Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 47 - The Easter Rising Part 1: The Wolfe Tone

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

On this episode we dive into some of the history that caused the 1916 Easter Rising like stealing Irish freedom with the Act of Union, extracting wealth, colonialism, and outright genocide. Support the Dogs For the Disabled charity: https://dogsfordisabled.ie Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy some merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Sources: Tim Pat Coogan. 1916: The Easter Rising

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young girl calling Michael, they have taken you away For you stole Trevelyan's corn So the young might see the morn Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay Hey guys, it's Joe. In light of recent events of what happened in Northern Ireland when a 29-year-old journalist was killed in the line of duty,

I was on the fence about releasing these next two episodes on the 1960 Irish Easter Rising. I talked to a few people, and they told me I should go ahead and do it. And after thinking about it, I agree. So they'll be released on schedule. The real IRA are a terrorist organization. And one of the things that terrorist organizations like to do is try to warp history and events in their favor.

And that's what they were trying to do with this attack when they tried to use the memory of 1916 and the Easter Rising for an uptick in dissident Republican activity in Northern Ireland. And as anybody who's listened to this show for more than an episode or two know that there's nothing I hate more than historical revisionism and so that's why i will not uh let them do that um so i hope you enjoy these episodes know that if you find these um offensive or distasteful i apologize both these episodes were uh recorded before the acts of um of the real ira and not with that in mind at all um and i hope that this is the last time that one of our

stories from a topic 100 years ago uh come back to to face us here today. Thank you. Hello. Welcome to... Don't you mock my intros? Hello. Hello. I've had a stroke. This is the show? This intro has gone off the rails. This is the show.

Welcome to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me for a record-breaking what fourth time in a row yeah is sir nicholas yes um we're doing a topical episode for maybe the third time in our show's history yes it is so when this comes out it'll be easter well easter sunday will be the day before because our show comes up monday but it's easter four day weekend for everybody else uh so happy easter to our catholic folks despite us having a calendar we do not use it we're not good at planning um who would have thought right um so if you're not catholic or not religious or i am but whatever not really uh happy long weekend uh so the weird part is um i my my mother was raised catholic um i certainly was not um but one time

like she got married like three times um because you know if you don't succeed, try, try, try again until your kids are irrevocably damaged. But one time she married a hardcore Catholic. So suddenly we had to go to church. Yeah. And I didn't understand any of it. So like Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday. Like why are you giving me grass and drawing on my face? I used to wipe that shit off and get smacked as soon as i did it i

mean that's the only way you truly learn anything is through pain and misery right so yeah um i think rich because rich grew up catholic as well she said uh they're like convenience store catholics or like fast food catholics whatever it is like you just grab what you want and keep going. You don't take all the dogma. You know what? I did enjoy it once I did the, uh, to be, I never really retained the information I learned or the schools that I went to,

but I know I did a ceremony where I was able to fucking eat Jesus. Please eat my body and drink my blood. Yes. And that's the only thing I look forward to on Sunday. I was like, I'm so fucking hungry. I can't wait to eat this dude. I want to eat this cracker so hard.

And it's not even good. No, no. Because if it tasted good, it would be a sin. You had it? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

Didn't get to drink any wine, though, because even giving liquor to young children is frowned upon. They still, I've seen it. At least, you know, not in the open. You have to be like a teenager, I think. I don't know. I don't know, but I know I've seen like underage for sure take a sip. Oh, definitely. Yeah.

So today, as I've talked about a little bit on Twitter, we are going to be talking about something topical. And for only the second time in our show's history, we're talking about Irish history. So be prepared for me to butcher a lot of names. I'm already ready. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of our brand now. People constantly say I pronounce things wrong. So fuck it.

Yeah. It's us. And there's a lot of things about Irish history we could talk about because Ireland's history is just a continuous circle of conflict, really. But we're talking about, more specifically, the Easter Rising of 1916. about more specifically the easter rising of 1916 um so the easter rising was a violent uprising among irish republicans against the united kingdom and unionist collaborators in order to establish a free and independent ireland it'll last for six days kill hundreds of people um but in order to get to that we have to just talk about how the fuck we got here six days six days about one week yeah took a day off uh yeah kind of they took a day off to surrender and get executed but uh we'll get there um

so now i need to i need to say this as a warning that wasn't it um there's a lot of i So if I say there's a lot of acrimony between the Irish and the British, that's like the biggest understatement in podcast history. That's like saying Hitler was kind of a bad dude. Or Pol Pot, not a good guy. Could have done without.

I'm going to cover as much as I have to to get to the Easter Rising. Because if I was to cover everything we would literally be here for the next 10 years and we would be coming into part 95 of the easter rising and we still would not get to the rising uh so that's been a real good trend of ours yeah yeah so so consider this a yada yada yada version of feelings between the British and the Irish. So any Irish listeners, I apologize. I'm probably going to upset you

when I leave out certain important parts, but I'm going to try to gloss over as much as I can so you understand why exactly the Irish picked the middle of World War I as a good time for an uprising. But to get there, we have to talk about the Act of World War I. It's a good time for an uprising. But to get there, we have to talk about the Act of Union in 1800s. As many people may know, the

United Kingdom is a thing that exists. So before that, England and Ireland were joined what is known as a personal union. No, that is not a personal union. No, that's not like a weird libertarian way to get out of saying gay marriage.

