Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao want to know what is his secret? How does he do it?
We are not sure how, but after centuries of being ubiquitous as the most anti Catholic villain in history, Anglo journalists (and some Irish people) are trying their best to rehabilitate Oliver Cromwell.
We had Neale Richmond of Fine Gael being photographed near banners celebrating the anti Catholic tyrant, then we had Cromwell was framed by Tom Reilly, which argued that Cromwell was actually an admirable figure, rather than a violent thug.
Now, Donna Ferguson has written an article in The Guardian which again tries, and hysterically fails, to rehabilitate the anti Catholic degenerate.
Under the heading Has history got it wrong about Oliver Cromwell’s persecution of Catholics? Ferguson sets forth a bizarre argument that Cromwell’s proto Zionism made him more benign towards Catholics than previously thought, credited to an obscure pamphlet from the 17th Century.
The opening paragraph writes:
Oliver Cromwell was far more committed to religious freedom and equality than historians previously thought, according to new research. The findings suggest he wanted Jews to be allowed to practise openly in England and Irish Catholics to have the right to worship freely, as long as it was in private.
Read that again.
he wanted Jews to be allowed to practise openly in England and Irish Catholics to have the right to worship freely, as long as it was in private.
Freely, as long as it was in private.
One expert, an English Catholic deacon no less, who studied Cromwell’s letters, writes
Cromwell thinks that persecution is always counterproductive, because if you target militants, you finish up radicalising moderates. He also believes the way to convert people isn’t by persecution, but by kindness
Kindness.
It is the Live.Laugh.Love school of History finding their interpretation of Oliver Cromwell, misunderstood hero.
The article is incredibly dismissive of the churches burned, the priests murdered and the Catholics enslaved by the tyrant.
It finishes by implying that the attacks on Drogheda and Wexford were ‘Catholic propaganda’:
In the 17th century, Royalist and Catholic propaganda painted Cromwell as a man of blood and violence, and historians have, until now, failed to properly interrogate the accuracy of this portrayal
It is not uncharitable to suggest that a summary of the article is thus, Cromwell’s treatment of Jews was objectively benign therefore his treatment of Irish Catholics is open to interpretation.