A question in the Assembly from Michelle McIlveen to Nelson McCausland suggested that Unionists are effectively barred from joining the GAA.
While I’m delighted another DUP member has taken the time to read the GAA Official Guide, something many members have never done, I’m surprised they seem surprised to find an Irish cultural and sporting organisation doesn’t have a Unionist ethos.
Both McIlveen and McCausland call for the GAA to change its rules. For those of us with experience of the GAA that may be a valid suggestion, many clubs and a large number of members demonstrate little concern with the Basic Aim of the organisation and seem mainly focused on being production factories for senior football and hurling teams or allowing younger people to participate in these two games. If so many members have little consideration for other sports, cultural, language or national aspirations maybe the GAA would be better off codifying itself as a sporting organisation alone and negating Unionism’s criticism?
Or maybe if they we going to get flack from the likes of McIlveen and McCausland over the Official Guide the organisation could be more proactive overall in actually implementing it?
Miss McIlveen: Although the benefits of sporting events can and should be of immense value to our tourism market, does the Minister share my grave concern that unionists are, by the constitution of the GAA and the rules therein, excluded and prohibited from membership of that sporting organisation? Will the Minister call for those unacceptable rules to be amended by that organisation as a matter of urgency to reflect the shared and better future that we should all be striving for in today’s Northern Ireland?
The Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure: The Member raises a very important point. There is a general commitment and recognition in society now that a shared and better future is the best way forward in Northern Ireland. In the past, I have commended the professionalism and efficiency of the GAA in how it manages its organisation and activities. I recognise the importance that many in the community attach to the GAA and the value that they place on the sports that it runs. However, I agree with the Member that there is a difficulty, and I have raised it with the GAA and Sport NI in the past; it is not something that I raise today for the first time. As the Member made her point, I noticed that some Members on the other side of the Chamber seemed to be in a state of deep denial. However, rule 1.2 sets out the basic aim of the GAA very clearly:“The Association is a National Organisation which has as its basic aim the strengthening of the National Identity in a 32 County Ireland through the preservation and promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes.”
In other words, it places the games as a means to an end. That also needs to be taken in the context of rule 2.1 on membership, which states:
“Membership of the Association shall be granted only by a Club, to persons who subscribe to and undertake to further the aims and objects of the Gaelic Athletic Association, as stated in the Official Guide.”That quote comes from the current rules, which I think were approved in July. In other words, it states that, to play the games, whether Gaelic football or hurling, and be a member of a club, people have to subscribe to the basic aim, among the other aims, that has the aspiration of a united Ireland. Therefore, people who are from a unionist tradition and do not subscribe to that particular political aspiration find themselves excluded from participation in those games. [Interruption.]
The GAA needs to address that issue if it is to contribute, as it could, to a shared and better future. It would be better if some Members faced up to that with a little bit of honesty and humility rather than engaging in the practice of denial. We must look at how we can address the issue and move forward for the benefit of not just the GAA but all society in Northern Ireland. It is possible to be a Protestant and play Gaelic games. However, according to the rules, it is not possible to be a unionist and play Gaelic games.
Aside: I know this topic will present an almost irresistible temptation for some but please don’t go down the ‘whatabout’ road. Deal with this and if you want a mirror topic on any other organisation/s feel free to write up a draft and email it.
[Moderator’s update: Comments are now closed. This thread has declined below Slugger’s standards.]
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So, some of our more delusional nationalist posters think that the GAA is just about sport. We can therefore look forward to watching it at the Olympics with all the participating nations marching in behind their own flag. Oh…hold on a miniute…
It isn’t a normal sport. In the same way that loyalist bands aren’t just about music. It’s the other bits that sustain them. Take them away and they’ll whither. I personally do not want that to happen. There are sectarian attributes to both. But, they make us what we are. Neither should have to appologise for what they are. And even though there are sectarian elements to them there also are extremely good bits to them and lots of good people are in or follow them.
Just don’t pretend that they’re something they’re not…
Aiming to strengthen the national identity in 32 counties may have meant one thing in 1884, another thing in 1924 and again something different in 2010.
In an age of globalisation there is nothing wrong with strengthening a national identity through sport, and as everyone knows the GAA within its membership has a broad range of political opinion, the vast majority of whom would support the Good Friday agreement, and welcome players from the Unionist tradition who are an integral element of the Irish national identity. I believe strengthening national identity is a good thing, as long as it isn’t part of a move to xenophobia, and i dont believe thats the same thing as wanting a United Ireland – whatever that means.
Congal Claen:Orienteering is not in the Olympics and nor are many other sports. Scuba diving is not. Why? Because they are not competitive.
No offence but I reckon you know f all about any sport.
The GAA, like Aussie Rules and American football, is, in some ways greater for not being in such parites.
Speaking of which: Liverpool play Everton in a real do or die over the weekend. Any idea what sustains that or Newcastle v Sunderland, or Spurs v the Gunners, or, the oddest of the lot, Milwall v the Hammers? Most GAA fans would,
Moss Keane died recently and was justly praised without reservation by all sides, including Willie John McBride, Trevor Ringland, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the manager and captain (a Fine Gael TD) of the greatest GAA team ever.
Because you do not know why, you should really follow the old Irish maxim of
Is binn beal ina thost.
