Friday, May 16, 2008
Moane’s Cross and the end of history
We quite frequently drive along the mountain road between Fivemiletown and Rosslea. Last time we were along that road a car was stopped beside the memorial at Moane’s Cross to two IRA men: Feargal O’Hanlon and Sean South, who died after an attack on Brookeborough RUC station on the 1st January 1957. An elderly couple seemed to be laying flowers at the place. I wondered if they were friends or relatives of those who had died there all those years ago in the IRA border campaign.
Mary McAleese has suggested that the end of Ireland’s centuries long political conflict is at hand. This in many ways echoes comments by Bertie Ahern whilst he was in Washington. Of course these sentiments are not confined to RoI politicians or to nationalists and also seem to have some echoes in Dr. Paisley’s latest remarks. I do feel, however, that this is a very difficult conclusion to draw when one considers the history of this island and indeed the history of other conflicts in the world.
The conflicts here have been “solved” with tedious frequency. Ireland has been “pacified” whether by force or by politics on many occasions. By turns Elizabeth I, James I/VI, Cromwell and Gladstone used “pacification” of various forms and the list of rebellions includes so many dates: 1641, 1798, 1916 etc. I would suggest that the nature of our conflict here is somewhat similar to ethnic conflicts, although as with many so called ethnic conflicts, there are no actual ethnic differences, merely cultural ones. The problem is with totally differing political aspirations and that is unlikely to change any time soon.
Looking to other places in the world there are frequent examples of conflicts supposedly solved years ago, which recurred. How many expected the orgy of violence visited on the Balkans? Remember also that the Balkan conflict was “solved” by the creation of Yugoslavia after it had helped precipitate the First World War (of course the above is utterly simplified but there is some truth therein). The horrors of Rwanda were unexpected but had causes and (much milder) precedents in the history of that region.
So maybe we have some form of permanent peace and all subsequent quarrels about Northern Ireland will be solved peacefully. However, this sounds a little like the pronouncement of “The End of History” after the end of the Cold War.
Whilst I agree with Mick that at the moment there (thankfully) seems little likelihood that the dissident terrorists will manage to return us to major violence; I am brought back to that elderly couple at Moane’s Cross with whom I started. I sometimes wonder if the terrorist attacks we are seeing now are a little like the IRA border campaign. At the time I am sure the RUC and the government in Stormont were delighted with how relatively easily they defeated that campaign. Little did they know that massively more violence (initiated let us remember by loyalists) was then less than a decade away.
Turgon @ 11:26 PM
Turgon,
I think you’re too pessimistic. This conflict ended in agreement by the majority of both sides, even though pushed somewhat by outsiders. There is no way the dissidents (violent ones) are going to take us backward.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 11:50 PMhttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dIb_GgBWTXk
Love the song whatever the politics.
Posted by on May 16, 2008 @ 11:55 PMThat was a pretty dour post Turgon. You’d almost think you want to return to violence!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:09 AMThe current conflict was the first in Ireland to be effectively settled by referendum via the GFA. Previously all other conflicts were settled by civil war, invasion, subjection, plantation or by some foreign accord between controlling parties. And that is what will eventually extinguish the current dissident activity.
The only return to violence I can for see is if the current stakeholders in NI are not accomidated adequately in a reunified Ireland.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:35 AM(Turgon) “I sometimes wonder if the terrorist attacks we are seeing now are a little like the IRA border campaign. At the time I am sure the RUC and the government in Stormont were delighted with how relatively easily they defeated that campaign. Little did they know that massively more violence (initiated let us remember by loyalists) was then less than a decade away.”
Or, likely, how that violence could have been prevented with an ounce of foresight or common sense by the government in Stormont.
Be that as it may, the conditions which led to that massive surge of violence simply no longer exist and I cannot see how they possibly could ten years hence.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:37 AMgod...if there isnt that “stakeholders” word again!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:07 AM“I would suggest that the nature of our conflict here is somewhat similar to ethnic conflicts, although as with many so called ethnic conflicts, there are no actual ethnic differences, merely cultural ones.” - Turgon
The thing to keep in mind is that the overwhelming majority of the members of either ‘cultural’ groups in Northern Ireland did not engage is any actual conflict with each other.
