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January 13, 2006

Comments

Garfield

Andrew,
It is generally accepted that St. Patrick was not a Breton but was born to Roman parents living in Britain and he actually learnt Oirish and Oirish customs.

Madradin Ruad

It is generally accepted

A meaningless contribution. Until recently it was generally accepted that Denis Donaldson was a true son of Erin. For centuries it was generally accepted that the earth was flat.
It was generally accepted in the USA that the British were "occupying" Northern Ireland.

Garfield

Madradin,
Andrew states that St. Patrick is British as fact. Pointing out it's not as simple as that. Any chance you can answer the question on the Christian Brothers thread?

PopeBuckfastXVI

Universal Exports... rofl, love it! By the by is your spellchecker broken? It's spelled Irish, not Oirish.

United Irelander

Garfield is right of course. St Patrick was a Romano-Briton.

Madradin Ruad

Nobody Knows for sure who Saint Patrick was. One of the few things we can be certain of was that the "Irish" who "never did nuthin'" were aggressive slavers long before the African Slave trade.

Madradin Ruad

Will look at the CB Thread later Garfield :)

Garfield

I hope the answer is worth the wait :)

Madradin Ruad

Andrew states that St. Patrick is British as fact.

No he doesn't - he wrote

a Brit who introduced Christianity

and that he was a

British patron saint

Which are very different from your claim Garfield.

He was an outsider who, if he had come as a Padre to a British regiment would have been referred to by republicans as ... a Brit !


Oxonian

Evidence suggests Patrick didnt even introduce Christianity to Ireland

Madradin Ruad

Nothing shocking about that oxonian.

Weapons of Crass Instruction

“Belfast City Council has decided to give British taxpayers' money (how many souls in West Belfast and South Armagh legitimately pay taxes? Mmm) to fund a St. Patrick's Day carnival on Royal Avenue”

Errr no Andy. BCC are going to use Belfast ratepayers , [of which I’m one], money to fund the St Pats day carnival so South Armagh doesn’t come into the equation, and believe me, householders which pay rates to BCC would be the majority of inhabitants in West Belfast. The BCC funded carnival is also actually set for ‘Speakers Square’ in front of Belfasts Customs House and not, as you suggest, Royal Ave.

Facts, dear boy, facts.

While were on the issue of facts I note your sneeringly speculative thesis regarding the origins of Irelands Patron Saint. Check out the origins of St George. Presumably he’s one middle eastern individual that you don’t mind having an association with Britain?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George

Madradin Ruad

Update on the Derry GAA situation - being given 7 acres at a knockdown price, whinging because they will have to fund their own development.
The Council should have in the deeds that if the site is ever sold on or redeveloped commercially ALL profits return to the Council.

Andrew McCann

'BCC are going to use Belfast ratepayers , [of which I’m one], money to fund the St Pats day carnival so South Armagh doesn’t come into the equation, and believe me, householders which pay rates to BCC would be the majority of inhabitants in West Belfast..'

Oh, so the expenditure through the Barnett Formula doesn't apply to nationalist political orgies, then?

'A majority of households in West Belfast pay rates.'

Proof please. My comment was curiosity mixed with conjecture. It doesn't merit statistical proof. Your response does!

Location is irrelevant. It would be preferable if such an event was held on Rockall.

As for St George, he and Omar Sharif are two middle eastern gentlemen I don't have difficulty associating with.

hairierarea

I'm confused - if I read this correctly Andrew is making the point that 'Oirishness' is somehow a modern constructed identity with political overtones etc that has been eloquently made by revisionist historians. Yet, then he makes the blunt assertion that Patrick was a 'British' saint as if that is some sort of natural category, some thousand years before such a state existed, and even longer before any national identity existed.

Biffo

For the record, as people seem confused by this.

St Patrick was British, although a Romanised Briton. That's why he spoke Latin and preached the religion of Rome.

He would have needed to understand and speak Irish.

At that time, the English, lowland Scots and Ulster prods were still German, as they hadn't actually left Germany, by that stage.

Garfield

Biffo,
he would have been a Briton not British. The term "British" is a more modern construct.

Pedants of the world unite.

hairierarea

Yeah my point is just that it is suggested that republicans should be embarassed by the fact that Patrick was born in the physical space of Britain. But insofar as they are anti-British, isn't it the nation-state that emerged well after Patrick's time that they have a beef with? Just seemed a cheap point to make.

