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Modern Day Goldikova…….there just a bunch of mad men.
Its not like the old days in the 70’s and 80’s…i agree plenty of intelligent folk and there have been since the 1916.
Problem is today most dissidents are involved in Drugs etc and really dont represent anyone only themselves
Fair play Grimes…will grant you that one. But nothing else
Goldikova
My point above just mocks your idiotic assertion that i approve of terrorist attacks. I don’t approve of any terrorist attacks
You attacked McGuinesses attack on the Real IRA and Continuity IRA. That can only be interpreted as support for these groups. Its as simple as that
McGuiness held a high rank in the IRA. The principle beliefs amongst others at the time, was that the security forces and police representing the crown were the enemy, and not to be negotiated with. These are principles that he strongly upheld since his days of being a bogside street battler. So for him to turn round and criticise others for holding views he passed to them is traitorous to a movement he was once part of. I’ve said he’s a traitor to them(the movement), not to me. Keep on trying Clive, you’ll get there one day.
I think that people who blindly support the IRA are no different from people who blindly support the British or American army.
Grimes
Thats interesting about the recessions but also selective. Firstly the GOP has held power for much longer periods than the democrats but also, it is very debatable if the vitenam spending (which occured under johnson and Kennedy too)alone would have caused a downturn. The OPEC factor was clearly the driver. either way, the democrats economic policy would not have been regarded as particularly leftwing at any time anyway
You can think what you want about the army, but mcguiness was clearly attacking terrorists incidents where innocents had been killed. And you know that
Yes i do know that Martin ‘250 pound car bomb’ McGuiness was attacking those people. It’s all very commendable taking to politics and renouncing violence, but it’s very hypocritical to label people as traitors considering what he once was. It’s like Dr Kevorkian taking the moral highground over Harold Shipman.
I think thats very harsh…. but anyway
Mcguiness is a cricket lover by the way….so he cant be all bad
Does anyone else think both the IRA and Unionist terror organisations might just have been hiding behind a cause? They were and still are fronts for organised crime. They were always businesses with loads of money pouring in from the US other international sources and organised crime. Lots of people did very well and are doing very well from the troubles.
It was not till the US money and support dried up that there was any possibility of a political solution.
Just a thought!
What a lot of people tend to overlook about the Northern Troubles is the social element to the conflict. If you looked at the membership of the various paramilitary organisations during the 80s, you would find that the majority came from desolate economic areas around the Falls, the Shankill and the Bogside. These areas were severely neglected for decades by succesive governments. Throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, the shipyards and linen industries papered over the cracks of the North’s economy. When these went into irreversible decline after the war, conflict was inevitable. Young people growing up in the 70s and early 80s in these areas had no prospects whatsoever. What had they to lose by joining the IRA or the UDA? The Troubles gave them an opportunity to vent their anger at "the other side" who they blamed for their plight.
I remember watching one of those Danny Dyer documentaries a few years ago featuring Sammy McCrory (prominent Loyalist paramilitary). He was showing the house where he was born on the Shankill. He pointed around twenty yards away down a side-street towards the Falls and said that if he’d have been born down there, he’d have been in the IRA. Obviously, there were men like Bobby Sands who were willing to die for what they believed in, but I don’t think the majority of paramilitaries were heavily politically or religiously motivated.
The IRA, throughout its history has claimed to be non-sectarian. Goldikova is correct that the founding father of Irish Republicanism (Wolfe Tone) was a Protestant, but sure Oliver Cromwell was the first Nationalist in Ireland! Truth is, the IRA has always been sectarian. You can go back as far as the Irish War of Independence and incidents like the Coolacrease killings for evidence of that.
I am indifferent to the prospect of a United Ireland in the future. It is not something I think I’ll ever see in my lifetime but I would not actively oppose it were it to happen. In six years time, we will celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising on this island. I’m sure the debate of unification will arise during this aniversary. I hold the opinion that if 1916 hadn’t occured, there would be no need to have this debate because Ireland would never have been partitioned in 1922 and we’d have a 32 county Republic long ago.
Does anyone else think both the IRA and Unionist terror organisations might just have been hiding behind a cause?
There was always an element within both Republican and Loyalist Paramilitaries. Drug-trafficking were always a central part of the Loyalist organisations and the Provo strongholds in South Armagh have always been labelled as bandit country for as long as I can remember. These areas were renowned for diesel and cigarette smuggling around the border.
Clive, your smiley with your first response was ‘simpatico’, but I think you really needed a straight-faced ‘smiley'(!) for your second – one about the cost of the Vietnam War! It was horrendous. Must look up the figures, though I did see them quoted once.
Re Northern Ireland: Of course, like every army, the paramilitaries on both sides would have attracted psychopaths and other wrong’uns, as well as patriots. To me, to fight against an occupation that your people have never accepted, is the honourable course. Had I been a a born and bred N.I. Protestant, I might have found that more difficult to see, at least initially, having grown up with a sense of being under permanent siege.
I believe that King Rat character who was mysteriously ‘demised’, while in prison, started the intentional killing of civilians, the general public. Is that correct?
But to me, it’s very obvious that the major malefactors were successive British Governments, at least, until more recent times, when NI was seen as an irremediable liability; and not far behind them, the ‘blood and thunder’, Protestant politicians. Although, in mitigation, exiguous though it is, virtually all Northern Irish Protestants and their Scottish kin inherited from the earliest age a deep, rancorous hatred for the other side; who were not slow to reciprocate, of course, not least, since it was their country. In Scotland, historically, it was also, significantly, about immigrants taking jobs and lowering wage-levels, I believe. The civil war in the US was based on the economics of the South, the plantation-owners being the main culprits.
