Yeah, we had democratic representatives, and when we elected pro-independence ones to our parliament it was declared illegal by British Empire. and you cite this as how we had it good
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Yeah, we had democratic representatives, and when we elected pro-independence ones to our parliament it was declared illegal by British Empire. and you cite this as how we had it good
Creating your own parliament unilaterally is illegal. Just like me printing my own currency and trying to buy stuff with it is illegal. It was also pointless given that Ireland already had a parliament, a senate and continued representation in Westminster as per legislation enacted just prior to the First World War and sadly delayed due to said war. It's pointless to fight a war for what was literally a cosmetic change to something you already have.
This sets a very dangerous precedent. You're essentially saying that if anyone anywhere wants to secede for any reason, they can, and if someone tries to stop them from doing so then any violence committed as a result is the fault of that person, not the instigator. So if Trinity wishes to rejoin the UK, they can, and if the Republic of Ireland does anything to try and stop Trinity - and violence results - it's the fault of the RoI and not the students/faculty at Trinity. This naturally could be used to justify the legitimacy of certain present-day movements in the Middle East, or indeed nationalist-based terrorism anywhere throughout history.
So what? If only legal methods could be used then no country would even have achieved independence. 'British law says the Irish can't have a parliament that wants independence therefore the Irish can't have independence'. The point is that the Irish people de facto voted for independence, meaning they no longer care about British law.
Comparing the Dáil to a Trinity vote is so ridiculous I'm not going to even bother responding.
Just tell me though, if the EU became a superstate, and the people of the UK voted in a parliament which was overwhelmingly pro-independence, would you say that UK independence was legitimate, even if EU law hadn't been observed?
How do you view the advent of Polish, Ukrainian, Brazilian, Czech, Hungarian, Albanian, Croatian or Latvian independence? Should they all have been stopped? Is following procedure what matters? Or is the clearly-expressed wish of the people?
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Do you not consider Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc, to be independent countries?
So If I vote Libertarian, I don't have to pay any taxes? If I vote for the National Front, I have the right to bash people up because they have a different colour of skin than I do? And so on.
There's method to my madness, I assure you.
In the OP, you've asked that the topic should be handled without posters being in any way partisan or chauvinistic. What you've then gone on to do, is state in effect that there's one rule for what you define as Ireland and one rule for everything else. So though you say that it is just and fair that a part of the UK should go to war for its independence, you also say that it's ridiculous that any part of what you define as Ireland should go to war for its independence. You're using your own personal and arbitrary definitions of statehood and identity to define your arguments, which according to the OP, you've specifically asked the rest of us not to do.
Actually I think Irish independence was handled very badly by both sides, the IRA and the political leadership made too little an attempt to reach out to Protestants and frankly, had I been one, I would have been terrified of Irish independence as the country was allowed to turn into a Catholic Theocracy by religious imbeciles. Bombing the UK was also a deeply immoral act.
I have plenty of criticism to make about 'my' side, criticism that isn't just another way of saying "we could have obtained our goals easier if we had just..." but actual criticism of the morality of how we behaved. you and Stephen, on the other hand, are saying it was justifiable for the British Empire to declare war on the Irish Republic, a Republic whose inhabitants had clearly declared support for independence, because the Empire had the right to impose a certain flag and oath of allegiance on us. In the end, you are taking the side of the global power trying to enforce its will on a tiny nation which clearly wanted independence. you wouldn't be doing that if said power was a rival Empire form the era.
If we are to remain non-partisan as you ask us to be, then there is no such thing as a right of a nation to self-determination. Even today it is not recognized unconditionally, and back then it was absolutely not recognized. The one commonly recognized principle of international right is sovereignty and inviolability of borders, which was violated by the Irish.
Ralph, I'm not accusing you of acting like a rabid Irish patriot in a Sean O'Grady play. I'm attacking the notion that whatever transpired in Ireland is ultimately justifiable because (Southern) Ireland voted for SF and therefore, whatever occurred afterwards was ultimately the fault of the British. I also reject the notion that voting for any political party in a democracy gives one the right to break the law if said party is not part of the government, be it Sinn Fein, be it the Tories, be it the Canadian Liberal Party, be it Golden Dawn. Frankly, if we were not talking about what you define as Ireland (indeed, if we were talking about Trinity College, or Iraq, or anywhere else) I strongly suspect you'd agree with me that the notion that anyone anywhere in a democracy has the right to secede, break the law or engage in violence because they want to, and that any action taking against said persons is the fault of the police/state is ultimately the fault of the government and not the perpetrator is absurd.
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All people have the right to self-determination, as long as it's expressed in a peaceful fashion. (If one side uses force, though, legitimate and proportional self-defence is justified.)
I'm not the one saying that war is justified. You're the one in this thread saying it's okay to kill people over the colour of a flag, not me.
How were British units sent to Cork, Mayo or Wexford defending themselves when they were there over against the wishes of the government the Irish people had elected? We expressed self-determination in the 1918 election, peacefully. The British refused to allow us to determine our status. So how on Earth were the Irish the aggressors?
No, I'm saying if one nation decides it wants to have a certain flag, and another says "no, you can't have that flag, we'll send the army to prevent you having that flag", then I cannot see how the second nation isn't considered the aggressor.
"A nation" does't decide anything. A group of people decide it, and then sometimes they declare that they are "the nation" as a way of delegitimising anyone who objects.
What about when that group of people are the democratically elected government? Is that 'group of people' a legitimate representative of the nation?
The democratically elected government was headed by Lloyd George.
Stop being so obtuse, you know full well I mean the Dáil. Ireland is the topic at hand, and Ireland elected a pro-independence government.
No. A majority of Irish voters elected pro-independence MPs. That doesn't make SF the legitimate government of Ireland any more than it makes the Unionists the legitimate government of Ulster and Trinity College. This isn't being obtuse, it's pointing out precisely what's wrong with your overall argument.
So just to get this straight: your argument is that independence can only legitimately be achieved through the legal framework of the country that the subject wishes to break free from? Even when said country is a recognised territorial unit (not a college) and had clearly expressed its wish for independence?
Do you consider American independence to be illegitimate?
By this logic, then Irish independence, and the war fought for it, was legitimised by the Anglo-Irish treaty. We know in both cases the respective counties both free of the British empire. That's not the question, the question is: is a country which has clearly expressed its wish for independence obliged to go through the legal channels of the country they wish to be independent from, yes or no?
My argument is that electing a bloc of avowedly nationalist MPs does not give said MPs the right to unilaterally form their own parliament or country, because that would be breaking the law, and voting for a party in a democracy does not give either voters or the elected representatives the right to break the law. The fact they may be Irish, Londoners, Scots, Welsh, etc. is and should be irrelevant.
I reject the notion that Ireland could in any way be considered a political unit on the grounds of your own logic, because Ulster did not vote for SF and Ulster is a part of the geographic unit of Ireland.
I reject the notion that a vote for SF is automatically a vote for independence on two grounds: the first is that if I lived in Cork South and was a Unionist, I would not in any way be able to express this view at the ballot box; (and Michael Collins was not the only MP elected unopposed) the second that people have a multiple of reasons for voting for any party, and just as there are Lib Dems who oppose Proportional Representation today, there are also SNP voters who don't necessarily support Scottish Independence. I doubt that things in 1918 were any different.