“Police were evacuating the area when the bomb went off.”
Few details so far, but the BBC are reporting that a car bomb has exploded near Newry courthouse.
BBC Ireland Correspondent Mark Simpson said it appeared to have been a car bomb which “seems to have been planted by dissident republicans”. “What the IRA used to do quite frequently was target the courthouse – that is what dissident republicans are now doing,” he added.
Also from the BBC report
A car was abandoned close to the gates of the courthouse at about 2200 GMT on Monday. Police were evacuating the area when the bomb went off.
Im just waiting for someone to mention Cromwell
People are going to be killed eventually. To paraphrase P.O’Neill (or was it Gerry Adams) we just have to be unlucky once.
These deluded terrorists do seem to have been largely infiltrated but, alas, not totally.
Not sure how this is comparable to the Easter Rising.
Anyway, maybe we should reinstate the death penalty. I think the level of support for these people is so low, even among republicans, that the execution of those that do end up taking innocent lives will not make them martyrs.
Brian MacAodh
Sentenced to death? and ten minutes after hes in the ground we find out it wasnt him: it was his second cousin twice removed! I dont think so.
Come on Brian get real — the death penalty is only to be used in 21st century Ireland by the Republican movement — everyone knows that.
Like many people living in the Newry area I heard this bomb go off last night, a sound I’d hoped I’d never hear again. If this attack had 15-20 years ago the reaction locally would have been ambivalent, the reaction I’ve heard today, even from many people I know who are of a strongly Republican background is one of palpable anger. There is a real feeling in Newry of “How dare they do this to us!”
Many people are wheeling out the line that the dissidents have no support. While that is true the sad fact is that these wankers have no interest in building a support base in the community, if there was only one of them left then he would carry on regardless. Sadly Pearse’s famous line that as long as there is a British presence in Ireland there will be those who will oppose that presence,” still holds. The encouraging thing is that the vast majority of those who oppose that presence are resolved to do so by democratic means. The likelihood is that the dissidents cannot sustain a campaign for years like PIRA did and they will soon end up a blind alley. But we cannot take that for granted.
iluvni,
When the fictitous bus of hypothetical GAA children gets notionally destroyed I’m sure I’ll be tempted to ring the imaginary confidential telephone line with all the information I don’t have.
Until then I’ll deal with the real world and the fact my reasons for not supporting the PSNI are based only on politics and not the actions or inactions of anyone involved in armed struggle.
[quote]Not sure how this is comparable to the Easter Rising. [/quote]
Those involved in the rising, were also a minority, in fact they prided themselves on being such. I suspect the dissys have visions of being the new holders of ‘Ireland’s cause’.
have visions
Their vision, our nightmare.
Let them put up candidates for election and let us see how much support they have.
People North and South gave their verdict in the GFA referenda.
Gerry Lvs castro has a point at 23. All this shite about “we will not let them derail the peace process” – what the hell are “we” doing to stop them? The old ways are back in style – local intimidation, “punishment-style” attacks all over the place. I’m wondering, when the PIRA and the rest decommissioned their weapons, did they just hand them to their former colleagues for safe keeping?
Spotty Muldoon
I really hope you are wrong.
yes, Mark, I understand…those damn awkward questions….
Mark McGregor
That was a classic Republican answer. As if constructed of sand; try to grasp it and it runs through your fingers and disappears. It is symptomatic of an idealogy that does not fit ‘the real world’ as you call it and is illogical at its core.
In a similar vein we have this term ‘armed struggle’. What exactly are these people struggling against? The mere fact of “British presence in Ireland” does not justify ‘armed struggle’. You can’t ‘struggle’ against a mere presence. ‘British oppression’ you might say, following the Republican mantra. But how exactly is this oppression played out? The odd search, the odd road-check, the basic minimum to match a terrorist threat to the public at large. But for that threat such basic minimum would be reduced to nought. So who is doing this ‘oppressing’? The nonsensical Republican answer is that it is NOT the people holding the country to ransom with their indiscriminate murder charges placed amongst Irish people. It is the security forces and police, who work with their counterparts in the ‘liberated 26 counties’, with the democratic support of a people united: the Irish and the British-Irish. And how terrifying is the concept for Republicans that people north and south of the border are united. Irony indeed.
Pippakin, so do I. But another young man was shot in the legs in Derry yesterday evening. It’s this targeted intimidation that just takes you back to the darkness.
And here we go again …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/8535731.stm