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Author Topic:   A measured look at a difficult situation
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 28 of 289 (747706)
01-18-2015 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Faith
01-16-2015 2:44 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
This strikes me as a very simplified view of Catholic and Protestant relations in Ireland.
Remember that in many of the rebellions in Ireland, there were Protestants and Catholics on both sides, especially the 1798 rebellions. Protestant vs Catholic is not the only dimension in this, but also Gaelic vs Anglo-Saxon culture. If you approach these conflicts from a solely religous angle, many decisions will seem bizarre such as the betrayal of Kilkenny, where Saxonised Catholics betrayed Gaelic Catholics. However:
ABE: Likewise, the Irish Rebellion of 1641 was criminal, and Cromwell's action was justice. It doesn't matter which was the more violent, I'm trying to make the distinction between legal and illegal, crime and punishment.
Until 1609 and the flight of the Earls, the majority of Ireland was under Gaelic Brehon law, with authority vested in local lords. Many did not see transgressing the British laws as illegal. The English crown had recently broken the native aristocracy and simply enforced English law. In the context of the local population, why are the rules of a foreign invading power "the law" when less than forty years ago the entire country operated under a different legal system with several judges of the legal system still living.
Note, I do not think the violence against Protestants was justified, I just don't understand how Cromwell can be considered to have been "just" and "legal". Cromwell had been involved in the murder of the English king, so even in England his legal authority was dubious to many, but in a different country with another legal system how were his actions backed by "the law".
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Faith, posted 01-16-2015 2:44 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 8:37 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 30 of 289 (747721)
01-18-2015 8:54 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Faith
01-18-2015 8:37 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
His role was to quell the Irish Rebellion as military leader for the government, that's what makes his action legal and a matter of justice. He was in the role of authority.
The military leader for an invading country's government, why to the average Irish person did that give him legal authority. They did not vote him in or select him, his authority had no precedence in Irish law.
If another country invaded the United States and directly contravened your laws, I assume you would view a rebellion by American citizens as illegal? Hence, I assume the American war of independence was illegal and unjust, yes?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 8:37 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by jar, posted 01-18-2015 8:58 PM Son Goku has replied
 Message 32 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:01 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 33 of 289 (747724)
01-18-2015 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Faith
01-18-2015 9:01 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
Are you saying he came as the military avenger of the Protestants against murdering hordes and he won? That's a legitimate argument for him too.
He was acting on behalf of the CommonWealth government and he obviously won. Considering that he also attacked Protestant royalists in his conquest of Ireland, I'm not sure if it can be said he was simply acting as an avenger for Protestants.
As long as he is in the role of legitimate authority his actions were the legal enactment of justice.
Why was English authority legitimate in Ireland? When the Gaelic legal system had never been revoked by the public?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:01 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:10 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 289 (747725)
01-18-2015 9:09 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by jar
01-18-2015 8:58 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
Oh, no worries, I know that, just trying an analogy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by jar, posted 01-18-2015 8:58 PM jar has seen this message but not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 289 (747727)
01-18-2015 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Faith
01-18-2015 9:10 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
Ctromwell would have been acting for the English administration that was alreaqdy there
English administration only directly existed in towns such as Trim and Dublin, where English colonists had lived since the coming of the Normans.
I am aware that they were "under English rule", as England had effectively broken the power of native rulers in 1609. What I am asking is why does acting on behalf of a foreign imposed legal system give him authority?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:10 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:16 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 289 (747729)
01-18-2015 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Faith
01-18-2015 9:16 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
Obviously because they WERE in authority.
Okay, so then in the American War of Independence, the British were the legal side acting in the name of justice?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:16 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:26 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 40 of 289 (747731)
01-18-2015 9:30 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Faith
01-18-2015 9:26 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
So the legality and justice of actions is determined by who wins in armed conflict. Fair enough if you think that, but it's very circular isn't it? He was fully justified in attacking Ireland because he won? Did his righteousness and justice exist in an indeterminate state prior to his victory or was it always just because the future is preordained?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:26 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:37 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 42 of 289 (747733)
01-18-2015 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Faith
01-18-2015 9:37 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
he was justified in invading Ireland because he did so under the legitimate authority of the English administration
This is the real question:
Why was the English administrations authority legitimate? Saying they "were in authority" is not an answer. I am not asking whether they factual were in power, I am asking why their authority was legitimate in Ireland?
