Woe is the DUP
The Belfast Telegraph tonight isn’t amazingly good reading for the DUP. We have a story (no link found) about the DUP postponing it’s conference, leaving at least a two year gap between gatherings (not that my own party has had one in a while, but then again, we meet every year to elect a leader). Jim Allister reckons it is due to a downturn in DUP membership, and the possible comparisons of the Leader’s speech to that given in 2006. Then the sorry tale of Ian Paisley changing his tune on FOI remarkably soon after the Telegraph published one of his letters in relation to Mr Sweeney’s plans for the Giants Causeway. On which matter David Gordon has a piece, in which he remarks on Paisley Jnr’s only knowing of Mr Sweeney: “quite a few people spluttered in disbelief on hearing that – among them this journalist.”Not published online is the following on page 10 of the Telegraph:
July 31 2007: First Minsiter Ian Paisley hails freedom of Information disclosures in Northern Ireland and declares that Stormont departments are “making considerable strides towards achieving our goal of more open government”
October 4 2007: The Belfast Telegraph, using the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that DUP leader Ian Paisley made highly questionable claims while lobbying for a Heritage Lottery grant for would-be Giant’s Causeway centre developer Seymour Sweeney.
October 8 2007: First Minister Ian Paisley threatens to curtail Freedom of Information provisions, while slamming use of the Act by “lazy journalists who will do not any work (sic)”
From Moloney:
“Above the shop was the local HQ of the UDA, and usually on a Saturday the group’s leaders, including Adair, gathered there for a meeting. This particular Saturday, however, the UDA leaders had left early…….The fuse lit by Begley had been cropped short to give customers in the shop in the shop just enough time to get out but not enough for the UDA men to escape downstairs. But the fuse had been cut too short and the bomb exploded almost instantly.”
Yes Dewi and from whom did Mr. Maloney get that information. The comments on the fuse can only have come from the IRA. That the fuse was too short is about the only part of that statement I would give even the slightest credence to. I also thought that the IRA used more sophisticated fuses than that. Certainly had they wanted to ensure escape of the shoppers they would have done so.
Even if; and it is a huge insurmountable if, but if the attack on the Shankill shop had not been sectarian that does not explain all the other blatantly sectarian attacks does it? Sorry Dewi I do not put you in the camp of the apologists and cheerleaders (as I usually would not Sammy) Do not start apologising for or trying to minimise their crimes.
That’s a conjecture on your part based on a rather ridiculous premise. There are a number of strategic and practical concerns that would prevent an organization from wiping out an entire street beyond whether or not doing so would be in that organization’s interests
Somebody tried it on Bombay Street but it was not the provies
Not apologising or minimising – just attempting to explain what might have happened.
What length of fuse is needed Dewi to allow all the innocent civilians to escape but prevent the UDA members meeting upstairs (sic) from doing so?
Is it
a) 5 seconds
b) 10 seconds
c) 30 seconds
d) None of the above as this was not the cirteria being applied
Let’s ask the audience…..
*criteria
Sean
You once again appear to have missed my questions on previous posts – please fell free to attempt to answer a difficult question and surprise us all!
Turgon etc,
As Dewi has pointed out there is evidence that the Provos were targetting the UDA. There is evidence that the Provos were not attempting to kill civilians in Enniskillen – though the points made in an earlier posts were well made about the positioning of the bomb – I am not in a position to answer those questions.
Everyone is in agreement that it was damaging to the Provos to kill people innocent Prods so why would they had done so?
Sinply labelling people as apologists is not a proper response to the above question.
I would like to see some sort of tribunal/truth commitee to establist the answer to these issues. This might be painful for unionists who might hear that the Provos were not the evil monsters that they believe them to be and might be painful for Republicans (including myself) who might not be attributing due weight to the sectarian element of the Provos campaign.
Sammy,
I do not label you as an apologist normally but today you are acting like one.
“There is evidence that the Provos were not attempting to kill civilians in Enniskillen”
Which evidence?
“though the points made in an earlier posts were well made about the positioning of the bomb – I am not in a position to answer those questions.”
From my wife’s family I am in a position to comment on the position of the bomb. It was in such a position that it was never going to kill policemen or soldiers only civilians.
“Everyone is in agreement that it was damaging to the Provos to kill people innocent Prods so why would they had done so?”
