The wind that shakes the Barley...

[yellowjacket]

It also fails to explain to the more impressionable audience that the Auxiliaries and the Black and tans were not real British soldiers. They were the dregs of the British military who were brought in to deal with a situation the RIC were unwilling to deal with. Most were criminals, before or after the war.

This is an oft-repeated statement that history doesn't back up.

[haribo]

[QUOTE=Goldie fish]

Historically accurate.
To a fault. The emotion of the time carries well into the cinema and I feel the audience will in turn hate the British for their actions, the Free staters for their actions, the Clergy for their stance.
But this film tells it the way it was.

I haven't seen the film yet , and the reviews in the British media so far have being mixed but leaning towards discriptions of an 'anti-British film'.One reviewer mentions that the beginning of the film doesn't explain why the British were there in the first place. Another one was eger to point out that it was the British establishment and not the British people who were making policy in Ireland. I think it would be fair to say that that an irish audience seeing the film and , familier with irish history might as you say goldie 'hate the British for their actions' but we irish have being brought up doing that for a long time ,with some justification, anyway.Whether this film will make more impressionable young irish people carry on doing so is another thing, but it is only a film and if it goes some way to educating a wider world audience about that time in irish history ,including British people , then it will have achieved it's aims.I look foreward to seeing it soon.

[backsturd]

It also fails to explain to the more impressionable audience that the Auxiliaries and the Black and tans were not real British soldiers. They were the dregs of the British military who were brought in to deal with a situation the RIC were unwilling to deal with. Most were criminals, before or after the war. Most suffered some form of PTSS which would have been labelled "shell shock" at the time and would in todays society have been labelled "mentally unstable".

Well the Essex Regiment were British Army and they were as bad as if not worse than the Tans and Auxillaries at times!

[yellowjacket]

Apparently the town commission of Templemore sent a civic vote of thanks or somthing along those lines to the Black & Tans for restraining regular British troops from carrying out atrocities in their town at one stage, I'll look for a reference.

Edit to add:

Dublin Castle, noted in his diary: ‘The Black & Tans have done fine work and could have
been ideal for the job if some of them hadn’t taken a completely wrong view of their
functions….’28 Sturgis was not a lone voice in claiming to have seen some good result
from the presence of the Black and Tans in Ireland. In October 1920, for example, they
received the sincere and grateful thanks of the Templemore town council in Tipperary for
their decisive role in curbing a reprisal against the town by British soldiers reacting to the
death of three comrades in an IRA ambush nearby.(29)


(29) Bennett, The Black and Tans, p.110.


http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00...Black_conf.PDF

[Aidan]

Revisionista!

Could never have happened. 'Everyone knows" they had cloven hooves and tails!



Just goes to show, it all comes down to individuals in the end. In West Cork, more or less all of the British forces fell into the trap of responding to provocation, and indulged in retalatory attacks that completely undermined any local support for them and drove people into the arms of the IRA. In other parts of the country, common sense prevailed more readily (granted, the attacks were less severe too).

Peter Hart's book, for all the criticism, is still a very good account. Not least because he tries to quantify what happened in a fairly unemotional way.

Career choices at the time depended on your family circumstances.

Worth pointing out Goldie that, after the end of WWI, Ireland was one of the wealthiest countries in the world (I know, not surprising, but still). Yes, there was huge economic hardship, but the picture of that time has been coloured by the privations endured by much of rural Ireland in the period 1926-1957, a situation almost completely caused by incredibly poor economic policy in that period. In short, things were not that bad economically in the period in question, they just got a hell of a lot worse, partly because of 'civil war politics', before they got any better.

[DeV]

Excellent film, historically accurate, but 2 1/2 hours long - if you don't know anything about Ireland you may get a bit lost.

Arguably the most successful IRA Flying Columns operated in Munster which explains why a lot of the worst atrocities happened there, in revenge.

[WES]

It also fails to explain to the more impressionable audience that the Auxiliaries and the Black and tans were not real British soldiers. They were the dregs of the British military who were brought in to deal with a situation the RIC were unwilling to deal with. Most were criminals, before or after the war. Most suffered some form of PTSS which would have been labelled "shell shock" at the time and would in todays society have been labelled "mentally unstable"

The Black & Tans were all veterans of WWI and the auxiliaries were all officer veterans. The widescale unemployment after WWI was an issue and the formation of such forces gave employment to ready trained men who would not be repulsed by killing. The four years of trench warfare took care of that. This was refered to in the film. There were probably more than a few who got their kicks, so to speak, but it is my opinion that most of them were more than grateful to be earning £1 a day for doing what they did best rather than starve in an english slum. Please take note that I am in no way condoning the actions of the British. This is only an opinion and I'll say it again, it was a brilliant film.

