Bertie scraps Mayday

by radical jonny Mon Oct 24, 2005 13:02 radicaljonny at yahoo dot ie

The 1916 rebellion had it's own 500lb. guerilla at the proceedings: James Connolly. Decades of dressing him in green by the republican movement can never expunge his truly radical, international workers agenda.

Wouldn't it be fun to show up at Bertie's green party dressed in all our shades of red, placards of 'ar Jimmy', banners with his best quotes, etc.?

1916 belongs to us, as well.

by iosaf Mon Oct 24, 2005 13:30

the commemoration of 1916 with a big military parade is a wonderful opportunity for us all to reflect that in the depth of european war, some gaeilgoir psycopaths took over our national question, got our capital city bombarded, launched a civil war, fought the british empire and almost all got executed (with the notable exception of the posh lady Connie who liked the swimming pools and the lanky one Eamon who was a machiavellian cryptofascist).

so that less than a hundred years later we would be partitioned, neo-colonial, and our shamed politicians could tragically die in Moscuvite red light districts with their hard to verify translators and a new patriotic people could assemble at the German owned post office and wave flags stiched in China.

But skateboards are plentiful.

Meanwhile, Mayday is our day.
No-one gave it to us.
No-one can take it away.
It is our day because we are still in struggle.

by bank holidayer Mon Oct 24, 2005 13:34

that there is one less bank holiday next year?

havent heard anything about it in other media.

by Damien Mon Oct 24, 2005 13:36

It just means that a load of kids will get in the way of everyone else just so they can have some fun.

by DV8 Mon Oct 24, 2005 13:56

Ho Chi Quinn (ex 'Labour leader') has raised this issue. It seems that our 'socialist' Taoiseach plans to move the bank holiday back a week to commemorate the 90th anniversary of 1916.
I know SIPTU have thrown a spanner in the works for the planned ICTU debate tomorrow but I do hope somebody raises Bertie's commitment to 'social partnership' with a stunt like this.

by gobshite Mon Oct 24, 2005 14:09

There's no point in having a holiday on the actual anniversary of the easter rising, because most of the american tourists won't know that date, and they won't come to spend the money we need.

So we'd have to commemorate it at easter.
which is a holiday anyway.

coz thats when baby jesus died and then really niftily came back! thats why he's famous.

by Question Mon Oct 24, 2005 14:10

'Bertie who last year was walking down in the political catwalk in his new 'socialist' red will replace it next year with his own brand of 'nationalist' green.'

Does this make him a National Socialist?!

by Updater Mon Oct 24, 2005 17:08

Fianna Fail are now stating that they have no intention of taking back Mayday and are in fact giving the workers an extra holiday. Must be an election coming.

by Easter Eggsistentialist Mon Oct 24, 2005 17:52

Just as well. I don't think I'd have been able to get any time off to protest at the loss of Mayday.

by moylan Mon Oct 24, 2005 23:55

If you reflected on what you wrote, which I doubt, you might have thought twice about actually setting down such gibberish. You reproduce the loud, mindless utterances of the Dublin Aero-heads as though they were original. Well, the Rising took place in the context of the First World War (which I can't imagine you denouncing in similar terms, though it fits them much more closely), and resulted directly in the rise of public support for independence, the 1918 election and actual independence, and thereby the State that you do very well by today.

If you don't like it, it would be more constructive if you cut the Kevin O'Higgins impersonation and moved somewhere you found more congenial. I suggest Columbia.

by cynic Tue Oct 25, 2005 02:58

Sure didn't the unions themsleves try to cancel it last year?

by gramsci fan Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:38

Sounds like they're backing off already... almost a pity.

Inquiring minds can no doubt think of at least a dozen ways in which we could take Mayday for ourselves if they didn't give it to us...