No I think it was in the provos interests to kill Prod civilians. Many of them seem to have just hated Prods and want to kill them. They also frequently seemed to want to provoke a Prod backlash against RCs in order for the IRA to masquerade as the defenders of the catholic population. Also they seemed to adhere to a strategy that to stoke chaos and violence would make the British government more likely to leave.
I think the genuine problem is that you Sammy are neither an apologist nor cheerleader and neither is Dewi nor really Sean. What you all fail to understand is the sheer hatred in these people (the IRA and for that matter the loyalists). Their leaders managed to disguise it moderately well (better than the loyalists) but at the end of the day they were bigots. You fail to understand because you (not being a bigot) think that killing Prods is not only immoral but also a daft political and military strategy. To you it would be but not the IRA.
As an example from the other side it took Concerned Loyalist’s worst bigotry for Dewi to accept what myself, Dread, Pete Baker etc. had been saying that the loyalists were thugs and deserved no money.
I think Sammy had you been in charge of the IRA you would have tried to avoid killing random Prods. The point is you were not (because you are not an evil murderer) and as such you struggle to understand their mentality and attempt to read rationality and indeed some morality into their actions. Attempting to read such things into the IRA’s behaviour is fundamentally flawed.
“What length of fuse is needed Dewi to allow all the innocent civilians to escape but prevent the UDA members meeting upstairs (sic) from doing so?”
No effing idea
I put a direct quote from one of the best informed books about the IRA on here and
a) Get branded an apologist.
b) Asked about my bomb making skills.
????????
Dewi
Merely making the point that the fuse defence is not a valid one – the length of the fuse is nothing to do with bombmaking skills but it was not possible to do what PIRA was allegedly trying to achieve and avoid civilian casulaties therefore the operation inevitably involved the acceptance of civilian casualties
Turgon,
Re. Enniskillen – you yourself admitted that SF were damaged at the polls as a result. It would have been strategic madness for that to have been planned. As everybody knows Grizzly and Mc Guinness were running the show – and it was the gun AND the ballot box. They in my opinion are neither evil murderers or sectarian bigots – they are both ideolgoues who grew up in a history of violent republican rebellion against the state. I make no distinction between them and Collins/De valera who also ran a campaign where innocent prods were killed. Loyalsit paramilitaties deliberately and proudly killed innocent Catholic because they did not need to be elected and becuase frankly before they were organsied by military inteligence had not got the sense to target IRA/SF.
After bloody sunday the Englezes right to rule in Non Iron in many peoples opinions, including my own was gone. The Provos were swamped with applicants – not because they hated Prods but because the Englezes proved themselves unfit to govern Non Iron. This, internment etc is what drove republican violence and denial of that fact only shows the gulf in understanding between the 2 communities which myself and yourself reflect in this discussion.
And talking of innocents.
What about the innocent Welshman who presumed he could join in on a dispute between Padz but had not taken the bother to acquaint himself with the basics of bombmaking – rhag dy gywilydd.
Sammy,
Using terms like Englezes is unhelpful. Yes Enniskillen did SF some electoral harm but it also helped in other IRA strategies. It was always a twin track approach and sometimes murdering people was more important than politics.
Since the IRA seemed far more interested in killing Prods than “Englezes” your argument does not hold water. Much as I hate using statistics the simple fact is that the vast majority of people the IRA murdered were not “Englezes”. Unless that is one counts Prods as “Englezes” and that is my point that the IRA were sectarian bigots who made little or no distinction between British soldiers and Northern Irish girls who had committed the crime (in IRA terms) of being Prods and remembering the war dead. There were no “Englezes” at Kingsmills, Enniskillen, LeMon, Teebane, Darkley, Shankill fish shop. Douglas Derring was not an “Engleze”.
To say the Adams let alone McGuniness is not an evil murderer is really rather naive. I do not think that it is only unionists who regard them as such.
As I said I think you are a decent non violent person who whilst a nationalist does not support the murder of people whom you wish to be united in the same state as. I also suspect you do not wish to murder young British men who join the army let alone random British shoppers in England nor Australians on holiday. As such you struggle to understand the hate and bigotry which motivated the people at Kingsmills, LeMon, Enniskillen, Teebane etc. etc. You think their actions must surely have some rational basis. They do not. You are trapped by a refusal to realise that the terrorists of both sides whilst they proclaimed the same goal as the two communities (UI or union respectively) were actually quite different. Neither I nor I strongly suspect you were actually in favour of killing people to achieve your legitimate goal. That is why you and I are better than them.
