“the first step is to act with good authority by telling the truth to your own tribe”
Interesting piece in the Sunday Independent from newly appointed senator Eoghan Harris on his appearance at West Belfast Talks Back. He takes issue with his introduction by the BBC’s Martina Purdy but the point to note, I’d suggest, whilst others march for half-truth, is something picked up briefly in Malachi O’Doherty’s audio diary on Sunday Sequence. Namely his challenge to his own tribe for some self-examination.
Forty-one years ago, this weekend, I travelled to Maghera, Co Derry, with Dr Roy Johnston of the Republican movement’s think tank, the Wolfe Tone Society, and Cathal Goulding, chief of staff of the IRA, to attend a secret meeting of assorted academics, communists and IRA leaders, which was held at the fine farm of Kevin Agnew over the weekend of August 14-15 in the golden autumn of 1966.
Although I was not a member of the IRA, Eamon Maille’s book The Provisional IRA correctly records that at the Maghera meeting, I read out the comprehensive plan, drawn up by the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society, for setting up the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which Goulding hoped would both achieve civil rights and lead the Republican movement away from a narrow nationalist agenda.
While that peaceful project was thwarted by Unionist politicians like William Craig, and later by the equally bigoted nationalists like British-born Provo IRA intransigent Sean Mac Stiophain, there is no truth in the People’s Democracy claim that sectarian violence was inevitable. The Provisional IRA willed that worst scenario.
Back in August 1966, however, neither Roy Johnston nor myself dreamed that the noble dream of NICRA was doomed to be diverted into the sterile struggle of the Provisional IRA. Above all, as I told my audience, if I myself could have seen 12 years ahead, I doubt whether I would have continued to support even the civil rights struggle.
Because 12 years later, in Maghera, on February 28 1978, William Gordon, a part-time member of the UDR, together with his 10-year-old daughter Lesley, were blown to bits by a car bomb planted by Francis Hughes, who later died on hunger strike. And while Hughes, as I told the West Belfast meeting, might be one of their local heroes, to me, as a Wolfe Tone republican, he seemed a sectarian murderer.
In spite of this, and in spite of the sectarian mind-set of many Northern nationalists, the dream of Wolfe Tone’s benign Republic of minds and hearts never died in my heart of hearts. And, as I told the audience, far from changing my mind on this core issue, for the past 41 years I have consistently tried to show my tribe the two sides of that Wolfe Tone coin.
http://www.yfc-ceredigion.org.uk/
Ceredigion Young Farmers – as wholesome as it gets.
The idea that this is a march for “half truth” is actually incorrect.
The Republicans who were marching (not many it seems) want to be told that the army and special branch colluded in the murder of predominantly catholics in Northern Ireland. They want to be told this was part of an organised campaign by the security forces and the UDA et al. They wish to see this exposed as part of a grand conspiracy involving senior police officers, the army leadership, British politicians and presumably some unionist politicians as well.
What would happen if collusion was investigated and it was demonstrated that it happened but was localised and occured on only a few occassions. To me as a unionist that would be totally unacceptable (as any collusion at all would be) but I suspect it would also be unacceptable to Republicans as it would fail to demonstrate a grand conspiracy. As such this would not be a truth SF would want.
An even worse truth might be that the IRA colluded with the “British war machine” as seems at least as likely as any collusion with the UDA. That would obviously also be a truth which SF would not be at all happy with.
Then of course it seems hardly necessary to point out that there are all the murders committed by the IRA about which SF want no truth told except a quick “Bad things happened, it was a pity”.
So it was not really a march for even half truth, more like for quarter truth.
One must ask why all the current SF highlighting of this. Is it not the same as things like unionist engagement: namely to annoy unionists; please their own hard line that they have not forgotten their roots; and to help perputate the fallacy that we were all responsible for the violence of the past.
The chances of SF/IRA telling any of the truth? Well does anyone think there is even a remote chance of that when they cannot even correct their own lies eg about Enniskillen, Jean McConville etc. etc.