The violence, such that it was, originated from, and controlled by, a small number of highly organised murder gangs who had their own agendas for orchestrating that violence, not least of which was the cover that ‘the cause’ provided them with to engage in massive criminality, e.g. bank robberies, protection rackets, kidnapping, counterfeiting, smuggling, etc. Those gangsters made hundreds of millions via their activities.
It was a ‘civil’ strife wherein the only engagement by the citizens was as targets for the murder gangs. So, the question of whether or not the violence that Northern Ireland experienced can return is actually a question of whether or not a murder gang can be successfully organised again. Given that the last crop of murder gangs quit to enjoy the fruits of their financial investments in their old age before advances by the Intelligence Services wiped them out, I’d say that it would be very difficult for any new gang to emerge and carry on where the other gangs left off.
After all, unlike the 70s, if I want to know what is in somebody’s back yard, I can pop over too Google Earth and count the rose trees on satellite.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:16 AMThe British Army garrison here could deal with any problems easily. And now that Sinn Fein support the 5000 British Army garrison here, there should be no problems.
Brilliant the way SF has embraced the British military here. Only a matter of weeks before Martin salutes this country’s flag at Thiepval or Ballykinler etc.
Sinn Fein- Keeping Ulster British.
Ian will go to his destiny a happy man.
Gerry and Martin may have some doubts, but the MI5 money will assuage thaem.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:39 AM“Love the song whatever the politics.”
Great song indeed Dewi (although watching Wolfe Tones’ concerts always makes my blood run a little colder), it’s just a pity about the comical farce that inspired it.
How does a truck load of fourteen well armed men with two bombs mounting a surprise attack on a sleepy village police station get mauled by a police sergeant and two part time constables armed with WWII vintage Lee Enfields and sten guns?
Ah well, Sean South made for a great song if a piss-poor guerilla leader, altogether now…
“It was on a dreary New Year’s Day as shades of night drew down, yeeeehaaar!”
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:45 AMHere’s a better one Harry - wonderful
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OqBDKnhLrfk
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:51 AMDewi - “[Wolfe Tones - Sean South] Love the song whatever the politics.”
“They were fighting for old Ireland”
“They have gone to join that gallant band ...”
“A martyr for old Ireland”So you would love the same tune even if it was about a gang attacking the police in the RoI with the intention to murder them?
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:58 AMP&J;- it’s history - really catchy tune.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:01 AMDewi - “Here’s a better one .. wonderful [band singing Sean South in the Heineken tent in Lansdowne Road"]
Do you think Heineken would approve of a band singing a song in support of Sinn Fein PIRA terrorists trying to murder policemen in recent history? And is it acceptable to sing such songs at Landsdown Road? It would be like saying that the singing of UVF songs by a band in Windsor park was wonderful. Would you be happy with that?
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:13 AMDewi - “it’s history - really catchy tune.”
Approx 50 years ago as opposed to approx 40 years ago for the start of the main ‘Troubles’. I await with interest your comments ref Windsor Park.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:20 AMI sometimes wonder if the terrorist attacks we are seeing now are a little like the IRA border campaign.
But the Northern Ireland state we live in now has no resemblance to the Northern Ireland state that existed in 1957.
In 1957 my father was two and my mother was one. A looooooong time ago.
The war is over, the rationales that sustained it have lost relevance. That doesn’t mean we’re going to skip into the sunset, hand in hand, as a light sou’easter provides a warm breeze.
But the War is over.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 03:08 AMThe war was over in 1922. The murder gangs are still in operation, albeit in a much diminished capacity. It’s true that the social conditions from which those gangs emerged in Northern Ireland have changed, but it isn’t true that similar murder gangs cannot emerge from different conditions or that those conditions cannot be engineered. A murder gang, contrary to misconception, doesn’t require popular support. Large criminal gangs still operate successfully all over the world despite have ever-widening legal powers aligned against them and progress in intelligence-gathering technologies, etc, but the Provos were so infiltrated by British Intelligence by the mid-80s that they were out of the game. As the example of the Real IRA shows, the only ‘Provos’ who are keen to join other murder gangs are British agents. I think the ‘volunteers’ who actually believed what the IRA godfathers told them now realise that they wasted their lives for no purpose other than to provide hidden bank accounts for Her Majesty’s ministers. Knowing how pointless and unjust it all was must serve as a powerful disincentive to others.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 06:07 AM“The only return to violence I can for see is if the current stakeholders in NI are not accomidated adequately in a reunified Ireland.”
