You can’t disappear this
Bobby Tohill is back in the press as another of the I Ran Away gang who battered him half to death and abducted him from Kelly’s Cellars eventually finds himself in front of a court for sentencing – a luxury he didn’t consider delivering with his fellow Broy Harriers. His justice won’t involve forensic suits, batons, CS gas or promised trips across the border to destination unknown – lucky him.
It was my pleasure to meet Bobby on his home patch several months ago and while the trauma of his experience has clearly given him ongoing problems that will likely only end with the grave he was wonderful, enlightening company and unbowed.
I found what I’d previously heard of this dissident monster was an utter lie. A man vilified by SF members and the Andersonstown News, even after his brutalisation, was a man engaged politically, grounded and realistic – certainly not the evil thug of West Belfast whispering
They tried to turn the man into a ghost; he recognised it and fights on.
The following poem by Carrie Twomey gives a sense of meeting a man with his own problems that won’t be disappeared:The Ghosts of the Road
It was ghosts, he said, leaning over his pint
In the pensioners bar
You see them walking the road
Even in daylight
Hunched over talking to themselves
Bearing the weight of the past on the shoulders
Sure they’ve been cast aside
Used and spat out
Take your man, Smoky, aye, he was one of the best
Would have been bombing and shooting and
taking them on at the worst of things
He was one of their hardest bravest men
Or Bobby, I mind when Bobby wasn’t as he is
the way he is now like, sitting today already drunk
or more never stopped being drunk from
last night, last week, last month, last year;
Oh he was one who chased the women and had a curl in his hair
Really he wouldn’t hurt a fly
Unless he had to
Sure he’d been a soft touch underneath
And you’d be in your bed your face smashed from looking
at his girl the wrong way and suffering from a terrible hangover
When the door would be rapping at 7am
And who would be standing there with his face cleaned
looking slick and sorry, apologetic
For having hurt you the night before
Aw, man there’s so many ghosts walk this road and how messed up they are
Messed in the head and treated like dirt no matter what they gave the movement
It’d break your heart so it would
If you really knew the history of these men
these women who yell and scream at anything going
Nothing broke them, not the Brits, not the screws, not the years on the blanket
It was our own that broke them, it was
That’s the heartbreak of it all
It was our own that broke them.
For those who believe this is a novel scenario in Republicanism, this is what Pearse was writing in 1915, just a year before the Rising.
It too was titled “ghosts”,
http://publish.ucc.ie/celts/docs/E900007-010
He too writes of the failures of “the last 25 years”
of “failed leadership” He describes them as “gibbering lost souls, bankrupt in policy, credit and even words”.
In 1915 when he wrote those words Republicanism was in a worse state than today. We all know what happened next.
old school
You are in a dark place and I regret that. We do not have to kill to win. Can you not see that we are closer to winning now than ever before?
old school: …certainly it was futile for them, as this was on offer decades ago. However, for those who continue…
Yet the ghosts were neither of those groups – they were the ones in between, who thought they were fighting for a 32 county republic, but finally realised – whether before or after their leaders – that they weren’t going to get it.
But I don’t imagine the dissidents – despised, mocked, hunted and endlessly fragmented and suspicious – are in a happy place either.
[b]but
finally realised – whether before or after their leaders – that they
weren’t going to get it.[/b]
Ahhhhhhh still with the cosy Unionist pipe dreams. Even Peter the Piper up in Hamelin on the Hill realises the rats are leaving THAT sinking ship.
What I realised and so many others in the Republican Movement realised is that when the Express Train of a United Ireland is rushing towards you at the high speed towards you, it makes little sense to try to run in the same direction for its coming very quickly any way.
The thing to do was and is to get ready for that trains a coming and try and get as many as you can in time to get the folks still living in some Carsonite fairy tale land to get right on board.
But if the fairy tale of the eternal Protestant Staelet suits suits, dream on, its cosy and warm and comfortable, why waken you.
The time to wake up and smell the coffee will come soon enough.
We will get a united Ireland and I think in the not too distant future, but I wonder if it will be the Ireland of some republican dreams.
