Ireland's Unfinished Revolution

Music via Epidemic Sound
Calling on the Hill - Moorland Songs
A Way of Life - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
Dark Moment - Pollyanna Maxim
Poisoned - Ruiqi Zhao
Shapes of Shadows - Franz Gordon
The White Birch - Moorland Songs
Altostratus - Franz Gordon
Loss and Love - Amaranth Cove
The Joyful Mystery of Being - Ave Air
Alaskan Suite - Lennon Hutton
Image Of Contisalem - DEX 1200
District 12 - DEX 1200
6th Third Eye Chakra Kundalini Breathing - 369
Orthosie - Ben Elson
Reve d'enfant - Magnus Ludvigsson
Valse triste Nicoise - Magnus Ludvigsson
Introspectif - Magnus Ludvigsson
Loss and Love - Amaranth Cove
Traces of Absence - DEX 1200

Sources:
Buckley: Irish Easter Rising of 1916
Donoghue: Easter 1916
Buckley: Mission Accomplished?
Coogan: The Troubles

[HorsesOnYT]

To clarify: Patrons will now get early access to my videos, in addition to their other benefits. This will not affect the YouTube channel. Everything will continue as usual over here.

Whether you sign up for Horses Patreon or not, it makes me so unbelievably happy that people even watch these videos. I sincerely cannot thank you enough. I make videos that often get me into YouTube trouble, and I will continue to do so. The Patreon page allows me to create without caring too much about this trouble, or the needs of advertisers/algorithms/etc. I just want to make the stuff I want to make. THANK YOU everyone for your ongoing support.


-Michael

[carance]

There’s a deep irony in the BBC owning the footage of the IRA

[_xeere]

"The *British* Broadcasting Corporation owns all footage of the IRA."
Irony at its finest.

[PaullyRobots]

I don't know if I've said it before, but your font & typeface game is second to none.

[callu]

From Ireland, it’s always strange to see long form documentaries on YouTube from, don’t take this the wrong way, foreigners. Thank you for this and thank you for your work. For those interested my great great grandfather was Thomas Ashe, one of the first hunger strikers. Thanks again

[Lunarbet]

11:28 That man was James Connolly and he was not strapped to the chair because he was disabled. He was strapped to the chair because he was so badly injured from the fighting that he couldn’t stand. Doctors estimated he had about 1-2 more days to live.

[breezy]

I feel like people from non-colonized nations will never understand the pain and suffering that comes from colonisation. My parents' country and its people still face the repercussions of almost a century and a half of colonisation. I say this as an Algerian, not an Irishwoman. In France, we barely touched upon the subject in school. But I think that's why one of the only (or the only?) vehemently pro-Palestinian European nations is Ireland.

[jackmolloy]

As an Irishman I really don't like how people interchange the words "British" and "English". King James I was Scottish, most of the colonizers especially in Northern Ireland were Scots. The British as a whole colonized us, not just the English.

[NinjaGrrrl]

I have very strong feelings about this, and was hesitant to watch: but you did a beautiful job. The last line is perfection.

[colindunnigan]

Small nit: the man the English put in a chair before executing back in 1916 was James Connolly. Having been injured in the fighting, he was unable to stand and was, hence, put in a chair. So, he wasn't "disabled" in the sense of having been born with a disability, he was "disabled" because he'd been wounded. Which in no way changes the mockery of justice which lead to his death.

[Joxer]

(Irish postgraduate student in history here) I Noticed you cite Tim Pat Coogan in the description and need to point out that he is not a historian and is viewed very poorly by all Irish historians academics worth their salt. His books are polemics with little to no references to actual academic works.

For general accounts of Irish history I would instead recommend tye Cambridge History of Ireland (4 volumes), Ireland, a history by Bartlett, Modern Ireland by Foster, or the Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish history.

If you specifically want to look at the Troubles and the IRA that existed at this time then look at A Broad Church (2 volumes), Northern Ireland 1921-2001: Political Forces and Social Classes by Paul Bew, Armed Struggle by Richard English, and The Secret Army by Bower Bell.

[SippingVino]

You have the fastest most deserved growth in YouTube I’ve ever seen. Quality content and to see you go from 100k and eventually 1M is nothing but amazing. Standing ovation

[CRAiCED.]

