Tuesday 30 October 2012

Harping On

Last night's Document was interesting enough. But who, exactly, would ever have been shocked to have discovered that Michael Collins had used British Army troops to bombard the Four Courts, so that in fact they fired the first shots of the Irish Civil War, at and under the command of His Mjaesty's Government of the Dominion within which they were stationed?

Only four years later, in  1926, there was a secession from Sinn Féin, which duly went on to hang the IRA, and which has been the ruling party of the 26 Counties for most of the time ever since. Does anyone doubt who engineered that secession? Sinn Féin has certainly never doubted it, although who are the proxies now?

And back on the pro-Treaty side, there was the 1933 merger of the Blueshirts, Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party, complete with a commitment to Commonwealth membership (which in those days necessitated retention of the monarchy, and a very high degree of integration in foreign policy and defence), albeit for a United Ireland as the ultimate aim. Again, it has never been anything less than blatantly obvious who was behind that. But, again, who are the proxies now?

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