It kind of makes it sound like Ireland got, you know, like really fucking hammered and married to the British queen. But what a personal union meant is that Ireland and England shared a monarch and little else. Consider it kind of like the Commonwealth today. Oh, okay.

Ireland was allowed to have its own parliament, enact its own laws, you laws, run their life. There's one little problem with the Irish government of the time. Only members of the Anglican Church could become members of parliament. Despite the fact that the majority of Ireland

is majority Catholic. Now, Anglican for people who are not aware is one of seemingly countless branches of the Protestant Church. It is the very predominantly British branch of the Protestant Church. It wasn't until 1793 that Catholics were even allowed to vote. 1793? 1793 to vote in their own country.

Of course, this is assuming they rented or owned property. 1793? 1793. To vote in their own country, yeah. Of course, this is assuming they rented or owned property. So the vast majority of people were fucked. It's not too surprising that the Catholics, or at least the church leadership, wanted a union with Mother Queen. Because their government was fucking them over. Say what you will about the British and religious freedom. they don't exactly have a long history between the two but they thought that you know maybe if we join the queen all the way they'll have to give us the same rights the british people have psych what a bunch of assholes. Yeah.

England did not really care about any of this until 1798. That was when the United Irishmen, a revolutionary Republican group led by an epically named Theobald Wolftone. Yes. Attempted to separate themselves from England entirely. Wolftone? Wolftone. The Wolftone.

The Wolftones. write themselves from england entirely wolf tone wolf tone the wolf tone sounds like tones it sounds like the particular part of like a music like a of a song that you put on that you get laid to like now the wolf tones come in yeah it's about to happen or that's like maybe if the deaf tones got into history and they're like holy fuck the wolf tone is way fucking better yes and i really wish i could get into the history of theobald wolf tone because it is awesome but that's not why we're here maybe a different time okay um but he wanted to lead a revolution uh to separate themselves from england entirely as well as kick out those asshole Protestants. So problematic for the English. Um, he,

he, for some reason I'm picturing Beowulf. I can assume he had an epic beard and I'm probably wrong. Cause every, this is the, this is the age of tidy mustaches. Well, I'm thinking like I am Wolf tone,

like, ah, and then fucks him up. Oh, he definitely said his name. He said his name before he came. If I had a name that cool, I would say before I did literally anything.

Wolf Tone. So, all of that still may not have pissed off the British. I mean, probably weren't going to be friends, but think of the age we're talking about here. 1798. What else is happening at this time in Europe?

Pretty pivotal moment in European history. But to get to that, you have to talk about who Tone's major sympathizer and influencer was. Revolutionary France. Nice. And as anybody knows, the first time Revolutionary France touches anything, England has to kill it. Such downers. Yeah. France was so excited about sticking it to the English that they not only supplied the Irish with weapons, they sent out an invasion force of 14,000 men to support Wolftown.

They're all giddy, too. They're like, main problem, though, with the French Revolution, they got rid of a lot of officers who were monarchists and loyalists to King Louis. This heavily impacted their navy, so they really didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

So before the revolution could spread, the French Revolution, the ideas and, you know, liberty and all this other shit could spread to the Irish comrades, the French Navy fucked the ideas and liberty and all this other shit, could spread to the Irish comrades, the French Navy fucked everything up and nearly sank before the troops could even land,

forcing them to return back to France and left the Irish revolutionaries to their fate. So, sank by the water. The enemy? They got sank by the water. Jesus. The enemy had nothing to do with it. No. It was just the water. They didn't even get that far. Go that-a-way. Yeah.

The British stormed in, tortured, murdered, and pillaged the revolution to death. It even included a special kind of torture known as pitchcapping. Pitchcapping? Pitchcapping. It was when boiling hot tar

was poured into a metal cap and then placed on a prisoner's head. Once it hardened and cooled and bonded to the victim's head, it would be quickly torn off, taking the majority of the scalp with it. Yeah. That sounds terrible. That sounds fucking shitty.

Yeah. It sounds like, but at the same time if I explain to you pitch capping I'm like, but the British did it. You'd be like, oh yeah, okay. Like, it sounds like something they would do. Pitch capping honestly seems like at first they started it with the heads of their penis as the torture method. You know, I expected you to go that route

and I don't disagree. And then they were like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why don't we just do the heads? Reginald, don't be disgusting. Do the regular heads instead. Alright, alright. Oh, by the way, for our listeners, for maybe our new listeners,

we have a strict rule in this podcast that I have placed on Nick. That is the cunt rule. Now. Which is horse shit because there's only one time we got to say it, which is the fucking Z. God damn it. The emu war. And there's a reason for that because we're talking about Australians. Today we're talking about Irish and British, which means the rule is no longer in effect.

Go ahead. Say it. Hold on. Say it. Let me get a sip. Go ahead and say it. I know you want to. Cunt.