I've been enjoying this channel and listening to your stories while I work and hey guess what you just uploaded an hour long, highly polished and informed video on my country! Awesome stuff, greetings from the wet & windy South West Coast of Ireland 🇮🇪

[Bighoth]

Being Irish there are some serious problems with this video. The SDLP and John Humme has been completely written out of the story of the civil rights movement and been replaced with the original IRA which was practically defunct by the 60s. Also the insinuation that the Irish Defence Forces were commanded by British forces at 41:45 is completely unfounded which coincides with a broader problem of completely ignoring the Republic of Ireland as if the IRA was the only Irish involved in the whole island.

[Joxer]

Ok a few major and minor mistakes in here. Overall I get the vibe that this documentary was a rushed passion project as there are some massive oversights and inaccuracies throughout. I understand you're not Irish, but at the same time if you make a documentary you need be a lot more ontop of the history and events. I will say your editing is brilliant and with greater attention to the literature out there this could have been a very solid overview of the IRAs history.

When speaking of Irish attempts to achieve self-government you seem to be confusing Sinn Féin with the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). The former never took seats in Westminster and was only a major political force after the 1916 Rising. The IPP stood in Westminster and sought home rule (devolved government) and actually were successful in achieving it....but WW1 broke out ans it never came to be.

The Irish Volunteers did not declare ireland an independent state. The Irish Volunteers had a major split over the question of participation in WW1. The vast majority of the force followed the lead of John Redmond (IPP leader) and joined the British Army, believing it would assist with the home rule movement. They were never forced by the British government to do so as you incorrectly state. A small fraction of the Volunteers remained in Ireland and were under the leadership of Eoin MacNeill. An even smaller fraction of this group that remained in ireland participanted in the 1916 Rising after a false document stated MacNeill ordered it. MacNeill found out about this document and succeeded in stopping all but 1, 000 Volunteers from participating in the rising.

There was no such thing as the "Irish Volunteer Force Declaration of Independence", it was simply the Proclamation of the Republic, which was written and signed by the military council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). To be honest its a massive oversight that you never mentioned the IRB when in reality they were the organisation that instigated the rising and brought together members of the various armed groups (Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, etc) that took part in the fighting. You overstate the power and role of the Volunteers throughout the video when in reality they were pretty much just manpower to be used by the brains of the operation in the IRB.

The Easter Rising in itself didnt galvanise a movement for independence amongst the Irish population. The rising was initially received by the citizens extremely poorly, with them being extremely angered by the destruction of the city and the deaths of civilians (mire civilians died that British army or irish rebel forces). It was only with the execution of the leaders that popular support for independence was sparked.

Again on Sinn Féin and there role in republicanism. The 1916 Rising was mistakenly referred to as the "Sinn Féin Rising" by the papers, with members and their leader, Arthur Griffith, being imprisoned even though they had no role in the rising. The Dáil of 1919 (the breakaway Irish parliament) was actually highly functional and not just a symbolic act. A large aspect of the success during the war of independence was the act of ignoring British civil and political systems, with the Dáil courts being adopted by many citizens to settle legal problems.

Small point so not a biggie, the volunteers were not initially the armed wing of sinn féin, rather, they had the same priorities and objectives. The actual outbreak of the war of independence was due to a number of volunteers acting against the ruilings of the Dáil to operate on a non violent basis, with them carrying out an ambush on Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) police officers and killing them at Soloheadbeg. Only during the war did the Volunteers/IRA fall under closer control of the parliament.

A bit strong saying the Dáil was destroyed after the treaty. The Dáil remained but a Governor General representing the King replaced the president role that was used during the War of independence.

It is so so very wrong to insinuate that the wolfe tone societies and IRA started the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement operated as an umbrella with all kinds of nationalists, republicans, militants, pacifists, and Protestants seeking to end discrimination against Catholics. John Hume and Bernadette Devlin were key figures in this movement, much much more so than Gouldling and the IRA, and should be mentioned.

As an Irish person I have to say that it is deeply wrong and offensive to claim the civil rights movement was in any way at fault for the Troubles. The civil rights movement did not "spin out of control", it was wholly peaceful and campaigned for equal rights. The sectarian Northern Ireland state and it's apparatus cracked down with violence upon protestors.

You say "Royal Forces" and "Royal Police". This is a bit confusing considering the British monarchy and all that. The Royal Ulster Constabulary or RUC should be used instead.