Hi Alan,
Don’t worry about causing offence – I suspect you are the proud owner of a fool’s pardon.
The reason that GAA isn’t in the Olympics is that the GAA rules prevent it because of the nonsense about flags, etc.
Though I suspect you knew that…
Regrets for the partial double posting but in a debate as important and sensitive as subject matter, there should be consideration of this aspect of posting. I would like to see it commentated on by genuine nationalist posters in particular, that can make a contribution without necessitating a moderator intervention and deletion .
As the GAA is so central to the life of the Nationalist community in all Thirty Two counties, comment is far too important for the usual silly buggers stuff.
While true blue unionists or others of such ilk may find it intellectually satisfying for individuals or some people acting collectively, to prattle pseudo ‘nationalist’ views as a poser poster, the fact that these are in the main ignored and uncommented on, do not mean that they are not seen by most nationalists and republicans for what they really are.
Too pathetic to be an insult to any person of average intelligence, if anything such activity amply demonstrates the intellectual poverty of any real argument that could be advanced overtly, honestly and openly to justify certain unionist agenda and positions !
and they are hardly international… I agree with Alan , sports are greater by having less people play/follow them…tiddlywinks, boules etc
Complete and utter ‘theoretical’ and long winded nonsense . The Irish people (North and South ) instinctively know that whether you call the Cobra -Mr Cobra or Sir Cobra that sooner or later the Cobra will do what the Cobra always does . Unfortunately for the Cobra most of the poisonous venom has been removed even if here and there it reverts to type.
You may not have noticed but the UK is located about 12 miles offshore from Ireland at the nearest point and mostly averages about 50 to 100 miles offshore .
Our army is large enough for civil defence purposes and we are in no position to eh invade the UK to eh assert our right of national self determination as you say .
Have you anything practical to add to these debates other than useless theoretical claptrap .?
The GAA promotes Irish culture and identity throughout the 32 counties. Are we now saying that Unionism isnt part of an irish culture or identity?? Im sure Carson would have something to say about that.
Nelson McCausland is simply an anti-gaa bigot
Congal Claen
So what is your explanation as to why Rugby Union (15 man game) don’t participate in the Olympics? And why did it take so long for Golf to be included? Why is Association Football confined to teams under the age of 23? Why was there no tennis for so long?
Do all of these associations have some rule with flags which prevents them from participating?
“…..It isn’t a normal sport. In the same way that loyalist bands aren’t just about music. It’s the other bits that sustain them…..”
That is incorrect. In all GAA clubs first and foremost it is about team and training !
Leave aside the six counties for the moment, in fact leave aside all the Ulster counties as these could be have been influenced by their proximity to and interface with the ‘ Northern Situation’.
The central core of the GAA ethos is team and training ! That is first, last and always the rational of the club. In my youth in the sixties my local village had a field for playing ( as distinct from a playing field ) and an old porto cabin in the corner of the field. The only showers the players got was through the leaking roof if it happened to be raining.
That village inside a decade had the field leveled and enclosed to a such a standard that the local club was able to host an inter-county game. The Club now have full team facilities incorporated into a large community center that is used for all sorts of social activities during the week in addition to GAA activities, in fact other than the changing and shower facilities, the GAA per se make the least use of the centre of any organization on the parish.
Every village that have a good progressive club that built dual community /club facilities has a triving community where such centers are the focal points. Until relatively recently a ‘mixed marriage’ in the South meant one between members of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael families where differences run as deep as those between the UUP and DUP in the North.
Most villages have FF or FG pubs, the GAA centers is a neutral meeting place where community issues come first.
I accept that in Ulster as a whole and in the six counties in particular with polarized communities the GAA may be seen on a different light by unionists of whatever hue. As in most other areas we are where we are in this regard. There is one thing the GAA can do with immediate effect to change perceptions; most clubs take part in Scor Na nOG and other musical events.
The GAA clubs at community level could approach some of these Orange Flute marching bands, most of the latter are usually musically proficient in other areas as well and arrange a joint concert for charity with Nationalist and Unionist players alternating and combining etc. Orange halls where large enough or other Protestant community centers could host a return venue in their own areas.
The GAA in Ulster could put up a substantial prize of say £50,000 for the best cross community group. Just like Score down here, all differences will become secondary to to turning out the best possible local team and the preparations and arrangements will get the mothers and aunts in particular ( who are the main facilitators of these things anyway and without whom the GAA could not function) working together.
This is but one area where the GAA could show a lead in breaking down community barriers and I am sure that if the unionist section of such a winning group were able to bring back £ 25,000 from a group win to upgrade facilities in their own community, that hard pressed community leaders would more than welcome such a boon. There is the added bonus in that usually such shared youthful musical experience tend to forge life long friendships.
In Kerry Civil War passions ran deep yet a Free State Army Officer and player on the Kerry Team was able to unofficially arrange a forty- eight safe conduct pass for a wanted IRA Officer and Republican Leader. These two people who would have opened fire on each other outside the GAA environs and detested each others politics, played together and co-operated for the good of the team.
The GAA in the South and the Shannon Scheme were the two main situations that brought Civil War opponents together in a social and work environment. Having discussed these things with various senior Northern County people over the years, I am satisfied that the same capacities and ethos exist now in this regard as it did back then !