“Ceredigion Young Farmers – as wholesome as it gets.”
Yes, Dewi, each to his own :0)
Now google “Polish girls” and “Italian girls”.
Turgon,
“The chances of SF/IRA telling any of the truth? Well does anyone think there is even a remote chance of that when they cannot even correct their own lies eg about Enniskillen, Jean McConville etc. etc.”
When you put it like that…
Seems that some of you still don’t get it! Sinn Fein (and Gerry Adams personally) have publically called for neutral international inquiries into ALL collusion including republican collusion.
They have also earlier admitted that both the IRA and Sinn Fein have been penetrated at a high level by British Intelligence.
The European Court has already demanded that the British Government immediately institute a proper investigation into the ‘shoot to kill’ policy in Armagh in the early 80′s. A demand which the government has attempted to satisfy by passing the request to the ombudsman Mrs. O’Loane who will shortly be retiring and who has said that she has not been given any resources for such an inquiry.
The Sinn Fein strategy is to prove that there is a demand for proper inquiries into the disputed killongs and they are prepared to take the inevitable fall-out when embarrassing facts emerge about their own behaviour. That’s the price of justice being seen to be done and it’s not the republicans on this board who are resisting disclosure.
It may take another few years but the truth will emerge eventually. Republicans are prepared to answer for their actions, but they’ll make damn sure that other people do so as well.
Why is full disclosure by the British government into its collusion with the unionist paramilitaries linked in any way whatsoever with disclosure of actions taken by the IRA?
Why does the unionist community not want the British government, their own government if you will, to come clean? Should not the British government have been held to a higher standard of conduct in the first place, and then held to a higher standard of disclosure when that government fails to conduct its affairs as a democratically elected government is expected to do?
In the absence of full disclosure by the British government, by what moral authority does the government demand disclosure, retribution, and pennance from anyone else?
Lib,
“…publicly called for neutral international inquiries into ALL collusion including republican collusion.”
Absolutely true. Yet the party’s deal with the British effectly protects state forces (most notably MI5) from investigation by the Police Ombudsman – who has no brief to judge anything other than police conduct.
The Human Rights Commissioner, who has a wider remit, can only investigate offences committed after the beginning of this month.
It is also noteworthy that here are no plans arising from the party’s long and complex negotiations with Number Ten and the NIO, to investigate the actions of non state actors.
Although Gerry Adams is keen on a Truth Commission, he’s not so keen on the deliberations of Eames and Bradley over how truth might be handled, though he does not state what precisely his objections are to it.
You may be right when you state:
But there is little evidence from past experience that either SF or the British will countenance a wholesale digging up the past.
lib 2016
Do you not think that a lot of this is SF posturing. They can demand enquiries whilst the British government are highly unlikely to grant them. Even if the government did SF probably calculate that the government would avoid allowing stuff out which could really upset the apple cart here eg stuff about Adams and McGuiness.
The real problem with your post is the comment about “disputed killings”. That phrase allows SF to demand enquiries into all manner of potential collusion but allows them to avoid answering questions regarding IRA killings because of the time worn comment frequently voiced here “sure we all know the IRA did those killings”. So if SF/IRA want enquiries on collusion then let them tell us that they will cooperate with enquiries into their own actions.
Oldruss
To an extent you have a point. The problem is that SF are demanding enquiries as a way of attacking the government, army and police. Will they accept it if an enquiry found very low level collusion in a small number of cases and incompetence in a few others? I doubt it; rather they would claim that it was the tip of an iceberg
Yes I think that a democratic government should adopt higher standards and in the vast majority of cases it is pretty obvious that they did, and no exceptions should not be tolerated in any way.
There is a problem, however, when the terrorist organisation claims to be a legimate government and now has members sitting in government claiming (correctly) to be democratically elected yet are unwilling to tell any truth about their own actions.