“Neither I nor I strongly suspect you were actually in favour of killing people to achieve your legitimate goal. That is why you and I are better than them.”
I repeat Alister’s quote:
As Jim Allister, DUP Chief Whip in 1985 put it: ‘If we have done all that and we are still ejected [from the UK] … then I would act in concert with hundreds of thousands of other individual loyalists in arming ourselves. No self-respecting individual is going to do anything but resist”
I reckon that’s “in favour of killing people to achieve a goal”
Cheap shot I know….your campaign is developing quite nicely by the way but a suggestion from the focus groupsis to free your mind of ideology…best to start with a blank slate..
Turgon,
prods/englezes/padz and as Dewi is listening in Diminutive Taffs – all acceptable terms to me I have to admit. I draw the line at the N word – but that is a taboo I really feel like breaking
because if blacks’ get to say then why cant I?
re. The Provos and the innocent Prods. You my good fellow are trapped in a failure to understand that Provo violence was in the main a response to a shockingly run sectarian state and a British policy which when the former was legitimately challeneged responded by attacking the Nationalist/Republican people with their army as in Bloody Sunday and internement.
Most republicans did not want the death of Prods innocent or otherwise but just wanted the Engleze to feck of back to their own country – thats what the Provo campaign was all about – and that is what the vast majority of historians would accept to be the case.
Sammy,
Maybe I was too charitable about you.
“Most republicans did not want the death of Prods innocent or otherwise but just wanted the Engleze to feck of back to their own country”
Yes most republicans may not have wanted the death of Prods. However, the IRA quite clearly did.
We can argue about how much discrimination there was here but I will tell you I think there was discrimination against Catholics and (to a lesser extent) against working class Prods. As a middle class Prod I have to accept that and say I am sorry and it should never happened and yes although I was 1 when Stormont was suspended people like me gained the most from it.
However, I put it to you that the perverse evil sectarian actions of the IRA were not a legitimate response to discrimination. They were murder.
Leaving that aside briefly; the majority of the people murdered by the IRA were not “Englezes”, they were Northern Irish Protestants. They were not an attempt simply to get rid of the “Englezes”, they were an attempt to kill Northern Irish Protestants. They also wished to get rid of the “Englezes” but one very major plank in their strategy was to create mayhem and sectarian murder to make the “Englezes” tire of the whole thing and leave.
I have been charitable and suggested you are not a cheerleader for long enough. Just tell me whether or not you think it was reasonable to murder policemen, to blow up shops, hotels and restaurants, to kill shop keepers? To oppose the campaign of the IRA does not mean that one is a unionist. It does not mean one cannot complain about previous discrimination. It does indeed give one good moral grounds to do so. To support IRA actions invalidates any ability to claim any high moral ground.
Dewi,
I am unsure of the context but it was unhelpful. How many times do I have to say that I disapprove of and condemn such statements? I would suggest (and let us try to get this thread back onto some sort of constructive discussion) that you find it difficult that I was challenged to provide a positive prodiban alternative. I have made some suggestions and apart from Billy Pilgrim and Joe Canuck no one has even noticed let alone tried to indulge in debate about the future. I accept that Bob McGowan’s entry into debate is usually causally associated with it degenerating into a slanging match but I think we can all do a bit better than Bob.
Turgon,
I could accuse you of being a cheerleader for oppression and state violence as I have yet to hear you describe the actions of the British Army as murder in epsidoes like Bloody Sunday. But where does that get us?
I personally do not think the IRA campaign was justified but I do not think it was ‘evil’ or ‘anti protestant’ – nor do most historians. If you are going to run a war in an urban area then it going to be very fecking nasty. Blame for this war lies somewhere between the Provo campaign, the Prod State, the Englezes military response to the initial troubles and the historical legacy of a sectarian partition backed up with the threat of force.
The Engleze government has accepted this analysis that is after all what the good GFA/STA is about. Blair cut a deal with the Provos precisely because they ARE a political movement that compromised when offered a resonable settlement. Pity the Provos and the Englezes had not realised earlier but it took lots of dead republicans and the threat of a flattened financial centre in London to bring both of them to where we are today. The Prods were a sideshow who unfortunately took the brunt of this process.
Right Turgon:
1) You have have consistently and resolutely condemned violence in all but the most defensive sense.
2) You have also stated that is possible (was the word likely?) that violence could erupt again in next decade or so.
