Oliver Cromwell...
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:42 pm
This should make an interesting debate. Many regard Cromwell as a savage who did to Ireland and its people what Hitler did to Poland and it's inhabitants. Others say that no other individual ever did as much to further the rights of the ordinary man, pioneer parliamentary democracy where unelected nobody's now have no power (the Royals) and it is because of him that the people have since had the power, and the right to elect who they want to represent them.
One thing I've always found ironic is that if you take Northern Ireland, it was said that the biggest thing the Nationalist/Republican people wanted, other than for Britain to leave and partition to end, was full voting rights for their people and for them to have an input into the political system. Something that has only recently been implemented for them. Those people would be some of the most staunch haters of Cromwell over what he did to the Irish Catholics - yet it was the thing that he pioneered, parliamentary democracy, and one-person-one-vote, which those people wanted above all else. What do people think about Cromwell, what he did, and his legacy? Historians have mixed views.
Something I've always found interesting and incredible is that Oliver Cromwell is buried under Tony Blair's house. He was dug up by the Royalists, three years after he died, was hanged at Tyburn (where Marble Arch now stands), then beheaded and his headless body slung into a pit just to the north. That area was all fields then and Connaught Square, where Tony Blair now lives, was built on top of it. Tony Blair was Britain's first Catholic prime minister, and he ends up buying a home on top of where another parliamentatian, Oliver Cromwell, who was cruel to the Catholics (here, in Ireland, and in Scotland) like no one else has ever been, is buried. There are over 20,000 streets and squares in London and where does our first Catholic prime minister end up living? Right on top (literally) of Oliver Cromwell...
One thing I've always found ironic is that if you take Northern Ireland, it was said that the biggest thing the Nationalist/Republican people wanted, other than for Britain to leave and partition to end, was full voting rights for their people and for them to have an input into the political system. Something that has only recently been implemented for them. Those people would be some of the most staunch haters of Cromwell over what he did to the Irish Catholics - yet it was the thing that he pioneered, parliamentary democracy, and one-person-one-vote, which those people wanted above all else. What do people think about Cromwell, what he did, and his legacy? Historians have mixed views.
Something I've always found interesting and incredible is that Oliver Cromwell is buried under Tony Blair's house. He was dug up by the Royalists, three years after he died, was hanged at Tyburn (where Marble Arch now stands), then beheaded and his headless body slung into a pit just to the north. That area was all fields then and Connaught Square, where Tony Blair now lives, was built on top of it. Tony Blair was Britain's first Catholic prime minister, and he ends up buying a home on top of where another parliamentatian, Oliver Cromwell, who was cruel to the Catholics (here, in Ireland, and in Scotland) like no one else has ever been, is buried. There are over 20,000 streets and squares in London and where does our first Catholic prime minister end up living? Right on top (literally) of Oliver Cromwell...