Incidentally I have not seen the British government demanding “disclosure, retribution, and pennance from anyone else”. The government seem quite happy to forget it all and move on. In reality despite the posturing I think SF have a similar position but cannot / will not admit it and are using the half / quarter truth process to achieve the aims I have suggested earlier.
It seems to me that this whole “truth” initiative is an attempt for sinn fein to remain relevant in the ‘anti-brit/establishment’ republican political space that they’ve dominated for the last decades. 10 years ago it was ‘no return to stormont’, ‘not a bullet, not an ounce’, ‘they haven’t gone away you know’,…. today mcguinness is the deputy first minister at stormont, all weapons have been decommissioned, and they have gone away. change in a movement as historical and stubborn as the irish republican one takes quite a lot of thought, planning, AND MANIPULATION. it is my opinion that sf know that nothing significant will come from these ‘truth’ marches. in fact, i’m sure they know 100 times more about collusion between loyalist and the brits, and their own agents and the brits, than they’ll ever admit. this is merely a way for them to make the grassroots et al feel like their still fighting…
Fitzy – profound and true but not necessary a criticism of the Sinn Fein leadership – they followed a long, tortuous and complex path to deliver peace without significant violent dissent. That took some doing.
Fitzy,
Very well said (typed actually but you know what I mean). I would suggest that the whole “truth” nonsense will be dropped quite soon after it has done its good from an SF perspective. Its purpose is as you say to keep the hard liners happy whilst administering power is what SF are actually interested in at the moment and is more important to keeping the more moderate newer vote happy.
I would not be surprised, however, if it and similar things pop up from time to time when there is a need for a bit of proper secterian pot stirring. Also of course it helps with the telling of the myth that everyone here was involved in, and guilty, for the conflict.
dewi…
i absolutely agree…. and to be honest, i’m not sure that many, if any, on this post would trade having to put up with these ‘truth’ movements for the deaths that would have happened if the armed struggle had carried on.
also, i wasn’t trying to COMPLETELY discount this movement as a ploy to divert attention. the thoughts and emotions that these activities bring up are necessary hardships in getting past the scars that have been left on both sides by the past wrongs inflicted by everyside. i think a lot of the debate is also key to somehow marching the nationalist/republican movement into supporting law enforcement agencies.
Turgon – they stopped it all didn’t they – accept of course the suffering and pain but the SF leaders have managed to stop the violence which must be good ?
Mick,
If there are genuine inquiries with an international dimension, even if that only means in practice that the inquiries have to satisfy the European Court, then it’s hard to see how anyone can guarantee what they will be able to keep hidden.
To an extent you are right, of course. No-one knows the identity of all Mick Collin’s informants inside the Castle and republicans today will not betray their informants in just the same way. While the Brits are very obviously dumping on Special Branch and trying to make sure the trail goes no further.
However the broad outlines of things like Claudy or the Glenanne Gang would be what one could hope would emerge and it would at least knock some of the stuffing out of those on both sides who want to romanticise violence.
My attitude and that of most republican posters is to let in any light possible even though we all know there will be plenty of skullduggery still left in the shadows. Others, mostly unionist, seem to oppose all inquiries.
Eames and Bradley may be decent people personally but I doubt you would find many republicans who believe in their objectivity. ‘Eames/Bradley’ is too little too late, as usual.
It might, just might, have passed muster ten years ago with Hume and Mallon backing it. Now it’s just a distraction.
Dewi,
I rarely attack anything you say as it tends to be pretty balanced and although lacking in balance myself I can see it as a quality in others. (I will shout No Surrender now to make me feel better).
I take issue a bit with this though “they followed a long, tortuous and complex path to deliver peace without significant violent dissent. That took some doing.”
Yes it may be fairly true but does sort of miss the vast fact that the SF leadership were either incredibly closely linked with or actually were the IRA leadership so to laud them for this path to peace is a bit rich when they had master minded a vast murderous terrorist campaign.
Turgon & Fitzy,
The inquiries will go ahead because the European Court will demand it, and the SDLP will suffer because it has been seen to oppose the demand for those inquiries.
