‘Scum’ or ‘slum birds’, the insults keep coming down the years
■ In the context of England rugby coach Eddie Jones’s apology for describing the Irish as scum, I recall a similar remark from another time, another place.
The British prime minister Herbert Asquith visited Dublin on September 26, 1914. He shared a platform with John Redmond.
He clearly indicated he had accepted the demands made by Redmond for an Irish Brigade in World War One; Mr Asquith went further and supported the formation of an Irish Army Corps.
Lawrence Parsons (of Birr) was appointed by Lord Kitchener to lead the 16th Division of the new army. Parsons claimed: “I am an Irish Man, the division has every claim to be called Irish.”
Mr Parsons went on to say he had spent a considerable amount of time selecting officers who were almost all Irishmen of every political religious creed.
Redmond had great difficulty in recruiting and had considerable trouble from the start with the War Office, but his principal antagonist was Mr Parsons, who at once objected to an emblem on the uniform denoting that the troops were Irish.
Redmond suggested the thousands of Irish in the UK should be recruited into the division.
Mr Parsons had a different view of the Irish in the UK, stating that he “did not wish to fill his ranks with the Irish from Glasgow, Liverpool and Cardiff who are only slum birds”.
Hugh Duffy
Cleggan, Co Galway