New RTÉ show on Cromwell - Eoghain Harris doesn't like it. Will it be good then?

I've been reading a bit of Eoghain Harris vitriol about the upcoming two part documentary on Cromwell in Ireland.

Would that mean that this programme might be of some interest to the average viewer? If it's a quarter of the way to fair comment from Harris's opinions maybe RTÉ might have stumbled on a success.

........*pending decision from pools panel*.......................

You can read about his take on it here

The fact that the life of a Protestant settler is being recreated makes me a bit nervous. All the other characters being mentioned were major players except for this one person. If her story done well I`ll be delighted as it will be the chance to get a real insight into the lives of ordinary people at the time. If it`s done for current political considerations because of a need to apply a twenty first century "balance" imperative it could destroy the whole documentary. real history not tokenism is what I`d like to see. I`d be interested to see if they are as concerned to show the impact on ordinary Gaelic people.

I`d consider the documentary a success if it answers the following questions.

1. What was the extent of the impact that Cromwell himself and his followers had on Ireland?

2. How did the behaviour of Cromwell compare with European contemporaries and his Royalist, Gaelic and Old English adversaries?

3. How developed, how sectarian and how national was Irish political thought at the time?

4. How did the soldiery and planters and native people of the time behave as opposed to their leaders?

Rearding Harris there is absolutely nothing of benefit from listening to or reading the opinions of that man on any subject. repeat ANY subject.

Quote :

TRAHISON des clercs, the treason of intellectuals, is also evident in academe, especially among the new breed of bullishly nationalist historians. As long as the IRA were gunning down Fermanagh farmers in front of their families, the green gowns had to hide their naff nationalist beliefs. But now it is back to gombeen history.

Given the predictable hysteria about Oliver Cromwell which dominated the airwaves last week -- and which can only add to the an already rampant Anglophobia -- public intellectuals should have been careful to provide a historical context for Cromwell, a republican who took on royalists in England and Ireland.

But in an admittedly brief plug for his biography of Cromwell on Radio 4's Today show, Micheal O Siochru made no mention whatsoever of the 1641 massacre of 12,000 Irish Protestants only eight years before Cromwell arrived in Ireland. Likewise, a few weeks ago, Fintan O'Toole told the guilty Guardian types who read the Observer that Cromwell had resorted to "ethnic cleansing", which gave his Irish campaign a "queasily contemporary ring".

Faced by this fatuous attempt to look at the past through the prism of the present, Thomas O'Reilly, author of Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy, made a valiant attempt to balance the books. As the Archbishop has aroused that side of me, let's also point out the class angle.

First, Sir Phelim O'Neill's Rebellion -- to which Cromwell was belatedly reacting -- was not a revolt by the plain people of Ireland. It was rather a pre-emptive strike by a greedy and indolent Gaelic gentry -- including many land-owning bishops -- who felt they should get greater profits from the land to which they had been given formal title by the Plantation.

Second, the common people were the dupes of these deadbeats. The Gaelic poet-propagandists who vilified Cromwell were the paid hacks of the Gaelic gentry. And their contemptuous views of the common people are revealed in the 17th-century text, Parlaimint Chlainne Tomais, where the lines "Treise Leat a Chromail" (more power to you, Cromwell) are placed in the mouths of the despised Irish peasants.

I'd always seen Cromwell as "revolutionary at home - reactionary abroad".

Isn't Harris is just one of those hacks like Dunphy paid to stir it up?

I'm tempted to go mad altogether and delete cactus flower's above post, for no reason other than she dared sully the pages of our noble website with the vomitings of a man who would put youngdan to shame (only kidding!).

Yes, he is a controversialist. Probably the worst, and when you consider Myers, Ian O'Doherty and Krauthammer that's some accolade.

On Cromwell, let's postpone judgement till the fecking programme is on.

I thought this site might crash if I had copied such detritis ........ but if Harris says black I'm usually not far of the mark thinking white

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

I thought this site might crash if I had copied such detritis ........ but if Harris says black I'm usually not far of the mark thinking white

Well such a reaction does more justice to his kind of thinking (such as it is) than reasonable debate. He may well be right on this or any issue, but I wouldn't care for what he thinks any more than I care for the opinion of my dog.

905 wrote:

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

I thought this site might crash if I had copied such detritis ........ but if Harris says black I'm usually not far of the mark thinking white

Well such a reaction does more justice to his kind of thinking (such as it is) than reasonable debate. He may well be right on this or any issue, but I wouldn't care for what he thinks any more than I care for the opinion of my dog.

I think it's his illogicality that I'm highlighting....the fact that if you suspend logic and read Harris, you find a high correlation between the opposite of what he is saying and how things really are.

Mar shampla - Cromwell is a worthy republican + Eoghain Harris - Logic = Weekly Sindo column.

with Harris as a variable.

Where is the Genius of Cork ? He can verify

What you're saying seems to be saying that you can work out the truth value of an argument by looking at the opposite of what Harris says. I prefer to think of him in the following manner.

