Posted on 04/20/2015 12:02:58 PM PDT by Olog-hai
A member of the House of Lords has said the Republic of Ireland should consider rejoining the Commonwealth.
Lord Diljit Rana said Ireland needs to have a “rational and serious debate” that must not be “governed by historical distortion, but rather recognize the truth of today and recognize that the Republic of Ireland has much to offer and lots to receive.” […]
Ireland left the British Commonwealth in 1949 under the terms of the Republic of Ireland Act.
Lord Rana said there would be no disadvantage to the Republic joining the Commonwealth and that the economics benefits of being a member can be seen in Northern Ireland, where India is now the second biggest provider of foreign direct investment, the Irish Times reports. …
(Excerpt) Read more at irishcentral.com ...
Whatever you may choose to call them, the majority of people in Northern Ireland have chosen the UK over the Irish Republic since 1921.
The Protestants themselves are as Irish as the Mayflower folk were “Native American”.
Yet they've been there for four hundred years, just as we've been here almost that long. Only left wing advocates of "indigenism" want to label them "foreign devils" at this point.
At any rate, look at what the Republic's Jacobin roots have grown into.
I’ll never say that Irish Protestants are not Irish, even ones that identify as British. The town I lived in had a Church of Ireland and were never ill-treated; one of my cousins married a Protestant too.
The Republic is a moral morass these days. Large numbers of nominal Catholics are anything but.
Maybe Ireland will rejoin the Commonwealth about the time that Texas decides to rejoin Mexico.
You are doing just what I said. Ireland left the UK to be a free state. The Commonwealth is a different thing. Canada, India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, and many other countries are Commonwealth members.
Ireland was already in the Commonwealth. Going back to it requires making the Queen into head of state again, as well as possibly having a vice-regal position re-instituted (there was no love for the Lord Lieutenant among the Catholic population), and therefore they will never do it.
Whether they’ll ever do it, or whether it’s a good idea, I leave to them. I was only saying that everyone was reacting as if it was suggested they rejoin the UK, which it wasn’t.
That’s right; up their kilts!
The UK has continued trafficking all kinds of “British” people from the former empire there; of course they wouldn’t support union with the Republic. Most of the trafficked Protestants weren’t even there 300 years ago, while Spain settled Florida long before the Mayflower landed.
Whatever the Catholics are, the “Irish” Protestants were trafficked from Scotland and England. Ireland had no Martin Luther or John Calvin; Protestantism is foreign to the island itself (a British export, so to speak - like tea in the colonies here).
By the same token, then, Catholicism is just as “alien” to Ireland as Protestantism, having been “trafficked” in by the Normans, King Henry II of England, and Pope Alexander III. During Diarmuid Mac Murrough’s days, Ireland was still majority Druidic pagan, even in spite of St. Patrick’s famed efforts. Why should one “British export” be extolled above the other, especially since the days I mention here, Ireland’s lords had sworn fealty to the English king, whom Pope Alexander III named Lord of Ireland?
No, not all the Protestants came from Scotland and England. Very many of them were native Irish. Better check your sources again.
PS. The name “British”, in the form “Britani”, was a name the Irish used for themselves prior to Druidism becoming more prevalent and the island being named for the pagan goddess Éire. Later on, the “Irish” only referred to the Welsh as “Breatanach”, a name that still persists to the present day in the Irish language; “Wales” is called “An Bhreatain Bheag” (literally “Little Britain”).
You're wrong on the current legalities. Being a member of the Commonwealth does not require the Queen to be Head of State, and nations can be Republics with their own Presidents and be part of the Commonwealth - in fact, most of the Commonwealth are Republics. Of the 53 Commonwealth, nations, only 16 still have the Queen as Head of State. 32 are Republics, the other 5 are Monarchies, with their own Monarch as Head of State.
If Ireland wanted to rejoin the Commonwealth as a Republic, it would be free to do so. I'm not saying they should - but they could. South Africa would be the closest thing to a precedent, I think.
In April 1949 when Ireland declared a Republic, it did automatically leave the Commonwealth, but that rule was changed in June of that year, and when India became a Republic in 1950, it remained a member of the Commonwealth.
Catholicism certainly is foreign to Ireland (it is an export to anyone outside of the Holy Land), but it wasn’t spread at the point of the sword as Protestantism was (and it wasn’t a British export, but a Roman one though they never took Ireland). Normans were late to the game, claiming the right to England based on a Saxon king’s oath on a Bible (Catholicism was already there). Having been active in Irish organizations for years, I have never met an “Irish Protestant” that didn’t trace their roots back to Scotland or England. Whatever sources you claim, they are no match for the real people.
The Protestants are mostly descended from settlers from Scotland and England, although some of the Scots could have some remote ancestors from Ireland, since Scottish Gaelic was brought to Scotland from Ireland.
Anything Scottish linguistically stayed in Ulster. There were very few settlers from Scotland that went south of Ulster.
Ireland was not fully Christianized until it was brought under the English Lordship; especially when the Irish lords started paying taxes to the Papacy. The Normans were all Catholic themselves. Christianity was assailed quite a bit by the Vikings over the centuries to boot. Take a look at the writings of Pope Adrian IV to Henry II to see how he viewed the state of Christianity in Ireland back in the twelfth century.
Never? I don’t know what your Irish organizations are telling you, but they quite often have a lopsided view of history.
As I mentioned in another post, Pope Adrian IV, Alexander III’s successor, took a very dim view of Catholicism in Ireland and insisted that Henry II undertake a strong reform; so the Norman invasion was indeed a conversion by sword. As for aggressive Anglicanism, that was a failure eventually even with the depredations of people like Oliver Cromwell—not an Anglican per se but a Puritan.
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