There were some actions in other parts of Ireland but, except for the attack on the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Ashbourne, County Meath, they were minor.
The Rising was suppressed after seven days of fighting, and its leaders were court-martialled and executed, but it succeeded in bringing physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics.
Reporting a riot in Britain: how the police spun the battle of Stokes Croft, Ryan Gallagher
Of more concern was the striking lack of accuracy. Despite no eyewitness accounts to corroborate it, almost all of the major newspapers published a bogus assertion that the Tesco opposite the squat was “petrol bombed”. The alleged incident, which seems to have originated in a report by the Press Association, formed the basis of several newspapers’ headlines.
“Riot police bombarded and shop petrol-bombed,” stated the Daily Mail; “Tesco store petrol bombed,” recounted the Telegraph; “PETROL BOMBS FLY IN BRISTOL TESCO RIOT HELL,” howled the Star. Even the respectable Times was guilty: “mob petrol bombs Tesco," they wrote, before later amending their piece to read instead, “Bristol mob wrecks Tesco store and attacks police”.
The Independent Labour Party, formed in 1893, a democratic socialist body, was initially republican in sympathies. Its founder, Keir Hardie, was always so. His speech of April 1894 in the Commons, at the time of the birth of a royal grandchild (the future King Edward VIII), condemning the House for finding time to celebrate a royal baby at a time when 251 Welsh miners had been killed in a terrible mining accident at Cilfynydd in South Wales, created a sensation.
"From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score—[Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’]—and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation. [Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’] A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow—[Loud cries of ‘Oh, oh!’ and ‘Order!’]—and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill. [Cries of Divide!]"[
Hardie had written in his newspaper, the Labour Leader, that “the life of one Welsh miner is of greater commercial and moral value to the British nation than the whole Royal crowd put together, from the Royal Great-Grand- Mama to this puling Royal Great-Grandchild” (Morgan, Keir Hardie 72-3; Labour Leader, 30 June 1894).
During the Boer War, Hardie used the crisis further to attack the monarchy, to claim that King Edward VII had financial links with Cecil Rhodes’s mining enterprises in South Africa—“it is no secret that his Majesty has been all along a party to the war gang in South Africa.” He went on to allege that, at the royal funeral in 1901, militarists and their clerical allies had “used the Queen’s dead body as a recruiting sergeant” (Labour Leader, 11 July 190l).
In 1907 Hardie and other Labour MPs were denounced for condemning Edward VII’s visit to meet the hated Czar of Russia by sailing up the Baltic in the royal yacht . Hardie said that it meant that the King virtually condoned the atrocities of the Czarist regime in Russia. He continued to attack the King’s privileged and debauched life-style.
Source:
Wikepdia on Kier Hardie and Extract from Ken Morgan on Labour Party and British Republicanism
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say "We choose you for our head," they could not without manifest injustice to their children say "that your children and your children's children shall reign over ours forever." Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men in their private sentiments have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils which when once established is not easily removed: many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.
Common Sense - Tom Paine
If we needed validation of Tom Paine's comments in 2011 on the undemocratic nature of monarchy look at those invited from Middle East and North Africa to attend Royal Wedding in London :
While they will be feasting at the Royal Wedding in London their "subjects" are being killed or are in prison for exercising the right of free speech from Morocco to Bahrain.
The Crown Prince of Bahrain (apologies to busy killing to come)
Sheikh Ahmad Hmoud Al-Sabah of Kuwait
Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco
Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said of Oman
The Emir of The State of Qatar and Sheika Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned
Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and Princess Fadwa bint Khalid bin Abdullah bin Abdulrahman
William & Kate
I hope it rains on your wedding day
I hope the food goes off and the dress disintegrates
I hope the caterer rings to say
Someone has pissed in your Beaujolais
And your Granny tells you she aint gonna abdicate
I hope the heel breaks on your shoe
I hope you're covered in pigeon poo
Westmionster Abbey falls down to the ground
I hope your champagne bubbles pop
I hope a frog jumps down your top
And your greedy little friends don't hang around
I hope your face is covered with spots
Your head is hit by a flowerpot
I hope your hair falls out and the pair of you are bald
I hope the flowers don't arrive
I hope they wilt and don't survive
And I hope the whole day ends up being spoiled
On your honeymoon you lose your ring
And there's no air conditioning
I hope the sun goes in and the rain keeps falling down
I hope your hubby gets into a fight
I hope the midges start to bite
And I hope you get accosted by a clown
I hope you're covered in feathers and tar
And someone spits in your caviar
And you find out that dear Kate has a sordid past
I hope there's no beer in the bar
And there's itching powder in your knickers and bra
But most of all I hope this marriage doesn't last !