After all it was never given to us in the first place - we won it ourselves. And we could win it back if we needed to.

by Eoin O Broin - myself Tue Oct 25, 2005 13:44

Dear Iosaf,

Give it a rest. Those guys were far from gaeilgoir psycopaths though I will addres your inclusion of those two words in the same expression further down. Until now I have considered you the most eloquent and informed contributor on Indymedia. I am now questioning that opinion. I urge you to reconsider your comments and withdraw them. Here's why:

There are very few "gaelgoirs" in Ireland. The method in which Irish is taught in English schools throughout the country is a disgrace. Any debate about the usefullness of the language or the merits of its revival are absolutely pointless when regular people don't even have the opportunity to choose whether to speak it given the pedagogical methods they experienced at school. It's that simple. Name another "old" country in the World where people don't speak their own language. What's the problem with the concept of everyone speaking Irish? How has the lack of english affected the devolopment of the Italian people who went to the U.S? Languages are not that hard to pick up. I am living in Sweden now. 8 weeks ago I didn't have a word. Now I can find my way around shop and pub no problem. Its time to get over your problems with the Irish language and compare them to the problems that french people have with the french language or the German people have with the German language or the Friesland islanders with friesan:)) How many of those who took part in 1916 were actually Gaelgoirs...

If they are what you call psychopaths, and you have included James Connolly in their number, then I don't think you can call yourself a revolutionary. I take it from your comments that I have read that you believe in radical transform of society though I am not sure by what means. All the 1916 revolutionaries did was have a shot at "taking back the power" from the British Establishment. Sure it was in no way as democratic as anything Duretti, Zapata or Mackno were involved with but like I said they decided to have a go. Whether the society they would have envisioned would have been as right wing and reactionery as you think it would have been has to be balanced by Connollys presence. If he was happy with his colleagues and comrades that's good enough for me.

The only other people I have ever heard trotting out the "1916 was a stab in the back of the British Empire" argument were Kevin Myres and his revisionist cronies. You are hardly in agreement with them?

BTW I am not a member of Sinn Fein though I am fairly sure my name sake in Belfast would have somwhat similar thoughts.

PS: What language is the name "Iosaf" in?
PPS: Gaeilgoir psycopaths would have to rank with "Anarchist hooligans" as an attempt to tarnish.

============================================

To everybody else & Iosaf;-)

This resurrection of 1916 by Bertie has been coming for a long time. Think about it. In 11 years time it will be the hundredth anniversary and if things remain the same there would only be a damp squib national commemoration. 700 years of struggle and no independence day or celebration of any kind to show for it though I acknowledge that some would say we have nothing to celebrate until the whole country is "free".

Don't get me wrong. Given the direction this most right wing government in the history of the state has gone any ceremonies organised by them are definitely PR exercises that they will put as much effort into as their they do to integrate the immigrant population into Ireland. Actually if they did put more effort into it then integration then that would be scary.

After 83 years of sovereignty they haven't managed to resurrect the Irish language by their policies, they don't acknowledge through commemoration that the country is sovereign and they don't have any national commemoration of the famine where 1,000,000 people died, another 1,000,000 emigrated and over the next few decades a further 3,000,000 emigrated. That's as bad as Rwanda. Maybe even worse! It doesn't seem to me like our rulers know their history or even care...

by iosaf Tue Oct 25, 2005 14:00

re: 1916 saw a small percentage of fighting men who did not in any way match the psychological profile of insurrectionists or military leaders before or since. They were in fact neurotics, which is why the whole event took such a long time to organise and the city hall didn't get occupied. & De Valera was an autistic which is why he defended Boland's mills so well with his trigonometric firing positions but in later life couldn't accept he had lied. In this respect he was just like Washington.
The Countess M was only looking for attention and a clean swimming pool. The Rahiliilly had a emotional problems which he had developed in the Boer war, and was prone to fits of anger but wrote a lovely letter and enjoyed a fight. The whole event would have just been understood for what it really was, a bunch of anarchistic hooligans making some point, if the murderous psycopath English Maxwell hadn't bombarded dublin from the Helga.

re: commemoration. De Valera commemorated the 50th anniversary in his Royals Royce, all the childer were given shoes for the day, and the girls of the mary magdalene homes were allowed walk behind the cross, it was one of the greatest days for irelands since the eucharistic congress.

by Eoin O Broin Tue Oct 25, 2005 15:55

I will have to kick for touch on the "the psychological profile of the 1916 insurrectionists". That's not what I was taught at school;-) Seriously you can't put Connelly in the same category... I also think that there would be a lot of people who would not share your views on the state of their mental health though Ruth Dudley Edwards would... The only thing I read by Pearse, some tracts from the Murder Machine, did not seem to be the rantings of a psychopath. Point taken about Dev though my only reference for this would be the film "Michael Collins".