There you go. All right. There's some ASMR for everybody. All right. So after the torture orgy was over in Ireland, England was left a little shaken that the Irish may very well give full voting rights to the Catholics. Now, there's a reason why this is bad. France, even during the revolution, was mostly influenced by the Catholic Church. Now, there was all sorts of radically taking

money away from the church, taking their influence away, but the French were still Catholics for the most part. They were afraid that even if they destroyed the revolution and Ireland was left in charge of their own affairs, they would still go down the same route because

they have a giant Catholic friendly neighbor right next door across the channel right um so their plan was to force ireland to join in union with them uh if they got rid of the irish parliament all together and all these pesky rights uh then they could get rid of their problem so how in the hell do you trick someone into voting away their own freedoms now i know as i say this in the year 2019 a lot of people like well it's pretty fucking easy we do it every four years so i imagine back then it'd probably be uh leaflets possibly maybe even now take away you're thinking of a free election like you're thinking about tricking the electorate but this is a bill put

into the irish parliament these are all people who i mean this is a government in the late 1700s not very ethical not very morally based right so good old-fashioned bribery nice yeah okay the british poured honors titles and huge amounts of money onto the Irish parliamentarians. And wouldn't you know it, the act passed 158 for and 115 against. Jesus. Ireland was now fucked. Yeah. Now in total control, the British began exploiting the living shit out of Ireland, which is kind

of what the British did. You know, history says they like exploiting people. shit out of Ireland, which is kind of what the British did. History says they like exploiting people. Not only did the Irish watch as their... The true chads. Not anymore. At the time. Another government is actively fist-fucking themselves. Chads at the time.

Yeah, it turns out good old-fashioned racism and exploitation is how a tiny island ends up controlling half the world. So the Irish watch as their power stripped from them. good old fashioned racism and exploitation is how a tiny island ends up controlling half the world. Um, so the Irish watches their power stripped from them. Uh, they watched their food go to,

um, Island is pretty poor through all of this. Um, and you know, it's kind of what you get through a natural and never ending cycle of conflict between you and a neighbor who happens to be a global superpower. Right. Um, and revolutions and superpower. Right. Um,

and revolutions and horrible revolutionary violence. Um, pretty much most of their land was dedicated to farming. They're agrarian society as many societies were at the time. Agrarian. Very good. Very good. Uh,

people were hungry. I like that word. I don't know why. Agrarian. People were hungry, and they needed something cheap to eat. Nothing was cheaper than potatoes. But the thing is, is a lot of people have this misconception. The stupid fucking Irish people only planted potatoes.

That is not true. They also planted wheat, barley, oats, and a few other crops. The main difference is potatoes are very, very cheap. You just gave up like half of the Jameson recipe for the whiskey. Potatoes are very, very cheap. Everything else I just named

was worth money. So, the British, now being in charge, allowed the entire island to become dependent on the potato for food while exporting everything else so imagine um california they're known for what grown like avocado well they grow most of america's produce yeah but say they're only known for avocados yes that'd be great but avocados were suddenly very very cheap and that'd be fantastic and like 40% of everybody lived on

solely avocados but they also worked on other shit and the US government said okay you can keep the avocados but we're taking everything else no you're not gonna get any money for it that's effectively the same thing I'll trade this avocado for

that avocado. All we have are avocados. Yes. Gotcha. All right. A monoculture, as it's known. Now, because none of the farmers were reaping any of the benefits of their labor, they were poor, never going upward in the social strata, and forced to live on potatoes. That's just how the British did things. Same thing

happened in India and it led to horrible, horrible famines bordering on genocide. I'll call it genocide. Historians are split. That is when the potato blight hit. A bug swept through Europe that infested potato crops everywhere, killing potatoes off effectively,

rotting them, making them unpalatable. You couldn't eat them now this happened everywhere all over europe and it sucked but then they hit ireland who had a full 40 percent of their population entirely dependent on potatoes for food like that's all they ate it's a lot just potatoes too i imagine they had like a really good cookbook on potatoes so that's all they ate uh no they're just dirt poor um now like i just talked about the bengal famine it's frighteningly similar and perpetrated by the same people uh the great bengal famine in india uh or even the ukrainian holodomar well uh nearly one million irish starved to death with another one

million fleeing abroad many most to america this is when you know irish need not apply science but irish people aren't white enough for america because they're coming in so often so americans have to be racist against something right um now while all this is happening which is no secret to the british by the way because i mean they have to deal with the horrible death and starving to death. Remember, the people who are starving to death are also cultivating the crops they're selling. It goes in a vicious circle. The British know this is happening. They continue to export everything else while people continue to die.

Fuck them. It was a genocide. I don't give a shit if anybody disagrees with that. It was a genocide. If you have what is effectively a bounty of life available to give to an entire island and you decided not to,

you're willingly killing them. Agreed. If the British poured all the barley and the oats and everything else in Ireland, would people still starve to death? Yeah, sure. Probably. But not by the millions. Now, the main piece of literature

I use as a source for this is a book called The Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan, another three-namer. We got a lot of three-namers. Tim Pat Coogan. Tim Pat Coogan. It's not a bad name. Now, I will acknowledge that people disagree with some of his writing because he's not a historian.