Oh and there have been unionists within the GAA, for a number of years the Secretary of Strabane’s hurling club was a protestant unionist, it was never an issue there.
MV,
I agree the majority of clubs mainly have a sporting focus (many on just one game hurling or football), while not quite production factories for senior teams that does seem to get closer with every season
However, like it or not, ours is a political organisation – not party political but undeniable a body with politics. The stated aims and the preamble make it very clear, in the GAA sport and politics are linked – always have been.
But:
I’ve seen my local club distribute template planning objection letters over an Irish language school, this week I watched the Antrim County website shoot down a U21 player, that makes his living with soccer, complaining about scheduling using the term ‘garrison games’ – absolutely no irony involved, they seem to forget that Croker was recently making a good living renting itself out for ‘garrison games’. I see us accepting sponsorship from multi-nationals while having a commitment to supporting local industry.
I see the politics being dropped.
That’s my question, not McCausland or Unionism’s (who care little if at all about the GAA), do we fully implement our own rules or should we just rewrite them?
I’m a political gael, I believe promoting national identity via the sports we love is intrinsically linked to why those sports have thrived and become loved. I’d still love the sports if the politics were dropped – I wouldn’t love the gah just as much though.
No issue beyond both him and Strabane GAA ignoring the declared politics of the GAA. Unless he was an 32 county nationalist while secretary and something else after.
Surely the point is nationalists and republicans want a UI. It is essential to that cause to welcome as many unionists into the fold as possible.
It does not diminish the GAA, if anything it adds to it.
The GAA is a great advert for Irish sport all should be welcome. If they are not then it may be that as Ireland becomes more multicultural their support will wither.
If, out of spite or any other reason, a unionist took the GAA to court for refusing to let them join, would the unionist win? It’s a serious question in the sense that I’m not sure.
I’m not sure it is the same for OO which seems to be religion based, bigoted (religions are always the worst for bigots) but still church.
As far as rules go The Irish Roman Catholic were supposed to be Christian, were they during most of the 20th, century ?
In a polarized situation like the Six Counties where many club members have had, or continue to have direct involvement republican activities, then politics per se will obviously play a bigger part in shaping the ethos of a club or of a region and county through such clubs acting collectively.
In 1994 I was stopped at a RUC / British Army check point is Armagh. Across the road in the opposite lane a escort car was pulled in and five youths, three on one side and two on the other were stretched out at gunpoint by the RUC. It was drizzling, it had been for a while, the youths were dressed in slacks and shirts and obviously wet right through.
After some thirty five minutes there during which time carloads of jeering, cat calling and abusive young unionist people giving horn fanfares and fingers up, were just waved on, they were allowed go and many were on first name terms with the RUC on checkpoint duty there.
When finally allowed go, the carload of Youths went up the road did a U turn, came up behind my line where they were ordered out and the same process of jeering and abuse started all over again as they were stretched out over the cars in the light rain.
I had been cleared to go, I stopped, left my car and took out a professional camera. My cultural credentials had been taken at face value to that point. I walked back to photograph the Youths, the RUC sergeant threatened to arrest me and I then handed him my notebook of press and political contacts, told him who I was politically. I also guaranteed him an international incident if I was arrested and refused to co-operate unless the Youths were allowed to go there and then.
The sergeant spoke into his radio and a little trench coat mid twenties English nobody attempting to look like he was somebody came out from the Brits hut and stood with his face a two feet from mine. ” Right mate” he said ” I know you for future reference ” he waved towards the car and said “leave them go” ! He then returned to his staring match with me.
I waited until the car was gone and then reminded him that more important I knew who he was and that I was in my own country which was more than he could say!
I also quietly told him that as far as his threats went that ” he would not the first member of the British security forces to leave Ireland wearing a wooden overcoat ” The bluster instantly vanished and he shot back to his little screened bolt-hole a hell of a lot quicker than he came out !
Some miles down the road the Youths were stopped changing into dry sports tops, I stopped also, they were GAA on their way to training and every evening they went up the main road they got the same treatment. They went the backroads most evenings but it was personal and even in these back roads they could be expected to be intercepted and stopped with even more personal abuse.
I also made some enquiries about such activity that evening and the following day….. it was commonplace in many areas for the RUC / UDR / British Army to gratuitously harass and interfere with GAA Youths on their way to training. I would think given these experiences that it would be easy to understand why there is scant regard or welcome for the RUC / PSNI in some GAA clubs or why they have a certain ethos that is not reflective of the GAA as a whole!
Do not mention that place, !
I once came through there at six-thirty on a lovely summers morning with the sun warming up nicely and the fog clearing.
I stopped in shock…… there on the football pitch were a half dozen cows roaming around, quite at home and grazing contently. That happening in Kerry or Kilkenny would result in a special meeting of the County Board and an enquiry with the club concerner lucky if they were not charged with bringing the game into dis-repute.
Bloody amatures !
I didn’t mention the PSNI or RUC. I’m not fighting for Rule 21,
Your stories are long and lovely but my god they have little to do with what you reply to,
I’m discussing the modern (current) GAA and you give irrelevant boys/fianna own biog .
