The Long View on the Irish Question

Monday was all about politics, history, and the Irish legal System. We began the day with a walking tour of the sites associated with the 1916 Easter Rising. For those of you who have seen the movie about Michael Collins' life, this is the rebellion that begins the movie. Shane, our guide, was a Phd in Irish History, and gave us a great overview of the history and politics that led to the rising. We then walked through the several days of the rising, across the urban battlegrounds of Dublin's streets. Bullet holes and all.

What was most interesting to me is the Rising failed, and it was generally unpopular at the time. Until the ringleaders were executed. Then the Irish got motivated to start pushing harder for the independence that the UK had voted on, granted, but then denies due to WWI. Americans are separated from our own revolution by more than 200 years. Seeing 97 year old bullet holes in statues that people sit at the base of and eat their lunch seems a bit more in your face. It makes me want to return to Morristown, and visit Concorde and Lexington and Valley Forge.

We spent the evening touring the Kings Inn in Dublin, learning about 400+ years of educating Irish lawyers, and then having dinner with the students and the "Benchers" or senior judges and attorneys. This is a tradition fraught exercise in which the students learn the law at the elbows of their betters. At least it used to be. Now it seems more a formality because the Benchers don't actually interact with the students at dinner. Apparently most of the apprenticeship activity takes place at the courts, where any Bencher is supposed to be able to help any student whenever a need arises. Very different from the classroom oriented education of lawyers in the US.

On the way home in the cab, the cabbie asked us what we had done and seen, and we mentioned the walking tour. He informed us that he was at heart an Irish Republican, and wanted to see re-unification, but he was grateful that the killing had stopped. He then gave us a bit of wisdom on the Irish question:

"We are all good Catholics in the south. And being the good Catholics we are, we'll out breed the loyalists." It sounds like the south takes the long view.


Went to the Auld Dubliner pub last night, and heard a fun mix of traditional and modern Irish music, and quite a few American and Canadian Artists also.

Even Jene thinks the Guinness tastes better.