Ireland didn't win, English authority remained. I think you have an argument with history.
Faith, as somebody born and raised in Ireland, I am aware of the fact that Ireland didn't win and that English authority remained. That is not what I am arguing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Faith, posted 01-18-2015 9:37 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by Faith, posted 01-19-2015 2:22 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 50 of 289 (747795)
01-19-2015 3:54 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by Faith
01-19-2015 2:22 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
I'm going to ignore this ridiculous moral justification (the actions of people in authority are justified because they are in authority) and wait for your answer to Tangle's question.
Instead:
They were only in power in certain sections of Ireland, it was actually the Cromwellian conquests that brought them into real power.
I would even have doubts as to whether Cromwell can really be considered to have had legitimate legal authority in England (see Antonia Fraser's excellent biography of Oliver Cromwell for more on his status in England), but his legal authority in a country where only a small fraction of the population were English citizens is very questionably.
After the flight of the Earls, the Gaelic nobility pledged allegiance to the English monarch, not the country of England. There was no legal status of the parliamentary government to Ireland. There wasn't even any legal government of them over the "Old English" known as the Seanghaill (old foreigners)", the hereditary Norman feudal lords who had pledged their alligence to Henry the Second and his legitimate heirs under Salic law. Who, although many were Protestant, later allied with the Gaelic confederacy.
The parliamentary government simply declared itself to have authority over all previously formed allegiances to the crown. I don't see how this can be considered as being legitimate when they had no real power (until the arrival of Cromwell's armies) outside of old Norman towns like Trim.
This war had at least four "axes" of culture differences, the four axes that dominated Irish history in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries:
Catholic vs Protestant religion
Gaelic vs Saxon culture
Royalist vs Parliamentary government
Home (Dublin/Trim/Kilkenny) vs Westminster (London) rule
Over the three hundred years there are examples of groups filling each of the sixteen different positions.
Protestants who allied with Catholics to fight for home rule. Gaelic speaking Protestants and Catholics who rejected having to deal with authorities in English instead of Gaelic. Catholic Gaelic and Protestant Saxon Royalists allied against Parliamentary rule.
Everything in Ireland was not Catholic vs Protestants, especially in that era. The extreme focus on that divide largely came in the later 19th century following the famine.
In fact, "English" rule in Ireland was largely the rule of an Anglican elite living mostly in Dublin and the big towns descended from 18th century settlers. Several other Protestant groups starved to death in the famine, I don't think there was as much solidarity as you think.
Ireland, like the rest of Europe at the time, consisted of real people with complicated problems who were largely unaware of Faith's grand "Catholic vs Protestant" narrative.
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by Faith, posted 01-19-2015 2:22 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 9:16 AM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 92 of 289 (747894)
01-20-2015 3:23 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Faith
01-20-2015 9:16 AM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
I can't believe Cromwell could have invaded if he hadn't been sent by some legitimate authority, that doesn't make sense. From the Irish point of view things are going to look different than from the English point of view and I'd rather just leave it at that.
First of all, I don't see how an invading army being sent by somebody gives them any additional legitimacy, virtually every army is sent by somebody, legitimate or not.
Secondly, of course he was sent by somebody, the English parliamentary government. I don't think he randomly popped over for the laugh and a bit of fun.
What I am saying is that the Irish lords had never sworn allegiance to the country of England, only to its monarch. Under Irish law, the new English government had no authority. The previous English kings were established in Brehon law, as the liege lords of all the major tuatha (translating to roughly "minor kingdom").
Ireland was under the law of England only indirectly via that law being the written will of their liege lord*. Remove the king and the status of that law becomes questionable.