As for commemoration there are many forms which can be decided democratically. Actually now that I think about it maybe it is a good thing the state don't organise commemorations given how hollow they would ring with their right wing policies and shameless support for the war in Iraq. I didn't attend the Eucharistic congress or the 50 year commemorations myself for obvious reasons though they can't have been much worse than the St. Patricks Day parade though yeah the magdeline stuff is aslo scary.

I guess we can't change the past but we can change our rulers and how they choose to interpret and celebrate it...

by Anorak Tue Oct 25, 2005 16:14

On May 9, 1916, there appeared, in Berner Tagwacht, the organ of the Zimmerwald group, including some of the Leftists, an article on the Irish rebellion entitled "Their Song is Over" and signed with the initials K.R. [Karl Radek]. It described the Irish rebellion as being nothing more nor less than a "putsch", for, as the author argued, "the Irish question was an agrarian one", the peasants had been pacified by reforms, and the nationalist movement remained only a "purely urban, petty-bourgeois movement, which, notwithstanding the sensation it caused, had not much social backing..."

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie WITHOUT ALL ITS PREJUDICES [italics in original], without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc.--to imagine all this is to REPUDIATE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. So one army lines up in one place and says, "We are for socialism", and another, somewhere else and says, "We are for imperialism", and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view would vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a "putsch".

by ede - Ogra Shinnféin Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:11 eiresaoirse32 at yahoo dot com Monaghan 657656577

Did Bertie Ahern proclaim a 26 countie republic last week, for at Easter we in sinnféin commemorate the 32 countie republic proclaimed in 1916, will he commemorate the republicans Finna fail have executed in its pow camps, our the Cavan Monaghan TD KIERAN DOHERTY i doubt it after all his leader mickey mad dog mc dowell whould object to his criminal activities. ''From my earliest youth
I Have regarded the connection between Ireland and britain as the curse of the Irish nation,and felt that whilst it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy -
Wolfe Tone.

Proclaimed 32 countie Republic 1916

by aspiring Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:21

are your chances of a flag draped coffin any better? you know - when the day comes.

by ede - Ogra shinnféin Fri Oct 28, 2005 13:07 eiresaoirse32 at yahoo dot com Monaghan 56567767

Ireland through us summons her children to her flag, I think Michael collins has done enough penance for his brit treaty, the blue shirt nazie scum of fine gael to support him is enough for any Irish soilder to endure.

To carry on,no matter what odds are against you,to carry on no matter torments are infliced on you. the road to freedom is paved with suffering, hardships and torture, carry on my gallant and brave comrades untill that certain day. Tom williams,executed by finna fail 1942 Take it Down fromThe Mast Irish Traitors. Sinne laochra Fáil atá faoi gheall ag Éirinn, Buíon dár slua thar toinn do rainig chugainn, Faoi mhóid bheith saor, seantir ar sinsear feasta Ní fhágfar tíorán na faoin traill.
Anocht a théam sa bhearna baoil,
La geann ar Ghaeil chun Báis nó saoil, Le gunna-scréach,faoi lámhach na bpiléar, seo libh, canaig amhrán na bhFiann.

Signitaries

by summoned Fri Oct 28, 2005 13:14

we all are. Irish men and Irish women.
For it is now apparant that you need do nothing especially worthy to earn the honour, just clock up a few posthumous non verified newspaper columns with the word "prostitute" in them, and U2 can have a flag draped coffin.

Another one laid to rest!