It takes more than 32 countys to make a country. I hope the scars of the broken dreams and promises heal soon for those people. In the end it is reality that hurts us all the most.
“In 1915 when he wrote those words Republicanism was in a worse state than today. We all know what happened next.”
Yes, we do. The wars of the Three cousins (the cousins being the Germanic kings of Britland, Germany and Russia) led on towards horrors such as the Somme. Following these crimes against humanity, the Irish people, led in large part by their bishops, recoiled in horror at the mass, wanton and blasphemous slaughter. Sinn Fein, a very small right wing party, lwhich was loosley associated with a failed uprising in Dublin some months previously, began their elelctoral near clean sweep of Ireland (32). Anti democrats, the Brits and their local fifth column, reacted to form. The Catholics/Nationalists had a guerilla war of sorts. Not having any coherent policy, they split, aided by the eternal enemy working through agents like Mick Collins. Have I missed anything?
Oh yes, I have. During the guerilla war, the IRA enjoyed massive middle and upper class support. They were not confined to irrelevant Lurgan backwaters.
Paddy
I suppose 1915 is better than 1641 or 9 or whatever.
What is so bad about using the democratic process to gain what we all want. Why do we always have to look to the past. It is a useless place to go.
It occurs to me that some people are so obsessed with the dream they never look at the reality.
In this time, probably before as well, but in this time of an independent Ireland. We have had allegations of child abuse, rape and murder. Men have been beaten by their ‘friends and colleagues’ so badly some died and others may never fully recover.
The republic has been used as some kind of dumping ground for alleged perverts to hide out in until the fuss in the north died down.
I will always want a united Ireland but I will no longer keep quiet for the sake of it. Ireland is about its people. I have seen no sign at all that
republicans care about the people, none.
[b]During the guerilla war, the IRA enjoyed massive middle and upper class support. [/b]
After the Easter Rising the Rebels were stoned and spat at by Catholic women of Dublin in the streets {many of whose sons and husbands were out fighting for the crown in France}. This followed a long Nationalist tradition of revulsion of the Fenian Brotherhood from all aspects of Irish society dating back to its very beginning.
If Irish history can teach us anything it is that the sacrifices of the few can lead to the freedom of the many. There are always people to spit at Rebels, whether they come from the back streets of Dublin or the back streets of Lurgan.
Revolution is only ever popular amongst the wise acres when it is successful.
The word of Padraig Pearse at the grave side of Donoan Rossa still ring as true today as they ever did:
[i]‘They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! – they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’[/i]
padraig
It sounds like he didnt care how many Irish people died either.
Read the poem again.
padraig: …when the Express Train of a United Ireland is rushing towards you at the high speed towards you…
When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? Are the dissidents helping?
Padraig: Please remember the Prophet James Connolly, peace be upon him, ORDERED the GPO garrison to fire (shoot to kill) on the people of Dublin, who were rioting.
Pearse was a school teacher; Dev worked at Blackrock College, Kevin Barry was a UCD student as was Ernie O’Malley. Go read O’Malley’s writings. Hiding out in doctor’s houses.
“In this time, probably before as well, but in this time of an independent Ireland. We have had allegations of child abuse, rape and murder. Men have been beaten by their ‘friends and colleagues’ so badly some died and others may never fully recover.”
Danny Morrisson said the 1916 lot were ordinary decent peoeple, just like the Belfast PIRA of his time. (Liam Adams etc etc).
Maybe they were. But Bobby Tohill would have hit it off with George Bunby (sp) of the Cork IRA. He had no problem dragging out the Prot collaborators and giving them an OBE. One old lady he whacked “took it like a man”. Her Catholic valet shat himself.
Suspected MI5 and Mossad lover Kevin Myers (raised in a British army environment) has made a career out of writing up the deeds of the Black and Tan IRA men. War is not a pretty thing. And guerilla armies need hard men. And if hard men don’t like your brand of poetry – and it is hard to like powetry rammed dowen our necks – they do violent things.
But, as in Mice and Men, brain and guile win out. Cain and Abel, Gerry and Liam.