He is a journalist for the Irish Times, another source I use for this. So, at least it's consistent. But this is from the book Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan. Quote, the Act of Union had, in effect it what it was intended to have it deprived ireland of political power the country sank into a state of decay mismanagement and absentee landlordism at best the great famine of 1840 was both the inevitable and most glaring example of the policy of depriving the irish of the ability to address their own problems and that's where a lot of this comes from um now the irish were not in a good spot to help themselves because they were completely stripped of any power

to do so um uh think of the great depression the united states okay people were hungry bad things were happening now imagine the government of the united states had no ability to stop anything that was happening like there's no new deal there's no welfare programs there's no soup kit there's not shit all that power is given i don't know fucking canada or something it's up to someone who doesn't even live near you to try to fix your problems for you that is what happened i don't shit the irish were not allowed to fix irish problems even though the problem that was happening was not irish um the active union also had the effect of what we in america would probably call a brain drain um now this happens a lot uh especially growing up in detroit they call it the they they gave this term to the brain drain when uh white people moved out of the suburbs which is incredibly racist but The brain drain?

So what it effectively means is because the British rule left Ireland effectively a backwater. So imagine if you were an engineer or a doctor. Right. Or some other highly successful thing that neither one of us are. Yeah. Would you want to move back to LA? No. I wouldn't want to move back to Detroit either i wouldn't want to move back to detroit either

they did this to a whole country okay so if you're an irish person who is incredibly smart incredibly gifted you became a doctor you became an engineer you became anything you weren't gonna fucking stay in ireland you're gonna go to america you're gonna go to london you're gonna go somewhere they pulled all of this away from Dublin, which is the capital of Ireland. What remained, however, in the hearts of the Irish was the philosophy of Wolftone.

That was, in order to break the chains that bound them to England, they would have to fight. But, Wolftone was smart enough to know that in a one-on-one fight, Ireland would simply not win. So that the key was to strike England when it was fighting a foreign enemy. Hence, French Revolution.

Hence, the date in this Easter Rising. Yes. We're getting there. I promise we're getting there. So far, Wolftone's... Wolftone's the fucking man. Yeah. There's actually quite a few historical Irish heroes

that are fucking magnificent that I just could not get into because there's just so many people floating around right now a few we'll talk about are both my militant and political heroes but Wolftone is the shit he had a lot of balls

everybody well everybody that wanted to fight the British when you're starving and you're scratching on a living so your overlord could steal it from you. But you're staying there. These guys stayed in fucking Ireland when they could have ran like everybody else.

Yeah. That's... I don't know. That's pure lion territory right there for going by our titles. We don't name any lions in our shows. We don't. We're like 95% donkey.

So. And wolf. And wolves. I hope he fights with wolves. That'd be great. He just has a cannon that shoots wolves at people. Yes. That'd be awesome.

Now we have to talk about a concept known as home rule. Because politics. Home rule? Home rule. Yeah. Now we have to talk about a concept known as home rule. Because politics. Home rule? Home rule. Yeah, we all have home rules. Kind of. Not at all the same thing. So, home rule in the British Empire, or the United Kingdom at this point, long story short,

it allows a colony of an empire to form its own government, be in charge of its own affairs, and you'd simply consider it a dominion of the British Empire. But you would effectively control yourself. It's kind of like being a state in the United States, but not really. Yeah. Like, you have to answer to somebody, but 99% of the time you're on your own. Anyway, this is what post-famine Irelandireland was itching for the irish home rule association was founded okay don't laugh it's founded by a guy named isaac butt yes

get it out slap now uh i'm sorry i am who i am that's funny i know my co-host uh it was found in 1870 uh now this association changed its name several times, eventually landing on the name the Irish Parliamentary Party under the leadership of Charles Parnell. Their goal was to force an Irish Home Rule Bill through the British House of Commons, and Parnell was really good at his job.

He even managed to get the Prime Minister of England on board, who promised Irish Home Rule would be the cornerstone of this entire government like you know uh jobs shooting french people and irish home rule like those are his his things there all right so we got home rules dude's finger girls blow other home rules my bad sorry that's beer's beer pong. Now, since you're listening to this episode, you probably already know this doesn't happen. Beer pong? Well, probably not, but also home rule.

Parnell was good at his job, but he was also very good at fucking other dudes' wives. Yeah. What an asshole. What a home wrecker. That fact came to light when a guy sued his wife for a divorce and named Parnell as his co-defendant.

This being the 1800s, that kind of shit was pretty hugely frowned on. Hold on, he sued his wife? Yeah, so to get a divorce, you had to sue them. Like, in court. Does the wife get executed or some shit if they lose? Not really. Like, not yet. Oh, fuck.

Now, if you were like 100 years ago in England, you had the best way of divorcing somebody is just chuck them off a bridge. She has no penis. Throw her. Like, you had to, like, prove in court, like, a legitimate reason. Yeah, mostly, yeah.

Because the guy always won. Right. So it'd be like, first off, I want to start off with this. Look at it. Just drop it on the table. As I'm sure the court has come to the ruling is women aren't really people here.