This is not Kenya in the 1950′s nor India in the 1940′s. There are legal remedies at European level unless the UK Government can show that proper inquiries have taken place.
British Ministers standing up in Westminster claiming the National Interest won’t be enough. European Law applies to governments, unlike British Law which the Government acting as ‘the Crown in Parliament’ can ignore.
lib 2016,
“any light possible even though we all know there will be plenty of skullduggery still left in the shadows”
Do you not accept though that whatever the British government reveal will be denounced as inadequate by SF. Indeed if very little collusion is revelaed would you be willing to accept there was indeed very little collusion.
On the other hand no one will expect anything approaching the truth from SF/IRA and so any revelations from them will be lauded as great honesty.
I do entirley agree with “However the broad outlines of things like Claudy or the Glenanne Gang would be what one could hope would emerge and it would at least knock some of the stuffing out of those on both sides who want to romanticise violence.”
Except that it would help make you and I think violence is wrong and was unjustified but we already agree on that if nothing else. Those who thought it was a great/ necessary idea may still manage to romanticise it in their own twisted minds.
turgon –
i don’t disagree with the fact that many elements within sf participated hands-on in violence of the past. it really is up to opinion as to whether that was right or wrong. it could also be said that the likes of david ervine, ian paisley, members of the ruc and british army, and others were also directly (i.e. hands-on sometimes)involved in violence. i suppose, depending on your personal political/moral standing, that these actions could be viewed as right or wrong.
i agree with dewi’s point though.
i am ABSOLUTELY not a fan of paisley etc., but i’d still commend him for sitting next to mcguinness on behalf of his community. i certainly won’t forget his past deeds, but in order for the north to move on as a functional society, the present and future must be our focus, not the past.
Turgon,
The Brits and Sinn Fein are political opponents. I would expect them to denounce each other periodically and see no harm in that. What’s your point?
We already have good reason to believe that there was a great deal of official collusion between the authorities in NI and the more reactionary locqal murder gangs, as happened in Britain’s other colonial last stands.
In recent years the water has been muddied by allegations about the extent to which the republican movement was also infiltrated, and attempts to confuse infiltration with collusion.
Frankly I see no reason why any person of good will would oppose inquiries suitably overseen by international authorities.
lib
“The inquiries will go ahead because the European Court will demand it”… i don’t think the ways of the world are that straigtforward. participation in policing, cross-border bodies, economics, etc. will at some point take the reigns as the issue of the month and this ‘truth’ initiative will fall to a bullet point lower on the list of priorities. concessions will be made in other areas to allow sf to mask the lack of progress.
lib,
“Frankly I see no reason why any person of good will would oppose inquiries suitably overseen by international authorities.”
ideally this is a good idea, but the state of the hearts and minds of the population of the north would turn these activities into one more battlefield for our people to fight/hate/discount eachother. i, like most people in the north, have lost loved ones. i’d certainly give up my rights to knowing exactly what happened if it meant a fresh start for our youth.
There were recent trials in Italy on criminal behaviour which took place during the Second World War. A few weeks ago a man was convicted for the murder of Civil Rights workers in America during the 1960′s.
It has taken a quarter of a century for the European Court to demand an ‘immediate inquiry’ and you reckon this is ‘the issue of the month’.
We’re not talking about ‘British Justice’ this time but about real law and order for a change. The length of time it takes is not an issue, and political interference by Britain could prove very counter-productive but of course they will try it….
Turgon – don’t know who could have brought the IRA to peace apart from the IRA leadership. Whatever the past, they did it which is good. Trick is to keep the peace.
lib 2016,
“The Brits and Sinn Fein are political opponents”
Well they are and they are not. I do not think it is just as simple as that.
“We already have good reason to believe that there was a great deal of official collusion between the authorities in NI and the more reactionary locqal murder gangs”
Again that is open to considerable debate (as we have frequently seen). You may have good reason to see lots of collusion but you are hardly an unbiased observer are you? Also you “have good reason to believe that there was a great deal of offical collusion” but you only see “allegations about the extent to which the republican movement was also infiltrated”. Do you not want to admit that the IRA was infiltrated to a great extent. Does such a thing offend you? Why the clear difference in the level of credance you give to each suggestion?
