Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: sinsofsolarempirefan
Well, 30% of Ireland's population was killed or fled to exile after Cromwell's genocidal actions. That was more than the percentage of Poles killed by the genocidal Germans

I'm not talking about Drogheda which was war and you are correct that this was as per the rules of war

I'm talking about the Sack of Wexford, and John Hewson destroying food stocks in counties Wicklow and Kildare and other places and the English's scorched earth policy whereby folks would be slain and their cattle and goods taken or spoiled. This led to famine.

At the same time the Irish were sold as indentured labor throughout the colonies

98 posted on 08/02/2012 4:48:00 AM PDT by Cronos (**Marriage is about commitment, cohabitation is about convenience.**)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies ]


To: Cronos

Bear in mind that the Irish Royalists and Confederates committed atrocities of their own against Protestants and Parliamentarians during the ECW (the 1641 Portadown Massacre springs to mind). The 1640s was frankly, barely out of the Middle Ages, and there is a certain brutally rational logic to engaging in genocide against hostile populations who are causing problems that both sides were fully aware of. The Irish Confederates were certainly doing their own best to implement a genocide of their own against their enemies.
The only difference really was that Cromwell’s New Model Army won the upper hand. Make no mistake, the Irish Confederates would have done the same if not worse if they had won the war in Ireland.
The Geneva Convention and the concept of ‘Human Rights’ was well off into the future, and frankly, considering what the American settlers were already up to in the colonies, and all kinds of things for a further 250 years, no American has any right to be snooty about what the English were up to in Ireland without looking extremely hypocritical...


99 posted on 08/02/2012 7:38:58 AM PDT by sinsofsolarempirefan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson