tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post37574505435141493..comments2024-03-27T21:12:56.352+00:00Comments on Patrick Comerford: Prince Milo of Montenegro: why is he buried in Limerick at Saint Mary’s Cathedral?Patrick Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558394038241172440noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post-80847045163087553922018-09-04T17:38:53.996+01:002018-09-04T17:38:53.996+01:00It takes a major leap of fantasy and athletic ment...It takes a major leap of fantasy and athletic mental agility to move from criticising a sceptical approach to monarchy to reminding someone living in Ireland of the horrors and criminality of the IRA, and so I do not need to reply to those comments. But it should be remembered that the Greek monarchy was complicit in the colonels seizing power in an anti-democratic putsch that installed a seven-year-long fascist dictatorship. The Greek people rejected monarchy democratically in a plebiscite after the colonels' regime collapsed, and for a family to continue to claim they are the Greek royal family flies in the face of the democratic choice and will of the people.<br />Patrick Comerfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00558394038241172440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post-43566581976159605182018-09-03T16:08:36.313+01:002018-09-03T16:08:36.313+01:00I much enjoyed your article on Montenegro, Prince ...I much enjoyed your article on Montenegro, Prince Milo and "Prince" Stefan, since I have dedicated some time over the years to exposing bogus nobles and royals. I do think your negativism about monarchy a little harsh especially if it is to be justified by supposed association with fascism and the Nazis. After all it was Ireland's own president, Eamonn de Valera, who personally offered his condolences on the death of Hitler to the German ambassador. The IRA, and in particular its successive Chiefs of Staff, Tom Barry, Sean Russell and Stephen Hayes were deeply complicit in assisting German intelligence and would have welcomed a German victory - the IRA was responsible for a bombing in Coventry at the outbreak of the war designed to show how they would help Germany to victory and two leading members spent much of the war in Germany. Of course there were many more Irish who served in the British army against the Germans, but IRA collaboration has never been condemned by its successors. Perhaps you do not know that the last King of Yugoslavia was forced into exile in 1941 and it was the monarchist resistance which fought the Germans so bravely for years (thousands of these brave men and their families were executed by Tito); indeed it was his ancestor who had led Serbia to independence from the Ottoman empire. The replacements for the Balkan monarchies were brutal communist dictatorships - in Romania King Michael, who had personally overthrown the pro-Nazi dictator , was forced out at gun point by the Soviets, not by any popular movement, as was the then 6 year old Bulgarian king. The governments of Greece, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Norway were all able to maintain legitimacy in exile under their sovereigns and prevent the establishment of legal pro-Nazi regimes because the person of the monarch represented the Nation. France, in contrast, a republic since 1870, was quickly subsumed and its constitution manipulated to legalise the Vichy regime. The Kings of Denmark and Belgium remained in their countries but the Nazi occupiers were unable to install legal puppet regimes there as they had in France. King Constantine was overthrown by the Colonels but was ill-advised in remaining in exile during the lead-up to and during the referendum campaign in which the pro-republican temporary government controlled the media. It might have gone very differently otherwise. If Spain had become a republic after Franco it would not have survived as a single state - in 1981 it was the King who prevented a right-wing military coup and the stability he brought insured the extraordinary economic growth since 1978. Turcopilierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09095797787821053323noreply@blogger.com