Those responsible for the murder (did they think it an execution or justice?) of Ciaran Doherty have yet to account for themselves and their reasoning for permanently removing this man from his child, family and life.
While speculation is ongoing in many places the only thing we know for sure is his death, the grief of his family and now speculation on ‘reasons’.
Interesting BBC article on an upcoming presentation and talk [Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, 17 August] by lecturer and broadcaster Stephen Price on the subject of his new book – The Earl Bishop. The 18th Century ”Earl Bishop” was Frederick Augustus Hervey, fourth Earl of Bristol and Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry. Hervey was also elected [...] read our review »
Northern Ireland’s peace process has been promoted as an international success story. The Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs has its Conflict Resolution Unit, which aims to disseminate the ‘lessons’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. And some of the prominent players in our peace process have travelled abroad to other troubled spots to share their [...] read our review »
I’ve been catching up on some reading, recently. Most pleasantly surprised by John Drennan’s latest opus from Gill and Macmillan, Cute Hoors and Pious Protestors… It’s early days yet, but I was struck by this paragraph, part of a dissection of Fianna Fail near the beginning: One of the more fatal consequences of our colonial [...] read our review »
Leaving aside here, the fact that armed struggle is no longer a viable option for republican groups, for both political reasons, and due to the massive advances in state technology and surveillance capabilities.
This death may we partially down to the fact all republican groups from SF to the RIRA, like the mainstream political party’s they claim to abhor, have allowed themselves to be led by the nose by the Irish, US and UK State’s infantile ‘war on drugs’
Whilst the State has been filling its prisons with people who are convicted of drug offences, whilst raking in taxes from far more damaging substances like nicotine and alcohol, Irish Republican have been killing drug dealers for decades.
The end result is we have more people taking illicit drugs today in Ireland, the UK and the USA than ever; and no shortage of drug dealers at all levels.
sdelaneys
There is no ‘British’ state department in the north, nothing. Some people need to understand there is nothing the Brits would like better than to get out of Ireland.
Years ago the police on both sides were vitual adversaries, now that has gone, replaced by a quiet, almost unnoticed uniting of ideas and methods.
If the PSNI do not join the Garda what do you think will happen? Is the Irish govt likely to want hundreds of highly trained, highly skilled men and women, with considerable ‘inside’ information, milling about with nothing to do. Think it through and dont ask for pieces of paper when what is in front of you is all you need.
“Some people need to understand there is nothing the Brits would like better than to get out of Ireland.”
I’ve been hearing that for many years but find it difficult to accept that Britain is here for our benefit. Didn’t the invaders always have good reasons for going in and staying, they used to call it ‘the white man’s burden’ in other continents. I always think of the old song.”Old mother England loves us still… When we were ‘savage, fierce and wild’ she came as a mother to her child, Kept us free from want and care, God bless England is our prayer.’ A lovely bit of sarcasm and it may still just apply.
You seem to think we should be thankful to them for putting themselves out by staying here.
Personally I believe that if Britain wanted to go she’d be gone yesterday but then you believe she has work to do here just as in Iraq and Afghanastan.
sdelaneys
I dont believe we owe the British gratitude for anything, but nor do I believe they still want to be in a country that costs more per head of population to run than England.
I believe they are between a rock and a hard place here.
As for old songs, they are just that, old. Bleat all you want but the last thing this country needs right now is for the Brits to up sticks. It would be a disaster.
First: the unionists would have enormous power in a united Ireland with our present voting system.
Second: Ireland simply cannot afford the added burden of unemployment, health and social services, the cost of infrastructure and wages. Its endless!
A fully united Ireland will take time, and that is to our advantage.
Pippakin
I think you are confusing the British people with a section of the UK ruling elite when you write “there is nothing the Brits would like better than to get out of Ireland.”
It is true for decades opinion polls have always had a majority for withdrawal, one only has to talk to English, Welsh and Scottish people to understand the majority believe partition is a historical aberration best put right by removing the border.