3) You have expressed a wiiligness to join a Ultra Unionist party whose objectives would be:
i) To renegotiate the Agreement to bring back a Cabinet type Government whilst somehow avoiding majority rule.
ii) And if that fails direct rule with some Dublin involvement.
The primary reason for 3) is due to your opposition to sharing Government with Sinn Fein
I hope that’s fair – if not please tell me where it’s flawed.
Could I state my bewilderment in as simple terms as I can.
I cannot understand how 3) is likely to produce a more content society in any sense. Indeed 3) would make 2) more likely in which case 1) is a matter of a personal repugnance only, rather than a desire to eliminate violence from all areas of society.
Im my not particularly humble opinion a fair more constructive project for peace loving Unionists like yourself (and I know I’m boring on the subject) would be a fierce effort to reduce the intensity of the 12th of July celebrations. Concentrate on the detail of hoe violence can erupt and manage those details away.
You’ve done a long shif by the way.
How violence and long shift by the way…
Sammy,
Okay I accept you are not a supporter of the IRA. We are clearly not going to agree on whether or not the IRA campaign was evil or sectarian. I find it truly strange that people could say it was neither or those things but further debate on the subject is likely to be pointless.
Dewi,
I agree with your essential summary of my position. My problems with the current agreement are not solely due to SF but I agree that is the single greatest stumbling block for me.
I disagree that renegotiation of the agreement or direct rule will necessarily increase the risk of subsequent violence. I regard them as unrelated variables. I believe violence will start again soon no matter what we do short of all Prods and unionist minded Catholics and others voluntarily leaving Northern Ireland. As I say I hope and pray that I am wrong.
Also even if; and it is an if I do not accept but (to follow your logic) if rejection of the current process makes violence more likely I do not see why proposing an alternative system in a democratic fashion should be prevented by the fact that violent people could then become violent. I would suggest that one cannot conduct politics solely to ensure undemocratic criminals do not commit acts of criminal violence. I do not wish to invoke Godwin’s law but we have tried appeasement before and it does not work. If the IRA wish to kill people because a democratic majority of the unionist community adopt a given democratic non violent position who’s fault would that then be?
I am opposed to violence but I will not allow my politics to be solely directed to appeasing those waiting in the wings who might propose violence.
Sammy
You say the Provo campaign was neither evil or anti Prod.
I find this hard to believe.
On the morning of the Enniskillen bomb in another part of the county the Provos tried to kill the children of a village but their bomb failed to ignite or explode.
They knew that no army or police would be present but it was clear that 30/40 young protestant children were in the firing line but they still went ahead with their plan.
An attempt to detonate the bomb was from ROI
Killing Irish children was part of their republicanism.
Turgon,
This a typical Nationalist/Unioist Left/Right view of the world – the former tends to blame events for individual actions whilst the latter
tends to blame the indiviual. This helps to epxlain your view of it was the evil Provos what done it and mine of it as hsitory what made them do it. The truth is somewhere presumably in between.
If you look at Iraq for exapmle it may have been invaded for good reason ( I personally dont accept that) but if the result is that you create an opportunity, for what might be described by some, as the forces of evil to flourish then it is probably not a good idea as it will end up in the messs that it is today. So too with Non Iron trying to put the clock back and exclude the choice of the majority of Catholic opinion if sucessful may let loose those forces, the evil of the IRA ( as you would see it). To the Provos it would appear that the Englezes could not be trusted to keep their word ( with some justification in my opinion ) and we would be heading back to war.
You will just have to take a hit on STA/GFA – but remember this – you are probably encouraging the perception of Unionism as a cause of violence rather than a victim of violence with your (erstwhile?) friends on thr mainland if you appear to reluctant to bite the bullet.
I just noticed the number of posts in this thread stands at 220. The thread concerning religious teaching in schools stands at 108.
Who’d have thought that politics and religion would attract so much attention in Northern Ireland?
Ulsterfan,
not wishing to trivialise your point but firstly on a rugby matter – is the Ulster coach under pressure? The Leinster coach should be out in my opinion as like Ulster they appear to be punching below thier weight. Or is it that all Irish (in the geographical sense ) had become shite over night.
re. The other Enniskillen bomb – I was unaware of that. Do you know for certain there was to be no warning? How do you know that the Provos knew there was no army present. You say they “still went ahead with their plan” – what was their original plan? What statement did they issue?
