Wouldn’t it be adorable to see modern Englishmen, eating their Pret et Mange and shopping at Tower Records, breaking their necks to praise the Queen out of fear of decapitation? **
[/QUOTE]
it may help if england actually had Tower Records anymore. the shop in piccadilly circus still says tower, but its actually owned + run by Virgin now.
perhaps its time to get rid of our ‘queen’. an absolute waste of my tax money. get shut of her, sell off all her property + assets:
bingo! a well funded national health service
which i think would be better than the few quid she brings in as a tourist attraction.
so yes, we have a monarch, but i’d rather not thanks.
Can I, as a born and bred Irishman, express my full agreement with garius’ analysis of Cromwell’s actions at Drogheda. I’m generally opposed to much of the revisionism in Irish history but the Christian Brothers version of Cromwell’s Irish exploits was propeganda in the extreme. I always thought we were so spoiled for choice for British hate figures that it was a shame to pick on the republican amongst them.
[Notes on Barbadoes and Irish Slaves]
[updated 15 Aug 2003] http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/courant/issue41.htm
New England Courant
Boston, Monday May 14. 1722.
Cleared out
William Fletcher, Richard Murphey, William Dunwell, Francis Bignal,
and Thomas Forster for West Indies
1649- Oliver Cromwell invades Ireland at Dublin and quickly imposed
English authority on Ireland. His troops killed 2,000 men in Dublin.
With Irish resistance on the wane he takes Drogheda by storm and then
Wexford. He found on entry that the local protestants had been tortured
and massacred, not only by the locals but also by the English garrisons.
He gave no quarter and put to death 2600 in Drogheda and 2000 in Wexford.
Cromwell paid his soldiers and investors in the war effort with land
confiscated largely from the Anglo-Irish Catholics of the Irish midlands
who had joined the rebellion hesitantly and only to defend themselves
against Puritan policies.
1652- Cromwell confiscates land from those who
participated in the rebellion. A list of inhabitants of most of the
southern part of County Dublin is assembled. Thousands of Irish men and
women were involuntarily “transported” as laborers to the West Indies by
Cromwell’s forces. Many of these people and their descendents later moved
to the United States (America?-no US that time). Plans to forcibly move
Ulster-Scots from Ulster to the South drawn up but never enforced.
1653- Cromwell dissolves the “Rump” and becomes Lord Protector
1654-1656- A civil survey is recorded of major landholders.
1655 England divided into 12 military districts by Cromwell; seizes Jamaica from Spain
1656-1659 War between England and Spain
1656 Over 60,000 Irish Catholics had been sent slaves to Barbados, and
other islands in the Caribbean.
1678- About 100 Irish families sail from Barbados to Virginia and the Carolinas.
[/quote]
salt of the earth, Ould Oliver. Had a lovely family, Henry and William. Loved people of almost all persuasions.
the guy, as far as I’m concerned, was fucking scum when it comes to Ireland.
Jesus, no, I don’t. But tell me quick.
I might need a toe-ectomy or a toe-addoplasty.
What I meant about her being Lord Longford’s girly is that in my opinion, he was as loony as a bag of spanners, but if you and my old chum garius reckon her books are OK, then the loony gene is has obviously passed her by.
As I know nothing about Cromwell, I feel a bit ashamed now.
I’ll look for that book in town at the weekend.
Sorry, Garius, your defense of the Lord Protector just won’t wash. As **TwistofFate[/b has shown, Drogheda and Wexford were examples of Cromwell’s brutal oppression of the Irish. Murder, rape, and slavery are not excused merely because the standards of the 17th century were more lax than ours.
curly chick - I daren’t tell you - can’t have you injuring yourself on my conscious. But I’ll e-mail the Dublin boys privately and get the footie-size scoop on you. Just so we know . . .
To address the issue raised by Barks’ dog food
"But i still want to know if the Queen costs Australian taxpayers anything. "
On a day-to-day basis, beyond communication costs, nothing. You also need to factor in that each of the Australian States have a QEII appointed (on advise of the Premier) Governor, as well as the Governor General as her representative as Australian Head of State. Of course her representatives have all the vice regal appetites for expenses and have the run of a very nice piece of real estate at Yarrulumla. But in the greater scheme of governance overheads, it’s not substantial, to the extent that during a very recently we had two of the blighters on the payroll.
The argument that he was no worse than many other oppressors of the Irish has made me think again. Of course this still doesn’t excuse him and his men, but as mwap said, Ireland’s “spoiled for choice for British hate figures” - what makes him worse than the others?
With respect GOBEAR, Garius wasn’t trying to excuse Cromwells brutality, he was simply pointing out that the way he and his soldiers behaved was the norm for that period in history when standards were indeed far more lax than they are today.
GoBear mate, i’m not trying to defend his actions in Ireland. Whatever way you look at it Cromwell brutally, mercilessly and callously oppressed the Irish.
There is, and can be, no doubt about that.
What i was saying was that despite the legend and the hype, Drogheda is not a good example of that brutality.
Drogheda was, to all intents and purposes, a standard military assault and defence of the period. In fact as i mentioned before, what happened at Drogheda was decidedly mild by comparison with other events at the time.
If people want to start accusing Cromwell of being a monster, they need to do so based on firm facts. Not on “Remember the Alamo” style pithy exclaimations about an event which is barely distinguishable from a thousand other sieges that happened between the 16th and 19th Centuries.
TwistofFate has done exactly that. He’s provided a wealth of evidence as to why Cromwell was a complete and utter bastard to the Irish and, if i was Irish, i’d probably despise him too.
I’ve just always felt that as historical figures go, Cromwell serves as both an example and a warning.
He possessed so many admirable qualities and achieved so much, yet at the same time he brutally oppressed an entire nation overseas.
Whilst his crimes should never be overlooked, i do think that his reputation has been damaged far more than he ever deserved.
oh and curly chick, i actually have two copies of Antonia Frasier’s book (curteousy of an Amazon error) if you want one.
All this talk about Cromwell is fun and all, but, back to the OP, what if (just for fun) England had an ABSOLUTE monarchy today? Even better, what if YOU were that monarch?
Me, I’d tell people they’d better get used to Their Majesty parading about in jeans and a t-shirt. Of course, being the King, it would be a brand-new t-shirt. Every day. And none of this nonsense about having somebody else’s logo on it either! I’d have a special logo made up (and trade mark it) that said “The King”. Just for fun, I’d have some made up that say “The King – No, Not Elvis Stupid!” I think that’d be awfully funny.
I’d get a Hummer or something and go driving around on and off the roads of London whenever I felt like it. And I’d drive on the right. So would everyone else! I’d make a decree or something.
Plus, I’d review the “What I’d Do If I Was An Evil Overlord” list just to make sure I don’t miss anything