We love them yet
The Felons of our land.
Paddy
The problem is the ordinary decent people, the ones who would stop and help, more quickly than they would beat and maim. It is these people who are the losers every time. It may have been the Brits or the OO maniacs, but too often it was our own. The people we trusted and that is the hardest hurt of all.
[b]It sounds like he didnt care how many Irish people died either. [/b]
This moral lesson, Pipikin, from someone who believes its alright to kill people if you’re wearing a uniform and getting paid by a Government to do it.
Perhaps if James Connolly was with a British Regiment in Kabul you might have found such orders more to your taste.
[b]When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? Are the dissidents helping? [/b]
Reader. The six county, north eastern Statelet exists because, as the bigots who designed the place intended there are more Prods here than Fenians ..and it was hoped this will always be so.
At the present breeding rate of Taigues their population is increasing at the rate of half a percent a year.
The Orange statelet will fall then..well work it out for yourself.
A sectarian state falling to a sectarian head count. There’s a certain just irony in that.
Paddy. I know my Irish history as well as you, more than that my family has been fighting against the British for nearly a hundred years or more now.
I recall going out with my father long before the Troubles as a child when Sinn Fein were nothing more than an object of ridicule not only to the Unionist establishment but such luminaries as Harry West the Head of the Unionist terrorist grouping the RUC Special Branch. They got history wrong and so do you. The so called ‘Dissidents’ are doing what young Irishmen and women have always and forever done in every generation,{and as Pearse said will always do} gone out to fight against British Rule in Ireland. This is a simple historical fact.
As to your ranting lecture about bad things happening in conflict on both sides.
Well…golly gee, I never knew that!!
[i]However, for those who continue to campaign and battle for core Republican aims, they will certainly not feel they are being futile. They come from the Padraig Pearse school of thought, “to refuse to fight is to lose etc” – old school[/i]
They don’t come from the any school of thought since there is no logical purpose or philosophy underpinning their bankrupt enterprise.
The difference between pre-sovereign violence and post-sovereign violence is that the former is freedom-fighting that asserts a nation’s right to self-determination and the latter is illegitimate terrorism that violates that nation’s right to self-determination.
Self-determination is a collective right, and not an individual right, so minorities do not have any right under the rule of self-determination to countermand the will of the majority. That means, for example, that a small group of touts and thugs do not have the right to override the will of the Irish nation and declare themselves the legitimate government or to use that Alice in Wonderland claim to declare war on a foreign state.
Those who would do that clearly have no understanding of the meaning of self-determination, and therefore cannot be said to be promoting a “school of thought” on the subject. A nation only has one right to self-determination, so the thugs and touts outside of the sovereign jurisdiction wherein that right to self-determination was exercised would be bound by what it has self-determined if they included themselves under its banner.
That lack of an intellectual base for their bankrupt enterprise made them ideal fodder to be used by others to promote an agenda which has the purpose of removing the right of the Irish nation to national self-determination. Because they have no understanding of the meaning of self-determination, others were able to use them to renounce that right and to redefine the purpose of unity as being removing that right from the sovereign jurisdiction wherein it is exercised rather than extending it to the sovereign jurisdiction wherein it isn’t exercised.
The problem with Dev is that he didn’t hang enough of these moronic muppets.
padraig: At the present breeding rate of Taigues their population is increasing at the rate of half a percent a year.
Don’t keep us in suspense, you appear to have the numbers at your fingertips. When will the vote for a United Ireland be larger than the vote to remain in the UK?
And, as I asked before, are the dissidents helping?
Padraig: The facts are as I said them. James Connolly was a divisive c-nt. His Belfast Labour achievements, like those of James Connolly, were minuscule but were later built upfor propaganda reasons. Belfast as a sectarian pit even then.
The Dissidents, as you call them, are a motley group, being led by the nose by RSF type dreamers and/or by harder RIRA types. They have no hope of getting the expertise needed to mount and sustain a meaningful campaign
The Six Counties is much easier to monitor now (an expanded Ardoyne) and PSF have taken the sting out of the tail.
If your family has been in the wars for a century, maybe it is time you took stock.
