That’s awful. God bless and keep these brave men for their sacrifices. Too bad they didn’t emigrate to the US after the war. They would’ve been welcomed with open arms.
Is there still animosity between the different factions on the Isles? I’m of Scottish lineage, but most of my predecessors have played their pipes to the Pearly Gates.
Disgraceful.
We’re off to Dublin in the green, in the green
Our helmets glistening in the sun
Where the bayonets flash and the rifles clash
To the echo of the Thompson gun
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite the face.
I believe there are some Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and Belgians that have the same problem, and they won’t be seen wearing their Iron Crosses.
G-d bless these men.
This is a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and the Irish enmity to England has very deep roots. There is a program on the Smithsonian Cable Channel, “Cromwell: God’s Executioner”, that details just one series of episodes in a very long line.
It appears that this feeling is diminishing now but I have a hunch that it is still a bred-in-the-bones thing that can resurface. When you experience an 800+ year battle for independence from a much stronger nation, this feeling does not disappear after just a generation or two.
During WWII the IRA would light fires on roofs in Belfast to guide in German bombers.
They define this as “brutally punished”: “They were formally dismissed from the Irish army, stripped of all pay and pension rights, and prevented from finding work by being banned for seven years from any employment paid for by state or government funds.”
That’s pretty routine in many countries for deserters. If Ireland had been at war, they could have been shot!
There were many Irishmen, and IRA operatives that fought for the whermacht
There were many Irishmen, and IRA operatives that fought for the whermacht
We do worse to deserters in the U.S. military.
I’ve never met anyone from Ireland who wasn’t an asshole. I’ll never understand why they think they’re so special
This is shameful. Ireland should be ashamed of itself, and it should formally apologize and make reparations to their families.
Had they joined many of their fellow Irish in America, they would have been welcomed with open arms.
There is an anti-war song in the folk tradition, “The Green Fields of France”, written by Eric Bogle. While searching it up to add to my collection and possibly sing at our pub’s session, I discovered a reply to it. It appears to be pertinent to the thread, so here it is:
WILLIE MCBRIDE’S REPLY
Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet
My dear friend Eric, this is Willie McBride,
Today I speak to you across the divide,
Of years and of distance of life and of death,
Please let me speak freely with my silent breath.
You might think me crazy, you might think me daft,
I could have stayed back in Erin, where there wasn’t a draft,
But my parents they raised me to tell right from wrong,
So today I shall answer what you asked in your song.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly, they played the pipes lowly,
And the rifles fired o’er me as they lowered me down,
The band played “The Last Post” in chorus,
And the pipes played “The Flowers of the Forest.”
Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you when all’s said and done,
They welcomed this boy with his tin hat and gun.
And call it ironic that I was cut down,
While in Dublin my kinfolk were fighting the Crown.
But in Dublin or Flanders the cause was the same:
To resist the oppressor, whatever his name.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly...
It wasn’t for King or for England I died,
It wasn’t for glory or the Empire’s pride.
The reason I went was both simple and clear:
To stand up for freedom did I volunteer.
It’s easy for you to look back and sigh,
And pity the youth of those days long gone by,
For us who were there, we knew why we died,
And I’d do it again, says Willie McBride.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly…
My screen gets blurry sometimes...
I wonder how they also resolve the idea keeping an Irishman out of any fight, even if it did heard the British. Every war we ever had they were always in the front.
My great uncle was killed at the Somme in France in 1917.
He joined the British Army in Dublin as did thousands of his fellow Irishmen to fight against the Germans.
Sadly if he would have survived WWI he would have undergone massive hate against him by the Irish when he returned from the war.