Violence in Ireland
I still can't read about Irish history without getting angry at what some of my ancestors did to others of my ancestors (three of my grandparents were Catholic, the fourth Protestant). But while I don't want the struggles and suffering of the Irish to be forgotten or played down, I don't want anything on this site to lead anyone to support the IRA on the one hand or the UDA on the other, or to join some army or group of guerrillas/freedom fighters/terrorists, or to start to hate. The time for all that, if there ever was a time for it, is long over. The details revealed at the inquest into the Omagh Bombing should convince any doubters.
I'm not a historian. I haven't even studied history. All I know is a mish-mash of "facts" and figures picked up at school here in Ireland, and later from newspapers, magazines, books, TV and radio. I believe that all knowledge is to some degree subjective, that history is one of the more subjective disciplines, and that all writings on it should come with a "subjectivity warning" and with a declaration of the writer's background and biases.
The history pages on this site grew naturally from earlier pages of photographs of castles and forts. Much presented history, especially in Ireland, is weighted towards invasions, wars, rebellions, massacres, famines and more wars. Our favourite game as children was "War", and our rooms were full of toy guns, tanks, bows and arrows, swords, knives and battle-axes, while, on TV, I "enjoyed" the Vietnam War from the safety of our living room. We loved war, or our childish idea of it, and I couldn't wait to grow up, join some rebel group or army - apart from the British Army - and become a hero fighting for freedom or justice or glory or something.
After Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, where British paratroops ran amok and murdered 13 unarmed civilians, only an accident of history - the influence of the 1960's peace movement - stopped me and many others from joining the IRA. For all its alleged naivete, the 60's - Martin Luther King, anti-Vietnam War protests, "Make Love Not War", the music - changed everything for a generation. After the 60's, armies and fighting, killing and dying and righteous revenge, glory and martial heroism could no longer go unquestioned.
The 1980's Peace Movement provided further food for thought. The following is an extract from an article by Zoe Fairbairns "Taking it Personally", in Ed Barber's 1984 book of photographs "Peace Moves - Nuclear Protest in the 1980's".
"This book celebrates the peace movement......It is an alternative to the countless other books...which celebrate the war movement.
"If you have never heard of the war movement, that is because it does not call itself that.....Nor does it see itself as an alternative. It is normal. Its specialist books need no specialist bookstore, they're there at your station newsagent's : War Machines! The World's Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Military Weapons of The Twentieth Century! The Winds of War! Action Adventure for the Death Dealing British Superjet! The Screaming Eagles, 101st Airborne! Kill or Die!! Assault Troop! Miniature Wargamer! Its films are at your local Odeon; its donations are our income taxes; its news is mainstream national news...
"Sometimes the war movement says to the peace movement: not only are you dangerously naive...but you are self-righteously unjust too. Don't you know that we ALL hate war? To which anyone who....has seen the non-violent life-loving imagery of peace movement demonstrations and compared that with the raucous bloodlust implicit in war movement demos can only reply, you could have fooled us.
"If the war movement hated war, there would be no war. And if that seems too naive a thought, move it down a notch or two: if the war movement hated war, there would be no CELEBRATION of war. Successful soldiers would not march in triumph down the street any more than successful hangmen (another regrettable necessity for the protection of society, we were told).....The Heir to the throne would not see fit to get married in naval uniform, his hand on a sword. Military Tattoos, Beating the Retreat, The Royal Tournament, Trooping the Colour and Open Days at military bases would have all the appeal of day-trips around a morgue or sewage works.....Remembrance Day - supposedly a day for grief over the pain and wastage of war - would be just that, and the politicians would lay their wreaths last, not first, behind the war-disabled, widowed, orphaned, not ahead of them, recognising, as politicians, that war is their failure and nobody's triumph......
"The war movement celebrates war at every opportunity, and we do not celebrate what we only regard as a regrettable necessity, let alone what we hate."
Last updated September 2000.
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