A man called Frankfurt once argued that lying is far preferable to bullshitting, because lying acknowledges truth by placing itself opposite. Bullshit has no regard for truth whatsoever, unlike lying the truth doesn't come into it at all, and it is the more dangerous as a result.

That reminds me of Harris. And that's all I really want to say on the matter. I leave such discussions to P.ie, who do a regular Harris/Sindo bashing. I know of another theory (which resembles the above one) which reckons that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Which might well mean that love and hate are closer than we think. So I'm loath to declare my hate for anything, as it suggest a certain regard (love is too strong a word) for that thing. So I prefer to ignore Harris than give him the air of attention.

Hmmm. There was a fascinating discussion on Pat Kenny's programme recently in the chair between two experts, one of whom was, I think, Thomas O'Reilly who argues for a different interpretation of Cromwell - a far more favourable one, really than we have heretofore indulged in. The other speaker was a university lecturer I think (UCD?) who favoured the more traditionalist approach, which I think O Shiochrú's book does. It was a great debate about the facts and about motivations and implications, and indeed about the nature of historical interpretation.

I haven't been able to link to the show because they only keep them from the last week...

Well one must know a fool to know that one is not.

Kate P wrote:

Hmmm. There was a fascinating discussion on Pat Kenny's programme recently in the chair between two experts, one of whom was, I think, Thomas O'Reilly who argues for a different interpretation of Cromwell - a far more favourable one, really than we have heretofore indulged in. The other speaker was a university lecturer I think (UCD?) who favoured the more traditionalist approach, which I think O Shiochrú's book does. It was a great debate about the facts and about motivations and implications, and indeed about the nature of historical interpretation.

I haven't been able to link to the show because they only keep them from the last week...

If you havn't read O'Reilly's book here is a review of it from History Ireland.

He's a bit 'we-can't-look-at-history-through-modern-eyes while looking at history through modern eyes and his own modern(arguable) issues politically speaking.

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Hmmm. There was a fascinating discussion on Pat Kenny's programme recently in the chair between two experts, one of whom was, I think, Thomas O'Reilly who argues for a different interpretation of Cromwell - a far more favourable one, really than we have heretofore indulged in. The other speaker was a university lecturer I think (UCD?) who favoured the more traditionalist approach, which I think O Shiochrú's book does. It was a great debate about the facts and about motivations and implications, and indeed about the nature of historical interpretation.

I haven't been able to link to the show because they only keep them from the last week...

If you havn't read O'Reilly's book here is a review of it from History Ireland.

He's a bit 'we-can't-look-at-history-through-modern-eyes while looking at history through modern eyes and his own modern(arguable) issues politically speaking

.

I recommend Christopher Hill on Cromwell and his role in the English Revolution. I have read less about Cromwell in Ireland although everywhere I go I find the remains towers he demolished.

LINK

Starting now on RTE

RIght ho!

Again I have it on record so will catch up with it on the weekend. Very interesting period though, my degree is history and I studied a fair bit about Cromwell, so I will be very interested to watch it. Hopefully people will find it interesting and educational and that it will give a deeper insight into the man than bland comments on either 'side' generally do.

He was a complex man and it was a complex period.... you can put the whole thing down to propagandist wood carvings from Germany .

So far, I'm finding it all a bit confused, confusing and and at the same time simplistic.

Too much reenactment and po-faced historians using the present tense for things that happened nearly 500 years ago.

Me too a bit Cactus.

One minute he's a melancholy farmer, next minute he's 'aving the kings 'ead chopped off. I only went out for a wee.



So then, this was the origin of the parliament having the power and not the Monarchy ?

Seems like a bad skin though...Oh back on.

Too much focus on "is he good or is he bad" and too many embarrassing reconstructions.

Its almost as difficult as trying to work out what happened in South Ossetia.

Feck. A whole week to wait. I'll have forgotten it all by then.

Tell you what, I would not have liked to be raising children in this country at any time between 200BC and 1995 based on recent RTE presentations.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Feck. A whole week to wait. I'll have forgotten it all by then.

Tell you what, I would not have liked to be raising children in this country at any time between 200BC and 1995 based on recent RTE presentations.

Seconded. Its a miracle any of us are here at all.

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Feck. A whole week to wait. I'll have forgotten it all by then.

Tell you what, I would not have liked to be raising children in this country at any time between 200BC and 1995 based on recent RTE presentations.

Seconded. Its a miracle any of us are here at all.

My ancestors in Malta had to put up with those Ottoman bastards. I'm just a whim of history. So my children are even whimmer.

Don`t forget to watch the second part tonight. I wonder how it ends? I`ve great faith in Aodh Dubh Ó Néill. I think we`re going to be alright.

I'd say Cromwell gets his fingers burnt at Clonmel

You`re only saying that because O`Neill is leading an army of Ulstermen. puke warfare.

Them boys at Clonmel had better beards, I'd wager and made good use of a defensive system.