Most people, most Irish people at least, do not like violence. The Irish tend not to be ruthless enough at it.
It was not the IRA who brought about the Treaty situation; if it was you would have to compare and contrast body bag counts in Cork to those of the Somme and Ypres. It was the mass Sinn Fein vote, which was spurred on by the anti conscription movement, engined by the One, Holy. Catholic and Apostolic Church.
padraig
I dont know how many times I have to say it: I dont care about the British. I dont care what you or anyone thinks of Iraq or Afghanistan. We should put our own house in order before we worry about anyone elses.
I thought this was about republicanism and what some republicans had done to others they no longer had a use for. It seems some, for reasons they doubtless know, want to keep sidetracking to the Brits
[i]The problem with Dev is that he didn’t hang enough of these moronic muppets[/i]
There, there Alias, don’t be angry now. Remember not everyone in the world is as super smart . well read and insightful as yourself. Its hard for you to put up with the common herd, I suppose, but I guess that’s the price you pay for genius.
As I said Reader, work it out for yourself. I am sure you studied MAths at school.
As for the so called ;Dissidents’ I believe they are helping about as much as the Neanderthal stuck in 1922 Alice in Wonderland fairy tale world of much of the Unionist community here who still haven’t realised that there little Orange box {Norn Ireland} is falling on their heads
My goodness Paddy, you’re using foul language and raving.
I guess that proves your right.
Since you know a little bit of history you must know that when Provisional Sinn Fein started it had even less support than the so called ‘dissidents had now and far less military experience and hardware/ Anyone who studies their progress will see they are getting better and what they do best.
Irish history also shows that its those who use the bullets get the vote, curse and rant all you like about it.
Pipikin I Understand, all you want to do is put the boot into Rebels and don’t want to think of anyone anywhere else but Rebels, Rebels , rebels.
Just the kind of two faced hypocritical cant that makes me want to throw up.
I like honest pacifists like the Amish or Quakers, they are consistent, its this kind of Belfast Telegraph ‘they’re all psycho’s two standarded drivel that gets me.
It’s thanks to that crap poem that I now have the impression of Tohill as an alcoholic prone to unreasonable uncontrolled bursts of physical aggression.
.. and, I might add, that this appears to be a quality the poet finds distantly admirable.
Padriag
Why dont you give yourself and everyone else a break?
I want anyone who commits a crime to face the law. I do not want private armies running around practising some kind of medieval lore. Has it occurred to you that someone capable of beating one helpless person to a pulp is perfectly capable of doing the same to anyone? I do not want psychos running around this country thinking they have a licence to kill and maim.
I am no pacifist but nor am I a thug drunk on my own sadistic power. I am a very ordinary person who wont vote for a party if that party is shown to have protected perverts and sadists. Are we clear yet.
“Self-determination is a collective right, and not an individual right, so minorities do not have any right under the rule of self-determination to countermand the will of the majority.”
Alias, I fear you are lost in your own loquacity. More Americans fought for the British than fought for Washingoton and his fellow masons. It was the French and Indians wot dun it.
And, according to Lincoln, there is laways the right to rebellion. Not that Lincoln ever had a majority but you get the gist.
Padraig: Guess what. PIRA came in on a wave. Martin Meehan said it was like the tide coming in. Nothing could stop it. There is nothing similar to it today. The will, the conditions are not there.
And don’t bother quoting cut throat Tone about the men of no property, ie the back streets of Lurgan.
The demographic argument is not even worth considering. The days of big Catholic families are over. Middle class expectations and costs.
Paddy, what has American history got to do with weather or not the right to self-determination is a collective right or an individual right?
The international law regarding the right to right to self-determination is stated in Article 1 of UN’s ICCPR and in Article 1 of the UN’s ICESCR, while the relevant constitutional law regarding the right to right to self-determination is stated in the Article 1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann.
Neither of them cite Lincoln’s opinion, what a bunch of dead indians did, or your granny’s opinion, muppet.
Sorry for the typos, as two rights do make a wrong.
