100 Years

This weekend marked the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the failed insurgency which left the Dublin City Centre in ruins, nearly five hundred dead, and over two and a half thousand wounded.

The Rising has been touted by politicians as something heroic. Something glorious. But let's be completely clear. It was a blood sacrifice. That was its purpose. To subject the Irish people to such degrees of bloodshed and violent reprisal that public opinion would sway towards the goal of Irish independence.

And it worked, in the end.

Is it something to be proud of? More than half of those killed were civilians. Innocent people who were shot in crossfires, mistaken for rebels, or caught in explosions from artillery.

But that was the plan. A romantic notion of glorious defeat. Of course, no-one told the young men and women putting their lives on the line. No-one told the thousands of civilians who would be injured and killed.

I look at were we are today; a nation whose non-existent government is utterly out of touch with the needs of the people, and lacking in common humanity. Politicians who make and break promises, who dither along while their inaction leaves people to die, who bend to prejudice and bigotry in the name of "fairness." People who have the luxury of regarding every social issue in purely academic terms. Who tell us that we'll all pull through if we live a little leaner, and all pitch in to do our part.

A romantic notion.

Makes me wonder what their plan is. The one they're not telling us about.

Just some thoughts on the 100th anniversary of a blood sacrifice.