[Aidan]

Slightly related - letter from the aforementioned Mr Hart in the Times today -

Madam, - Niall Meehan, as usual, misrepresents my work (June 23rd). I have never argued that "ethnic cleansing" took place in Cork or elsewhere in the 1920s - in fact, quite the opposite. Nor does my book The IRA and its Enemies suggest that no Protestants were "guilty" of "informing" (at least by IRA standards) or that they were the only group to be targeted.

What I do argue - based on a great deal of evidence from both sides - is that Protestants were no more likely than Catholics to inform, but that they were much more likely to be suspected, and vastly more likely per capita to be killed (or otherwise attacked) as a result.

Nor were they alone. Ex-soldiers and those referred to as "tramps" and "tinkers" were also frequent victims, as were other perceived social deviants. What they all had in common was a marginal position in local society. The IRA, a product of local communities, couldn't get away with killing respectable farmers or shopkeepers - let alone priests - and tended to suspect outsiders anyway. It is surely a familiar enough pattern in human affairs: fear, anger and prejudice.

My argument is thus about the nature of violence and community, not the straw man that my critics like to attack. As for the massacre of Protestants in April 1922, there is absolutely no publicly available evidence available to suggest that any of those killed were informers or members of some loyalist underground. They do not appear on any IRA intelligence lists, for example.

Mr Meehan's suggestions - that religion had nothing to do with it, the IRA wasn't really responsible and the victims were probably guilty anyway - only reveals his commitment to the party line.

We should always be profoundly suspicious of excuses for killing, no matter who offers them. - Yours, etc,

PETER HART, Department of History, Memorial University, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

[Viking]

by the privations endured by much of rural Ireland in the period 1926-1957, a situation almost completely caused by incredibly poor economic policy in that period.

Thats why they call it the "Great Depression", because of the incredibly poor economic policies of the Free State Government....

[Aidan]

Thats why they call it the "Great Depression", because of the incredibly poor economic policies of the Free State Government....

The 'great depression' was over in most of the world by the late 1930s, here it dragged on for another 20 years because of incredibly poor policy making, in part because of somebodies pet social engineering 'project'.

Ireland made most of its income at the time (1920s) from exports of ag commodities, preserving and expanding that market (through a variety of means) should have been the obvious course of action, and for Patrick Hogan it was. But from 32 on, the Economic war and then protectionism, served to cut off external markets. That both crippled our balance of trade and stifled developments in agriculture within the state (which was breaking up farms and handing out the land as late as the 1950s). Lack of progress on that front crippled industrial and social development, which was the whole point, of course. Even if logic had prevailed as late as 1945, then the state could have benefitted hugely from demand from a re-building Europe. But that would have made sense.

Depression my ar$e

[happenin]

So it seems Docman is a Tan....

Aux actually i think. At least he died like a good little aux. I know a few ppl who did the same as docman for the flic. I hope to see them splattering over the screen very soon.

[hptmurphy]

Good film..but the acting was a little wooden in places..will buy it on DVD because it is an element of Irish hostory which has been poor neglected..and even romantiscised by the likes of the Michael Collins epic-

[Goldie fish]

At least this movie was a little more accurate than the collins movie.

[Cosantor]

Well first off, Docman, I always knew there was something your were hiding and now we know!! You’re a Tan (or Auxie)!!! 800 Years of ………etc,etc…….

Well on a more serious note, yes this will be one of the DVD collection. Well researched and although the acting was a bit wooden at times it was carried by the sheer emotion of the moment.

On a down side, it did tend to paint the Free State Army as lackies of the Imperial British Government. Towards the end of the movie it tended to glance over the argument that the Anglo Irish Treaty was a means to gain more independence, and this, as history has proven is just what happened.

Interestingly it also hinted at the under lying socialist views of many involved in the Rising and the War of Independence, be it the Irish Citizen Army, or the socialist views of some of the main characters in the movie.

All and all, a very good movie, that is likely to spark off some lively debate in Pubs the length of the country!!

[Groundhog]

Thats why they call it the "Great Depression", because of the incredibly poor economic policies of the Free State Government....

I don't think you can blame the Free State Government for a world wide economic depression.