Alias, Republicans do not regard themselves as being bound by Free State watered down Constitutions or, in the words of Parnell, having a gang of lawyers set the ne plus ultra to the march of the Nation. And the UN is hardly a credible body. (I see Mary Robinson is returning to these shores to harrangue us so they are not even good enough to keep her off our backs).
If a united Ireland can be established, then the UN will accept it. Get the logic 101?
So the problem for those wishing to get a united Ireland is how to go about it? In that sense, the Free State Constitution and the bleatings of the UN are mere obstacles and, in the scale of things, not relatively big ones.
To ask my question again to so called dissidents, how, in specific terms do you intend to go about it? Ballot box? Lots of armalites? Pray to Jesus the cards fall into place? How?
[b]Middle class expectations and costs.[/b]
Paddy, Pearse was of the middle class as of course were many of the Easter Leaders. The idea that people won’t fight because they have big mortgages is laughable. Sorry I thought you knew a little Irish history, you clearly don’t.
I knew Sinn Fein when they you could pretty well pack them all into the Public Toilets in front of the City Hall. They grew and thrived.
The boys at Thames House and the PSNI are worried about them look at recent statements from their idiotic Chief Constable. One of the reasons they are ona roll is that many vets from the PIRA are joining them, or hadn’t you noticed?
[b]I am a very ordinary person who wont vote for a party if that party is shown to have protected perverts and sadists. Are we clear yet. [/b]
Just a question out of curiousity, Paddy and I hope it won’t have you cursing, raving and your face turning blue ,Paddy, but since you don’t like torture and murder what do you think of the current murdering, torturing antics of the British Government? Any horrified condemnations going their way?
[b]Padriag
Why dont you give yourself and everyone else a break?[/b]
A break Pippikin? You mean as in, ‘Keep quiet, I don’t like what you’re writing?’
Goodness if I’m upsetting you Pippikin by putting forward arguments that upset youI will. I had no idea, how awful for you.
But just out of curiousity who is the ‘everyone else’ I am upsetting? You and your parrot Daisy? The Orange Lodge at Sandy Row. The Luton Ladies Bingo Club? Everyone in the Universe? Who?
I’ll go now and leave you to it, take a bi-pepsol or a hot toddy I don’t want to give you a fit of the vapours so I’ll leave you to it.
Aplogies. Bye.
“Alias, Republicans do not regard themselves as being bound by Free State watered down Constitutions…” – Paddy
I know. So we both agree that they are not republicans, since the right to self-determination is a core concept of republicanism. The sovereign nation devises its laws through its sovereign parliament, and those who refuse to abide by them cannot, by definition, be republicans. They remain as “touts and thugs” who operate outside of constitutional legitimacy.
“The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible, and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government, to determine its relations with other nations, and to develop its life, political, economic and cultural, in accordance with its own genius and traditions.”
Now, that is the right to self-determination as is stated in the Article 1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann. It doesn’t mention anything about permitting another nation to hold a veto over that right because, rather obviously, if it another nation held such a veto that the nation that has the right to self-determination would no longer be able to exercise it.
Since the touts and thugs declared themselves the legitimate government of Ireland and declared war on another country they obviously violated the “sovereign right [of the Irish nation] to choose its own form of Government [and] to determine its relations with other nations.” Clearly said touts and thugs were never republicans.
Because the touts and thugs have no grasp of its meaning, the British state was able to use them to legitimise the veto that another nation holds over that right in Northern Ireland and to lead them to argue that that veto should be extended from Northern Ireland into Ireland, thereby removing the right to self-determination from the Irish nation. And so it simply says “The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible, and sovereign right to… develop its life, political, economic and cultural, [b]in accordance with its own genius and traditions[/b].” Its “own genius and traditions” does not include British “genius and traditions.” If it did, then the Irish nation would no longer be able to determine its own affairs outside of that veto.
That’s the value of said ignorant touts and thugs to their paymasters.
Incidentally, the international law in regard to self-determination was taken by the UN from the Irish constitutional law which predates it. Like the Irish constitution, the UN then gave pride of place to the right to self-determination in its law by making it the first article in the Covenants that state it.
padraig
I want a united Ireland but not one that simply swaps the Brits for another set of tin pot dictators, even if the dictators are dressed from head to foot in emerald green.
