Every nation has its skeletons in the closet. The title ‘Ireland’s Nazi Past’ does not refer to the ‘Blueshirts’ affair of the 1930s, which was only a fancy dress party. Prior to that, we had the real thing.
Ireland became a Nazi state in 1922. Germany’s Nazi state lasted twelve years. Ireland’s descent into Nazism was brief, and was localized inside Ireland. For ten months, June 1922 to April 1923, all hell broke loose in Ireland. We can’t blame the British for this one. Irishmen did this to other Irishmen.
We Irish cherish our martyr status as victims of British imperialism. Those ten months, June 1922 to April 1923, stripped us of our martyr status. As soon as the British withdrew from southern Ireland, Irishmen immediately started oppressing other Irishmen ten times worse than the British ever oppressed us.
The same thing happened in other British colonies in Asia and Africa. As soon as the paternal hand of imperial control was withdrawn, the local indigenous factions gave hell to each other, much worse than the British had ever done. We need to straighten out our thinking on this.
Cecil Rhodes declared: “We, the British, are the best people in the world." In view of what the colonized peoples started doing to each other as soon as the British withdrew, we are prompted to ask: was Cecil Rhodes right? I’m not saying he was right. I’m saying there is food for thought here.
The Irish educational system understandably bypasses those ten months of June 1922 to April 1923 in its history lessons.
The massacre at Ballyseedy Cross has come to symbolize those ten months. An account of it was recently circulated on the internet in the following words:
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BALLYSEEDY CROSS
There is a lonely crossroads in Kerry, south west Ireland.
“Around Kerry in the autumn and winter of 1922 and the spring of 1923, an ominous wall of silence was drawn. The rumours that came through were so terrible that they were scarcely believed. Those rumours were less terrible than the truth."
(Dorothy Macardle, ‘Tragedies of Kerry.’)
On 6 March 1923, five Irish government soldiers, among them a well-known torturer of prisoners of war, were killed when they were lured into a booby trap bomb by anti-government forces near Knocknagoshel.
Late that night, in retaliation, other Irish government soldiers chained a number of prisoners of war around a bomb at Ballyseedy Cross and detonated it under them.
Most of the prisoners survived the initial blast.
The Irish government soldiers then hurled grenades at groaning, half-butchered men to finish them off.
For days afterwards the birds were eating human flesh off the trees at Ballyseedy Cross.
They sent back the wrong number of coffins to Tralee the next day.
There was no way of knowing how many men had been killed.
Eight prisoners of war were murdered by Irish government soldiers that night at Ballyseedy Cross.
Nine coffins were sent back to Tralee the next day.
What were the people of Tralee to do with that ninth coffin?
A mother wailed: “But my son was six feet tall. How can he come home to me in such a small coffin?"
They would not let the mother open that coffin.
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Rory, Liam, Richard and Joe were similarly murdered by the Irish Nazi government in Mountjoy Jail on that terrible morning of 8 December 1922, in retaliation for an action by anti-government forces. That set the pattern. From then on, the Irish Nazi government was the direct precursor of Hitler’s Nazis in occupied Europe during World War II. Admittedly the scale was greater in Nazi Germany, but nevertheless the Irish Nazi governement of 1922-23 set the precedent in the twentieth century for the murdering of innocent people in retaliation for military action by anti-government forces. When the German Nazis razed an entire village to the ground, along with its inhabitants, in revenge for the assassination of Reinhart Heydrich by anti-government forces, they were taking their cue from the tactics of the Irish Nazi government of 1922-23.
THE IRISH NAZI GOVERNMENT OF 1922-23 SHOWED THE GERMANS HOW TO DO IT. THE IRISH WERE THE ORIGINAL NAZIS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
It’s all there in the historical record, if we are willing to drop our cherished martyr status and to admit that we Irish proved during those terrible ten months that – once we get going - we Irish are ten times better at dictatorship and oppression than the British ever were, just as nearly all the other former colonies demonstrated too after the British left. Why demonise the British? As soon as the British withdrew, the Irish and nearly all the other colonized nations proved to the world that we can colonize our own countrymen ten times worse than the British ever colonized us!
The Irish demonstrated it most famously at Ballyseedy Cross.
