Instead, republicanism seems hell bent on honouring terrorists who liked to sneak up on their victims and murder them using the bomb and bullet.
Some republicans recently unveiled a statue to dead IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands MP in Belfast. Other republicans want to commemorate the eight members of the so-called East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisionals who were shot dead by the SAS in the Co Armagh village of Loughgall.
Put bluntly, when are we going to see republicans unveiling a memorial to the tens of thousands of Irish nationalists who served in the security forces in two world wars and other conflicts? Surely, these folk who gave their lives that republicans can have the freedom to unveil statues are worth honouring?
Republicanism cannot be allowed to rewrite history and effectively airbrush out of memory these tens of thousands of Irish nationalists who joined British regiments and fought to save democracy.
Republicans like to crow about their heroes from the 1916 failed Easter Rising in Dublin. But it must never be forgotten that Connolly and co waited until the United Kingdom was knee deep in the mud and blood of the trenches of the Western Front during the Great War to launch their failed coup.
By the time of the Easter Rising, thousands of Irish nationalists had already died fighting the Germans. A year earlier in 1915, thousands of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand of Irish nationalist descent died on the bloody sands of Gallipoli as the Allied forces tried to open up a new front against the Turks.
And with this year’s 80th anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe) still in full flow, why did some in the IRA during the Second World War want to climb into bed militarily with the Nazis? Why did the Southern Irish administration insist on Southern Ireland remaining supposedly neutral during World War Two?
Did de Valera actually believe that if Hitler had successfully invaded the United Kingdom and won the war itself that Southern Ireland would be spared the ravages of the Nazi Holocaust regime? What political cloud cuckoo land were some in the Dail government living in? Were they hoping that Hitler would grant Southern Ireland the same status as the puppet Vichy government in France whilst at the same time the Nazi regime would conveniently ignore that tens of thousands of Southern nationalists had actually fought against Germany?
Likewise, what about the thousands of Irish nationalists who fought against Japan in World War Two? Is republicanism going to airbrush them out of the history of Ireland’s patriotic dead? The horrors of Japanese prisoner of war camps must never be allowed to be eradicated from history.
Indeed, how many brave Irish nationalists who paid the supreme sacrifice whilst serving in the Allied forces in those two world wars still lie in militarily unmarked graves across Southern Ireland.
Whilst many are buried in Commonwealth war cemeteries across Europe, the time has surely come to mark Irish nationalist graves who fought for the Allies with some kind of military marker on their headstones.
For years, even those Irish soldiers who were honoured with the Victoria Cross - the UK’s highest military award for bravery - lay in militarily unmarked graves in Southern Ireland with no recognition they had been awarded the VC.
Republicanism cannot be allowed to pick and choose who should be listed as being Ireland’s patriotic dead. If we took modern day republican commemorations into considerations, there are more people left off this list than included on it. The perception is that you have to be a dead republican terrorist to be crowned ‘Ireland’s patriotic dead.’
What also seems to be conveniently forgotten are the dozens of Irish nationalists and Catholics murdered by republican terror gangs over the decades, especially during the past Troubles.
What the modern generation of republicanism seems to have ignored was that Bobby Sands had a choice. He could have saved his life by ending his hunger strike in 1981 - or did the godfathers who ran the IRA’s ruling army council want him to die to gain political leverage over the Thatcher Tory Government?
Indeed, of the 10 IRA and INLA hunger strikers who did die in that death fast, how many died needlessly because those same faceless godfathers wanted a publicity coup?
Republicanism has a lot of soul searching to do. The organisers of annual events to mark Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day do not simply honour the memory of Unionists who paid the ultimate sacrifice. They remember all faiths who fought for freedom against the Kaiser and Fuhrer.
And when we are talking about Irish nationalists who fought for the Allies, we must also include the thousands of Irish nationalist descent who served with the American forces in both world wars, Korea and Vietnam.
Just as there are commemorations in Northern Ireland to mark the opening day of the bloody Battle of the Somme in 1916, so too, we must also remember the Irish nationalists who fell on D-Day on Omaha Beach in June 1944 in scenes portrayed in the blockbuster movie, Saving Private Ryan.
As with the Somme, so too on D-Day, the German machine gunners did not distinguish between Unionist and Irish nationalist. Republicanism can never be allowed to rewrite history to serve a warped political agenda.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
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