“attempts to confuse infiltration with collusion. ”
Do you think that infiltration and collusion are unlinked? You are not that foolish. I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of any collusion was actually secondary to infiltration and although utterly wrong this collusion may well have been from motives to minimise death and destruction.
“Frankly I see no reason why any person of good will would oppose inquiries suitably overseen by international authorities.”
Although I do not use it as an argument I can see that a person of “goodwill” might fear the anger, hatred and division dredged up by such a thing and that that might destabilise the current agreement. Of course as someone who opposes the current arrangement its downfall would not overly distress me. Increased sectarian hatred would, however.
Incidentally you seem to have become very interested in Kenya lately. Have you been reading Britain’s gulag? (I think that is the name of the new book on the subject) Do remember that the Mau Mau had relatively little support even amongst the Kikuyu and practically none outside that. They were also horribly violent (mainly to their fellow Africans). Also Kenyatta was actually opposed to the Mau Mau. Parallels between Kenya and Northern Ireland are a bit stretched to say the least except that the terrorists here like those in Kenya were pretty dreadful and killed vast numbers of completely innocent people.
Dewi,
“don’t know who could have brought the IRA to peace apart from the IRA leadership. ”
Yes but if they had not started it in the first place then they would not have had to end it would they?
I hate using the second world war analogy for our problems as it is grossly and utterly flawed but here it may have a certain relevance. The Nazi leadership surrendered but considering what they had done prior to that it was hardly something for which they should receive plaudits is it?
Or to use the more simple analogy would you praise me if I announced that I had stopped beating Elenwe? (Do not worry I do not).
Whatever the IRA’s reason for stopping I am glad they did, I just have a problem with them being heralded as something good for it.
Turgon,
“Although I do not use it as an argument I can see that a person of “goodwill†might fear the anger, hatred and division dredged up by such a thing and that that might destabilise the current agreement.”
I understand your concerns. On the other hand inquiry is inevitable; it’s a human trait to be curious. Whether the inquiries are formal and involve international bodies or whether they’re the work of individuals, take place they will.
This is history we’re discussing. And historians are still uncovering important facts lost for centuries, some of which turn accepted narratives on their heads. We’re continually revising our knowledge of history. It’s important that we know who we are, where we came from and how we got here.
I wouldn’t be too concerned that an inquiry into collusion “might destabilise the current agreement.” Since such investigations move at a glacial pace, the current peace will be well bedded in before any findings are made public.
“…not necessary a criticism of the Sinn Fein leadership – they followed a long, tortuous and complex path to deliver peace without significant violent dissent. That took some doing.” – Dewi
Oh, give over. It’s like praising a gang of rapists who terrorised a small town because the leaders of the gang tell the others to stop raping in return for four seats on the town council and pensionable jobs. Those thugs merit no praise for not committing crime.
Although, I’m sure it was pure Gandhi-like genius by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that persuaded a whopping great 95% of the Shinners to overturn their ‘profoundly held principle’ that militant Republicans should not endorse ‘the Crown’s forces of occupation’ at their conference to endorse the PSNI, and not simply the sheep-like members of the PSP/PIRA cult doing what they were told to do under fear of getting a good bloody kicking (as Paddy Fox, who posted on Gonzo’s thread earlier as “Tyrone ex-POW” knows all too well). Nor did it have anything to do with using violence for over a decade after they decided it was a dead end, simply so they could “create the conditions for peace” i.e. keep on killing the north’s citizens until they had built-up support for the PSF party to the point where it wouldn’t simply fade away after they stopped killing people. They knew that their campaign had nothing to do with using force to eject the British, but they kept it going for purely selfish gain.
