Word: irishness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...when word finally came, they went into the streets and began to beat the lids of trash cans against the pavement and whistle, a high, piercing shriek. God, it sounded eerie, even on tape, even broadcast halfway around the world. But it didn't sound odd, for the Irish women of Belfast have been making the sound most every day since the troubles began in 1969. Usually it's a warning to the men that the British are moving in; sometimes, like last week, it's a wail of grief that the British have taken another life...
Consider what life is like for the Irish who live in the occupied North. Bobby Sands is a case in point--early in his life, Protestant extremists drove his family from its home. Bobby Sands was going to be a garage mechanic, but the Protestants in his shop forced him out at gunpoint. And then he was arrested and charged with possessing an unloaded revolver. No habeas corpus for Bobby Sands, only 14 years in prison. And don't you know that the Irish had their civil rights movement? People like Bernadette Devlin protested--peacefully--the political, social and especially...
...happens that Ireland was the first victim of British imperialism, and, as it turns out, among the last. The English finally subdued the Celts at the Battle of the Boyne close to 400 years ago; quickly they peopled the nation with subjects loyal to the crown. And the Irish have been fighting since. They've had their victories, of course. The biggest came in 1920 when they won the 26 counties of the south of Ireland. But the loyalist Protestant-dominated North (they still call themselves "Orangemen" in tribute to William of Orange, victor at the Battle of the Boyne...
...could be argued that 400 years is too long a period, that somehow the buzzer has sounded on the Irish, that they've exceeded the time limit for being oppressed without winning, and hence forfeited the right to complain. But if you're going to argue that, you'd better not say that Israel should exist as an independent Jewish state because of its historical ties to the piece of property it now inhabits. The threshold is hard to define. The Afrikaners have controlled South Africa for quite a while. Does that legitimize the pass system and the denial...
...most common objection is to the tactics of the Irish, particularly the Irish Republican Army. They blow things up, and sometimes innocent people are wasted. But that's the way with wars; almost never are they pleasant. To argue that the accidental killing of civilians makes an army or a cause unworthy of support is an objection to all modern war. The IRA bombs primarily the economic interests of the British, attempting to make further occupation unprofitable. Certainly they are no more violent than Mugabe's legions, or the guerrillas that fight for the rights of El Salvadorans...