The parliamentary government just felt that it was entitled to anything the previous monarch owned. This has nothing really to do with an Irish vs an English point of view or Catholics vs Protestants. The authority of the Parliamentary government over England itself was contentious at the time, as shown by the fact that the monarch was eventually restored.
*Several poetic epics were commissioned by Irish lords celebrating Protestant English monarchs and their legitimacy over the island. There was no real problem with rule by England, considering that the James I was entitled by Brehon law to the position of rd R (high king, the one entitled to tribute from all other kings).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 9:16 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 3:36 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 94 of 289 (747899)
01-20-2015 3:54 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Faith
01-20-2015 2:15 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
Military action ordered by the reigning power is legitimate, that's ALL I said, that makes Cromwell's action legitimate.
I really think you must know very little about what Ireland was like at the time. I will provide some brief context for others.
Ireland, as far back as we know, was governed by Brehon law. An (overtly) complex legal system encoded mostly in mnemonic poetry, as a judge* was required to know it by heart.
Brehon law largely modeled all interactions via client-lord system, somewhat like feudalism. The client gave tribute and came to war for the lord, who in return provided stability, threw parties and festivals and presided over court trials, along with the poet-judges. Virtually everybody in the country was both a client and a lord to somebody else, in a ridiculously convoluted system of contracts, oaths and bonds.
Often, to simplify things, a collection of second cousins all living within a fixed region was abstracted as a single legal entity, known as a tuatha. Again tuathas could be clients and lords to each other.
The only people with no lords over them, were the heads of the most powerful Tuatha in each of the five provinces.
Theoretically, Irish law allowed for a final lord over these provincial lords, the so called High King of Ireland (rd R na hireann), however nobody in history ever satisfied the legal requirements for this position.
When Elizabeth I conquered Ulster, the Ulster provincial lord and his family surrendered and fled, as did all other provincial lords and the sub-provincial lords beneath them, in an event known as "The flight of the Earls". This left only the third-rank of nobility, all of whom accepted Elizabeth I as their liege lord. English law was accepted as being her written decree. In return, the leaders of Irish tuatha became members of the English peerage, entitled to their own land as English lords.
Elizabeth left a number of settlers across the country and administrative staff in the bigger English colonial towns. There was no real military presence. Protestant settlers were often directly rules by the pre-existing Irish nobility.
Then much later, the English king was executed and a new government lead by Cromwell took over England. The Irish lords were not oath bound by Cromwell or his government and essentially had to be reconquered and dispossessed. It was only then that Ireland passed to the rule of England, not the English King.
*The professions of judge and poet only separated in the 11th century. Basically a poet took a type of undergraduate degree, after which he/she was a Bard, a poet-songster in essence, who composed poetry for parties. Following this he/she could take a doctorate of sorts making him a judge and high poet. A high poet could write poetry about history, genealogy, e.t.c. and command a higher fee. Eventually these to doctorates could not be taken together, and the Bard had to choose one career path.
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.
Edited by Son Goku, : My wife corrected me! A tuatha was second cousins!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 2:15 PM Faith has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 95 of 289 (747900)
01-20-2015 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by Faith
01-20-2015 3:36 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
There was only ONE point concerning Cromwell's legitimacy and that is that he was not the leader of a murdering horde but was sent to put down a murdering horde. Cromwell is often vilified by the Irish, that's why I defend him. He was acting legitimately, the Irish Rebellion wasn't.
He was often vilified by Royalist English people as well.
You are saying that Cromwell was justified in acting as a retaliation to violence against his people, i.e. the Protestant settlers. To be honest I'm not really arguing that he was unjustified in coming to their defense, from that perspective one can argue he had a just cause.
What I am saying is that he was not in any sense legally justified by any legitimate "government of Ireland", only the English monarch had pre-existing authority and there was certainly no English army "already there", just the descendants of Elizabethan settlers.
I am only saying that Cromwell essentially conquered the country, he was not a representative of its legitimate government. Whether his reasons for conquering were morally legitimate or not is a separate question.