However, the UK government has done very little to makes that a practical solution. Indeed if their priority was withdrawal, how can you explain the building of the new MI5 building. This building is designed not only as a tool to hunt out and destroy armed republican groups, but also as a back up MI5 headquarters, if some unforeseen violent conflagration destroyed its London base.
The north of Ireland is also intricately linked into the UK governmental defence of the real strategy.
sdelaneys,
‘personally I believe that if Britain wanted to go she’d be gone yesterday’
HMG cannot leave NI until such time as a majority of the local NI population tell them . No democratic country has ever ‘expelled’ a part of their ‘country’ against the wishes of the local population.
You should remember that the Irish Free State was not ‘expelled’ from the UK but departed after a war and rebellion . . NI can expel the UK but not vice versa .
Don’t hold your breath Pippa!
Mickhall
For my answer read Greenflag.
When it comes to the north the Brits really are hoist with their own petard.
Its a lot like Gibralter. It has long outlived its usefulness. The Brits would like nothing more than to get rid of it, unfortunately for them every time the British govt tries, the last one was Tony Bliar, the Gibraltans have a referendum! Even a lying little weasel like Bliar could not pull it off.
sdelaneys
Have you ever actually been to Northern Ireland? Your posts about the ‘invaders’ and discussing when Britain is going to leave ‘Ireland’ create the impression that you are completely detatched from reality. This is 2010 for God’s sake, British people have lived here for hundreds of years. They are Irish and British. There are a million of them. They can’t just somehow detach a part of themselves and pretend they are not British. Perhaps you would rather they left the country of their birth and that of many generations before them and moved to mainland Britain? Is that what you mean by the British getting out of Ireland? It never ceases to amaze me that republicans who seem intelligent enough have such a simplistic and ignorant view of the situation. It’s like 500 years of history is contracted in your mind into the course of about a year, and as if there has been no constitutional or social change in that time at all.
“Have you ever actually been to Northern Ireland? Your posts about the ‘invaders’ and discussing when Britain is going to leave ‘Ireland’ create the impression that you are completely detatched from reality.” skintown lad
My points were simply in response to pippakins’s assdertionm that the British wetre keen to leave meaning that they are here because we want them which I believe is nonsense.
As to whether I have ever been to ‘northern Ireland’, I have, born and reared in the sectarian stink hole.
“I dont believe we owe the British gratitude for anything, but nor do I believe they still want to be in a country that costs more per head of population to run than England.”
An end to the ‘United Kingdom’, you mean; I doubt it very much. If they wanted to leave don’t you think they would begin to be ‘persuaders’ for a United Ireland? They have their selfish motives as they have allways had for being here.
BryanS
No, not holding my breath, but keeping my fingers crossed, if the violence is gone, we start to get more ‘independent’ votes.
If we get the votes then when the Brits bugger off they may well undertake to continue paying for a period.
If we (if we could) force them out, why should they pay. No Brit govt would get away with it, especially when times are hard.
I think if we keep on the way we are going a united Ireland may be closer than we think.
Pippakin
The Brits have much the same problem with the Falklands isles, and they do not seem keen to give that up either. The fact is this is a problem of their own making, and it seems to me what you are doing is overlooking and even forgiving them for their past misdeeds, the consequences of which the people of Ireland must live with today.(and Falklands), it get worse as you wish to set the future by the rules of the past.
Would you seriously suggest it is democratic and fair to make a decision about the Malvinas/Falklands isle without taking into account the will of the Argentine people?
If Blair failed to give back Gib to its rightful owner it was because he did not wish to, not because of some referendum, have you learned nothing from Irelands experiences with Lisbon treaty, etc.
If so thankfully the UN and much of the worlds nation are beginning to seem less willing to do so.
But that is exactly what you seem willing to do as far as the six counties are concerned.
Mickhall
Tony Bliar did try. He had talks with the Spanish, the Gibraltans found out, held a referendum, everyone who could vote did, and every bloody one of them voted to stay British. I am surprised you did not read about it, it was in all the papers.