Alright, no, really. Give me my divorce. So the Prime Minister refuses to keep working with them after that, which kind of fucks up the home rule thing. Another problem with passing home rule was the House of lords house of lords the house of lords uh no not quite game of thrones in this shit but it's like game of thrones but really really stupid i haven't seen it yet so yeah it's because you're not really a person well jay we said we'd watch it dude the the last season starts literally tonight we're watching it we're watching it. Dude, the last season starts literally tonight. We're watching it,

we're watching it without you. I imagine so. I don't, I wasn't fucking like, oh. It's good. But Lord of, House of Lords.

House of Lords. So, I just see a Coke party. Think of it this way, think of it this way. If the House of Commons passed something, say,

a home rule bill, and then, so, it would then have to be passed up to the house of lords for the house of lords to also approve it sounds like a frat house now mind you the house of lords is not elected their nobility um so if the house of lords didn't want to grant it they could simply veto the goddamn thing and they did this for every single home rule bill that they saw why so a small side note here because i can't talk about the house of lords without like just trying to dunk on them as hard as i can and they're like the most british thing to ever exist um these are people with titles and i swear to god all of these are true. Now remember that as I talk to you. All of these titles are true.

Lord Rigglesworth, which sounds like a rich person's cat. Baroness Young of Old Scone, who sounds like she enjoys pale fucking pastries, stale pastries, and I shit you not, Lord Snape. What?

So yeah. Leviosa., yeah. Leviosa. So, yeah. These are the people shit canning Irish freedom. Lord Oldscone. Yeah. What do you say about this? Like, barren sandwich.

Peach scones are good. That had nothing to do with what we were talking about. All these inbred fucks with their eyes too close together. Their fucking eyes were high-fiving each other and shit. So it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that after getting routinely slapped down by bastards with the name of, and again, this is true, the Earl of Sandwich.

What? The Irish began to lose faith in government being able to give them what they wanted. Which brings us to the split in Ireland. If you know anything about recent irish history you know there's two irelands now i disagree with that because i fully believe that the partition of ireland is completely illegal and i am completely for a unified ireland but the protestants had actually originally supported home rule uh but that quickly changed when they realized uh if home rule happened that the regular irish people were allowed to vote like just

everyday catholics uh their own part like their own parliament would just almost instantly lead to an irish catholic parliament um they called this like rome rule like their their whole thing was like the pope will rule ireland the irish won't which thing was like the Pope will rule Ireland the Irish won't which is fucking stupid the Pope will rule Ireland because the Catholic government you know obviously they have to be tools of the Pope right oh my god so in the years

since the Union the presidents had benefited greatly by the loving hand of the British government because the British like to work with their subjects or bootleggers, whoever you want to call them. This led to a, the vast quantity of wealth being pumped in the country,

just almost specifically being helped by the Protestants. When the industrial revolution finally came around to Ireland, pretty much all the, the, the capital, the jobs, the infrastructure laid in the hands of the Protestants. All this is centered on the town of Belfast,

a northeast Irish province that is now known as Ulster. It is the one part of the country where the Protestants held a majority. It is also known as where all of the troubles happened, which, you know, the Irish sectarian violence from 19 whatever to current day um now the concept of ulster was kind of created in the brains of protestants um because even all of ulster is not part of northern ireland currently uh it's just any providence that's considered protestant majority is Ulster because they want to centralize all the money and power on themselves. Okay.

Like any rich minority does for the most part. I mean, look at apartheid South Africa or parts of America. Since they were the moneymakers in a very poor country, the population swelled to around 300,000 in less than a few decades as poor Catholics traveled to Northern Ireland for work. This created an obvious separation between the two groups as one depended on the other for jobs. And with that power...

Now, say what you will about management. If you hold all the power but also treat your employees well, there's a good chance people won't hate you for it. Yeah. They did not do that. No.

They're complete assholes. Oh. Now, the Protestants are pretty unhappy with the Home Rule bills, but they came completely goddamn unhinged as a third bill was submitted. Now, the bill was almost a seemingly sure thing to pass. So, there was a parliamentary reform bill that was passed in between the second and third bill that said, if you submitted a bill to the house of commons three times and it passed

the house of commons only to be shit canned by the house of Lords, that third time house Lords can do shit. So, so is that like a loophole? Consider it like a super majority. majority okay like if there's a super majority it can't be vetoed gotcha um so the prostitutes now knew their safety net was gone and the house lords couldn't save them so the prostitutes got together and signed a pledge now known as the ulster convent um that they would do everything in their power to stop home

rule from being imposed around a half million people signed this fucking thing. There's an urban legend that some people signed it in blood, but nobody can actually prove that. How'd they get a half a million people? I don't fucking know. That's good networking. They are legitimately better at organizing people before the advent of fucking lights

than people are with social media today. Can you hear me in the back? Just playing human megaphone all the way through a goddamn country. Yeah. Afterwards they've found what's known as the Ulster Volunteer Force, led by Edward Carson and James Craig.