Compilation of footage from riots in Stokes Croft and St. Pauls area of Bristol, early morning of 22nd April 2011. Initial disturbances following eviction of squattors near to Tesco's on Cheltenham Road escalated into a mini-riot. Large numbers of police in riot gear brought in including helicopter, horses, dogs and Welsh police.
Only property targeted (later in the night though) was the Tesco store, no evidence of any petrol bombs of any kind (as widely reported in media). All clips arranged in chronological order.
Democracy and Class Strugglesays this assault on the people of Bristol by the full riot gear police including helicopter will teach more in the last 24 hours about the British State than years of political campaigning.
The people of Bristol will reconnect to their past and discover that it is people who make history and not the elites and that knowledge is itself power.
Around 10pm on Thursday 21st April, people from Stokes Croft and St Pauls in Bristol, reacting to blatant provocation, started attacking riot police gathered from three different forces with glass bottles. What ensued was seven hours of constant clashes; police charges, volleys of glass, brick and concrete, burning barricades and the trashing of a much-loathed Tesco recently forced on a community who for so long battled to stop it opening.
Just before 9pm, police had forcibly removed a small protest from outside the Tesco, which had been there since the store opened a week earlier and set up a cordon closing that stretch of the road. Their stated aim was to enter the squatted ‘Telepathic Heights’, an iconic, graffiti covered building opposite Tesco. They claimed to be acting on intelligence that suggested some occupants where planning to make petrol bombs with which to attack Tesco. Even if this intelligence was accurate, the numbers of police was far disproportionate to the half a dozen occupants of the squat.
The blocking of road by the police and the news that Telepathic Heights was threatened and that the Tesco protest had been forcibly broken up meant it wasn’t long before a substantial crowd had gathered. The crowd became more and more angry as police refused to give justification for their presence, pushing or hitting anyone who got close to their lines. The increased tension of recent months, which has built up as austerity measures begin to kick in and the community of Stokes Croft and St Pauls feel ever more ignored and marginalised, had found a focal point and personification in the belligerence of the police. All it took was for someone to tip over a glass recycling bin.
After the initial barrage of bottles, a retreat into St Pauls. As people came out their doors to see police marching through their streets, many joined in defending against the police. A routine of the police charging then retreating under a hail of bottles and bricks started to develop. Bins were set on fire and charged into police lines, others were used to form makeshift barricades. Around 1pm police retreated back to Stoke Croft and soon found themselves and their vans surrounded. The vans were prevented from moving off as others pelted them from a side street. Eventually the police broke out and sped away in the vans out of sight further up the road.
Celebrations broke out as the crowd realised they had the streets. Calls of “Smash Tesco!” rang out. Tesco windows and an abandoned police vehicle were smashed and a police trailer full of riot equipment was looted. Police then returned to the area. More clashes as police forced people back into St Pauls and down Stokes Croft before finding themselves again outmanoeuvred and at which point they again retreated. This time Tesco’s windows went all the way through as well as the shutters behind. When the police came back, their vans sped straight into the crowd. At least one person was caught behind police lines, unable to get out of Tesco in time and took a frenzied beating whilst on the floor. Someone else was run over, sustaining an injury to his foot and others hit by vans. Next time it was made sure vans would not be able to manoeuvre in this was as a skip was dragged into the road. Tesco was entered a second time and objects being lunched from rooftops made it increasingly difficult for the police.
A number of injuries were sustained and nine arrests made including four of the occupants of Telepathic Heights. Police report that eight of their number were hospitalised.
One local resident noted the police had “thrown a quarter century of semi-decent community policing down the drain” another saying “If they [the police] don’t calm down, things are getting tense enough on a range of other issues for a new pattern to develop of poor community relations and repeat rioting against a police force which has chosen political sides”.
The police provoked this. Turning up in this area of Bristol with such numbers, attacking Telepathic Heights and blatantly using public money to defend the interests of a corporate giant such as Tesco was always going to get a reaction.
Police were guarding a severely-damaged Tesco Express store in Bristol as local residents complained that heavy-handed tactics had provoked a night of violent rioting.
A tense atmosphere persisted in the Stokes Croft area of the city after a raid on a squat occupied by opponents of the newly opened supermarket outlet left eight police officers and several protesters injured.
More than 160 officers in riot gear, reinforcements from neighbouring forces and officers on horseback were involved in the operation, which began shortly after 9pm. Four people have been arrested, Avon and Somerset police said, because they posed "a real threat to the local community" in Stokes Croft.
Reports had been received that petrol bombs were being assembled in the squat – known locally as Telepathic Heights – for, it was alleged, an attack on the Tesco store. The force confirmed that petrol bombs had been recovered from the house and were being examined.
"There have been several significant incidents in this building during the past few days, which have caused serious concerns to police and local residents," Superintendent Ian Wylie said.
