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From: gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Northern Ireland
Message-ID: <224@ihu1m.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 17:08:45 EST
Article-I.D.: ihu1m.224
Posted: Tue Jan 15 17:08:45 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 05:40:06 EST
References: <307@bonnie.UUCP> <1087@pyuxa.UUCP> <1168@ihuxm.UUCP> <141@abnji.UUCP> , <241@calmasd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 55
Keywords: IRA

--
>> ...The British refused to recognize this body [Irish Parliment],
>> and for the next two years the IRA fought a
>> guerrilla war against the British Army, which the IRA finally
>> won. Sort of. Six counties were still in British hands, not all
>> of the IRA was very happy with the treaty, and a civil war
>> started almost immediatly after British withdrawl from the Irish
>> Free State.

>> Cheryl Nemeth 

What happened was that both the British and the Irish were pretty
worn out.  The IRA, with widespread support in the north and
south, had beaten back the British forces rather decisively,
but the British would not admit defeat.  A lot of negotiating
took place, and it pitted Ireland's politically naive Eamon
Devalera (who became Eire's 1st president) against England's
Lloyd George.  In this arena, Ireland didn't have a chance.

George boldly bluffed that England would never give up, and
that if the IRA did not make peace then and now, he would
commit more and more divisions to the fight until the tide was
turned and the IRA was forced to surrender.  Devalera, apparently
unaware that the English after 4 years of WW I had little stomach
for more of the same, lost his nerve, and gave up 2/3 of Ulster
in exchange for a British pull-out from the rest of Ireland.

Of course, it might not have been a bluff.  The Irish knew quite
well how the English could fight on and on in totally untenable
situations.  It had happened in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey,
in which many Irish (and Australian) regiments were massacred.
The memory of Ireland's "Wild Geese" at Gallipoli was a particularly
poignant one.  The rebel song "Foggy Dew" has a line commemorating
the senseless pouring of battalion after battalion of light infantry
against Turkish machine guns in support of the landing at Suvla Bay.

"'Twas England bade our Wild Geese go
 That small nations might be free.
 But their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves
 And the fringes of the great North Sea.
 Oh had they died by Peirce's side,
 Or fought with Cathal Brugh,
 Then their names we'd keep
 Where the Fenians sleep
 'Neath the folds of the foggy dew."

There are 5 other verses chock full of romantic and religious imagery.
I used to know them all.
-- 
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