Here’s why we reject the myth of 1916
Reform’s position on 1916 is quite clear. It was the bloody work of a minority within a minority which considered the Irish people were degenerate (see the essay of Francis Shaw SJ in Studies, Summer 1972).
1,351 people were killed or severely wounded; a civil war ensued in which some 5,800 died; partition was copperfastened; a theocracy emerged masquerading as a democracy; grinding poverty resulted when hundreds of thousands emigrated to the enemy country, mostly badly-educated; Protestants left or learnt to shut up.
The whole lineage of our political provenance goes right back to 1916 which is why none of our politicians, with the noble exception of John Bruton, will castigate 1916, nor speak out against anglophobia and the knee-jerk reaction towards unionists. Note the Orange Order was not welcomed to last year’s St Patrick’s Festival in Cork.
We do not live in a true republic. And we would have got independence eventually without a bullet being fired. There is nothing to celebrate about 1916.
Robin Bury
The Reform Movement
Killiney
Co Dublin