That is not what the GAA is about, it always has and continues to have a political aspect:
The Association is a National Organisation which has as
its basic aim the strengthening of the National Identity
in a 32 County Ireland through the preservation and
promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes
Mark McGregor
Agreed, but time has moved since the above was written. I believe it is now more helpful to, whilst maintaining the 32 county aspiration, remove the objection to unionists or indeed anyone who wants to play the traditional sports of Ireland.
I’m not sure the GAA would win a case of discrimination. I’m almost sure they would lose if it were in, for example, England. I’m not saying that to be contrary. Laws have changed, both here in Ireland and elsewhere, discrimination is now the big ‘don’t do’. Religions get away with it for obvious reasons but I’m not sure a sporting or cultural organisation would. Perhaps the culture aspect would protect it.
thats the rugby pitch munster, it changes site every season so the farmer who owns that land can graze the land.
And Mark he was a unionist but also an irishman so he saw and the club saw absolutely no problem with it, as he would point out, unionists at one state used ‘Erin go Bragh’ as a rallying cry
Mark
With respect these young fellows that I referred to are now in their mid thirties and are going from playing at club level into training and mentoring and management. Some are also involved in administration.
If I can vividly recall such an incident of abuse of those GAA young people by the RUC and the twenty five or thirty car loads of unionist youths passing, how much more must those events be imprinted in the minds of the the people who had to endure this on a daily, monthly and even yearly basis ?
Of course it colors perception and attitude; it is one thing ‘ giving Shinners the treatment’ when they were dealt with as second class citizens up there, it was quite another abusing these young athlete people on their way to an evenings sport for no other reason than ” being Irish means they are guilty, so we are guilty one and all etc……” by bigoted RUC and Brits who in reality see no difference between the IRA and the GAA !
I can understand clubs with attitude I bloody well know where it came from, I was there when some of that attitude was forged and it will not be dropped over night whatever of the GAA ethos as a whole.
If it is the rugby pitch that is a different matter, my apologies to Strabane GAA !
APA,
“Are we now saying that Unionism isnt part of an irish culture or identity??”
Well, it’s not part of a 32-county Irish identity, if that’s what you mean.
When Unionists these days relate positively to the words ‘Ireland’ or ‘Irish’ they are either referring to the island geographically or, at a stretch, some idea of a vague apolitical cultural space that sits outside the real temporal world. They are not referring to a united political Irish nation which not only has never existed but will never exist.
“The sergeant spoke into his radio and a little trench coat mid twenties English nobody attempting to look like he was somebody came out from the Brits hut and stood with his face a two feet from mine.”
Munster,
A trenchcoat you say? Have you somehow managed to mix up your modern day fantasies with your 1921 fantasies?
Why should a sport be closed to a whole ethnic group based on their national identity alone? It’s just unacceptable and I really hadn’t realised this about the GAA. I was almost reaching the point of detente where I might let bygones be bygones and buy an Antrim shirt, as a proud Country Antrim man. But not now I know this about the GAA – it is a disgrace.
The GAA is clearly not a great advert for Irish sport, it is a great advert for Irish sectarianism.
Comparisons to the OO can be made, but there is a difference as Pippakin points out. The OO is about the maintenance of Protestant faiths in Ireland and it’s a sine qua non that you would have to be Protestant to be involved with it (though its attitude towards marriages with Catholics is absurd and indefensible). If the GAA were a purely religious or Irish nationalist organisation, then it would be the mirror image of that, but the fact it is a sport bring a whole other set of moral standards to bear.
As we know from our responses to Berlin 1936 and South African apartheid days, there is something special about the culture of sport worldwide. We wince at its being used for political ends and we wince even more when it is used to exclude rather than include, be it on the grounds of race, religion or ethnicity. I am surprised the nationalist community has allowed the GAA to continue into the 21st Century in this state but I trust that conscience will be brought to bear eventually.
Mainland Ulsterman
I’m not sure, as I said above, if the GAA are in breach of the law, but, I’m absolutely positive such vehement response is the last thing that will bring about change.
Everything evolves, willingly or not, it just does. The GAA is therefore evolving. It may be the time is approaching when the authorities within the sport will deem it right to alter the rules to reflect the times. I hope that is the case.
No, that slimy little bastard was like something out of a bad spy film casting, slicked down bril-cream hair, the bloody lot, he ticked off all the boxes for an upper-class twit, caricature!
Interesting however that you should ignore the ill-treatment and abuse of these young people at the hands of what was presumably your police force and zero in on that ?
You lot may not be able to deny the truth but neither can you handle it and so attempt to distract from it at every opportunity !
Er, lads, it ain’t rocket science. The GAA is a sporting and cultural organisation. The two are intertwined: the games we play are a big part of who were are culturally.
The idea that the GAA would abandon its cultural role and become nothing more than another facilitator of sports entertainment in order to appease a vocal minority who despise everything it has ever stood for, is utterly idiotic.
MU
Re. your examples of sport and politics mixing: firstly, the suggestion that sport and politics are, or should be separate, is one of those poe-faced lies that has been repeated so frequently as to have become a truism. The GAA exists as a reaction to an imperial government that understood very well the acculturating powers of sport – something the GAA founders also understood.
