Airstrip One

Sorry to bore you

A rather different reaction to one of the e-mails on the Protestant decline in Southern Ireland, from Richard Murphy:

I apologize for emailing you as I don't think you are at all honest. Merely for your information, Erskine Childers was not assasinated, but executed by a government that was, according to Churchill, accomplishing British ends with an economy of British lives. Mr. Childers was, at the time of his capture and his execution, a Republican. He was, in his own way, a man for all seasons.

Another Erskine Childers, a Protestant, became President of the Republic.

A certain class of Mosleyite seems quite attached to you.

You have got to get out and get some sun. Go for a walk, find a used bookstore and spring for the Penguin Classics Rex Warner translation. Thucydides will have to be sat with in a comfortable chair. To complete the story, you will have to get a hold of the Hellenaica. I know I am spoiling your fun, Athens loses.

And again (same person, different e-mail):

Until recently Protestants were effectively barred from holding the office of President, Prime Minister, or head of the military or police forces.


Oh, let your fan know, Dr. Douglas Hyde was the first President.


I think it is wonderful that all the insane asylums in England are hooked up to the internet.

It must be said that both the correspondants (the above and the correspondant that he is referring to) are American-Irish. The strange thing is that the correspondant above is actually quite intelligent and pleasant, except when it comes to Ireland when a red mist seems to descend. Never underestimate the power of ancestral myths.

If an e-mail is printed in this web log it means that I received it. I may be odd about this, but receiving and publishing an e-mail is not the same as endorsing it.

NB. Moseley was rather popular amongst some of the Irish in England. Supposedly it was because he spoke out against the black and tans. Source: Grundy, Memoires of a fascist childhood. Needless to say that fact was said by the way and bears no relation to the debate.