Posted on 06/25/2004 2:23:18 PM PDT by The Bandit
ENNIS, Ireland President George W. Bush was set to arrive at the heavily guarded Dromoland Castle in County Clare on Friday night as the authorities braced for what were expected to be large demonstrations across Ireland against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.In contrast to the jubilant welcomes accorded to Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, Bush's reception was already developing as frosty, if not outright hostile. Widespread opposition to the Iraq war and revulsion at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal have turned a large portion of Irish popular opinion against him.
Big protests were expected in Dublin and in Shannon, where Air Force One was to land before Bush headed to the EU-U.S. summit at Dromoland Castle. Smaller protests were expected for the cities of Galway, Sligo, Waterford and Tralee in County Kerry.
"Fury and fear as town is turned into a fortress," said the headline in the Irish Examiner. The newspaper quoted the mayor of Shannon as saying that the town's residents were being made into potential targets for a terrorist attack.
Mary O'Rourke, leader of the Irish Senate, refused to attend a recent dinner in celebration of Bush's impending visit at the home of the American ambassador, James Kenny, out of objections to American prison policy at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and for going to war with Iraq, she said. . "Nobody denies we have an affinity with the United States, but that is a different matter from having an affinity with the president," O'Rourke said in the Irish Parliament this week.
But the centrist Irish Independent said in an editorial Friday that while Bush's trip would be the equivalent for the protesters of "a visit from the Devil Incarnate," the demonstrations "seem a bit out of touch."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I'm Irish, too, and it makes me angry that I spent money on that island last year.
LoL
Slack being cut in huge chunks right now!
What?
Slack being cut in huge chunks right now!
LOL, I know I should have. I deserve 20 lashes with a dry noodle, or is it a wet noodle? Anyway, what I mean, is I saw a King James Bible on your page. I have one, but I prefer the New American Standard Bible now. It reads a little easier.
Regards.
Right there. There is a United States that manages to keep the terrorists at bay, and I take very personally insults to our sitting President. I also take very personally the sort of bull slung around Europe that they may hate the President but like the People.
We are the People, and We elect the President. This isn't a Constitional Monarchy or a Commonwealth, God forbid.
To insult the President is to insult us.
Your problem is that the cat will eventually learn, the Irish don't.
I presume from your potato powered rant that you believe we owe Jessie Jackson for slavery (140 years ago) and we owe the owners of that nice big casino just outside town for smallpox (even farther back) and for Sand Creek. I guess you think "sentiment" is sufficient substitute for responsibility and loyalty (if only for all the money we've sent to the IRA by turning a blind eye on all those 'charities' the islamists have copied)....
Oh well, at least the cat learned.
Well put, Sir! Bush doesn't drink, plus the fact that he is of English descent, makes him doubly hateful to many Irish! Ted Kennedy would be more in line with their way of thinking! I mean, they can always live with a drunken cad like him because they have so many over there!
If slack is what you want, you are going to have exercise a little more discretion making your statements.
Oh, P.S. Heavily Irish/Scottish population! ;)
St Patrick brought Catholicism to Ireland nearly 2000 years ago.
The IRA? The Irish would've been a lot better off, if we stepped in 200 years ago!
You have to realize that most of the planet does not give a damned who lives in the sandbox between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
I live in the Commonwealth State of Virginia.
I also have lived in the Commonwealth countries. Huge difference between the two, kiddo.
In contrast to the jubilant welcomes accorded to Presidents Ronald Reagan... Hey, Ms. Bumiller! Try reading your own paper for once: Irish in an Anti-Reagan Mood for Visit New York Times June 1, 1984 By R.W. Apple Jr. DUBLIN, May 31 -- President Reagan faces calculated snubs and hostile demonstrations as well as fonder greetings, during his three-day visit to Ireland beginning Friday. Yup, more revisionist history from the Slimes.OUTSTANDING work!
"That is one country of sentiment. They have had their fair share & taste of cold blooded murder from their English Terrorists. "
Umm,...do you mean the Black & Tans?
Sorry, but England did not "invade" Ireland in the "12th century." High King Rory O'Connor expelled Dermot MacMurrough from the throne of Leinster, and Dermot then went to England (just a hundred years after the Normans had invaded England from France to which they had come from Scandinavia) to seek Normans to fight for him and help him get his throne back (which he did). He rewarded one of the Norman knights with a marriage to his daughter, then died, which made this Norman knight King. Henry II, hearing this, came over and insisted that Strongbow (the Norman Knight) acknowledge him as overlord with the title of "Lord of Ireland." Modern nationalism did not exist in the Middle Ages (everyone was an overlord to someone else) and it is at best ignorant and at worst malicious to interpret those events in light of modern nationalist concepts.
As to the Irish fight against England being equivalent to America's, America was an English/British colony that fought against the mother country for ideological/philosophical reasons. No American claims to have some sort of mystical tie to the land of America. Irish anti-English nationalism predates modern political philosophy (it was simply rule by an Irish king vs. rule by an English king). It is based on mystical nationalism, the idea that the people we know as Irish are "indigenous" or "autochthonous" or have some special mystic connection to that island which magically entitles them to being ruled only by other people on that island and which renders any other situation some sort of self-evident blasphemy of the Sacred Soil. Sorry, but not having sprung from the soil of anyplace, I have no patience with others who claim that mythical origin. Only one man in all of history "spring out of the soil"--'Adam HaRi'shon, who sprung from the soil of Har HaBayit and then removed from there and brought to Gan `Eiden, which is somewhere near Chevron. Perhaps it is their knowledge of our common origin and decidedly non-autochthonous natures that the Jews are so hated by the world's "nationalists."
We didn't force Ireland to immigrate to us, but our English/French/Anglo-saxon ancestors did force the Africans to come here.
But since we were a proud Free country in those times, and we were all about fighting the English. I'm saying now, the Irish have every reason to not give a lick about our President, I don't care if it's Bush, Clinton, or MIZZ Hillary, whomever they dislike, that's their choice.
Unfortunately we only get two men to vote for every term, and we're stuck with the "Best man of the two"!
But we all complained a little sometime along the way about the winning President? Haven't we all?
At least the Irish aren't afraid of voicing truth, in America, we couldn't even rid ourselves of the two no good choices(for president) off the ballots and start all over with better choices(for president) if we wanted to.
Sure you have a voice, and if we're pray hard enough the ACLU(gov't funded) won't take it from you, like the English took it from Ireland. At least they don't let their government shut them up anymore!
I wonder if we'll ever loose our rights to bear arms, the English(terrorists)took that right away from their people! Remember!
Your problem is that the cat will eventually learn, the Irish don't. - That same thing could be said over about half of Americans now!
So what? It's what G-D that matters, whether or not anyone else cares or even believes in His existence.
Of course, if you believe religion is merely a subjective superstition or philosophy evolved by each "autochthonous" culture and therefore are all equally valid, you're not going to see it this way. That also means you must believe the universe, and you yourself and your life, are ultimately meaningless beyond what little artificial goals or philosophies you may wish to cook up for yourself. Sorry, but I don't play dat game.
What else should we expect from a nation of terrorists?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.