Sammy,
You flit between the cause of the problems being the “Englezes” and it being the fault of Northern Irish Protestants. It is this flitting which makes it easy to confuse your position with one of objecting to the presence not of the “Englezes” but of Northern Irish unionists. If the unionist population elected a majority of members to the assembly who were unwilling to be in government with SF how would that be the “Englezes” fault?
IwSMNwdi
If the bomb at the border had gone off the death tool would have likely been far more than at Enniskillen and the death toll there may well have been higher due to the overstretching of the rescue services and the hospital capacity. Hard to beleive that that wasn’t part of the overall plan. The military presance at country services is not known for its strength. As I said before childrens organisations are to the fore at these.
Many of us and I do include myself in that, beleive that this was an attempt to cull the numbers of Protestants at the border. Because of what happened in Enniskillen that day and the focus on it, the IRA has never had to explain itself over the other bomb.
Bertie,
Very true. It would have been stunningly efficient in the IRA’s perverse logic. Many children would have died in the long run removing a large number of border Protestant families. But of course the IRA were neither evil nor sectarian, how silly of you to think that blowing up children would have been evil or sectarian.
Sammy
At 198 on the previous page I have given 4 examples from 1971 alone of nakedly sectarian murders carried out by PIRA – the Pettigo case is well documented although overshadowed by the actual detonation in Enniskillen. Without wishing to plagiarise Phoebe and Ross in Friends in the light of incontrovertabel evidence are you not prepared to accept the smallest possibility that some actions of PIRA were purely and simply sectarian?
Turgon and Peter
Not wishing to detract from the seriousness of what we are discussing, I have to say that I don;t remeber being one of a trio before as in this part of this thread. I need to go and do other things, and leave you both to it for now, which is probably as well before someone thinks we are sockpuppets.
I have only just come across this thread after it had already received 226 responses and really, life is too short…. but I was intrigued by MacAedha’s assertion that “The benefit of Seymour Sweeney building the said centre outweighs the disbenefits of increased public spending …. and I am still trying to work out what sort of animal a “disbenefit” might be and wonder if by any chance it is somehow related to a white elephant, or indeed a grey one for that matter.
Can we bring in David Attenborough or Rolf Harris on this?
Turgon my old pal,
I dont think you thought through the logic of your postion, you agreed with the Welsh bomb making expert that you would agree to some Dublin input in Non Iron affairs if you could escape the clutches of the evil SF who are the choice of your nationalist neighbours. This would be the pay off to Nationlaists for Unionists not keeping up their side of the GFA/STA. That Dublin input could be siginificant, or else Nationalist would not agree to it and possibly go back to war and it also could well be the case that Grizzly and Co could be part of the administration in the South that you would be giving an input to.
Peter Brown,
shit is that the time, rugby about to start.
I do accept that some members of PIRA were sectarian and some of their operations were blatantly sectarian and innocent Prods were deliberatley killed, but I do not accept that the objectives or policy of PIRA was to kill innocent prods. Nor do I accept that it was British Army policy to kill innocent catholics although there are many examples of same.
Oiche mhaith(good night in Oirish)
Rory,
‘disbenefit
dis·ben·e·fit [ diss bénnəfit ] (plural dis·ben·e·fits)
noun
Definition:
U.K. disadvantage: something that makes a situation disadvantageous or unfavorable’
from encarta
I really do not need David Attenborough for an explanation.
Bertie,
re. Border bomb, as I posted earlier, I did not know of this, certainly on the basis of your post it sounds horrendous. Perhaps someone can cast factual light on what the Provos were up to.
Sammy
Top Gear for first half rugby for the second and frankly Top Gear was better – can we agree on that too?
As for the request for light on what PIRA were up to in Fermanagh in November 1987 over to Sean but don’t expect the facts….
Welsh bomb making expert…..Nos Da
Fermnaagh
Murder near as i can tell but dont really know
What I do know is Genocide is numbered in thousands and tens of thousands not dozens terrorism is measured in dozens
And Peter like most lawyers facts really arent your specialty
Sean
Interesting way to answer the question – ignoring it. An SF/IRA speciality, if you don’t like the question or the answer then don’t answer it and instead answer a question you like but that hasn’t been asked. I may be a lawyer but at least I have attempted to be an honest one and rather than putting up a smokescreen!
