So 1916 then....

[Duncan Gardner]

So 1916 then....

You have to say that, for all its current diffs, the Irish Republic is looking quite sprightly for 68...

[Diable Rouge]

So 1916 then....

Inevitably, RTE are following up Rebellion with a War of Independence series. Of course, the reality of various cut-and-run skirmishes will be too mundane for dramatic purposes, and thankfully the Civil War was too fraught to sanitise.

[Kevin S]

So what's happened in the past couple of years since? Obviously we've had peace on the western front last month, and Lloyd George and Bonar Law have asked the British people to back their Coalition at last week's "Khaki" General Election and, though the count isn't over yet, it sounds like they're going to do very well.

Odd news coming from over the sea, though. Sinn Féin are apparently going to give the IPP a tonking.

Wonder what that'll do to the Westminster arithmetic?

[Kevin S]

Here's Fintan:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/h...land-1.3719853

[Kevin S]

If Brexit is to Scotland what conscription was to Ireland 100 years ago, then here's a message for the SNP:

... the Irish Party at Westminster was humiliated by its failure to stop the legislation; its claim to hold a decisive influence over the government in London was terribly exposed. Its members walked out of the House of Commons in protest but they were made to look like they were increasingly following, not leading, Irish nationalist opinion.

[Ginger Yellow]

Does the SNP claim to have decisive influence over the UK government?

[Kevin S]

I suppose not. But I guess the lesson is that they have to kick some political arse as well as talk the talk. A motion of no confidence would be a good start. But then they need Labour to agree to it.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

If Brexit is to Scotland what conscription was to Ireland 100 years ago, then here's a message for the SNP:

... the Irish Party at Westminster was humiliated by its failure to stop the legislation; its claim to hold a decisive influence over the government in London was terribly exposed. Its members walked out of the House of Commons in protest but they were made to look like they were increasingly following, not leading, Irish nationalist opinion.

The SNP are more like Sinn fein during the conscription though. Everything they say about brexit involves staying in the single market, and how they are being completely ignored by Theresa May, and how Scotland is left without any influence whatsoever on what happens. This is definitely building towards a second indy referendum once the shit hits the fan.

[Lang Spoon]

I suppose not. But I guess the lesson is that they have to kick some political arse as well as talk the talk. A motion of no confidence would be a good start. But then they need Labour to agree to it.

Which was tabled, and ignored. Corbyn and McDonnell are so spectacularly tin eared on Scotland (compounded by the amazing incompetence of Richard Leonard and Neil Findlay in Holyrood) they are almost playing the Redmondite role in the 1916 And All That reprise.

[Lang Spoon]

(And of course SLab, like the Unionist Tory aligned Party before them, functioned as a de facto National party hegemony for Scotland, especially during the Thatcher era. Maybe the collapse in 2015 was the Irish party 1918 moment, maybe the Nats will give way now to something else entirely, what with them being the tired party of govt in Scotland for a generation now. But I think Brexit and the uselessness of Labour on the Scottish Question will galvanize them for a little longer before Scotland gets its next Hegemony Standing Up For Scotland)