>It doesn't help that a lot of the writing for laypersons is also done by
>Celtic
>nationalists of one sort or another (like Peter Beresford Ellis, who's an
>Irish
>Republican Socialist, and reading him you'd think the ancient Celts were too),
Hey, is PBE still around then ? I remember him from years back having a regular column in the monthly "Irish Democrat". He was an odd pan- celtic nationalist first and foremost more than an Irish Republican Socialist I'd have said. Although loads of celtic nationalists decribe themselves as socialists. The Democrat was written by a strange collection of pan-celtic nationalist types, socialists and trade unionists and campaigned to get the irish in britain involved in the trade union and labour movement; and to get said movements involved in human rights issues in ireland etc . Lots of historical essays etc. too. Peter's essays were always great for a rivetting read. Provided you take history writing which casts one ethnic group as the bad guys and another as the good guys without any qualification, with a rather large dose of salt.
These days after hearing guys in "historical" kilty get ups describe the "gallowglass" and other bands of scots mercenaries as heroic adventurers fighting abroad for fame and fortune. Then in the next breath claim that it's justifyable to dislike the english today * 'cos their red coats were "hired english thugs that raped and pillaged wantonly". (conveniently ignoring the fact that many were scottish, and the Jacobite wars were as much scottish civil wars as wars of scotland vs england). I don't think I could swallow enough salt to swallow this type of history. (Not that PBE ever went this far. And the "democrat" certainly didn't).
Few conflicts in history can be resolved into simple "good guys and bad guys" particularly after the passing of centuries. As one of the Behan brothers (Domininc ? Brendan ?) sang:
"two foreign old monarchs in battle did join/ each wanting their head on the back of a coin/ if the irish had sense they'd drown *both* in the Boyne/ and partition throw into the ocean/"
Off topic as per usual - Chris
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