Berlin 1936 didn’t really see any particular infringement of politics on sport: the games were played out without hindrance (indeed the star of the games, Jesse Owens, was living proof of that). That the Nazi regime made a big nationalistic deal out of the hosting of the games was absolutely par-for-the-course. As we saw in Beijing and as we will see in London, all governments do it. Berlin 1936 jars because it was Hitler, not because it was unusual.
As for apartheid, that’s actually a very good example of how sport DOES have a place in the political arena. The boycotting of apartheid teams was a wonderful act of solidarity from the civilised world to the oppressed majority in South Africa, and one that was condemned at the time by various pro-apartheid reactionaries with the predictable bleat that sport and politics should be kept separate…..
You should buy that Antrim shirt. You really should. The only thing preventing you is you.
Pip
“The GAA is a great advert for Irish sport all should be welcome.”
All ARE welcome. Not everyone is interested. That’s okay. But no-one is barred or excluded, any more than Marxists are barred from the Conservative Party. They are free to join, but shouldn’t be surprised that it isn’t as Marxist as they’d like.
(I actually one knew a self-proclaimed Marxist who joined the Tories. He did so only because: a) they served sherry at the branch meetings; and b) there was a woman involved, and c) he reckoned, rightly, that he’d get a job out of it. I suspect that in all large organisations, the true believers constitute only a small minority. That’s certainly true of the GAA.)
“If they are not then it may be that as Ireland becomes more multicultural their support will wither.”
Ireland has been becoming more multicultural for the last couple of decades. In that time the popularity of Gaelic games has reached levels never seen before. Indeed as professional sport retreats ever further from the lived experience of ordinary people, Gaelic games have become ever more popular, and even gained envious editorials in the international press.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/21/in-praise-of-gaelic-sports
The GAA does huge work every day of the week with kids from what one might call the association’s non-traditional catchment areas and it is commonplace now in every part of the country to see underage GAA teams consisting of youngsters of all colours and with the most exotic names. We’ve already had a Fijian lifting the Liam McCarthy and a Samoan lifting Sam. (And, indeed an Ulster Prod, but sadly only the one that I’m aware of.)
Honestly, you’d fret less if you actually had a clue what you were talking about.
“If, out of spite or any other reason, a unionist took the GAA to court for refusing to let them join, would the unionist win?”
No, because the GAA would never “refuse to let them join”. It’s actually the unionist who is the one doing the refusing, out of dislike for the GAA. That’s fine, that’s his right. But he has no right to insist that the GAA should be re-organised according to the way he thinks it should be. It’d be like suing a vegetarian restaurant for not serving you a steak. The court would just tell you to stop acting the wanker.
An organisation is entitled to require that prospective members will agree to be bound by the rules, ethos and objectives of that organisation. Otherwise it would be impossible for any organisation – club, union, religion, political party, pressure group, you name it – to maintain any kind of coherence or purpose.
“religions are always the worst for bigots”
I honestly think this is complacent liberal bollocks.
Pippakin,
Why the surprise at vehemence against such indefensible and shocking sectarianism in a major sporting body? I know my comments cannot bring about change in the GAA – they clearly don’t respect my culture and I’m sure they discount anything I have to say due to my being born British. Sorry but their illiberality is their problem, not mine. (I am one of people you rightly point out that Irish nationalists are supposed to be convincing to give up his own national identity and adopt theirs. Not the most selfless and noble of political ‘ideals’, but hey-ho).
But I would call on liberal voices in the Catholic community and sporting world to ask them to catch themselves on. I am absolutely genuine about having been close to taking the plunge and wearing an Antrim shirt and I am genuine that I won’t be doing that having just read the GAA’s nonsense about having to be an Irish nationalist to play the sport. I’m not going to be an Uncle Tom in the face of that kind of disrespect and I am surprised anyone is standing up for these idiots.
The championing of Jesse Owens in Berlin 1936 and the anti-apartheid protests against whites-only sports in South Africa were both examples of the world standing up for inclusiveness in sport and against racism. People looked at Hitler refusing to shake Owens’s hand and said: that bloke is a twat for doing that. Even in the racist old 1930s, people realised that was out of order.
Football has done a lot of work in recent decades to kick racism out of the game – I remember my mate of Chinese background getting racially abused in a match we played in South London in the 90s and even in our minor league, the ref went ballistic and the player got a massive ban. Then we here we are in 2010 with the knuckle-dragging GAA … I’m sorry but a ban on an entire ethnic group from playing your sport is just off the Richter scale.
And I’m not buying that shirt, in fact I have lost any goodwill I had towards the GAA. If they want to further Irish nationalism, they couldn’t have done a worse job.
Billy Pilgrim
” I honestly think this is complacent liberal bollocks ”
Really? Well right now liberal bollocks rule the western world and calling a spade a shovel will not help.
The fact is the relevant clause may well be in breach of the law. I believe the GAA could with a bit of tweaking, maintain their aspiration without offending anyone.
Not all Irish people are in favour of 32 counties, but they may well be proud of and want to participate in Gaelic games. It should be their right to do just that and there is the hope that unionists among them may overtime be persuaded away from unionism, which after all is mostly ‘better the devil you know’.
I cannot think of another sporting organisation that has as its founding rule a political ambition.
If you were really in favour of a UI you would also be in favour of what brings us closer together, not in maintaining that which pulls people apart.
