The vast amount of publicity devoted by British journals to the Easter Week Rising in 1916 must have caused much surprise in this country. Surprise, because the British did not want to see those who rose in rebellion win or achieve eventually a great deal of what they had been fighting for.
Britain supports rebels only when it serves her purpose. There was a strong weight of influential British opinion in favour of the rebel States in the American Civil War. Success for these States would have left America weak and disunited, probably never to emerge as a Great Power, later surpassing Britain.
Britain supports rebels only when it serves her purpose...
In Ireland it was the North that received Britain鈥檚 favours. These went to the Carsonite gun runners with their "Grammar of Anarchy." It was they who received Partition as "King鈥檚 Men."
When do the British journals that have given such space to the Easter Week Rising give their pages to the cause of a United Ireland?
They have no deep sympathy for a free, undivided Ireland, now or at any time. 1916 has simply been commercialised in Britain.
That is her way of paying tribute to the men who died for freedom. In her heart Ireland is still "the most distressful country" and she will gibe at her as such when the 1916 Jubilee celebrations are at an end.