Bob McGowan
Organizaion No killed Catholics Protestants Other
PIRA 517 167 261 89
British Security 190 162 24 4
Loyalist 873 686 132 55
The figures you quoted show that PIRA killed more RCs than “British Securityâ€, as well as killing 327 more humans. Also note that those killed by “British Security†includes many lawful and accidental killings.
When all is said and done, the unionist cops and thugs killed more civilians and a greater percentage of their victims were civilians than the PIRA whom you condemn so loudly.
I’ll ask again: why do you ignore PIRA murders of those whom you claim not to be “civilians†from your assessment? It seems a rather crass tactic simply to discount large numbers of PIRA victims in order that you can try to claim that PIRA murdered fewer than other groups.
Sammy McNally
The Englezes have killed thousands of Iraqis civilians I have not heard much talk of RAF murderers – its all about “our brave boysâ€.
In war, unless war crimes are committed, killings aren’t murders.
The IRA have more justification for their war than the Englezes had in Iraq – at least it was their country and they were resisting a period of sectarian rule. Although I personally did not agree with the way they went about it.
Outrageous nonsense. The PIRA had absolutely no justification for its terror campaign whatsoever. While the Iraq war was unjust, the UK clearly had some justification in terms of just cause and possibly proper authority – in terms of earlier UN resolutions and endorsement by Parliament.
I think that the real reason Unionists cannot have the “just war†theory because it is an indictment of how they ran the show so badly for 50 years.
Um, just war theory demonstrates the PIRA campaign to have been entirely unjust!
Willows old bean good to hear from you.
When you say “The PIRA had absolutely no justification for its terror campaign whatsoever. “ Presumably you mean apart from the fact that the sectarian state of NonIron was set up under threat of violence, the will of the Irish people was ignored in partition, The British Army sided with the sectarian state having come in initally as a guartanor of peace, the British shot 14 innocent civilians on a civil rights march protesting about the sectarian state, the British army organised and trained loyalist parpamitliaries and gave them dirction as to who to shoot. If I had your facility to deny the the relevance of all these facts in explainig the Non Iron War then I probably would agree with you but I would then be at odds with majoirty of political analysts
and historical commentators.
Re. Iraq. We hear much talk of the cowardly bombers of the IRA – their mortality rate was however much highter that those in the RAF who know that the reasons given to them for the War is spurious, and that it is by most definitions illegal and yet continue to fly planes and drop cluster bombs whilst unlike the Provos getting well paid. How exactly do they sleep in their beds at night – unless they, a bit like yourself, have a facility to leave out unpalatable facts and dont realise that the big hairy arse bombs they are dropping are killing innocent Iraqi civilians.
I commend you sir, for developing a most outrageous set of double standards.
Sammy
I see you are back talking about the evil Brits and loyalists.
Lets have some balance and give us your views on the evil acts carried out in the name of Republicanism or do you leave that to others?
Ulsterfan,
Firstly permit me to say a few words on the subject of Ulster Rugby – they are playing absolutely shite – better watch out for Connacht overtaking them in Celtic league and non qualification for HC next year.
re. Evil Englezes and Iraq.
I have been asked to justify my previous remarks by the “Historical denier” Willows and have done so. I have previously made observations about the conduct of the Provos which are broadly in line with most historians.
Sammy.
Dream on about the Rugby.
Connaught are going nowhere except propping up the table.
You try to justify your remarks but this is not convincing and then seek protection by calling unnamed historians to your defence.
Who are these historians so that we may all examine there works?
Ulsterfan,
I hope you are not too disappointed to hear that someone with my (apalling) views is a big Ulster fan but I fear that if McCall does not get booted out they will not turn things around.
Lets try you out with one Historian and see how you get on – Peter Taylor: The Provos: Expains their origins as a reaction to sectarianism and partition.
I have read some of Peter Taylors work and saw most of his TV programmes made for BBC Panorama and Channel 4.
At times I thought he could be more objective .
Be that as it may, I am more interested in your views of PIRA and the Crimes, some of which are heinous, that they committed.
This is in the interests of having a balanced view.
Taylor “from a Unionist tradition” – I reckon objectivity his middle name.
Dewi
Not necessarily so.
I am sure you can think of many people who break away from tradition etc. and can have a different view of the world.
Before this discussion veers into potentially libellous territory.
Peter Taylor is a very good journalist and documentary maker – but he’s not an historian.
I was thinking of Richard English actually – being an Ulster Prod – Taylor from Britaim somewhere.
Dewi
You have heard of playing the ball, not the man?