Versailles #25: OTD 21st Jan 1919 - An Irish Eruption
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2019
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Irish problem had not solved itself. Ever since the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, the neighbouring island had provided troubling signs of a future catastrophe, and with the proclamation of the Dáil or Irish assembly coinciding with an attack launched on Royal Irish Constabulary policemen, the catastrophe seemed to have arrived. The conflict which followed did not erupt evenly across the island. Instead it took the form of several ripples; a murder here, a robbery there, a high profile assassination somewhere in between.
It was however, an unmistakable fact that Ireland was becoming more volatile. With the political mandate vested in Sinn Fein, violent Irish nationalism had reached a level of popularity and acceptance previously unknown, and this in turn meant that Britain faced an island mobilised more completely against her occupation and domination than ever before. Such facts were painfully awkward at a time when David Lloyd George was attempting to cast British rule as benevolent and civilising, as a force for good and as a facilitator of self-determination movements across the globe. Why, critics could ask, was London then ignoring its closest neighbours, in their quest to attain independent self-rule?
These questions and so many more were etched into what became, by the summer of 1919, the Irish War of Independence, but the opening shots, in politics and on the battlefield, were fired on this day 100 years ago, when Ireland launched its bid for independence on a scale and with a passion never before seen or imagined possible...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, my name is Zach Twomley, and you're about to listen to episode 25 of the Versailles Anniversary Project. |
| 0:07.2 | That's pretty cool. We're 25 episodes into this enormous project, and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. |
| 0:14.7 | We go into so much detail with all the stuff that we're talking about here, and one of the great things about all of these episodes is that they form a very important part of the |
| 0:25.1 | context for the story of what happened a hundred years ago obviously that's |
| 0:29.5 | why you're listening to them because you're interested in that but maybe |
| 0:31.9 | you're also interested in doing something else with this era maybe you're |
| 0:34.8 | interested in having your own say and how things went down. |
| 0:42.8 | And in talking with people who are just as nerdy, if not nerderier, super nerdy in fact, |
| 0:48.9 | about this era too. Maybe you even are interested in the idea of seeing if you could do better, |
| 0:56.0 | seeing if you could take a stab at negotiating with people and trying to get justice for a country of your choosing or a country maybe that you never even known existed before. Maybe you want to create a country |
| 1:01.0 | from scratch from the ruins of the First World War. All these possibilities and so much more |
| 1:05.5 | await in the Delegation Game. The Delegation game is something which I invented from my crazy brain several |
| 1:12.6 | months ago. We recently launched the delegation game on the same day that we opened the Paris |
| 1:17.4 | Peace Conference officially and oh boy has it taken on a life of its own. I really can't express |
| 1:22.6 | how excited I am for this thing. It has massively exploded. There are now 35 people taking part. We have a |
| 1:29.8 | Facebook group for the different delegates, where they all introduce each other and talk to each other, |
| 1:34.6 | but the most fun is had in the different Facebook Messenger chats that have been set up for all |
| 1:39.4 | sorts of different interests, be they America, be they political machinations, such as a constitutional monarchy, |
| 1:46.8 | sorting out Asia, sorting out things among the smaller nations, all sorts of things. |
| 1:52.5 | It's really fun, and if you're interested in checking into the Hotel Twomley, trust me it |
| 1:57.3 | exists in this fabricated version of history, at least I think it does, |
| 2:04.0 | then do check out the delegation game by going to patreon.com. For it slash when diplomacy fails, or wdfpodcast.com forward slash delegation game, |
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