Talk:Burning of the Custom House

My minor rewording
Jdorney, I'd be thankful if you'd explain why you oppose each of the edits I made, rather than shunning the whole lot as "pointless". I'll explain each one of them here: Thanks. ~Asarlaí 17:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "May 25, 1921" - American date formats shouldn't be used on articles about Irish history - it should be "25 May 1921"
 * "The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla campaign" - I think "guerrilla" should be linked to guerrilla warfare for those unfamiliar with the term
 * "assassinations of selected police" - the word "selected" is unneeded as "assassination" means the killing of a selected person
 * "quick get away" - when used in this context, the right spelling is "getaway" as in "getaway car"
 * "not to engage in prolonged engagements" - "avoid lengthy engagements" is shorter and more straightforward
 * "reversed after a Dail meeting" - the right spelling is Dáil and the right link is First Dáil
 * "Eamon de Valera" - the right spelling is Éamon de Valera
 * "The ammunition of the IRA Volunteers" - "the IRA's ammunition" is shorter and more straightforward
 * "British military forces composed of units from the Royal Wiltshire Regiment" - "soldiers of the British Army's Wiltshire Regiment" is shorter and more straightforward
 * "The Custom House was all but completely destroyed" - "completely destroyed" is like saying "hot heat"
 * "The operation was successful from a republican point of view in the sense of propaganda value" - "From the Irish republican point of view, the operation was successful for its propaganda value" is shorter and more straightforward
 * "it did not disable totally the IRA's campaign" - "it did not cripple the IRA's campaign" is shorter and more straightforward
 * finally, do you think it needless to add the categories "Category:1921 in Ireland" and "Category:Royal Irish Constabulary"? If so, why?

You really want to go through this whole exercise again? The minor changes - dates, links and categories etc are fine. The problem is changing lots of wordings for no apparent reason - generally (sorry to say) to inferior forms that confuse the meaning. Simply put, why bother?

But ok, on the re-wordings - 'selected' is necessary to describe what the Squad did. Shooting a policeman as he was on patrol would also be an assassination but what Collins' unit was doing was killing identified officers, generally for their specific jobs or actions.

Re 'prolonged engagements', first 'prolonged is not the same as 'lengthy'. 'Lengthy', reers to time, which could mean up to two hours. Although true is not the point. What 'prolonged' means is that there was to be no sustained combat at all. With this as with other changes, 'shorter' is meaningless for three words and 'more 'straighfroward, again, no, especially if it confuses the meaning.

With that in mind, 'British military units' is better as it distinguishes them from the police units like the Auxiliaries, who are mentioned up to that point in the article.

'Completely destroyed' is valid because buildings can be partially destroyed - ie one part of it.

Regarding your other 'shorter and more straightforwards'. 'The ammuniiton' of the IRA is a better way to put it because it emphasies the ammunition, which is the important point. 'Cripple' is a metaphor and not clear. 'Disable totally' is clear, it communiates that the losses at the Custom House damaged but did not end the IRA's capacity.

We've been over this kind of thing in several other articles over several years and all it does is waste energy. I'll have to ask you to stop this habit of rewording articles for no reason, when there is no problem with the original. Thank you. Jdorney (talk) 15:42, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * What we hav here is a clash of opinions. This article and your other articles are good—they're well laid-out, they hav plenty of information and enough reliable sources. However, I'm strongly in favor of articles being written in plain English—of being as straightforward as they can be—and I find much of your writing to be the witherwards of this. I'll fix the dates, links and categories, but as for the wording, I gess we must 'agree to disagree'. ~Asarlaí 16:29, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

"Heavy blow" or not so much?
Aftermath section: If the Dublin IRA had 1,400 men in early 1921, how could the loss of 100-odd be a heavy blow? Was it that 1,300 were mostly inactive, and the 100 who took part had been more active? This can be clarified.78.17.11.74 (talk) 11:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

British political reaction?
A pertinent addition to the Aftermath section would be how it was received and reacted to by the British government in London. I recall (heard the quote in a Mastermind quiz) that Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, commented in connection the attendant loss of records, 'Better a nation without an archive, than an archive without a nation.', which if it were said in Parliament would surely be picked up in Hansard.Cloptonson (talk) 17:59, 4 March 2022 (UTC) Belated signature