RE: At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
11-11-2017, 05:51 PM (This post was last modified: 11-11-2017, 06:02 PM by Dartz.)
11-11-2017, 05:51 PM (This post was last modified: 11-11-2017, 06:02 PM by Dartz.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok
World War 1 and Ireland are in a complex place. One the one hand, 30,000 Irishmen were lost - potentially more including those in other Commonwealth armies. They signed up, hoping the war would lead to home rule - at the request of John Redmond.
On the other hand, you have 1916 in the middle, and the great national founding myth of the Easter Rising.
The heroes of 1916 were apotheised on the national pantheon. Anyone who left to join the British army were, at best, quietly forgotten about or, at worst, seen as traitors who joined the enemy.
The War Memorial Gardens were finished in 1939 - but then World War II interrupted things before the official dedication and, after a few attempts at commemoration, they were left to decay and ruin throuigh the national adolescence and in the political climate of The Troubles. The situation wasn't helped by Ulster Unionists patently ignoring the rest of the country and turning the commemorations into a Unionists celebration above all else.
The Gardens were only opened in 1988 - and the first official commemoration was held in 2006.
Even today, The Taoiseach's wearing of the Poppy there recently raised eyebrows and generated the usual comments, from 'why bother', to 'how dare he', to 'about time'.
World War 1 and Ireland are in a complex place. One the one hand, 30,000 Irishmen were lost - potentially more including those in other Commonwealth armies. They signed up, hoping the war would lead to home rule - at the request of John Redmond.
On the other hand, you have 1916 in the middle, and the great national founding myth of the Easter Rising.
The heroes of 1916 were apotheised on the national pantheon. Anyone who left to join the British army were, at best, quietly forgotten about or, at worst, seen as traitors who joined the enemy.
The War Memorial Gardens were finished in 1939 - but then World War II interrupted things before the official dedication and, after a few attempts at commemoration, they were left to decay and ruin throuigh the national adolescence and in the political climate of The Troubles. The situation wasn't helped by Ulster Unionists patently ignoring the rest of the country and turning the commemorations into a Unionists celebration above all else.
The Gardens were only opened in 1988 - and the first official commemoration was held in 2006.
Even today, The Taoiseach's wearing of the Poppy there recently raised eyebrows and generated the usual comments, from 'why bother', to 'how dare he', to 'about time'.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.