T.Ruth

Patrick was indeed very likely to have been a Brit born near Dumbarton in Scotland. His father Calpurnius was a deacon and his mother Conchessa was reputed to be a relative of St.Martin of Tours. He is of course a Saint of the Celtic Church of Ireland and established an evangelical church in Ireland which relied on the Bible alone for its authority and inspiration.
I think that on the Sunday nearest St.Patrick's Day every one of the individual Orange lodges and Black Preceptories should march to the centre of their community,be it hamlet,village,town or city and hold an appropriate religious service which would do our Patron Saint honour. Such a memorial would contrast vividly with the beer swilling,republican, tricolour waving anti -Protestant orgy that will evolve at the front of Belfast City Hall on the appointed Day.
T.Ruth

Ultonian Scottis American

Partick's "Letter to Coroticus" deplores the slave-raiding done by a British king against Ireland.

The peoples living between Hadrian's and Antoinine's Walls (roughly the current Scottish-English border and the Forth-Clyde line) were Britons in every correct sense of the word, descended perhaps from the Pretani, the P-Keltic pronounciation of Q-Keltic Cruithne. Although never an integral part of the Roman Empire, and converts to Christianity, they were nevertheless encouraged, trained and equiped by the Romans as a buffer between the Romanistas and the more barbarous Caledonii to the North. From their capitals of Alclud and Dun Eidyn in the North, the Gwyr Y Gogledd were the only Christian military force in Britain after the fall of Rome. They held off simultaneously the Irish invaders from Ulster & Argyll, the Picts from the north, and Germanic peoples from the Continent. They were Keltic, not Gaelic, and certainly not Anglo-Saxons. They were Christian, but not Romanistas.

They were a nation in the sense of a shared language and culture, which eventually incorporated the centres of Carlisle (in Rheged), and York. They contributed much to the reality behind the lengend of Arthur.

Their mindset carried on through later Ages, giving us the Border Reivers, Moss-troopers, and the Ulster Scots.

Two thousand years of this lifestyle made the Scotch-Irish the perfect people to act as a buffer between hostile Indians and genteel Tidewater settlements in Colonial America.

Though today they may speak English, this comes after a long progression from Scots, before that Gaelic, but even before that what can be described perhaps as Cymric, or Old Welsh.

Donnie

"Whatever the odious spectacle of seeing hundreds of inferior beings, with the absence of moral rectitude that comes from supporting mass murderers..."

The same could be said about "the Twelfth"! This "Christian" organisation has swapped the suit and umbrella for a Rangers jersey and a blue bag from the offie!

Weapons of Crass Instruction

“Oh, so the expenditure through the Barnett Formula doesn't apply to nationalist political orgies, then”?

That’s a red herring Andy. The Barnett Formula is used to decide how much the devolved administrations get from central government. In case you haven’t noticed there is no devolved administration in the wee six. My initial point rests, the St Pats day carnival will be funded by Belfast ratepayers.

'A majority of households in West Belfast pay rates.
Proof please. My comment was curiosity mixed with conjecture it doesn’t merit statistical proof. Your response does”!

West Belfast has a housing owner/occupier % of 42.1%, [source www.wbef.org/census], this, when taken in conjunction with private business ownership and rented housing stock from private landlords, clearly demonstrates that the majority of the west Belfast population are ratepayers.

“Location is irrelevant. It would be preferable if such an event was held on Rockall”

If that’s the case then why bring locations such as west Belfast and south Armagh, [both areas with high nationalist constituencies], into the equation?. Why not wonder how many souls in East Belfast and North Down legitimately pay taxes?

“As for St George, he and Omar Sharif are two middle eastern gentlemen I don't have difficulty associating with”

Glad to see that your offensive, sweeping and simplistic generalizations of people from that area have exceptions. However the inconsistency doesn’t really surprise me in that it’s fully consistent with your other contradictions regarding evasiveness of Unionist violence.

Andrew McCann

WCI

There is no proof in any of those surveys that the inhabitants of West Belfast, as a collective majority, legitimately pay taxes, espcecially when you consider how many 'private businesses' the Rafia have their fingers in.

The Barnett Formula applies whether Belfast has a devolved administration or not. However, even if we apply your 'ratepayers formula', the majority of ratepayers in Belfast (working age population) would be Protestant. Why should their money go to fund a republican orgy designed to denigrate the state in which they live?

'How many souls in East Belfast and North Down pay taxes'. A hell of lot more than those in West Belfast, given that neither area is contaminated to anywhere near the same extent by the outworkings of terrorist influence in the local economies.

'Glad to see that your offensive, sweeping and simplistic generalizations of people from that area have exceptions.'

Whereas nationalist/republican Oireland has no exceptions.

 Madradin Ruad

There is one barometer we could use - TV license Tax evasion - as previously discussed.

Frank

Nice to see the Brits using the Irish language like "gibberish" and "Mc". Watch out now AmcC - its catching, so off you go now and have yourself a wee "dram" of "whiskey galore".

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