Those aren't fun names. There was other vaguely militant unionist groups. There was the Orangemen and there was vaguely militant uh unionist groups those the the orange men and there was vaguely militant we'll throw oranges at you catholic uh groups known as the peep of the day boys yeah because because the thing was to go out at night and fuck people up and then retreat before the peep of the day and away we go skip skip skip it away we go and then you just fucking like you just like just go into the nearest bar

my job here is done it's like the the meme of tuxedo mask yes uh and the orange the orange men also have a really dumb, is it, nickname. So they're named after William the Orange, who defeated a Catholic king in Ireland. And the Catholics called the king that lost Seamus Akaka, which means James the Shit. Because he ran away oh my god and his son nicholas shart the liar pants nicholas mcshart pants yeah that's fucking awesome uh these names have been great so far yeah i'm really enjoying this fuck around with nicknames no he's great. No, he's a shit.

He's just a fucking shit. First of all, I thought I was great with team nicknames. You're not. You just don't like them. You want to name every trivia team we have Daddy's Darlings. I'm not going to do it. Until it happens once. No. That's what she said.

All right. I mean, I've had other names edward carson and james craig founded the ulster volunteer force now i'm gonna be throwing a lot of acronyms so the ulster volunteer force from now on will be known as the uvf uh their stated goal is to stop home rule by any means necessary up to and including fighting the goddamn british they're going to which is weird because like even if home rule would have passed they would still technically have been part of the uk they just hated fucking catholics that much the uvf yeah now i picture them fighting

with sunscreen despite the fact that carson openly talked about revolting against the british to stay with the british he had full support of the british conservative party which are now known as the tories yeah i would like to thank our producer for educating me in british politics and i i hate it thanks um now they had full government support they they advocated an open revolt against the government to stay with the government i don't even know the the mental gymnastics that you have to do for that to make fucking sense they're like they're like the sovereign citizens who want to like wage a guerrilla war against the government to like save their freedoms which is weird because those freedoms don't exist without

the advent of the united states government because our constitution does not exist in any other platform. It doesn't make any sense. They just really fucking hate Catholics. In my opinion. And this could be wrong. I wish people correct me if I'm wrong. They just really wanted to hold on to their power. They did not want the idea. Of possibly losing any power or wealth.

To even cross their minds. What a bunch of cockadees. And because they had full government support, they could do things like openly break the law. In what way? So Carson ordered all sorts of military drills for his new militia, but openly

drilling a private army is kind of fucking illegal, right? I would assume. So he just called them parades. He declared openly that none of this mattered because quote drilling is illegal the volunteers are illegal and the government dare not interfere with them don't be afraid of illegalities he said this in the middle of town square in broad daylight all right they even formed their own government without any vote, calling themselves the provisional government of Ulster with the intent of taking power should a home rule pass.

They were hoping that even if home rule passed, it would make one hell of an argument that the six Northern Protestant counties would stay separate. And now think of it, uh, kind of how Ireland exists today. The majority would become independent and the North would stay in the UK. It was from this idea that this idea of partition continues to this day and became mainstream then amongst unionists.

Catholics are their own paramilitary in response because this is how things happen. Do they have parades too? Oh, yeah. So, the Irish Republican Brotherhood was a nationalist society, helped form the Irish Volunteer Force. Now, the two were not synonymous. Exactly. Now, the Irish Republican Brotherhood has a long, long history that I will not go into all the way. that I will not go into all the way.

They are a nationalist organization who wants an independent Ireland and they see the IVF as a tool for that, but they're not completely in control of that. They're kind of sort of in control of them. Technically, the IVF was formed to ensure the UVF could not ruin home rule. It gets more complicated. The Republican Brotherhood

actually wanted to use them as an armed wing to establish their independent republic, but they didn't really tell them that part yet. In order to facilitate that, they recruited IVF leaders into their ranks. Which brings us to another paramilitary. My favorite paramilitary. The Irish Citizens Army, or the ICA.

Ooh, that's close to CIA. I see why you like it not quite uh so they were formed during a massive worker strike known as the dublin lockout uh which i'm not going to go into that's a good name so just think of this a whole bunch of unionists and factories wanted more pay better benefits everything else so they struck you know they they striked they they weren't going to go to work um the dublin metropolitan police was notorious at the time for being incredibly violent so they were used as strike breakers like they're going to show up they're going to beat your fucking ass your strikes and you're going to go back to work which brings us to a socialist and british army named James Connolly, who's my favorite person in the entire story.

He was such a well-known organizer. He toured New York and talked to Irish people there. He was all around really well-liked. He formed the ICA, even though it was incredibly small, to help protect Union demonstrators from police crackdowns. They honed their skill in massive street brawls, beating strike breakers to death with sticks and bricks. Yes.

To include cops. This is awesome. Holy shit. Both sides also began an arms race. What? As Ireland isn't exactly America, coming up with tens of thousands of weapons became pretty goddamn hard.