The Falklands are useful, and potentially very profitable. In addition the Argentine claim to the Falklands is mostly wishful thinking. It is at least two hundred miles from there. The claim to ownership seems to be based on the fact their Spanish occupiers lived there for five years, but the Brits were there first.
sedlaney
The English prefer their own flag. It is actually the long suffering English I feel sorry for. For years they have been discouraged from using it, they could not even call themselves English in the last census. It was illegal.
It serves no purpose to hate the British because they are British.
Pippakin, Where do you find this ‘hate’? You are very quick to make assumptions. In fact I have a lot of time for the English and the rest of the people in Britain, I just don’t want to be governed by them.I do not hate either the British or the English but I distrust their governments and have no illusions about their ‘unselfishness’ in relation to Ireland.
John Hume was telling us the same fairy tales 30 years ago about how the British would leave if it wasn’t for the IRA, the theory then was that they couldn’t be seen to leave under threat. Pippakin, they do not want to leave and they are delighted to have willing ‘republicans’ to bless their continued presence here and, of course, a home for their army of spooks.
Skintown
What is so awful about kicking the one million Prot nut cases out? The same happened in Algeria. Germans were ethnically cleansed after the war, Greeks after World War One.
We must remember that the bulldog gene is in the Brits. They like to fight. Jingoism, voting for the Opium and other wars is part of the British psyche. They like violence.
As regards this stiff: he will soon be forgotten. Certainly as easier target than Denis Donakldson’s friends.
sdelaneys
You haven’t grasped my point at all, which is evident from your follow up post. You, pippakin and Mickhall keep referring to ‘they’ (the British) and ‘getting out of ireland’. It doesn’t make any sense. Do you think there is a little coterie of people called ‘the Brits’ who gather in London and make decisions as to whether to ‘stay’ somewhere or ‘get out’ and that if they decide to ‘get out’ there will be no more Brits in Ireland? Of course not. The British are people who inhabit certain parts of these islands. There are a million of them on one part of these islands, a part that is now called Northern Ireland. It seems the fact that Northern Ireland happens geographically to share an island with a country that is not British, leads you to the rather simplistic view that the million people have no right to be on that island or to remain there. That is the only natural conclusion from your talk of the ‘British’ ‘getting out of Ireland’. Now, if that million people arrived say, last week, then I would agree with you. But you can’t just pretend that 500 hundred years of migration, social development, development of international law and constitutional settlement somehow didn’t happen.
sdelaneys
The one thing the Brits cannot do is give up a country which votes to remain British. I wish they would, but it cannot happen. You cannot be a democrat and then decide which bit of democracy you prefer.
Paddy
I am glad we have never met and are unlikely ever to do so. I never thought I would feel sickened by one of our own. Only a certifiable nutter would post your last comments. If you want to see racial and religious prejudice – look in the mirror.
Pippakin
Remind me how far is Alaska or Okinawa from there mother country and come to that the six counties from London
(only kidding about latter)
You have more faith than I in Blair, sheer window dressing designed to take Spanish pressure off of the UK over Gib. with an added bonus he could tell the unionists, look you can trust me, look how I stood up for the Gibs against the Spanish claim on Gibraltar.
.
If the Argentinian claim is wishful thinking what does that make the British. Myself I believe if oil is found in a big way down there, the UK will end up cutting a deal with Argentina about who shares what. In reality nation states keep what they can hold and the British have already admitted they could not repeat the Falklands invasion today.
Time to cut a deal. If ever there was a prime example of how cheaply politicians sell the blood of their squadies, it was the Falklands.
What you seem to be saying is the UK government will let a 1000 or so of its ‘citizens’ dictate its foreign policy. In your dreams mate.
Must go, interesting exchanging viewpoints with you.
“In that time, and throughout 800 years of history, they hold the record for killing more Irish people in a single day (Omagh) over the Brits.”
I can’t tell if you’re trying to be funny?
Paddy, I assume you are parody and are thus helping to argue my point. Thanks.
Mickhall
The Brits will almost certainly do a deal, they pride themselves (wrongly in my opinion) on their diplomacy.
These days the Brits are always hostage to their ‘citizens’. Its the legacy of the old empire, and one that will haunt them for decades.
Pleasure exchanging views with you, take care.