"The safety of the public is paramount in a situation of this kind and we took the decision to carry out a robust and swift operation, following intelligence received about the criminal intentions of those who were occupying the building."
Officers secured the area on a warm night as locals were heading off to bars and clubs at the start of the Easter holiday. A rumour went round that police were evicting the squatters. Clashes began when lines of officers closed off Cheltenham Road, a main route into the city centre, and protesters began throwing bottles at them.
The disturbances continued through the evening to 4am on Friday. At one stage an abandoned Wiltshire police car had its windows smashed and doors ripped off, a scene captured on a YouTube video.
The origins of the confrontation lie in objections to the opening of the new Tesco store on Cheltenham Road; the shop was severely damaged in the riot.
The area is close to the St Paul's area, where the first Thatcher era, inner-city riots erupted in 1980.
Assistant Chief Constable Rod Hansen said: "When 300 people congregated and a small minority from that group started small fires and throwing bottles, stones and other items at officers, we used well-rehearsed plans which involved the use of officers from neighbouring forces to control what had become a volatile situation." None of the injuries are believed to be serious.
Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP for Bristol East, was on the scene later in the evening. The disturbances were just outside her constituency. "It's a very hippyish, counter-culture type of area with lots of arts shops," she said. A Banksy artwork decorates one wall.
"One group were laying their bicycles down on the street and most of it seemed fairly good-natured but the police response was heavy-handed.
"There were two people playing saxophones on top of a bus shelter and a photographer was taking pictures. A police officer walked across and pushed him over; there was no reason to do it. My colleague Ben Mosley [a Labour council candidate] was hit by a truncheon and I was shoved out of the way by a policeman at one stage.
"I had a conversation with the chief constable. It seems the police had received reports that petrol bombs were being carried in and out [of the squat].
"It was anti-establishment protest: against capitalism and corporations, similar to what we saw in the march against the cuts in London where Starbucks and banks were targeted."
Duncan Birmingham, an arts lecturer who lives nearby, told the Guardian he had seen lines of police in riot gear. "There were people going to nightclubs, dressed up in party gear, mingling with police horses and police vans from Wales," he said. "One crowd had put rubbish bins across the road and were throwing bottles.
"Tesco has been trashed. The windows have been put in and there's paint everywhere. There's been massive opposition to Tesco opening. The store had been hidden behind hoardings until it opened last week. There's another Tesco about half a mile away in each direction."
Clare Milne, who lives nearby, said she had not been told why there was a police raid on the squatted building. She said she witnessed from her bedroom window an unprovoked attack on a man walking along the street with a woman. "An officer whacked him around the lower back with a baton."
Another witness, Nick Jones, a primary school teacher, said that groups from other parts of Bristol joined in. "It turned into a running battle up and down the street for two hours. Between 2.30am and 4.30am there were bottles thrown and rocks. I saw a police officer get hit in the face and go down – he was taken away in an ambulance.
"People had weapons. They had saws and shields themselves. It turned from interesting to scary very quickly."
Lewis Clapham, 22, a customer services worker, said: "I wasn't involved in the protest or the squat. I just happened to be down there and I went up to the police and said I was just passing through, but one of them came and hit me really hard with a baton. I've got bruising all down my side now with massive swelling on my elbow."
Asked about allegations of officers hitting those not involved in the violence, a spokesman for Avon and Somerset police said: "The whole operation will be reviewed by the force. Each complaint made to the police is thoroughly investigated."
Public spaces, Bristol and the riot
"Banksy and Massive Attack didn't come out of nowhere – there's a reason why they are from Bristol," says sociologist and Bristolian David Goldblatt. He believes the latest riot is part of a larger history of the public taking over open spaces in the city, which dates back 700 years to the St James's fair.
The fair, held on free ground close to Stokes Croft, attracted people from all over Europe but was banned in 1837 after the drinking, gambling, bear baiting and prostitution became too much for the local aldermen.
In 1831, three days of rioting erupted in Queen's Square after the House of Lords rejected voting reform and in 1909 suffragette Theresa Garnett attacked Winston Churchill with a riding crop at Bristol Temple Meads station, shouting: "Take that in the name of the insulted women of England!" More recently, riots exploded over racial tensions in the neighbourhood of St Pauls in 1980.
The 1831 uprising was over the reform bill which was stopped by the rich and powerful. The reform bill allowed people to have a vote. The result 3 days of burning and looting especially the prisons and queens square. The dragoons were sent in to stop the unrest but their commander was reluctant to open fire on the protestors as he felt sympathy for them. Eventually he did charge with much carnage and killing. The commander was made a scapegoat and court marshalled for his hesitancy in the actions and he commited suicide, as he felt there was no way out of the predicament. The uprising along with others around the country led eventually to the reform bill being passed and more people given the opportunity to vote in Britain.