A group of unionists spearheaded by two officers of the British Army were pulling double duty for the UVF, managed to smuggle 30,000 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition from the German Empire. How do you smuggle that? So, in what became known as the Larn Gunrunning

Ring, through a series of trips, they were caught time and time by the Danish Navy, who trips uh they were caught time time and time by the danish navy who actually thought they were arming icelandic independence fighters which is weird um so nobody ever got in trouble for it who was iceland fighting denmark uh iceland was actually a territory of denmark at the time but iceland wasn't actually fighting them denmark was just a little worried about it oh okay gotcha this nobody ever got star wars is it star yeah no it's star wars but makes more sense okay and also i enjoy it

you take that back please i refuse now if you remember the two people i just named who were leading this part of the what british army yes now uh a lot of this gun running ring there was like dead drops and like fake ships full of uh not actual rifles to get caught and like decoys all sorts it was a highly led military operation because it was pretty much ran by the British Navy and Army. What the fuck? Yeah. Because they supported Unionists. And it was openly aided by Inuniform Army and British Royal Marines. Okay. So the IVF eventually got wind of this and said, fuck, we need to get some weapons of our own. Though their attempt was markedly less of a success.

Now remember, all the money is in protestant hands in northern ireland they don't got that money so they hope it's like pipe guns and shit well they pulled their money together and uh they also went to the british empire sorry the german empire and they got around 3 000 rifles nice uh all right uh we got five dollars, some lint, and... Jameson? Yeah. And the British Empire sold them shitty old black powder rifles that dated back to the Franco-Prussian War.

Oh, fuck. The guns they sold were older than Germany. Germany did not exist yet. That's fucking awesome. Despite the fact that they did not have a lot of money, the Childers family owned a goddamn pleasure yacht known as the asgard the pleasure yacht that they used to do their smuggling so they piled thousands i don't so i don't know how big this boat is oh you said a pleasure yacht pleasure yeah medium-sized boat okay so pleasure yeah like to go like to go on cruises not like

weird i'm not i'm not kink shaming we don't kink shameises. I'm not kink shaming. We don't kink shame here. No, I'm not kink shaming. I just want to know what the pleasure is. So the pleasure in this case is stuffing thousands of rifles inside of a small boat. Since there's a yacht and not a transport ship, the thousands of guns and millions of rounds of ammunition

pretty much took up all the space, forcing the crew to eat, sleep, and cook right on top of guns. That's rounds of ammunition pretty much took up all the space forcing the crew to eat, sleep, and cook right on top of guns. That's not fucking pleasurable. Which I feel like is how like half of Americans really want to picture things now. Probably. I just want to sleep on guns. Blankets and shit.

Like any other smart group of smugglers, they pulled into the health harbor in the middle of Dublin in broad fucking daylight. They pulled into the health Harbor in the middle of Dublin and broad fucking daylight. There they met the countess Markovich and a gaggle of kids from the Irish nationalist youth group called the Fianna who were, uh, towing along wheelbarrows and hand carts.

Remember middle of the broad daylight. Now, as you can imagine, a group of kids offloading thousands of guns from a yacht stuck out to the harbormaster pretty fucking immediately. Yeah. So he called the cops. And because, like, all the fucking guns, he also called for military assistance. Yeah, I was about to say, I imagine the cops would be like, whoa, whoa.

That's too much for me. I can't hit that with a brick. Yeah. So they sent a detachment from the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Are they dogs? Is this a whole bunch of Scottish Retrievers or something?

It's just a bunch of fucking dogs. Bark, bark, bark. Back off, you wee cunt. Bark, bark, bark. Heel. Oh, fuck. I'll sit down. When you leave, I'll start barking again. Heel. Oh, fuck. They're giving commands. I'll sit down.

When you leave, I'll start barking again. So when the cops and the soldiers showed up, things kind of turned into a clusterfuck. A group of cops refused to disarm the IVF, and a part of the cops tried to disarm them, but they were now outnumbered. Then the army showed up and started bayoneting people. What the fuck? And that's when the... They just rolled in there.

We got us surrounded with red hair. We're a bunch of assholes. So the IVF began fighting back with clubs and rifles. The cops began fighting between themselves and everybody else. Everybody's just punching everybody. I call upon the wolf.

Heel, Cinnamon's heel. Meanwhile, the British soldiers are just bayoneting everybody who isn't wearing the same coat as them. I can't imagine a dog bayoneting anybody. There's a tiny knife held between his teeth. Heel, Cinnamon. Now this brought a crowd of civilians to the harbor.

Fuck yes, they're fighting too. Who began to shit talk and throw rocks at the soldiers. This eventually caused the soldiers to say fuck this and retreat back to the barracks. Now as a twofer when they were retreating the civilians followed them and started shit talking for retreating. That's awesome.

Hey you fucking pussies you can take some guns. Oh where are you going? You gonna run away fucking pussies you could take some guns oh where are you going you're gonna run away now pussies uh and because uh the british soldiers uh do what they do they turn to kaneet and shot at them oh not so funny anymore no it's when the shooting was over three were dead and a further 38 were wounded. There are two arguments that can be made about this. One is the British government

obviously colluded with the UVF to arm loyalist paramilitaries in Ireland while cracking down on Republican factions. That part's kind of inarguable. The other is that

the Republicans wanted to get caught for propaganda value. Okay. I propose this because I believe a combination of these things. One, the Republicans got as close to the capital of Ireland

as possible to offload their guns in broad daylight. Another was, they probably could have gotten more money together to buy decent guns. And so they bought a paltry amount of shitty black powder weapons. They buy antiques. Yeah.