Republican movement is simple
Aim: To remove British Occupation of Northern Ireland and have a 32 County Ireland state. No religious intent what so ever…unlike the DUP who keep on about Catholics etc. Just so happens there is the religious divide between Unionist and Republicans.
I cant forsee any NI without Republican factions…..there is too much grief and hurt for there not to be. Problem is there very unintelligent folk, who cant see past the past so to speak
Wallace, rarely have I read something so inflammatory, hurtful and idiotic. I am a Republican from the Republic of Ireland, that does NOT make me a terrorist, and it certainly does NOT make me any less intelligent than blinkered bigots like you. I do not support terror or violence from ANY side, but if you want to go down that road, with your clueless comments, the Republican factions have been committing atrocities for about 40 years in Northern Ireland. Any chance you know why then??? I’ll give you a clue: 800 years of atrocities perpetrated against the Republic of Ireland and her people. As I said, I do NOT condone these atrocities and acts of terror, but sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire. I would love to see my country re-united as one, as I am a proud Irish Republican, but if this cannot be achieved by peaceful means, then it is not worth it. Does that make me an ‘unintelligent republican’ in your eyes?? And before you even start typing about principles, I am not betraying mine; My principles have always been that The Republic of Ireland should be one, but NOT at all costs. I will await your reply with interest, as I strongly feel that you owe me, and fellow Peaceful-Republicans, an apology for your appalling comments.
"Wallace, rarely have I read something so inflammatory, hurtful and idiotic. I am a Republican from the Republic of Ireland, that does NOT make me a terrorist, and it certainly does NOT make me any less intelligent than blinkered bigots like you"
When did i ever say Republicans are terrorits…..what i was saying was that there will be dissedents in NI no matter what happens. I should have included Dissendent and i apolgise but for the rest you are way out of line. How am i a bigot?… Dissendents are gobshites and i have no problem in saying that. I am from the Republic..
"As I said, I do NOT condone these atrocities and acts of terror, but sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire. I would love to see my country re-united as one, as I am a proud Irish Republican, but if this cannot be achieved by peaceful means, then it is not worth it. Does that make me an ‘unintelligent republican’ in your eyes?? And before you even start typing about principles, I am not betraying mine; My principles have always been that The Republic of Ireland should be one, but NOT at all costs. I will await your reply with interest, as I strongly feel that you owe me, and fellow Peaceful-Republicans, an apology for your appalling comments"
I completly agree……..I do believe in a United Ireland…….You need to read back through this and stop talking nonesense. I cant believe you are attacking me a Republic man for saying that Dissedents Republicans these days are idiots. I have never said anything about the 70-80s campaign by the IRA which is wrong. What i am saying is that the Republican movements had no choice but to fight but now that the British will allow them to share a table they are using the peaceful route as good as any.
This attack beggers Belief…..i am not a member of the Sinn Fein Party but i i am nationalist as such. I want a United Ireland but not by Force or killing when there is a credible option on the table. I no my History back to front and i know what the British have done to the Irish.As I said it seems you just took one missing word and ran with it. I would like you to apoligise for not reading this thread which I started by praising Martin McGuiness for his actions this decade.
MY POINT WAS THAT DISSEDENT REPUBLICANS IN 2010 THAT ARE KILLING PEOPLE IN THE NORTH ARE IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…………….if you disagree then fair enough
Good post Imperial call, but do you think that the Protestants (and even on this thread there is seeming reference to them still being "settlers"…which does epitmoise the problem) would have accepted a united state at any time?
Under a nasty bigoted piece of work such as de Valera?
Civil war would have been a certain outcome unless the leadership was particularly inspired….
Clivexx i dont think Dev was bigoted….he was always trying to get on the back of Sir James Craig after he stated " We are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State"
He probaly had the greatest speech ever after Churchill started to imply we were Nazi’s.
He was a hot head…more of a Paisley type character. Always trying to get one up ahead of the opposition. I think he even admitted that his hot head had cost many lives.
He was a bigot. Wrapped up in romantisised nationlism and so devoid of a moral compass that he sent his condolences on Hitlers death just to further antagonise those that had taken a battering during the war. By any standards that was foul
Sir James Craig was equally as bigoted and you knighted him.
The Hitler thing was Grinding Churchill Grapes and taking it to far. In hindsight he must have thought that was was horrendous error
There is one aspect of the whole Northern Ireland farrago which has always puzzled me.
Namely that successive UK Governments have always said the people of Northern Ireland should decide their future.
Yet nobody has asked the general population of the United Kingdom if we actually want Northern Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom.
To me it seems absolutely absurd that a small portion of the island of Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom and I certainly don’t see why British troops lives should have been put on the line to effectively deal with entrenched bigotry.
When Ireland was granted independence the entire island should have been given up.
In my younger days I shared a house and one of the housemates was from Northern Ireland – he was a very likable, kind person until it came to the subject of Northern Ireland at which point I have never seen so much passionate hatred in anyone.
His unambiguous position was “the only good Fenian is a dead Fenian,” and this from a supposedly educated and intelligent man. I tried to discuss it with him on many occasions, once asking him if he had actually met or spoken to someone from the “other side” – well you would have thought, from his reaction, that I had asked him if he had slept with his mother.
The trouble is there are entrenched views like that on both sides and it seems to go back to some bloody stupid battle however many hundreds of year ago.
I have no doubts the majority of people in Northern Ireland are decent, tolerant people.
The trouble is there are too many with entrenched views like my former housemate.
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