But you can’t just pretend that 500 hundred years of migration, social development, development of international law and constitutional settlement somehow didn’t happen.
Agree, Skintown lad. Unfortunately the so called “dissident” sectarian murderers think that they, and they alone, can deny it.
Tis true, joecanuck, the dissidents evidently use violence as an expression of that denial. But amongst republicans generally they are still in denial (as illustrated by the posters above) even if they have given up the violence as an expression of it.
I see the tinfoil hat brigade are out again. Does anyone honestly believe that the British Government is holding on to NI solely so they can put an MI5 base there? A base that could easily have been built in Glasgow or Liverpool, it must be said. Cui bono?
Andrew Gallagher
Why do you think they built it there? Personally I think they did it because they could, it would be easy to move, and there is still a potential problem for them here.
There are no offices of state here, everything from tax to pensions goes through the UK.
pippakin – who are ‘they’?
What is the problem with relocating 1 million right wing nut cases? Sure, nobody wants them but that should be Britain’s problem. She took in Amin’s Asians, so why not take in these killers? Let them march down Mayfair in their Orange clobber.
The same people argue the Malvinas are British. Why? Because a tiny gang of right wingers are used as an anti democratic wedge.
The old supremacist ideas of Unionism die hard. Here, they post about how civil rights would have come had the Febians continued to lie down. History and logic are against them. And, Pippakin and your type, why should anyone care what you or any sheep think?
As regards The Departed, it would be nice to know how the political prisoners are getting on and who is supporting/exploiting them.
Skintown Lad
I think you mean my previous comment and sorry I was not clear. I meant the Brits
Paddy
I dont think you are Irish I think you are either a very old Nazi escapee or an Israeli.
Paddy
I think I may not have made myself clear and god forbid you should misunderstand.
I meant of course that you are either a very old escaped Nazi war criminal or an Israeli.
Pippakin
Oh you mean us! The way you were talking about ‘them’ and ‘they’ it was as if you were talking about a foreign nation, hence your interest in why ‘they’ had built some defence infrastructure ‘here’. Well I don’t see why this is at all curious. ‘We’ have built this MI5 building on our own sovereign land to protect ourselves (as well as those who do not consider themselves British) against internal threats. Simple.
Skintown Lad
I am glad we understand each other, even if only a little bit!
The Brits, its kind of awkward to separate the strands is it not. The ones who were born here or whos families have lived here for generations, are in my opinion Irish, they may be British as well, but they are still Irish.
The ones who come here to enforce the agreement, are whilst not, in my opinion, unwelcome or ‘foreign’, are nevertheless in a foreign country. It is not their home. It is ours.
Paddy
What would you like to see happen? A replay of 1641 but with no help from the English?
edelaney
“Does anyone honestly believe that the British Government is holding on to NI solely so they can put an MI5 base there?”
No one said that, now did they? The UK government put the MI5 backup headquarters in the north because they see the six counties as an integral part of the UK, not somewhere they wish to say good bye to any time soon. You yourself pointed this out when you said it could just have well built elsewhere in the UK.
Could it though, the political situation in Scotland would have made this a hot potato and the Welsh would hardly have welcomed the spooks with open arms. It was also put in the north as a sign to both unionist and SF republicans about who is in charge.
Pippakin is correct in that they put it there because they could, the fact is the Scots nationalist and others would simply not have sat still for such a public manifestation of the English State.
——
As to millions of people in other parts of the UK see themselves as British, this is simply untrue. Apart from the weird and wonderful protestants of the six counties, the only people who see themselves as British are the luvies who live in Hollywood and make a living by playing English upper middle class gents, and rouges and crackpots who wish to rule the world, plus new immigrants who are desperate to prove they belong, and BNP louts. The rest consider themselves as being English, Welsh, Scottish and so on.
Myself, apart from those who make up these groups, I have never met anyone in England who believed they are British. As to how the English regard Protestants who live in Ireland, sorry to destroy your illusions but 99% consider you as Irish and this is without doubt the main reason why, in opinion poll after opinion poll there is a majority to wave good bye.
