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Irish Footballer Refuses To Wear Poppy
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does he have a point? has the poppy come to mean - for the irish - the blood on the hands of those that perpetrated bloody sunday?
does he have a point? has the poppy come to mean - for the irish - the blood on the hands of those that perpetrated bloody sunday?
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First off, a footballer is obliged to wear the teams kit and nothing else. It should not be compulsary for him to have yo wear a poppy. On foreign players, the gesture is pretty pointless anyway.
Saying that, I do not accept his reason for not wearing it. Northern Ireland is in the UK, and many of his countrymen died in the wars. It is disrespect to those people.
The British Army may not have had a good day on Bloody Sunday, but that was over 40 years ago. This footballer was born long after that day, and was born into a hard fought peace. I don't think his explanation holds up, and it saddens me that it has been made.
Saying that, I do not accept his reason for not wearing it. Northern Ireland is in the UK, and many of his countrymen died in the wars. It is disrespect to those people.
The British Army may not have had a good day on Bloody Sunday, but that was over 40 years ago. This footballer was born long after that day, and was born into a hard fought peace. I don't think his explanation holds up, and it saddens me that it has been made.
I bought a poppy at the doors of a shop yesterday but I won't be wearing it. I know the money raised by their sale now goes to help many disabled ex-servicemen and their families. Nobody could disagree with that.
But here in NI the poppy badge, along with the Union Jack, have been hijacked and are flaunted as badges of allegiance.
Maybe this footballer knows that, too. He didn't need to make such a fuss about not wearing it.
But here in NI the poppy badge, along with the Union Jack, have been hijacked and are flaunted as badges of allegiance.
Maybe this footballer knows that, too. He didn't need to make such a fuss about not wearing it.
In the same way that people do not have to explain their reasons for wearing a poppy, Mr McLean should not feel it necessary to explain his reasons for not wearing one. Although he may feel the need to explain his reasons to his manager, it seems he has chosen to do so publicly. However, leaving that aside, among his comments (about Bloody Sunday) he said:
“Please understand, Mr Whelan, that when you come from Creggan like myself or the Bogside, Brandywell or the majority of places in [which he calls] Derry, every person still lives in the shadow of one of the darkest days in Ireland’s history – even if like me you were born nearly 20 years after the event. It is just a part of who we are, ingrained into us from birth."
And thereby hangs the tale. As part of the Good Friday Agreement numerous murderers, torturers and other sundry criminals were given "Get out of Jail Free" cards. Some of them went on to hold high political office and all this was done in the expectation that the people of the whole of Ireland - North and South - would move on after a very turbulent time in their history. It's clear from Mr McClean's remarks that they haven't and many of them probably never wil.
“Please understand, Mr Whelan, that when you come from Creggan like myself or the Bogside, Brandywell or the majority of places in [which he calls] Derry, every person still lives in the shadow of one of the darkest days in Ireland’s history – even if like me you were born nearly 20 years after the event. It is just a part of who we are, ingrained into us from birth."
And thereby hangs the tale. As part of the Good Friday Agreement numerous murderers, torturers and other sundry criminals were given "Get out of Jail Free" cards. Some of them went on to hold high political office and all this was done in the expectation that the people of the whole of Ireland - North and South - would move on after a very turbulent time in their history. It's clear from Mr McClean's remarks that they haven't and many of them probably never wil.
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