I did not say you upset anyone. In fact I know there are some who would be only too willing to turn this debate into a ‘lets all hate the Brits’ debate instead.
The Brits have been an enemy of Ireland, but they are not the only enemy. The worst enemy is always the one you trusted. The worst enemy is always the one within.
[b]I want a united Ireland but not one that simply swaps the Brits for another set of tin pot dictators,[/b]
Of course . But before you get the patient out of bed you have to fix what’s wrong with him. The British presence in Ireland is what’s wrong.
That ‘c-unt’ James Connolly (as apoplectic Paddy so charmingly and pithily referred to him} well knew and so he set aside Socialist analysis to fight alongside people whom he conceived to be his ‘class enemies’ to fight the British Occupation Forces from the GPO.
Connolly was right. Dump the Brits first, everything else comes a long way down the road when we have our freedom, everything else is just so much crap.
“I knew Sinn Fein when they you could pretty well pack them all into the Public Toilets in front of the City Hall. They grew and thrived.”
Padraig. This is a most unfortunate choice of words. I am laughing at my key board. There is nothing to get angry about or handn’t you noticed?
When the Pervies were in full swing, bombs were a daily, often a more than daily occurrence. Now? Anyway, the RIRA/CIRA etc have currently no chance of gathering steam.
Alias: Republicanism refers to res publica, the affairs of the state. It is not to be ocnfused with democracy, where demos, the people have a say, or gerontocracy, as in Sinn Fein, where Liam Adams’ brother and others rule the roost.
Incidentally, now that Gerry has brought his wife into the spotlight, how is his osn? is he teaching? Has apolice chek been done on him to see if he abuses his position?
Padraig
Agreed! And can we now please allow some thought for the victims, not of the Brits and the loyalists, but of the republicans betrayed and abused by the people they trusted and respected.
As much as I agree with the aim, I want the method to be peaceful…
Blessings Padraig I believe we will both see a united Ireland.
Paddy
If GAs son lives and works in the north. If he works with children he has to have a valid CRB report.
Had you not noticed it has become ‘trendy’ for Brit politicians to parade the wife…
Apoplectic Paddy.
I am glad you have got over your fits of rage and that you and your key board having a great laugh together. I see all this as a great sign of hope. Thank God you seem to be getting at better.
At the risk of driving you into another bout of spleen have you considered (dare I suggest it) that in all likelihood Sinn Fein will take the First Ministers post after the next election…and dare I suggest it (sit down and take
a glass of water now before reading this) that the large majority of Nationalists do not get these mad rages when they think of the Shinners but are actually voting for them in huge numbers so that not every one goes into fits of rage as you do?
My regards to your key board, its nice, I know to have a little friend who shares one’s own bitter point of view. Some people have teddy bears, you have your key board, I think its cute and nothing to be concerned about.
Ahh but these fits…well….
“gone out to fight against British Rule in Ireland. This is a simple historical fact.”
The problem is that this never really fit in NI. I don’t think Britain gives a sh*t about NI. At this point if they could wash their hands of it they would. The problem is that there are a million unionist who don’t want to leave Britain, and will take up arms to make sure they don’t. A terrorist campaign didn’t, and won’t in the future, change that fact. All it accomplished was making Unionists less inclined to becoming part of a United Ireland.
I dont want such ‘men’ to have any kind of power. The trouble is some of them already do and we tolerate them because they appear to have had a change of heart. We can only hope so.
i know his x comrades view of him, I have an hour before i go to bed please enlighten me.
“Blessings Padraig I believe we will both see a united Ireland.”
You believe in reincarnation or you’ll be looking down on it?
Sorry Skin ,didn’t mean to upset you.
Its alright, our wee province will always be British. All right thinking people everywhere know this. The proud Union will never end.
Norn Ireland will forever play at Windsor.
Every things fine.
Its alright.
Its OK.
Don’t worry.
Alright now?
Bye!