I am not having a go when I say this, just telling it as it is, perhaps if I joined a gold club/whatever I might see things differently, but I doubt it, if anything there would be more anti Irishness.
Muckhall
“edelaney
“Does anyone honestly believe that the British Government is holding on to NI solely so they can put an MI5 base there?” mickhall”
think you’ve got the wrong ‘culprit’ there.
Mickhall,
sory for the ‘Muckhall’ typo!
“What is so awful about kicking the one million Prot nut cases out? The same happened in Algeria. Germans were ethnically cleansed after the war, Greeks after World War One.”
Posted by Paddy on Feb 26, 2010 @ 04:21 PM
Paddy, would you be so kind to post your name and address on here so I can pass it on to the PSNI?
I believe your comment may have broken the law.
For the intellectually challenged: you cannot ‘ethnically cleanse’ the prods and the catholics. Both are Celt and both are Irish.
If some thick git thinks otherwise it is he who needs to move to his version of the ‘promised land’. If he can find it, and if, when he finds it, they will allow such a dinosaur to invade their space.
Paddy: ‘What is the problem with relocating 1 million right wing nut cases? Sure, nobody wants them but that should be Britain’s problem. She took in Amin’s Asians, so why not take in these killers?’
I suspect only one nut case requires relocation. Not even worthy of a reply.
sory for the ‘Muckhall’ typo!
sdelaneys
Mistake or not it made me LOL, which doesn’t happen a lot when reading slugger.
Gerry: Assuming your psychic powers allow you to deduce I am the nutcase you refer to, your powers of logic are non existent. Let me aid you: this thread is about an ex Republican prisonerwho was killed by people other posters have excorigated. Do you think I did it? Do you really think I was a member of the Shankill Butchers/Greysteel/Jackal death squads? Well I wasn’t.
So far, Johnny Adair and a few others have been relocated. I simply suggest all the other Protestants/British be relocated. The British have done this on many occasions before. Other than dragging down the quality of the Irish rugby team (hello Harryville), I cannot really see the loss. Then you and your lot could march up the Queen’s highway to your heart’s content, pissing off the good citizenry of wahtever English town was unlucky enough to receive you. Nobody wants Unionists.
I well understand why supremacists might be irked when people like me reject their premises: one clown here seems incapable of making a psot without bringing La Mon into it, as if the Brits do not do collateral damage. Others give the line that Omagh was the worst loss of life during the Troubles, forgetting the Dublin and Monaghan bombings on innocent “non-people”.
So, the Protestant supremacists are one problem. Adams et al (Gerry, Liam, Denis, Scap etc) preach reaching an accommodation with htem. But this was not doen with their Dixie and South African co religionists (Invictus is a crap movie with crap rugby btw).
Republicans are another problem as the almost forgotten Departed here shows.
And, as Gerry used to be so fond of telling us: as you are not part of the solution, you goody two shoes, are also part of the problem. Especially if you are a smug, self centred middle class wretch.
Paddy
I would rather keep Peter Robinson and Ian Paisley here than have you polluting the atmosphere. Two for one perhaps the Brits would offer you a home.
Quite a wee rant there Paddy. I’m assuming you’ve either had an extremely sheltered upbringing involving zero contact with Protestants/Unionists or you’re genuinely one sandwich short of a picnic.
First off you’re trotting out the same tired old line about marching. There are roughly 50k Orange Order members and probably a similar number who take an active interest in watching parades. That’s something in the region of 15% of the Protestant/Unionist population, which leaves about 85% who just aren’t interested. I personally couldn’t give a stuff if the OO decided to never march again and there are plenty more like me.
You then have a wee rant about supremacists. Please outline how I as a Unionist am in any way suppressing you or your culture. I don’t march, I don’t attempt in any way to interfere with your enjoyment of Irish culture — GAA, Irish language whatever, I don’t in any way feel superior to Nationalists or Roman Catholics. I simply wish to remain a UK citizen, which both parts of Ireland have democratically voted to allow me to be until such times as a majority in NI decide otherwise. Am I asking too much? Or in Paddy’s world does democracy not count for anything?