Now you can take your balls and play with them. It is, so they tell me, what little boys do.
Not very politically correct I am afraid but this story I heard about one of the Dublin GAA clubs go back over ten years and is a good one in that it shows racism is not always as it seems.
An Irish born lad of Asian parents was playing in either under twelves or fourteens and was a fairly useful player, as what he lacked in size he more than made up for in spirit and agility. During a game he tackled hard, put down his opponent, won the ball and cleared it out the field much to the chagrin of the other teams trainer who shouted at the young fellow.
His own trainer immediately stopped play and pointed out to the ref that his player had been abused in racist terms as a ‘slant eyed little bastard’ ! The ref was taking this seriously and began recording the incident. The offending trainer then rounded on his counterpart and demanded ” did not you yourself shout at him earlier to move your arse you slant eyed little get” ?
” I may well have done that ” the trainer answered “but if I did, he is my slant eyed get and I am not going to have anyone else abusing him”
Positive indications of multicultural integration ?
Mainland Ulsterman
Yes I was too abrupt before, sorry, but it is a fragile subject, strong views are held and, thinking back, not without reason.
To bring about change it is necessary to reach out, to both sides. For a long time the GAA was the only light at the end of the tunnel for young catholics. To deny that is to deny history and relatively recent history at that. Times have changed but feelings and especially wounds take longer.
I believe the time is approaching when everyone will be able to deal with these matters with their eyes on the future. – not the past.
MU
“The championing of Jesse Owens in Berlin 1936 and the anti-apartheid protests against whites-only sports in South Africa were both examples of the world standing up for inclusiveness in sport and against racism. People looked at Hitler refusing to shake Owens’s hand and said: that bloke is a twat for doing that. Even in the racist old 1930s, people realised that was out of order.”
No-one “championed” Owens other than himself – as in, he made himself a champion on the track. People knew Hitler was a twat before the games, except for those who thought he was wonderful. Few minds were changed as a result of the games. And the anecdote about Hitler refusing to shake Owens’ hand did not come to light ’til Owens told it in an interview in the 1970s.
You are just waffling, throwing around adjectives and hoping something sticks.
“I’m sorry but a ban on an entire ethnic group from playing your sport is just off the Richter scale.”
The GAA does NOT ban anyone. You are a liar.
“And I’m not buying that shirt, in fact I have lost any goodwill I had towards the GAA.”
I simply don’t believe any such goodwill ever existed. All you have demonstrated here is spleen. As previously noted, you’re a liar.
Pip
The “complacent liberal bollocks” referred to your casual dismissal of religious people.
“The fact is the relevant clause may well be in breach of the law. I believe the GAA could with a bit of tweaking, maintain their aspiration without offending anyone.”
Firstly, it’s not in breach of any law. Secondly, it’s the aspiration that you think the GAA should jettison.
“I cannot think of another sporting organisation that has as its founding rule a political ambition.”
But there is nothing inherently political about the GAA’s aspirations, except in the broadest sense. The GAA’s aspirations are “political” only in the same sense that an international football team has the “political” aspiration of representing, and winning, for their country.
Increasing numbers of people from the unionist tradition are making peace with the GAA, and are doing so on the basis of what the GAA is, and what it isn’t. Meaningful rapprochement can only take place on the basis of mutual respect, not on the basis of supine surrender to the prejudices of those who will always hate you anyway.
The GAA is building bridges with the Trevor Ringlands of Ulster, people who do respect the GAA and its achievements. People like our mainland friend will never be reached, but that’s okay. They are not the yardstick.
“The fact is the relevant clause may well be in breach of the law. I believe the GAA could with a bit of tweaking, maintain their aspiration without offending anyone.”
Highly unlikely. The Supreme Court found in favour of Portmarnock Golf Club who do not allow women to become full members. They were threatened with the loss of their licence to sell alcohol. I also seem to remember that Government sports grants (hosting competitions – could have been the Walker Cup) were also going to be withheld.
“In 2005, the High Court overturned a District Court decision and ruled that Portmarnock was not a discriminating club because its principal purpose was to cater only for the needs of a particular gender, an exemption allowed under the legislation.
The Supreme Court upheld that ruling this morning. (Nov. 2009)”
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1103/portmarnock.html
Jesse Owens was treated abominably by the Olympic boss who was in hock to Hitler. The blacks who protested in Mexico were similalry shunned – as was the Austrlaian siliver medallist who joined them. He was the only Aussie not invited to the Sydney games.
Hitler, by all accounts, treated Owens ok. Owens was later left to run against horses to make a living. The German he beat froze to death outside Stalingrad.
[deleted – mods. Keep it civil.]
Good work in general Billy Pilgrim. You may be confusing two things:
1. sport in politics: has always existed. Franco, Mussolina, Hitler, the Brits, the Yanks. Soviets., East Germans etc all did it.
2. social movements like the GAA and, for that matter, Glasgow Celtic mark 1. Celtic like so many clubs was set up for socail reaosns.
One can think of Don Bosco and all the great mainly Catholic boxing clubs in the North. Boxing, the true workng class sport: most clubs had a social purpose and still do,
Billy Pilgrim
Is changing a couple of words in the appropriate place ‘abject surrender’ ? I don’t think it is, but I do think it is the mindset of some people, on both sides, and that is one of the things that have yet to worked through.
