Love this kinda thing, looks like emigration’s been around a long time!

Well done Michael, more like this and more details.

If we could turn back time, we would have told those brave, but misguided, 1916 volunteers..”lads don’t bother, your descendants in FF will bring shame and poverty to your country”

There is some much wrong with your patronising comment Simon. Ghandi borrowed many of his ideas from an Irishman, Daniel O’Connell, nothing new here. The problem is we’d tried the peaceful parliamentary route and been blocked, O’Connell and Parnell were jailed, military force threatened if further ‘Monster Meeting’s went ahead. The British government were not going to acceded to peaceful demands to disengage from Ireland.
The formation and arming of the Irish Volunteers, the nucleus of the 1916 Irish forces, happened in response to the formation of the UVF who were dedicated to opposing the democratic wish of the Irish people – and indeed of the Westminster Parliament – for home rule. It was these armed men who create partition not the Dublin Rising leaders.
As for trumpeting Ghandi’s example as a success , his approach allowed British rule to continue until 1949, I wonder if the 1.5 and 4 million people who died in 1943 Bengal Famine would have died if he had servered the link sooner? During WWII the British had more men garrisoning/policing India then they did fighting the Japanese! Yes Ghandi did finally remove the British from India but only when it became apparent that it was inevitable but in the aftermath came their own partition and the death of 100’s of the thousands of people with almost 15 million people becoming refugees and being forced to cross the newly formed border between Pakistan and India.

Tell the lads of 1916 not to bother as a man named Gandhi had a much better plan in the 30′s that would not have perpetuated the Irish cycle of violence for the next 80 years. We could have had an inclusive, multi denominational Ireland, where Protestants of the North would have been curtailed from Gerrymandering and oppression through the overall Catholic majority and the oppression of the Catholic Church would have been moderated and dissipated by the Protestant leaders. Given the natural decline of the empire, there is no doubt we would have achieved independence. We invented the word Boycott. But instead we herald a group of martyrs who unintentionally turned out to be the catalyst for the partition of our island. One of the most tragic events in our history.