Here is an article found on the RTE news site. The article is entitled: ‘Take them out and shoot them’ – Irish State executions.’
As most will know, ‘Raidió Teilifís Éireann’ is the national broadcaster of the Republic of Ireland. Ulster Protestants have no reason for loving this organisation since it has been the voice of a State which in one form or another and to one degree or another, throughout its existence has waged war on our Protestant heritage here in Northern Ireland.
It began broadcasting in 1926 from its Dublin base. It has been the voice of the Dublin governments and it has reiterated their claims of jurisdiction over all of Ireland, to the vexation of the British citizens of Northern Ireland.
I have often read the historical articles mounted on its site, ever bearing in mind the bias that they would naturally contain. I did so for I have a love of Irish history, indeed the people of Ireland, believing that the national religion of the Republic’s twenty six counties, Roman Catholicism, is a usurper of the truth of God which came to this island in the days, and before even that, of Patrick.
Without a shadow of doubt, the message of Patrick was essentially that of the apostles, with the exception of some errors, which were the beginnings of the darkness which resulted in the rise of Popery, which had crept into the faith and practice of 5th century Christianity.
I have given a full account of Patrick’s own testimony, or ‘Confession’, which may be seen in a series of articles under the title, ‘The Bible in Ireland’
Because of this, I read with interest the aforementioned RTE article of events in 1922 during the civil war which had resulted from the acceptance, in December 1921, of the terms of peace between the government of the United Kingdom and the Irish Republican Army, the IRA. The peace agreement was called ‘The Anglo-Irish Treaty’.
Out of that treaty arose the ‘Irish Free State’, an entity independent from the United Kingdom but within the British Empire, in December 1922.
The terms of the treaty were not accepted by all in the IRA and a section of it engaged in war against the ‘pro-treaty’ party, which was led at that time by men such as Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. The civil war lasted from 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923.
The atrocities inflicted by both sides upon each other far exceeded anything that the British forces were ever alleged (most often falsely) to have inflicted upon the Irish republicans involved in their unconventional warfare against the British Army, rightly termed ‘terrorism’.
The article also sets out incidentally, the unforeseen problems that men run into as they seek to implement the simplistic notions regarding national reformation that ‘revolutionaries’ often entertain!
The whole episode highlights the treacherous character created in Ireland by Roman Catholicism. It is a religion of lies and deceit, hypocrisy and double-dealing. That has been epitomised by the acts of wickedness which have been carried out for centuries by Irish Roman Catholics against the interests and concerns of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In so acting they were deceived into believing by their clerical leaders that they served God and truth, but were in fact serving the “god of this world (who) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them,” 2 Corinthians 4:4.
May you find in this article cause for pitying the Roman Catholic people, not just of Ireland, and praying for them that they may be awakened as were our forefathers in the day of the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Ivan Foster