Next we have a rant about various body counts during the troubles. Well newsflash Paddy, the troubles are over — it was a scoreless draw. Nobody won, everybody lost and not one single death was justified, necessary or achieved anything. If all sides could admit this sorry fact we could really start to move forward. Muck raking about who suffered the most is entirely pointless.
You clearly have an all-consuming and rather sad hatred of Unionism in general, which is your own special little problem. Unfortunately for you the facts are that NI still contains a very large number of Unionists, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, as borne out by the amazingly small support base for a UI. Despite 30 years of violence, intimidation and insulting posts such as your own, us Unionists are still here and you’ll just have to live with it.
Perhaps before attempting ‘Unionist outreach’ initiatives to persaude us why a UI would be so good for us, Republicans should try a similar initiative on the NI Roman Catholic population.
Gerry Lvs castro
Perhaps a rare and isolationist beast such as Paddy should find himself an uninhabited desert island.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8540110.stm
Pippakin: you don’t mind if I ignore your “waste of bandwith” post. Calling me or anyone else an animal says a lot about you. Not that there is much to say about you but you get my drift.
Now Gerry, I came here to post the above link. For Mr Doherty, the Troubles are indeed over. At least in this world. I was going to make a comment about the two terrorist groups he was entangled with: MI5 and RIRA.
More generally, the Troubles are not over. Too much terror was done. The Butchers, the Fermanagh pitchfork murders, Birmingham etc will resonate for years to come. Certainly for as long as Mick Stone is locked up.
I guess Republicans tend to be more reflective than supremacists. I don’t remember any great Protestant swell against Garvaghy, Holy Faith School, the Quinn torchings, Harryville, the rise of Paisley etc. Fancy attacking four year old Catholic toddlers. Or voting for Paisley. (Hitler had a democratic mandate too)
Sinn Fein are a symptom of the problem, not the problem. They are a separate issue to the cancer of supremacism that is at the heart of the undemocratic Orange state.
History will probably record that the PIRA violance was counter productive and so reactionary. This is the line OIRA and its clones spoke. Whatever crimes PIRA committed, they in no way obviate the institutionalised (and subsidised) supremacism the Orange state represents. The devil you know and all that.
The Provos has a history of democracy they betrayed. Supremacists in the 6 cos, in Dixie land or in South Africa never had that.
Oh. And I know far too many Protestants. Familiarity with their track records has bred a certain degree of contempt but, in fairness, no contemptuous than others hold the Leinster House or Stormont Crown Catholics.
Paddy
You cannot pick and choose which person is Irish and which is not.
I wondered why a priest would force children to walk a gauntlet of hatred and now we know it is, if anything, the least they have forced children to do. I have neither liking or respect for that particular priest. A dog is still a dog no matter what collar it wears.
As for the violence it will indeed be remembered by many for a long time. Both sides, in fact all three sides lost family and friends. It should not be forgotten grief is still raw for some.
I should apologise for my anger I sense great feeling in you, but you need to open your mind to all people, not just the ones who agree with you.
Paddy:
”Whatever crimes PIRA committed, they in no way obviate the institutionalised (and subsidised) supremacism the Orange state represents.”
Have you ever considered having a good rant in Cornmarket of a Saturday? It might get some of your irrational hatred off your chest and it could entertain the shoppers.
”the cancer of supremacism that is at the heart of the undemocratic Orange state.”
spoken like a true dogmatist — you obviously completely ignored my previous post. You’re beyond help paddy — set your time machine for 1916 and give the rest of our heads peace.
pippakin: The ones who come here to enforce the agreement, are whilst not, in my opinion, unwelcome or ‘foreign’, are nevertheless in a foreign country.
They are *from* the UK, and according to the GFA, they are *in* the UK.
I won’t make any assumptions about whether you voted for or against the GFA.
Mickhall: Pippakin is correct in that they put it there because they could, the fact is the Scots nationalist and others would simply not have sat still for such a public manifestation of the English State.
So how are the Scottish nationalists about Nuclear Submarines (and the jobs…)?