I think that as people become more relaxed in peace and equality these old standbys will become less important.
Sorry if I misunderstood you. I have no objection to any religion as much as I dislike the lot of em.
While true blue unionists or others of such ilk may find it intellectually satisfying for individuals or some people acting collectively, to prattle pseudo ‘nationalist’ views as a poser poster, the fact that these are in the main ignored and uncommented on, do not mean that they are not seen by most nationalists and republicans for what they really are.
Too pathetic to be an insult to any person of average intelligence, if anything such activity amply demonstrates the intellectual poverty of any real argument that could be advanced overtly, honestly and openly to justify certain unionist agenda and positions !
Munster,
I’d be delighted to give you a unionist perspective, but unfortunately my replies have been censored. Someone didn’t like me pointing out the obvious flaws in your ‘trenchcoat’ story.
Blair
Truth is always stranger than fiction !
What was even more bizzare about that incident is that the older RUC was a catholic and had just returned from a two weeks holiday in West Cork with his wife and family.
I could not believe that anyone could have been so unnecessarly careless about their own and their families personal security and told him so in no uncertain terms, when he could have gone to Cyprus, Malta or elsewhere for his recrational activities. All it would have taken is some boozed up idiot on discovering his identity to go home for his fathers shotgun and God only knows what could have happened !
We had quite a conversation actually, he offered to shake hands with me when leaving, I said I would but not while he was in uniform. The second RUC man was a young unionist who did not like the opening rapport one little bit and at that stage both of us were winding him up. The catholic one asked if he removed his hat would that satisfy me as ‘ out of uniform’ I agreed but his colleauge objected as ‘he could not do that while on duty’.
He then lifted his cap to ‘wipe the sweat from his forehead ‘ and while doing so shook hands with me with the other. I then offered to shake hands with the other fellow while wearing his hat and had he been sexually propositioned the reaction could have not been more adverse. We had was another bit of mutually winding up the youngfellow about a United Catholic Ireland and of he may need the goodwill of people like me for a promotional reference before I was waved off.
It was at this stage that the GAA youths did their U turn and were piled out again in the drizzel to begin a second round of harrasment at the hands of ‘security forces’
Munster,
A fascinating story to be sure to be sure. I’ll try again with my earlier points about your story and see if the censor will pass them this time.
You claimed that a British Sergeant in a trenchcoat approached you from a hut at the checkpoint. That would mean that you are referring to a Permanent Vehicle Checkpoint commonly known as a PVCP. No such entity ever existed in Armagh. If you are referring to the PVCP at Cloghogue just south of Newry then it is puzzling that twenty car loads of loyalists should have been passing through it. Where could they have been going, or coming from?
Another puzzling factor is the ‘upper class twit’ of a Sergeant in the trenchcoat. British soldiers stopped wearing trenchcoats before WW2 broke out, so it is puzzling that your Sergeant was wearing one. Trenchcoats were not worn with badges of rank, so it is puzzling that you were able to identify that he was a Sergeant.
Perhaps most puzzling of all though is your description of a Sergeant in the British army as ‘an upper class twit’. Most upper class twits in the army would tend to be officers.
A strange tale indeed. Perhaps you can add some clarification? If my post is censored btw it will be my last.
Blair
Truth is always stranger than fiction !
What was even more bizarre about that incident is that the older RUC was a catholic and had just returned from a two weeks holiday in West Cork with his wife and family.
I could not believe that anyone could have been so unnecessarily careless about their own and their families personal security and told him so in no uncertain terms, when he could have gone to Cyprus, Malta or elsewhere for his recreational activities. All it would have taken is some boozed up idiot on discovering his identity to go home for his fathers shotgun and God only knows what could have happened !
We had quite a conversation actually, he offered to shake hands with me when leaving, I said I would but not while he was in uniform. The second RUC man was a young unionist who did not like the opening rapport one little bit and at that stage both of us were winding him up. The catholic one asked if he removed his hat would that satisfy me as ‘ out of uniform’ I agreed but his colleague objected as ‘he could not do that while on duty’.
He then lifted his cap to ‘wipe the sweat from his forehead ‘ and while doing so shook hands with me with the other. I then offered to shake hands with the other fellow while wearing his hat and had he been sexually propositioned the reaction could have not been more adverse. We had was another bit of mutually winding up the young fellow about a United Catholic Ireland and of he may need the goodwill of people like me for a promotional reference before I was waved off.
It was at this stage that the GAA youths did their U turn and were piled out again in the drizzle to begin a second round of harassment at the hands of ‘security forces’
I always took people as I found them, in or out of uniform. At some of these international historical seminars I attend one of the people there is a former British Army Major who see service in Northern Ireland yet we always look forward to meeting each other and having a few chats over the weekend.
We have our ‘Blairs’ too, the very fact that I could have these attitudes makes me compromised in their eyes and somebody who has sold out. However I do not relate these things for their benefit or yours but for those like the Bridewell police that have an innate common decency, that can be reached and communicated with.
I do not mind the likes of that pofaced young RUC in the Armagh checkpoint that could not see past his prejudice, at least his kind are honest in their bigotry.
