ARmy Rumour SErvice

Good on you Henry_Tombs, sorry to have to tell you that if it is her than she would be in her 90's now, do you really want to reply to that!!

Sorry all but am trying to unsucessfully put this photo with my signature and am failing miserably, any help please.

Originally Posted by jmac

Originally Posted by Imshi-Yallah

Not only did we not keep the battle honours but its nearly impossible to get poppies here since SF the party of peace and love and murdering prison officers in front of their families (along with all the other cnuts who spent the 602 70s and 80s waiting for the soviets to invade and put them in charge) have deigned that the red poppy glorifies war.
SF types wear a white one which apparently symbolises pacifism....I bet all those Black Africans in Darfur and Sawhris in the Western Sahara really appreciate groups of middle class white people who get together and say really nice things about them while, they're being slaughtered and bomberd...no doubt the lovely quaint foreign people are praising Irish neutrality to high heaven while they get bombed shot and raped....huzzah.

sorry rant over

imshi-yallah,

that is not a rant, that is the biggest load of bollix that i have ever read, just go's to show what you know, hte old idiom of know your enemy seems to have missed you, the WHITE poppy you speak of is probably an easter lilly and the irish only have an observer group in western-sahara and as a member of the irish defence force's who served overseas i can tell you that the praise for irish troops is the real thing on overseas mission's.....try reading some of the posts on this thread.

care to tell us what book you got your experiences from, or is it on your PS2 that you gained it storming the beaches of normandy, you are not impressing anyone here with that anti SF shite, we all know they are a shower of wankers

Jmac, calm down, old boy.

Reasons for thinking that your post was a little overheated, in reverse order. The count-down might help you chill.

7. It is not necessary to have serving military experience, let alone to have fought in a shooting war, to express an opinion such as Imshi-Yallah's. Look into your heart - is it really vital to have done an opposed amphibious landing in order to think that (a) Sinn Fein are a nasty lot with a nasty history and (b) that Irish neutrality is a rather 'wet' stance now and was a vicious one during the second world war?

6. In any case, Imshi-Yallah does have military experience. See http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn/index.ph...r=asc&&start=0 Still, that fact is neither here nor there on his ability to express his views.

5. You should give him credit for expressing a view which is surely right: that in Ireland people wring their hands about such things as genocide in Sudan but it seems that all the political parties are happy to trot out pat nonsense should a western power (the US, UK or France) intervene to stop it. It would be unfair to expect Ireland to intervene on its own. But it is a bit rum to take the standard Irish policy: wait until the war/genocide is over and then send in the lads to keep the 'peace' indefinitely.

4. He is right, and you should admit, that it is very difficult to get hold of poppies in the Republic - and even harder to get away with wearing them there - even though many Irish families have 'hidden' family members whose deaths are commemorated by the red poppy.

3. He is also right, and you should also admit, that the primary reason for the difficulty in obtaining red poppies and in wearing them is the threat Sinn Fein and its armed cohorts posed to people with connections to the British military.

2. He does not say, but you should also admit, that the secondary reason for those difficulties is the Irish popular myth that service in the British armed forces was not a commonplace in Ireland. Interestingly, An Cosantoir (which you will probably be aware is the Irish equivalent of Soldier magazine) has recently featured an article on a military family the members of which are able to trace their military heritage from current service with the Irish Army back to its foundation and then before that for another 150 years or so in the British one. A token recognition of a previously hidden fact.

1. Before you have a go at someone for their supposed ignorance, you should check your facts: it might give you pause for reflection and so avoid the temptation to have a go too harshly. Imshi almost certainly knows what an Easter lily is. For information on the white poppy, which does indeed symbolise peace (and has a lengthy socialist heritage), see http://www.ppu.org.uk/poppy/white_index.html.

Calm yet?

dr evil,

checked out your site and found no mention of sinn fein.

i will stand down on the sudan issue and the wringing of hands but that is gov policy not a national opinion.

i have never seen any evidence of the russions coming to NI to place said wankers in power.

fact, members of my family were in the BA going back over the yrs and a lot of young people and retired people are living here today and poppys are avaiable in the british legion clubs and the merchant navy clubs.

as for the stance in WW1-2...look who was in power, one of the founder members of the org that was killing BA in the north in the 60's 70's and 80's.

my conclusion is......still a load of bollix

Irish service in foreign armies, especially the British, is part of the hidden history of the country. This is because of the moral and historical myopia which was imposed upon the country after independence. Because republicanism is of recent creation, historically speaking, it must exist in a vacuum - any other aspect of Irish history which threatens its existence must be eliminated or ignored. Therefore, it became common to denigrate or play down the level of Irish representation in the British Armed Forces - the Irish who served were dismissed as dirt poor illiterate peasants (partly true) who joined up for 'economic reasons' (the Sinn Féin line), or 'Castle Catholics' enamoured of British culture, or the scions of Anglo-Irish families (nothing gets the Little Irelanders more incensed than a double-barrelled chap with a cut crystal accent saying how Irish he is).