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 3:36 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by Faith, posted 01-20-2015 4:27 PM Son Goku has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 165 of 289 (748099)
01-22-2015 7:08 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by Faith
01-22-2015 5:53 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
quote:
Cromwell wouldn't have acted without authority, that makes no sense.
This has already been covered, he was sent by the Parliamentary government and again I must say it is irrelevant if somebody sent him or not in deciding whether he had the authority to attack.
He didn't have the authority under the English Royal government that had existed until the death of Charles I and he didn't have that authority under the Irish Confederate government that was actually ruling the country.
I don't think anybody has said Cromwell came for no reason, so I'm not sure what doesn't make sense to you.
quote:
Irish history is simply not my concern. This thread was started to answer a particular post of mine that became a big discussion about Irish history but my interest was only in the fact that the RCC murders people for not sharing their beliefs. You can see this in the IRA and in the Irish Rebellion too, where there is no cause other than that the victims were Protestants.
It's fine not to be concerned about Irish history, except for the fact that the 1641 rebellion is a historical event that occurred in Ireland.
You earlier commented that the term Loyalist conveys little to you, and you are now saying that Protestants were killed for nothing other than being Protestants. Here is where not caring about Irish history leaves you without the relevant context. In Ireland the Protestant vs Catholic conflict is mostly an ethnic one, not a religious one. "Protestant" was a sign of a British settler who had taken native land, most Catholics in Ireland did not care about the religious differences, but the ethnic group. There isn't much recorded violence against the French Huguenots who settled along the South and in Dublin for example.
They were Protestants, so why did they escape this violence? Why did many of them partake in the 1798 rebellion? The leader of that rebellion, a rebellion that engaged in direct attacks against English Protestant strongholds was a Huguenot.
Other Protestants groups, the Huguenots, the Dutch Protestant ethnic group living in Wexford, were never really attacked. Why was this if it was just "Catholic vs Protestant"?
It's because "Protestant" meant a recent English settler. Even in the 1641 rebellion it wasn't so simple:
"Wikipedia" writes:
The motivations for the popular rebellion were complex. Among them were a desire to reverse the plantations; rebels in Ulster were reported as saying, 'the land was theirs and lost by their fathers.[21] Another motivating factor was a sharp antagonism towards the English language and culture which had been imposed on the country. For example, rebels in County Cavan forbade the use of the English language and decreed that the original Irish language place names should replace English ones.[21] A third factor was religious antagonism.
Translating from the Gaelic wikipedia page (ir Amach 1641 - Vicipid):
Wikipedia writes:
That said, the rebellion failed, but it continued as an ethnic conflict, between native Cathloics on one side and English and Scottish Protestant settlers on the other.
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Faith, posted 01-22-2015 5:53 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by Faith, posted 01-22-2015 8:11 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 188 of 289 (748296)
01-24-2015 12:58 PM
Reply to: Message 166 by Faith
01-22-2015 8:11 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
I know you can show a lot of historical and political complexities.
The reason I am showing these complexities Faith is because they show that the Irish rebellion was not purely about religion.
If this was only about Catholics vs Protestants then why were the Huguenaut Protestants not attacked, why not the Protestants in Wexford in all of Irish history?
If this is just about people being Protestant why were those two groups not attacked.
The historical complexities show that your "simple fact" is simply not the case. It is childish to basically claim anything that counteracts your point is irrelevant complexity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by Faith, posted 01-22-2015 8:11 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 189 by Faith, posted 01-24-2015 1:07 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 190 of 289 (748300)
01-24-2015 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 189 by Faith
01-24-2015 1:07 PM


Re: Crime and its punishment aren't the same thing
I never said there was no such thing as Catholics attacking Protestants because they were Protestant, what are you saying here?
All I am saying is that the motivation for attacking the Protestants in the 1641 rebellion couldn't have been purely religious. If it was, why were the Huguenots and the Wexford Dutch not attacked?
Edited by Son Goku, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 189 by Faith, posted 01-24-2015 1:07 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by Faith, posted 01-24-2015 1:52 PM Son Goku has not replied

  
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