And it has nothing to do with “blame on all sides.” The blame isn’t on all sides. Unionists and Nationalists behaved with remarkable honour, dignity and restraint while a small number of self-serving sectarian murder gangs inflicted misery on their society. The blame for murder lies solely with the murderers – and the parasites like Martin McGuinness and his counterpart Johnny Adair who organised and controlled it.
dubliner…
“The blame isn’t on all sides. Unionists and Nationalists behaved with remarkable honour, dignity and restraint while a small number of self-serving sectarian murder gangs inflicted misery on their society.”
are you sure? what conditions set up the conflict. was it the happy atmosphere of social equality and brotherly love provided the by a ‘protestant parlaiment for a protestant people’
also, i’d love to know the number of ira activists that were convicted of crimes using eyewitness accounts provided from the nationalist community. i’m guessing not many.
the society of the north, as a whole, have had a hand in one way or another in creating the atmosphere we have today.
Fitzy,
I fundementally disagree with that analysis. I am not saying that unionists or nationalists were not sectarian but only a small minority were murderers and terrorists. Those people are to blame for the often hidious crimes they committed. Those who were their cheerleaders are also guilty of cheerleading.
Once you start down this we were all to blame line you can rapidly end up saying that individuals do not have personal responsibility for what happened here. This is the totally falacious and morally bankcrupt line that SF and indeed the loyalist terrorists’ cheerleaders want us to go down.
Dubliner – I tend to look at it from a determiinistic perspective – which is easy from afar admittedly.
1) Initial loyalist attacks led to defensive actions (even by Goulding’s lot who were desperate to seek cross community support (see Harris))
2) Spectacular British Army errors (Falls Rd Curfew, Bloody Sunday as admitted in that Operation Banner review) provoked mass support for armed resistance amongst many.
3) It’s then a bit self catalytic as casualities amongst friends & neighbours etc prolonged the bitterness.
4) I repeat that only the IRA leadership could have brought things to an end. I say that with no moral viewpoint at all.
5) From a moral stance Turgon’s point about personal responsibility is completely fair of course – I entirely agree.
>>Dewi,
“don’t know who could have brought the IRA to peace apart from the IRA leadership. “
Yes but if they had not started it in the first place then they would not have had to end it would they? – Turgon.
Turgon, who exactly overseen the nice two tier sectarian state in the north for 50 years, denying many basic civil rights to a large proportion of her citizens? I know your community would have meekly put up with such treatment. The only surprise is that an admittedly cowed Nationalist population took so long to act.
>>And it has nothing to do with “blame on all sides.†The blame isn’t on all sides. Unionists and Nationalists behaved with remarkable honour, dignity and restraint while a small number of self-serving sectarian murder gangs inflicted misery on their society.<<
C’mon Dub! Was Davy Ervine lying when he said that he knew the colour of the wallpaper on Unionist leaders walls? Unionists also acquiesced to living in an environment where Taigs should be seen (brush in hand to sweep up) and not heard. The latent sectarianism of Unionism should be undisputed. Many nationalists were so used to being on their knees and being glad for what they were given that it probably needed a new generation of young blood to push some of them to stop accepting the overt sectarianism of the Unionist state. I wouldn’t call their position honourable.
I know you have some good points regarding the current SF leadership, many of which I can agree with, but some of your comments here lately have been painful. When you have rabid Loyalists backing up your analysis, that should tell you how far you have gone.
Prince Eoghan
Please answer this question.
As a working class Protestant what rights did I have which you as a nationalist did not have?
Try looking up the civil rights marches confused, that’ll help with your confusion.
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/crights/nicra/nicra782.htm
This might help.
Prince Eoghan
I have not the time to read through a mass of documents prepared by others.
Why do ,you rely on them to speak for you.
I am a very simple person and probably would not understand all that they say.
Perhaps you could interpret this for me and simply advise what rights I had which were denied to you.
I am not concerned with discrimination by unionists against nationalists or nationalists against unionists but simply rights enshrined in law.
