them?

And all the time being told “There is no alternative”.