A CONTROVERSIAL article published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper and online has likened some of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising rebels to two of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Brussels last week.
The Eton and Cambridge-educated journalist Charles Moore cites the example of one of the leaders of The Easter Rising, Padraig Pearse and his brother Willie, next to that of terrorists Ibrahim and Khalid al-Bakraoui, the brothers who helped plan and execute the Brussels attacks that have now taken at least 35 lives.
Islamic State has since claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Moore writes: "Among those rebels executed by the British shortly after Pearse was his devoted brother, Willie. In Brussels last week, a pair of brothers, Ibrahim and Khalid al-Bakraoui, detonated two of the three bombs which killed 31 people."
Moore also claims that the name Easter Rising “contains the central blasphemy of terrorist acts committed in the name of God.”
In a scathing opinion piece, Moore says that the event was a religiously motivated assault on a “parliamentary democracy and slaughter among one’s own people."
An excerpt of the article reads:
In the phrase “Easter Rising” is contained the central blasphemy of terrorist acts committed in the name of God. What has the resurrection of the Prince of Peace got to do with trying to shoot the British out of Ireland?
Moore continues:
Patrick Pearse, the rising’s leader, who proclaimed the republic outside the General Post Office, suffered from what Yeats called “the vertigo of self-sacrifice”. He had a homoerotic vision of the macaomh, the beautiful young scholar warrior who would die for his country – half the Irish mythical hero Cuchullain, half Jesus. The night before he was shot by a British firing squad, Pearse wrote a mawkish poem comparing the Virgin Mary’s loss of her son to his own death.
The former Telegraph editor also questions if in 100 years’ time the Muslim world will celebrate Islamic State’s barbaric acts in a similar way to last week’s Rising commemorations.
He asks: "must it take another century before a comparable questioning of supposedly holy killing comes to dominate the Muslim world?"
Moore is the former editor of the Telegraph and Spectator. He is also the author of former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher’s biography, entitled Margret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, released in 2013.
The article has received a substantial backlash on social media from Irish and British people alike.
Take a look at some of the reaction below...
To any of my Irish friends who have read Charles Moore's article in today's Telegraph I apologise for his bigoted view of The Easter Rising
— Mike James (@MikeJames40) March 28, 2016
@CharlesHMoore your comparison of the Easter Rising is both distasteful and wrong. ISIS aspires to be an empire. More like ?? in ?? than ??
— Darren Breathnach (@dj_breathnach) March 28, 2016
The Torygraph and Charles Moore strike again. What a terrible piece of convoluted drivel. #1916Centenaryhttps://t.co/uEPWnzqlzQ
— Sarah Campbell (@SarCampbel) March 28, 2016
Shocking article by @CharlesHMoore in @Telegraph comparing Padraig Pearse & brother to the Brussles Bombing brothers. #EasterRising #1916
— Sandy Coleman (@Sandyc101) March 29, 2016
I have long cherished Charles Moore as the most absurd man in Britain, and this piece on 1916 does not disappoint. https://t.co/RFjECUQVtu
— david wheatley (@nemoloris) March 29, 2016
You can read the full article here