The IRA split of 1969 was not really a political vs militant strategy dispute, it was a split over in the influence of marxist leninist ideology and its connections to other socialist/communist insurgencies, as well as the policy of abstentionism from the Irish Dáil. The Provisional IRA were more broad church/conservative and wanted to continue to abstain, whilst the Official IRA wanted to partake in politics and put forward a socialist front. Whilst the Officials were more open to peaceful routes, both organisations were violent.

The Provisional IRA were not hard leftists, they were loosely ideologically socialist. The Official IRA were hardleftists.

You use the term Loyalist very loosely. Refering to the British Army and the RUC as loyalist is correct in the sense that they were pro Uk and pro Northern Ireland, but not in the true sense of the term. Loyalist is used to refer to more militant forms of unionist expression by civilians and paramilitary groups.

The Provisional IRA didnt abandon political means after Bloody Sunday as they had been solely commited to violent means so there were no peaceful means to abandon!!!! They split with the Officials due to their overly political outlook that the Provisionals thought detracted from the armed struggle. Only in '81 did the "armalite and ballet box" policy of militant and political policy come to the forefront of Provisional strategy.

Airey Neave was not the leader of the Conservative Party, he was shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Margaret Thatcher, one of the most famous British Prime ministers of all time was the conservative leader at the time. I'm sorry but how can you not know this and try to make a comprehensive video about the IRA?

In discussing the involvement of the USA you seem to conflate the IRA and Republicans with the Irish State. The British did not cut off of Ireland. Whilst in the early years of the Troubles they would not allow the Irish government to get involved in mediating or ending the conflict, since the early 70s the Irish and British governments met routinely to pave a way forward and end the violence. The Irish state was in no way acting alongside the IRA, it routinely was at odds against it.

The European Union did not give london a "more integrated role" in Ireland. Whilst they remained irelands main trading partner, the joining of the EU actually brought about the begining of a movement away from the United Kingdom, with Ireland becoming less solely reliant on its neighbour for economic improvement.

Sinn Féin did play a part in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement, but again you need to acknowledge the role of the Social Democratic Labour Party in the process. They were the most popular nationalist party at the time and dwarfed Sinn Féins political support.

Not really an inaccuracy, but saying Sinn Féin have significant support is an understatement. They are the largest party in the Irish State and will likely be the major party in the next government. More significantly they are the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assemy (devolved parliament of Northern Ireland) and are the first nationalist/republican party to elect a First Minister and be the largest party in Northern Ireland.

[aiddzanzan]

Thank you very much for addressing our long and dark history in such a matter of fact and human fashion. One of the best videos on the topic i have ever seen.

[carpeimodiem]

It's finally here!

Thanks Michael... Good to meet your face! It contains a fantastic brain, I must say 👍

*Hooray 4* 🐎🐎🐎🐎

[dairallan]

The erroneous interchanging of England/English and Britain/British creates an extremely poor historical narrative.

These are different terms with different meanings and in the context of Irish history, its a very important distinction.

[noahh]

Great video bro..as a journalism major, and being part Irish, I appreciate your attention to detail and your non biased approach to this subject. You deserve to be a huge youtuber!

[CommonerSense]

Even though the terms "Britain" and "England" were originally muddled in nationalist and imperialist English/British propaganda, it's historically inaccurate to refer to Britain as "England" when discussing anything after 1707. Referring to the Acts of Union as the "English Act of Union" is confusing at best, misleading at worst. Are you referring to the 'Act of Union with Scotland' that was passed through the English parliament, or the 'Act of Union with England' that was passed through the Scottish parliament?

Discussing the Orange Order or UVF without acknowledgement of their primarily Scottish and Ulster Scot founders is also a big miss, especially amongst the repeated mislabelling of Britain in this period as "England". Scottish protestants were (and still are) among the most firebrand unionists in both Britain and Ireland.

If the subject was the Anglo-Norman invasion or Cromwell's atrocities in Ireland, then England would be an accurate label. However, everything Britain has done in Ireland since 1707 (or even further back in 1609, when James VI & I began the Plantation of Ulster) warrants a framing that acknowledges the role Scotland played in British imperialism, and the emergence of a British unionist identity that was central to Britain's colonial rule in Ireland through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Britain's crimes in Ireland were perpetrated by leading offenders from both England and Scotland, and ignoring that does a disservice to any attempt to understand Irish history and anti-colonial nationalism.