Pounder
Your attempts at ambush are tedious, I will not be dancing to your tune. The one man one vote and housing issues were very real abuses of civil rights.
Be my guest and lay out where people’s civil rights were not denied them by law. We all know that the law was followed to the letter in the 6 counties, don’t we now.
“1) Initial loyalist attacks led to defensive actions”
I don’t think it’s as simple as that Dewi.
This is not an argument in support in any way for the actions of Spence and the reformng of the UVF – but they saw their actions as pre-emptive as a response to the reappearance of the Republican clubs and sabre rattling and the bombing in the ROI – a response to the militaristic 50th anniversary commemoration of the 1916 uprising and interest in NI by the Dublin Government – not forgetting that the sectarian killings of the failed border campaign were still very fresh in memories.
Pre-emptive as in the way Israel launched it’s srike in 1967 as rsponse to militarism and political tensions.
They were very wrong to so do, but one should not make the mistake of thinking the troubles were merely a defensive response by physical force republicanism. A lot more complex than that mate.
>>They were very wrong to so do, but one should not make the mistake of thinking the troubles were merely a defensive response by physical force republicanism. A lot more complex than that mate.< <
To be fair I don't think he is thinking that. He is taking a very basic snapshot. Your elaboration of Unionist/UVF thinking adds nothing to the snapshot but the detail of why they launched attacks. Which you correctly point out that they were wrong to do so.
>>5) From a moral stance Turgon’s point about personal responsibility is completely fair of course – I entirely agree.<<
I might mis-understand the thinking here but this could be construed as a bit of a cop out.
The issue of one man one vote has nothing to do with discrimination against catholics/nationalists but did discriminate between those who owned certain types of property and those who did not regardless of religion.
In fact some nationalists had more votes than I had when in truth I did not have one myself.
Discrimination did exist but it worked both ways.
The State are not responsible for the actions of their citizens who while acting with in the law discriminate or in other words make choices.
You have still not answered my main Question.
Please don’t think too harshly about NI and the one man one vote issue when similar legislation had been effective in many English cities and indeed NY. We are not so different except in those locations they changed society by democratic means and did not resort to violence.
@Matt
“1) SF need to acknowledge that they had a major role in the troubles and committed awful and inhumane murders, sectarian, indiscriminate and cold blooded.
They need to own up and acknowledge that they have a lot of truth to uncover and that they created more victims than any other group during the troubles.”
I think you are underplaying it. The Provos were the root cause of the Troubles. They were the one violent actor who if they stopped the others would have stopped their violence too. Perhaps not overnight, but they would have stopped. Saying that the Provos merely “had a major role” in the troubles is overly generous to them. They are the reason the troubles existed, and the peace process has proven that their agenda was a pointless fantasy all along.
@Garibaldy
“It was certainly an uneasy alliance for some. But the extent to which this was the case has been, it seems to me anyway, greatly exaggerated for a number of reasons, mostly to do with reactions to 1798 and post-Union politics.
The progressive alliance that was built by people like Tone and Russell was based on a genuine belief in revolutionary principles. Hence Tone’s suspicions in his diaries of people from the Catholic Committee he thought were putting sectional interests before those of the people as a whole.”
Those revolutionary principles of Tone are today irrelevant. They are irrelevant because they are granted as a matter of course. Nobody argues for the re-introduction of Penal Laws.
What we are left with is nothing more than a border dispute, like Kashmir or the various combinations in the former Yugoslavia. Two people arguing,
“The border should go there so that my tribe is in the majority”
“No, the border should go there so that MY tribe is in the majority”
Human rights,which are individual rights, actually don’t come into it.
PercivalP,
Ireland was treated as a colony and we are simply passing through a postcolonial situation. Belfast isn’t ‘as British as Finchley’ and there are no ethnic differences to support your analysis.
A fact your mention of Tone’s defence of the need for the people to be treated as a whole makes clear. Northern Ireland was set up precisely to favour ‘sectional interests’ and if it is to continue in being then a new agenda must be set.