Now, the guy who owned the yacht was a veteran of the Second Boer War and would have definitely known the guns they were bought sucked. I wonder if he looked at it and went, oh god. I'm using my boat for this? Are the cops still fighting at this point? Like, they're just still fighting each other.

They're not even sure they're punching anymore. In the end, just one lone Irish cop punching himself in the face. I'm gonna beat your knuckles with my face. Now, this whole thing could be posed because the Republicans could bring themselves into a major, because the fucking internet and TV doesn't exist.

You gotta whip up propaganda value somehow. So they're gonna pull into the middle of a major port, let their shitty black putter rifles get confiscated be like look you didn't do those to the other guys while civilians are watching or nobody's expecting them to do that in the morning now middle of the day that didn't happen

no guns got taken and here's why the soldiers only managed to take 19 guns from Republicans out of 3000 uh which a court forced them to return because they've been illegally seized 19 guns from Republicans. Holy. Out of 3,000. Which a court forced them to return because they've been illegally seized. We need the 19 back. Yeah.

The 3,000. I guess since they illegally seized their illegally smuggled guns, they just canceled each other out and made the guns legal. I hope they looked at it and they went, we don't want these. Too long to do Vicarite. Fuck you, mom. They bought a bunch of fucking paperweights. If it was a propaganda mission, it succeeded. Due to the soldiers gunning down innocent people,

the IVF swelled with new recruits. And so the shooting happened at a street known as the Bachelor's Walk. And remember, Bachelor's Walk became a republican rallying cry that's my hallway in my house yeah that's just literally everywhere you go yeah the british government saw things were getting really stupid and and they started to get a little worried about how much better armed the uvf were uh and just openly talking about shooting literally everybody uh so they began to get uh a little worried about the army depots in ulster like shit they could just overrun these and take our shit too and we get machine guns and cannons in there and shit um so and recent intelligence said that

like they very well might be able to like take over carrick fergus castle which is like the main point for all their weapons. So Sir Arthur Padgett, the Commander-in-Chief of Ireland, was ordered to deploy his soldiers to secure various depots throughout Ireland. Now, they weren't supposed to do anything, just stand around, and they probably won't shoot at British soldiers. They weren't supposed to kick in doors and arrest people, nothing like that. It's literally as close to the definition as show of force could be.

Okay. But his soldiers refused. Hundreds of officers threatened to resign their commission in order to move against the loyalists. They faced an outright mutiny. So the government just fucking backed down. Fuck. Yeah. Going even further, the government promised to never use the army to enforce home rule on Ulster.

And only Ulster. Now, this ended up being completely broken, but we'll get there in some other future series. And then, in August 1914, World War I started. And then, in September, the third Irishish home rule bill passed and then all hell broke loose fuck and the cops are still fighting each other at the station one board police chief punching himself in the face you give up fuck you seamus you give up i just imagine the whole station fighting and you see the person at the desk just like answering the calls yes they're still fighting yes we'll get to it and that is where we'll pick up next week i'm so happy the

names of this episode have made made this episode for me so we're gonna do something different with our closing of this episode this is an irish episode uh the books were supplied to me by an irishman he's a very good fan of ours he has sent us so much he says liquor he says books i'm not gonna name drop him because i'm sure he doesn't want his shit to be known he sent us shirts um but he's also walking he's he's doing a overland march of iceland in support of a charity known as Dogs for the Disabled. The hashtag is Walk4Dogs with the number four. That's something we can get behind, too. We're wearing the shirts now.

And so this is a really, really cool charity. It supplies service dogs for the disabled. They pay nothing for it. I don't know anything about the Irish government. So this is the Republic of Ireland, not Northern Ireland. I don't know anything about how the Republic of Ireland works, but they receive no Irish government funding. All of it is charity.

They spend about 15,000 pounds on per dog per lifetime for these people for no cost to the person their waiting list is like 5 years and they only can train about 25 dogs a year maybe with more money

they might be able to get more dogs out to kids who need them he's doing a really good thing they operate a bunch of like $300,000 a year They might be able to get more dogs out to kids who need them. He's doing a really good thing. They operate a bunch of like $300,000 a year, 300,000 pounds a year. And they only have like five staff.

So like any bit of money helps. If it's dollars, loonies, fucking pounds, euros, it doesn't matter. If you were going to give us Patreon money this month, don't do it.

Give it to them. Yes. Because't do it. Give it to them. Yes. Because they deserve it. That is dogsforthedisabled.ie. It's an Irish website. So dogsforthedisabled.ie. Donate to them. They're good people.

They got their shirts. Mine says the Expedition Commissar. Way cooler. Yeah. Well, hold on. His says Captain Cosplay. Yes. us are way cooler yeah yeah well hold on his says captain cosplay yes so thank you for tuning in to our uh easter special tune in next week to hear the conclusion of our not so easter special part two hopefully the names are just as cool and good oh it gets interesting and the police are still fighting each other uh they fight somebody yes so until next week remember dogs for the disabled yes and later