Making the news is one James McClean footballer, Derryman who refuses to wear the poppy for his English football club in the run-up to the hundred year commemoration of the first world war. His stance is that “poppy wearing” commemorates all the British war dead and not just those who died in World War 1 and 2. He (McClean) also insists that the British army have a long history of oppression in Ireland and in particular his home town of Derry.
Being Irish I would tend to agree with him on the stance of the British army which actively fought against Irish freedom and the threat of armed invasion in 1921- forced the partition of Ireland against the wishes of the majority. Personally I wouldn’t countenance wearing the poppy and feel that it is unfitting for a Irish person to wear one. I don’t object to people going to Commemorations but see the poppy wearing as sucking up to the “Brits” and their imperialism of the past . My point of view is that the over 300,000 Irishmen who fought in the Great War fought for Britain and her empire and not for Ireland.
Another point to make what was World War 1 about ? Some Austrian Archduke who though of high rank wasn’t very popular at the time. WW 1 wasn’t fought for the freedom of anybody though it brought the end of many of the empires in Europe by the time it was finished. The “peace” that was made left Europe simmering for another war which came twenty years later. There was little justification for sending millions of men over the top to their death, one can remember the dead but not the reasons they were sent to war in the first place.