Our tyrants are our own countrymen now, instead of the British. Would it be better if the world were still ruled by Britain? If you become on intimate terms with some Asian and African politicians, they will tell you – at least in private – that the only solution to their country’s ills is to be readmitted to the British Empire! A lot of people in Ireland would have said the same in 1923. A lot of people in Asia and Africa have said it – privately – since 1950.
So those ten months of Irish Nazism are glossed over in Irish history lessons, because the period June 1922 to April 1923 proved that British rule in Ireland was preferable to Irish rule in Ireland. In the context of the twentieth century at least, we can say that the British never hurt us as much as we hurt each other. The same applies to nearly all former British colonies.
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There should have been an Irish equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. The opportunity came with the change of government in 1932. If we take one example - the massacre at Ballyseedy Cross – there was a witness, Stephen Fuller, who could have identified the government soldiers who set off the initial blast, and then hurled grenades at groaning, half-butchered men to finish them off.
Yet the soldiers were never prosecuted.
Why?
Because Eamon de Valera’s role in bringing about the conflict was such an embarrassment that the whole thing had to be kept under wraps.
If we’d had an honest investigation into the period, Eamon de Valera himself would have been disgraced, and possibly jailed.
Instead of confronting his past, old Dev got his crony Dorothy Macardle to produce an encyclopaedic volume titled ‘The Irish Republic.’ Published in 1937, it had huge influence in the decades that followed. It remains a valuable historical document, but was essentially a whitewash job on Eamon de Valera. Miss Macardle had become Dev’s minister for propaganda.
The role of Eamon de Valera in prompting the civil war of 1922-23, when he could have prevented it, is a matter of huge embarrassment to every Irish person.
THAT TEN-MONTH CIVIL WAR WAS FOUGHT FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN EAMON DE VALERA’S EGO.
Dev rose back to the top in politics because he was all we had left in the early part of the twentieth century. All the half-decent Irishmen with leadership qualities had been killed off in the conflicts of 1916-1923. Dev was all we had left. Dev filled the vacuum. He was our leader only by default, not by merit. He was all we had left.
To write honestly about Dev’s face-saving antics in the months following 6 December 1921 tends to generate hysteria. Perhaps it’s best to refer the reader to the video ‘MICHAEL COLLINS,’ starring Alan Rickman in the role of Eamon de Valera, which is a faithful representation of the historical record - including acceptable composite scenes - and speaks volumes about the character of old Dev. I’m sure the people behind that film were well aware of their historical mission, which was not so much to tell the world the story of Michael Collins – but to cut Eamon de Valera down to size. And that was their achievement. The ghost of Eamon de Valera winced as he saw that film being viewed on the big screen by audiences in Bucharest, Ho Chi Minh City, La Paz….. so that the truth about Eamon de Valera, which we Irish are still unable to process, was paraded on huge cinema screens all over the world.
A type of justice was done. The film was not primarily about Michael Collins, nor about bashing the Brits. It was primarily about cutting Eamon de Valera down to size. Take another look at that ‘MICHAEL COLLINS’ video. It’s all there.
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THOSE WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT. That is a law of life. We’ve had a good run lately in Ireland, but we are still contaminated by our Nazi past. The Germans have done well at processing their past. In the 1990s the French belatedly started jailing aged Vichy officials who arranged the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. The Cambodians are honest about the Pol Pot regime. The Filipinos are honest about the Marcos era. The Irish generally are NOT honest about the Irish Nazi era of 1922-23.
It’s time we faced up to two simple facts:
>WE IRISH HAVE NO RIGHT TO CLAIM MARTYR STATUS AS VICTIMS OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM BECAUSE WE PROVED IN 1922-23 THAT WE ARE ABLE TO OPPRESS OTHER IRISHMEN TEN TIMES WORSE THAN THE BRITISH EVER OPPRESSED US.
>THE IRISH WERE THE ORIGINAL NAZIS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. DURING THOSE TERRIBLE TEN MONTHS OF JUNE 1922 TO APRIL 1923, WE, THE IRISH, SHOWED THE GERMANS HOW TO DO IT.
And that is why, when I came up through the Irish educational system, my history teachers never uttered one honest word to me about those seminal ten months, which have contaminated Irish society for the past eighty years.
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And the bottom line is:
WHAT IF THE BOOT HAD BEEN ON THE OTHER FOOT?
If the Irish race had NOT settled on an offshore island where the English suppressed them and contained them, but had instead settled in central Europe – then what would the Irish have done to Europe?
Look for the answer at Ballyseedy Cross.
