Godspeed, Oxipug.

NFL News:

• Oh boy – The Browns are this year’s “Hard Knocks” team.
  • The Browns aren’t especially happy about it, but their only option for avoiding it was firing Hue Jackson, since teams with new coaches don’t have to be on it.
  • My favourite scene will be when Jimmy Haslam shoots at what he thinks are raccoons rooting through the Browns garbage, only to find it’s Johnny Manziel looking for Atavan.

• Rule change: The NFL is debating whether to make ejections subject to replay review.
  • Under the proposed new rule, disqualification of a player will be added to the list of reviewable plays, which also includes possession of the ball, touching the ball, touching the ground, plays governed by the goal line, sidelines, line of scrimmage, line to gain, number of players on the field and proper game administration.

• Also up for discussion are a new series of rules designed to cut down on concussions during kickoffs, including:
  • The elimination of running starts for kickoff coverage teams;
  • A requirement that eight of the 11 men on the return team must be aligned in the “setup zone” within 15 yards of the ball;
  • No blocking within the “setup zone” until the ball is touched or hits the ground;
  • The elimination of two-man wedge blocks; and
  • The kickoff team must have five men lined up on either side of the ball, a move that will limit schemes designed to get free runners in coverage down the field.

It’s a little quiet today, so buckle up for some history.

World War One Centenary

May 17, 1918 – 150 Sinn Fein leaders & allies are arrested in Ireland and interned.

A.K.A – The “German Plot”

In 1914, a former high-ranking official in the British Home Office, Sir Roger Casement, set out for Germany in hopes of securing an alliance for Irish Republicans with Germany, in hopes of obtaining military assistance in exchange for distracting Britain via pursuit of Irish independence. He was seeking a quid pro quo, wherein Germany would recognize a free Ireland & help the separatists pursue that dream, and the effort Britain would need to put into quelling the state of rebellion would hopefully distract from their European efforts in The Great War.

To that end, Casement attempted to recruit Irishmen captured by the Germans as British POWs as an “Irish Brigade” to return to Ireland and fight for independence. However, he was only ever able to recruit 56 men, and abandoned the strategy shortly before the Easter Rising of 1916.

The Germans were willing to provide military assistance to the rebels, in the form of guns and ammunition, notably 20,000 rifles, one million rounds of ammunition, and explosives. However, the transport was intercepted by the British (& scuttled by its crew) and Casement was arrested trying to sneak back into Ireland. The Easter Rising failed (as an assault), Casement was tried & executed, and the British now had “proof” that Irish independence was a German plot.

Here’s a documentary on the Rebellion narrated by Liam Neeson, with insight into the confusion caused by the loss of the German weapons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf7feoyT-ys

In April 1918, one member of Casement’s Irish Brigade, John Dowling, was arrested trying to return to Ireland after having been dropped off the west coast in County Claire by a German U-boat. Under interrogation, he “admitted” that the Germans were planning an assault on Ireland, in order to distract the British from the European war effort. The discovery of this “German Plot“, and Irish Republican leaders open advocacy of resisting conscription

led the Dublin Castle administration to arrest & intern members of the Sinn Fein leadership.

The irony of the situation was that, just two years removed from the British atrocities committed in reprisal for the Easter Rising, the German Plot was viewed by most Irish as little more than British “black intelligence”, a contrivance used to rationalize a policy position that needed justification. Between 1916 and 1918 British Ministers did not recognize that Sinn Fein was a popular, indigenous movement, and instead clung to the notion that it was a German conspiracy; this delegitimised it and produced a vain hope that the problem would die away if the German intrigues were crushed. The arrests of the mostly moderate Sinn Fein leadership, who acquiesced in order to win the propaganda victory,

as the more extreme members were able to flee, helped alienate the bulk of southern Ireland from the British state and led to dramatically increased support for both Sinn Fein and full independence.

Sinn Fein would win election victory later in 1918, and use the size of their victory to declare unilateral independence, kicking off – depending on where your relatives are from – the 1919-1921 Anglo-British War or the Irish War of Independence. In retrospect, the German Plot was the last step towards Irish independence, even though the British didn’t recognize it at the time.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Lightning at Capitals – 8:00PM | NBCSN / Sportsnet (Game 4; Caps lead 2-1)
• NBA:
  • no game scheduled
• MLB:
  • no national broadcast in the USA
  • A’s at Jays – 7:00PM | Sportsnet1
• College baseball:
  • LSU at Auburn – 7:00PM | ESPNU
  • TCU at Texas – 7:30PM | FS1

It’s Victoria Day weekend in Canada, so I’m off until Tuesday. Seamus has you covered with teh usual Friday sexy, and then it’s surprise, Surprise, SURPRISE!