I watched a documentary on the history channel about a month or two ago on the Easter Rebellion in Northern Ireland.  This documentary painted Eamon DeVelera in a negative light, saying basically that he was somewhat of an appeaser when it came to negotiating for Irish independence.  It suggested that he was willing to forego the Irish demand for absolute independence in exchange for an end to the hostilities.  However, this was not the case.  In fact Sinn Fein and the cabinet chosen to present Irish demands were evenly split on the subject of swearing an oath of allegiance to the the King and accepting the fact that while independent, Irishmen would still be subjects of the King.  And Eamon DeVelera voted against the oath and refused to consider himself a subject.  In response to the split, DeVelera stepped down as President of Sinn Fein, and formed his own party, Fianna Fail, whose aims included a republican Ireland, a restoration of the Irish Language, a development of Irish culture, a development of an equal opportunity social system, a just distribution of land in Ireland and the general independence of the country.
Just goes to show you, the "history" shown on the history channel isn't all its cracked up to be.

And your view is based on what?
[:D]




[devil]

Not to sound naive or uneducated, but there are several books on the subject and this is known general history to the Irish.  Not only have I read(Eamon De Valera: The Man Who Was Ireland. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), but a friend of mine, born in Derry(Londonderry) also attested to the misrepresentation on the history channel. Micheal Collins, the martyr, was much more inclined to negotiate than Eamon DeVelera.  But to further address my point, I sometimes find myself believing what the history channel says about a subject that I previously knew nothing about without doing any research.  For example, if the History channel runs a story on the Clinton white house and what went on, I would be immediately skeptical.  However, a story about a much lesser known subject would not elicit such skepticism from me.  

Michael Collins was a really good movie.  It didn't portray Eamon in a kind light either.

First off you got to get people excited over who Eamon was.

Considering most of the folks here couldn't tell you who was President (of the US) then without grabbing a few books or googling.  And what did the Prez's wife do.

Anybody who uses THC as a primary source for learning is heading for a fall.

If the subject is an important one, you never accept a single source (except maybe your brother's barbecue instructions) of information. THC is like a good encyclopedia. It's a starting point and a springboard to further research. I've seen them occasionally present a "tried & true" pseudofact which I know to have been debunked - but never seen them get it wrong unless the average college-educated (or serious self-taught) history afficionado would get it wrong too.

It occurs to me that it is probably a hell of a lot more difficult & expensive to coherently incorporate an obscure or  minority viewpoint into a film narrative than into a  book or article where you can footnote. It also occurs to me that while (except for "In Search Of") it's the best TV going, it's still just TV.