That’s why the old Unionism has been so decisively rejected in favour of parties who have, however surprisingly, been able to work together as equals.
Lib2016,
“Belfast isn’t ‘as British as Finchley’”
It is where the streetnames are concerned. Only difference is that a chap can more easily find his way in Finchley.
The Belfastonians have the quaint habit of signing their streets and roads at each end only. Hence it’s baffling for the stranger to turn onto Donegall Road or any other long road from a sidestreet, and try to figure out what the main thoroughfare is actually called.
“The Belfastonians have the quaint habit of signing their streets and roads at each end only.”
Oh it’s not just Belfast Dawkins….
And if the civil rights were all won in 1973, why did the IRA continue. It seems to have become a genuine attempt to reunite Ireland by force. After the heady victory in the Civil Rights, the ending of Stormont and a general zealous belief in marxist revolutions around the world – maybe they thought they had a good chance. Took the destruction of communism, the failure of the masses to join them (and in the case of loyalists, out-kill them) for the realisation that politics was the only way forward.
Peep,
Sectarianism is very much alive and well, so Tone’s principles remain of the utmost importance, as Lib as said. The creation of a culture of human rights backed up by a strong Bill of Rights with a court able to enforce it is essential to ending the divisions and hatreds among the people of NI.
Prince Eoghan,
I do not deny that discrimination occured against catholics in the Stormont era. We can argue (at vast length no doubt) about its extent but there was some. Also there was the perception of discrimination, something which is also vitally important.
I can accept all this, though as a toddler when Stormont was suspended I did not gain much from it myself (alright yes as a middle class Prod some of my priviledge was probably based on it).
What I cannot accept is that the wrongs committed against any section of society by any other absolve the personal moral responsibility of those who committed such evil acts in this country.
I do not like speaking ill of the dead but why does everyone accept these comments of David Ervine at face value? As far as I am concerned he was a convicted criminal who was involved in extremely serious sectarian crimes, was unrepentant for them and as such I will not necessarily accept what he said as gospel truth. Even if it were that does not make me responsible for crimes here. Just as whatever other unionist posters may say, I do not regard those who now vote SF as necessarily being implicated in the IRAs campaign nor necessarily supportive of it.
Turgon – sorry I missed your world domination posting last night – usually willing to oblige !
Dewi,
Try the thread on the CIA editing Wikipedia. Cruimh is waiting for a good Trowbridge moment.
The episode at the end of Spies on U tube is rather good as well.
Sorry Pete I know this is totally off thread.
1) Initial loyalist attacks led to defensive actions (even by Goulding’s lot who were desperate to seek cross community support (see Harris))
IRA guns had been fired before the loyalist attacks on Bombay Street, etc.
“IRA guns had been fired before the loyalist attacks on Bombay Street, etc. ”
Isn’t it strange how sort of random factors determine history. My point was that actions have reactions – and if we were historians 100 years in the future we would look at the period objectively. I repeat, it’s easy from afar but just repeat that Garret’s Dad was one of Mick Collins assassins – how far have that family moved ?
Loyalists carried out the first murders of the Troubles (Malvern St -Gusty Spence etc), the first bombings (the UPV bombings of water and electricity utilities outside Belfast in 1969), murdered the first policeman (Constable Arbuckle in 1969),carried out the first crossborder attack (Ballyshannon electricity station,Donegal,1969)andwere the first to fire on the British Army (Shankhill Road Oct 10/11, 1969).Allowing for population differentials the chances of a Catholic being killed in a *sectarian* attack was considerably greater than that of a Protestant. Most of what political violence has been going on since 1998 has been carried out by loyalists – multiple pipebombings etc..
Cruimh, I find your attempts at mitigation via contextualization re Malvern Street singularly lame.The fifties campaign was hardly a pinprick and a complete red herring in this context.What bombings are you talking about? Nelson’s Pillar? The Malvern Street murders were completely gratuitous and *unprovoked*.No amount of historical barrel-scraping can gloss over that fact.