I remember watching this 40 years ago. A superb series written and presented by Robert Kee who also wrote a 3 volume history of Ireland called The Green Flag. This series was especially powerful for me because like The World at War it featured veterans (from all sides) whose first hand accounts gave a powerful and occasionally chilling testimony to the violent genesis of the Republic of Ireland. The irony was that while watching it Irish history was being made right under my nose and I couldn't see it.
A relative went right through the War & was then sent to Archangel to support the White Russians. After that he went to Ireland as a Sergeant in the Auxiliaries. He left home in 1914 & did not get back until 1922. Anyway his diaries note a reprisal on 20 September at Balbriggan.
@freebeerfordworkers Thanks for this & my apologies for the delay in getting back to you. After rechecking what information I have it appears that former British Army Sergeants were recruited into the Auxiliaries as equivalent WO2s at a weekly basic rate of pay amounting to £3. 10 shillings. After 6 months of satisfactory service the rate was increased to 4 Guineas (£4. 4 shillings) a week & promotion to WO1. This method appeared to solve the issue of insufficient volunteers. Also the pay & rations did not include overtime so I suppose this package reflected the hazardous conditions of the assignment.
Robert Kee was a POW in WW2....He escaped ...Wrote a very honest book.." A crowd is not company".. Worth a read cos its not all heroic etc even tho i think he was....
This is great history albeit rather simplistic, but it is amazing to see and hear members of Michael Collins gang of IRA killers speak so openly, also incredibly rare to hear from Black and Tans and Auxilliary officers ! Real history ! The terrible years 1919-1921 in Ireland prove how violence begets more violence. Everyone - not just Brits and Irish - can learn from this tale.
+Taint ABird Can't help myself though - so the bloke who stood against Dev in Clare changed his mind , within 3 years Dev and minority SF were shooting at the Majority now that's a defection !
West Brit Ah its not reallly. Sure he was staying true to the Republic, the others had ''defected' and 'sold out'...until he realised his position left him in a political cul de sac and he jumped ship and founded Fianna Fáil. Now THATS a defection.
Taint ABird So the majority defected -Wow You have very little regard for democracy do you? I hate FF they are itching my shit at this very moment in fact , but they formed the Government of this State for most of it's existence and I accepted that for the bit's I had to live through , Inever killed anybody over the matter .
There are two theories about Barry's ambush at Kilmichael. One is his men gave the Auxies a chance to surrender as he claims, the other is they were simply ordered to kill every one of them without mercy.
The old IRA done the exact same operations as the present PIRA! But the Free State Regime try to Sanatize the old IRA. The British executed 24 people! Free State Regime executed 81 people! Former Comrades! De Valera was Britain's Puppet in Ireland.
@@madrarua599 The old IRA mainly carried out operations against the RIC, the Tans and the Auxiliaries. They also executed spies and those they considered informers. This is a long way from some of the activities of the PIRA. Certainly some old IRA leaders such as Tom Barry, distanced themselves from the PIRA and the car and pub bombings which killed many innocent civilians. The free state began to execute IRA prisoners after Collins was killed, but this was mainly Collins deputy Richard Mulcahy's policy to bring the civil war to a swift end. There is no evidence that Collins himself authorised IRA prisoner executions. De Valera was a traitor and a turncoat and disastrous for the economy. Ireland remained a poor country for years because of him.
@@joehart7260 Some yrs ago I had the privilege to meet the Grandson of one of those involved in the ambush of the 14 Auxiliaries! He told me they didn't give them a chance to surrender, as they wouldn't have give their captors a chance! But when Tom had informed the other members of the contents of his book before printing, some had objected! Mainly because their family member would view them as murderer's! So it was rewritten. And Tom Barry was suspected by Garda of sending a few weapons to Defend people in North in 1969. Mainly a Lewis machine gun among a few other weapons!
Home Rule brought about by a supply and confidence arrangement, Irish parliament achieved by vote rigging, yet Britain is accused of being dishonest. No double-standards here at all.
@@RobertK1993 Do you mean they used the opt out from Home Rule that the Irish representatives agreed to include in the Treaty? Not sure how they can be blamed for that.
We are still here celebrating the death of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II with the Eoka veterans’ association and activist and the civilian survivors who proudly resisted and defended Cyprus from British Crown rule in the 1950s. I proudly say. It really is an honour, indeed. Cheers. 🍻🍺 Britain must pay for their military bases, and then be forced to give them back to the Greeks Cypriots? (as its an utter disgrace that Britain managed to still have land on Cyprus). The British also must return our Looted Greek PARTHENON sculptures, our Greek identity, our Greek heritage. They are the proudness of being Greek. [ As its an utter disgrace that Britain managed to still have colonial loot from Greece ]. And Greece is among the few nations - and the only EU member state - not to have been officially visited by the Queen. And It gives me immense pleasure to announce that, indeed.
They were all IRA yaknow, both sides. The Dail voted to ratify the fukkin treaty... Democratically. We should have been more sensible. We did exactly what the English fuckin hoped we'd do and kill our best on both sides of a deliberate divide we should have been smart enough to spot for what it was. The "free staters" and anti treaty IRA were as bad as each other. No side was worse. Just as bad in their own way. We proved to be the thick micks that the tans hoped we'd be.
@@jakenconor the free staters left the IRA and formed the free state army and were armed by the British govt to destroy the IRA. The vote in the Dáil was unconstitutional as even Kevin Higgins stated it was ultra vires, an illegal vote
Black and Tans Auxiliaries Ulster Loyalists British Soldiers all failed to keep the best part of Ireland in the Disunited Failure of a Union sad no surrender 1169-present.
And in 2019 the Irish people have rightly shown themselves to be Unionist and prudently rejected independence, In the north the Majority want Union with the UK and in the south the vast majority want Union with Europe.
The South wants prosperity, which it found in the EU, but not in the UK. The UK will learn that lesson the hard way, when there'll scarcely be anything left of it.