Dream on. First the agreement is that there wont be a united Ireland without consent. Second, there is no sign whatsoevr that consent is at all likely.
Replace ‘a reunified Ireland’ by ‘Northern Ireland’ and I might agree
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 08:12 AMryan crozier wont be tapping his feet to the melody anyway. onwards to victory!!!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 08:25 AM“The thing to keep in mind is that the overwhelming majority of the members of either ‘cultural’ groups in Northern Ireland did not engage is any actual conflict with each other.”
Except when, for example, voting for a nationalist party or a unionist party in preference to the other.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 08:47 AM“How does a truck load of fourteen well armed men with two bombs mounting a surprise attack on a sleepy village police station get mauled by a police sergeant and two part time constables armed with WWII vintage Lee Enfields and sten guns?”
Well, that tactic had worked well at other border stations. They has armoured the sides of the lorry and just driven up and blasted away, so I presume they used that approach again.
But there was now a difference. The peelers had noted how they operated. Brookborough was a two storied station. The Police had a plan were well organised and got to the upper windows where they could fire down into the lorry. End of argument - and of Sean South. It was a compleletely stupid and shambolic attack.... but hey they got a song out of it.
By the way, why is it that the Irish tradition is so focused on ballads celebrating murderers? Try to kill other Irishmen and we’ll give you a song. Blow up women and kill children - brave lads you are! Celebrating self sacrifice in the interest of your fellow man is one thing - and something the Irish have done a lot of but we dont really seem to value it as much as kiling.
A lot of this nonesense is something else. As an Irishman I find it embarassing… akin to headhunters sticking the heads of their enemies on poles around the village to demonstrate how hard they are
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 08:58 AM“ryan crozier wont be tapping his feet to the melody anyway. onwards to victory!!!
Posted by ohyeah!!!!!!!! on May 17, 2008 @ 08:25 AM”Oh yeah, I think you’ll find he will, once he makes his scheduled full recovery. I would be careful what I post in open forums like this if I were you, you never know who is watching…
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 09:23 AMSammy, your naivity is touching.
If you read A T Q Stewart’s “The Narrow Ground” you’d begin to ask what precautionary strategies are in place to see us safely through 2016. They certainly weren’t in place in the lead up to 1966.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:45 AM“By the way, why is it that the Irish tradition is so focused on ballads celebrating murderers”
Not true. The ballads that come to my mind are
rare old mountain dew
dirty old town
field of athenry
finnegan’s wake
rocky road to dublin
danny boy
thre is an isle (best tune of them all, and quite patriotic, conntender for anthem at rugby internationals i think)
she moved through the fairi think its a case of you seeing what you want to see!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:47 AMPosted by Dewi on May 17, 2008 @ 01:51 AM
Truly, I regret clicking on that link. I havent had 12 pints. Is there a possible geometric link between pints consumed 24 hours before each murder in the troubles? I am mindful of what Gusty et all did before murdering.
Mind u, according to some histories, what they did was inevitable given all that 1966, fifty years stuff and all that.
There are some wankers about.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:55 PMTo my mind the finest Irish rebel song is Slievenamon, written by Charles Kickham, and is essentially a love song which makes only a fleeting reference to the nationalist cause in the lines:
O my love, O my love will I ne’er see you more
And my land wil you never uprise?and in the finale:
O, to see our flag unrolled
And my true love to enfold
In the valley near SlievenamonHere’s a fine big cointry lass with her version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egYkdhKZmzU&feature=related
In a tribute to the affection with which the song was held Slievenamon was the name given to the Lancia armoured car bequeathed to the Free State forces by the British and the car in which Michael Collins was travelling when he died in an engagement with Republican troops at Béal na mBlath. The driver, a Scotsman of Irish descent, Joe McPeake, later deserted to the Republican side taking the Lancia with him but it was later recaptured although, as I recall, McPeake escaped home unharmed to Scotland.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:23 PM