Even if one leaves aside Irish service in the British Armed Forces, there is a curiously small-minded attitude to those Irish who were in foreign service in centuries past. I will cite my own experience, and might mention that I spent part of my university time studying this subject, and was lucky enough to be able to research in foreign archives. Some years ago I wrote an article on the Wild Geese (Irish Jacobite exiles) who served France from 1691-1791. I submitted this carefully researched and accurate article to an historical student journal in the largest Dublin-based university. The article was rejected on a number of grounds (a) it was viewed as being 'too militarist' (b) my focusing on the aristocratic origins of many of the Wild Geese was objected to (c) I did not mention 1798 (d) I used the titles of nobility that the Irish were granted. I should set this in the context of certain historical facts. Some 450,000-500,000 Irishmen died in the French service during the course of the eighteenth century- they were serving Royalist, not Revolutionary France. They served under their own officers, aristocrats with Mc and O surnames, and were therefore an awful lot more Irish than the johnny-come-latelies who started redefining Irishness in the 1790s (and have been doing so ever since). There was a considerable Irish presence on Continental Europe – notably in the states of the Holy Roman Empire, where they rose to the highest military and civil rank – Field Marshals, Ambassadors, Imperial Chamberlains. Examples of these men include Field Marshals Maximilian Ulysses von Browne, Counts O’Kelly, O’Donnell, Prince Laval Nugent, and Field Marshal Count Andreas O’Reilly (I am related to this last chap, who had to surrender Vienna to Napoleon). In Spain, they became field marshals, admirals, prime ministers and colonial governors. There were Irish regiments in the following states – Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Poland, Venice, Parma, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, Saxony……and Irish officers in almost every European state. Up until quite recently – and indeed in certain respects still – this aspect of Irish history has been largely ignored. If this sort of Irish history can be glossed-over, it comes as no surprise that Irish service in the British Armed Forces is taboo.

The poppy can be obtained openly if one knows where to look – I got mine on the street in Dublin. The Easter lily is something that Sinn Féin have monopolised, which is ironic considering that the present Sinn Féin is largely a northern based organisation, and quite different to the Sinn Féin of c.1916.

Unfortunately, symbols are still somewhat controversial in Ireland, and wearing the poppy might still cause some unpleasantness – I personally think that it is a combination of anti-Britishness, ‘three pint republicanism’ and ignorance as to what the poppy symbolises. The war memorial at Islandbridge in Dublin was vandalised with ‘Brits Out’ graffiti on Friday last (and thankfully cleaned up before the dignified ceremony on Saturday), but there will always be some numbskulls about. The level of ignorance about large tracts of Irish history is still quite staggering. Things are changing though – L/Cpl. Ian Malone of the Irish Guards received what amounted to a state funeral in Dublin last year. Anyone who has been involved with such organisations as the Irish Military History Society and the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen (represented in the march past the Cenotaph yesterday) will know that Irish people in the military sphere are very proud of Irish military heritage. Certainly, there are those (myself amongst them) who would like to see the disbanded Irish regiments reconstituted in some format in the current Irish Defence Forces, but even now this would be politically unenforceable (maybe in time though). Particularly since 1968, a curious form of liberalism has taken hold in Ireland, which has within it elements of republican nationalism and watered-down Marxism. This seeks to portray the Irish people as somehow being the ‘blacks of Europe’ – see the attitude to the ANC, FARC, and the PLO. The ironic thing is that many Irish people – if one strips away the veneer of ‘feck the Brits’ – are actually, despite themselves, quite pro-British, in that they admire the institutions of Britain (the monarchy, the Armed Forces, the image of the British gentleman etc.). I know I am sticking my neck out here in saying this, but republicanism is essentially a grotty thing – no pride, no decency, no tradition….and bloody dangerous if you don’t embrace it.

Originally Posted by gallowglass

I know I am sticking my neck out here in saying this, but republicanism is essentially a grotty thing – no pride, no decency, no tradition….and bloody dangerous if you don’t embrace it.

I will rush to emphasise that it is perfectly possible to be proud of the achievements of the Irish Republic (no more famines, for one thing) and to prefer the republic as a form of government for Ireland without buying into all the Republican myth and nonsense.

That way, I hope to prevent jmac from going off on one again.

GG: Can you recommend any good reading on the history you describe? Or PM me your article :D ?

Gallowglass, a very good read, thank you. Being a member of the British Armed Forces from the Republic tends to give one a colorful, if not dangerous side to life. My history education in the national schools should have made me a prime recruit for the IRA but my father made sure that I learned to open my mind to a different history. I am the third generation from the family who took the shilling and am proud of it. There are many famlies from Ireland who are in the same boat and feel the same way, even to the Bogside in Londonderry.

Hear Hear,

Made me very proud to read the last few posts. RTE (Irish BBC, but cheap and sh1te) broadcast a documentary some time ago called "all the Queens men" about the Irish in the forces. A long and proud tradition which both liberals and republicans have sought to sweep under the carpet.

I should say that I draw a clear distinction between republicanism (that of Sinn Féin/PIRA and their derivatives) and the Republic of Ireland. The multi-faceted nature of republicanism is part of the reason why the issue is so confusing for both Irish and foreigner alike. I guarantee that if one were to ask 'your average Irish person' to define republicanism as it exists in Ireland they would be stumped. That programme 'All the Queen's Men', shown on RTÉ twice in the last year or so actually contained an interview with Ian Malone in which he said that the people of 1916 and 1919-22 fought to gain him the freedom to do what he wanted.

Two of my mother's family were in the GPO in Easter Week (not buying stamps) and my grandfather was a guest of His Majesty in Ballykinlar in 1920. Additionally, both sides of my family have served in the British Forces - Great War, Second World War, 'Savage Wars of Peace' and others pre-1914. Do I see any contradiction in an Irishman serving the Crown? - no. Republicanism is a passing fad; being Irish is eternal.