Irish War of Independence: The Road to Freedom

The 'fighting Irish' isn't just a saying - fighting for freedom is deep in their roots. Let's talk about that.
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[basichistory]

As an Irishman I found this video very informative and balanced, well done Simon.

[henrygill]

It's very rare to find an unbiased account of this conflict showing the atrocities of both sides and what was going on in the political background. Excellent as always.

[Murph]

If I remember correctly, this war pioneered the type guerrilla warfare tactics used by former colonies throughout the rest of the century. Ho Chi Minh even referenced the Irish war for Independence.

[terryenby]

Thank you so much for this. Too many English children are never taught about how we partook in Irish history and how badly we treated them.

[conorbuckley]

“Give us the future, we’ve had enough of your past. Give us back our country to live in, to grow in, to love” - Michael Collins 🇮🇪

[bikeman]

Irish history has been entwined with Britain for nearly 800 years. Most Irish ppl are familiar with this story well told here by Simon. I hope that more British ppl become more aware of their own history and its often dark, uncomfortable reality.

[dragonxx]

Thank you Simon... May you have the strength to continue to educate all of us on such important moments in history. Please consider covering the greek civil war after WW2. So many factions, so much confusion 😢

[michaelsinger]

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent Revolution inevitable.”

-JFK.

This Sums up the Irish’s fight for freedom rather well.

[williammclelland]

It's rare, amazing and very insightful hearing these stories from a neutral non bias point of view. Being brittish with alot of Irish friends you its really appreciated

[bosco]

I feel a range of emotions watching this.. it's only recently that people of the older generations rational enough to know that there was no point in spreading the hate that comes with telling tales of what happened in 1920 would bring have started speaking - every village, every family has a story of a black and tan raid, from my grandmother who told my father of the night they raided the home and checked the list that every house had to keep of its occupants. On the list was a male name, and the tans refused to believe that the name was that of the newborn in the house, and searched for whatever they thought they were looking for with a rage that left my gran under no illusions that if it had been a male of fighting age just gone out for whatever reason, he'd have been shot.

Or a story of an attack on a black and tan barracks reprisal where they drove into another village, took 14 men and teenage boys and put them in a truck bound, drove off and they were never seen again. Innocent men and CHILDREN, murdered and dumped in an unmarked grave. Both villages are within 10 mins from where I live, and like I said every single town/village has a story.

There was plenty done over the years by the Irish republican movement that's reprehensible, but what the crown forces did to the people of Ireland in and around 1920 makes me sad, for the innocent civilians, insensed that a Brittish government thought they could do it, proud that some brave men fought on hard enough to force an end to it, and a little confused as to how I should feel about it towards my British and Unionist friends today who are 100 years removed from it.

It's no wonder it's taken this long for people in the south to come to terms with it and move on.

[gingerandbroke]

"From one of the glorious victor's of the Great War, Britain had been reduced to looking like an abusive spouse brutalising an island that only ever wanted a peaceful divorce".

Well said Simon. 👏🇮🇪

[colm]

Simon you're a legend for this!! Any chance you could do a biographic on Collins, de Valera or some 1916 rising leaders?

[joeyr]

Yesss more Ireland vids!!! Thanks Simon and Co. ☕🚬

[depza]

Quote by Dan Breen on killing Black and Tans - " Yes I killed them, all killing is murder to me.I make no apologies for killing, and the only thing that I was ever really sorry for was the number that escaped"

'Any man that comes into my house or my country to try to take it over by force, I'm going to kill him and I'll use any and every means to do it and I'm not one bit sorry for it, to any man or God.'

- Dan Breen

[robk]

Thanks for taking the time to expose the world to irish history. Hope you cab cover the Irish civil War aswell. All your channels are amazing. Keep it up

[cosmolover]

Thanks so much for this!
An Aussie here 🇦🇺 (no Irish background, but English/German/Chinese ancestry).

Very well put together....although I do agree with the comments on here about the talking speed....I had to pause/rewind a few times to take the many pieces of information onboard
...so you'll need to slow the pace down a bit.
But other than that, brilliant stuff!

I'd heard bits and pieces about IRA and violence in Ireland, but never understood the whos, whats and whys.
I've always been fascinated with modern history, so I wanted to go back to the beginning of it all - wayyyy before the 60s and 70s - to find out exactly what happened and how the rumblings started.
This video has definitely helped piece it all together.

Many thanks again! 👌

[teddtbhoy]

You should do a full video on the Troubles, there aren’t many videos about it on YouTube.

[huwguyver]

As an Aussie I had heard a little bit about the Irish War Of Independence but had no idea how fubar things really got. Perhaps we inherited a lot of our history lessons from Britain. The Black and Tans sound like the worst kind of scumbags imaginable. It is kind of incredible just how utterly the British tore apart the fabric of Irish society back in the day. So damn sad.

Props also to Simon as a Brit for being willing to highlight some of the more brutal and unflattering aspects of British history. It is an often underrated trait, being equally willing to call out the misdeeds of members of your own in-group (in this case nationality) as you would the misdeeds of those outside it. Some might view that as disloyalty- it is actually integrity.

EDIT: I initially implied that the War Of Independence was part of the Troubles, but apparently that is not accurate.

[gruntsffs]

Having studied Irish and British history for years, your delivery of such a tinderbox of a topic was amazing as usual !!!
Not sure if you’d recommend this book, back in 1995 when I was deployed to Bosnia, I came across a book called “Rebels, the Irish Rising of 1916”. It’s definitely slanted to the Irish point of view at the time. There’s also a good deal of poetry and memoirs from Collins, Pierce, de Valera, and many other Irish prisoners of the time.
Keep em coming Simon!!!

[heliotropezzz]

3 books that made a deep impression on me as regards Irish history were 'Hell or Connaught' by Peter Beresford Ellis about the Cromwellian conquests in Ireland and the aftermath in terms of laws passed against the native Irish, the plantations and enforced migrations, and in the 19th century the books by Asenath Nicholson, American methodist social observer and philanthropist who visited Ireland just before the famine to investigate the conditions of the poor and who came back again during the famine to observe, record and help out. The conditions of life for many native Irish even before the famine were dire and unjust, and her travels and observations indicate how this was enforced. The native Irish were blamed for their own conditions but there was no way out for them. Improvements to their properties, land and cultivation merely meant their rents would be increased. They were largely socially shunned, regarded with contempt, discriminated against and exploited by the landowning class and churchmen, who were protestant descendants of planters. Even before the famine, many native Irish lived on the edge of it, relying on potatoes and little else for their meals and unable to get any steady employment. Often animals kept would need to be sold to pay rents. Hers was one of the few, observed and recorded written accounts of that period, and there are no real photographs of the famine period. She came with no particular bias except to bring the truth of the bible (methodist version of that) to Ireland, so it's all the more remarkable that she came to feel so deeply for the native Irish poor and to record the heartlessness, injustice and ignorance in her own kind in the landlord class. Her accounts are very heartbreaking. Periods of violence come and go in history, but it is the grinding awful lived experience from generation to generation that makes the history most tragic in my mind.