What I do object to and find particularly loathsome are those who are in there immediately, either openly sectarian unionist or under ‘pseudo nationalist’ poster persona with outrageous insulting language ‘against unionists’ to queer the pitch where there could be a possibility of engagement!
Among the two bravest, decent and most honorable people I ever met in my life were two elderly police officers in a fingerprint section in a English Police Station where I did a hunger and thirst strike on detention under the PTA act. They stood up to the whole system and protected me from physical and other abuse just because it was the right thing to do. One of these days I will try contact their families and let them know the fine people they were.
Blair : you need to move outside the box, you may be surprised at what you will find.
Munster,
I think it is important that we identify the fiction and prevent it from being portrayed as truth.
Blair,
Munsterview’s stories are always to be taken with an overwhelming, indeed potentially amount of salt. You have noted one of the many flaws. However, something else I always find fascinating about our so very Irish Munsterview is his Americanness. He very frequently uses American English. Previously he has called Autumn the Fall. He has corrected my English spelling when I use an s rather than a z. In this latest flight of fantasy he has described the young men wearing “slacks”: another classic Americanism.
Munsterview may now live in Munster but I suspect he is not originally from there and may well have been no where near Northern Ireland in 1994.
Incidentally he also has American fantasy stories: he once told us about an American cousin who flew in Vietnam.
Munsterview might be better renamed Munster Mitty as in Walter.
Turgon,
I think you have him sussed.
Blair/Turgon
Is it right to build a complex picture of someone based on their comments? For all you know I might be sitting on a beach somewhere warm, with a long cold glass of something alcoholic within easy reach (I wish).
It makes no real difference, an opinion genuinely held is as valid as any other. no matter where the commenter comes from, or as in my case spent many years.
For those in doubt I can confirm the weather in Mayo has been beautiful today. I love Autumn. BTW Fall gets used quite a bit on twitter, less characters you see, and I guess (Americanism) you both have heard of American spellcheck and grammar check. I can’t change mine to either UK or Irish English, and yes there are both, just not yet on my pc.
I have a notoriously bad temper but I’m not vindictive and I don’t like to see anyone jump to conclusions.
Blair.
Without going back over the post concerned clarification
One, I left Belfast on that day or Larne to be precise and travelled to Armagh, the journey had taken hours longer because of security checks.
Two, the sergeant that I referred to was an RUC sergeant.
Three, The guy that came from the British Army hut or whatever was a civilian and since he was toe to toe with me acting the ‘hard man’ for some minutes I had a good chance to examine him in detail. He was a civilian and probably MI5. The RUC man referred once to ‘ an intelligence officer being in charge’ and also to the British Army being in charge.
As to veracity; in the past six months or whatever while I have been on this site I have never had a post removed for insulting language which is more than can be said for some ‘clever charlies pseudo posters’ and I have only got facts wrong once in an incident about Martin Mcguiness arrest.
This is all the more extraordinary as I am relying on memory only in present circumstances. Obviously in the incident related certain things stand out, such as the abusive treatment of those GAA youngsters and unionist youths hanging out windows giving fingers up and jeering. I have a full recall of the two RUC I interfaced with and that English creep that came out of cover and stood toe to toe with me.
That if memory is correct, was the seventh or eight check I got that day since leaving Larne, do not expect me to recall every detail of each of these. I have been through hundreds of checkpoints in the North over the years, only a few like this are in mind, the rest have long faded into the background.
Even with this only the salient details are in mind, I can recall British Army present but do not expect me to recall how many soldiers, vehicles or what individual weapons they were carrying.
The central aspect to this story is the abuse of those then GAA youths as a regular on going event, all else is secondary !
Pippakin,
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. In my opinion Munster’s story about his checkpoint adventures is riddled with so many basic inaccuracies that it simply cannot be true. The most obvious flaw of course being that no such checkpoint existed in Armagh. All the other points simply confirm the ridiculous nature of his claims.
Munster,
You referred to the ‘upper class twit’ coming out of a hut. Where in Armagh was this checkpoint?
In all my dealings with upper class twits I must say that I have never heard one of them refer to another person as ‘mate’. This was a strange adventure to be sure.
Blair,
Well said. No one is disputing Munsterview’s opinions here: though I am far from agreeing with him. It is not his opinions which he can hold but be challenged on. It is the assorted stories which are so full of holes and unbelievable that they are: well unbelievable.
Sometimes Munsterview has been a journalist; a senior member of the Republican movement; a friend of senior republicans. He has been arrested by the police, subjected to harassment. Indeed Munster Mitty has had a life of intrigue and glamour in the republican cause. Or maybe he is just a rather sad fantastist.
Blair/Turgon
Perhaps it was not Armagh, perhaps it was, for example, Antrim. So what, the point he made was a valid point, young people were on occasion stopped by over zealous patrols or security posts or whatever.
The years may, or may not, cloud the location, but not the fact such stops happened or the emotion they left in their wake.
Nit picking gentlemen.
Pippakin,
No such checkpoints existed in Antrim either. They were located on the border and generally in strongly republican areas. To have twenty car loads of loyalists driving through the border, at the height of the Troubles, howling abuse at groups of culture loving GAA types is extremely unlikely to say the least. I cannot imagine what possible business they could have had in being there.
I would suggest that Turgon has the poster in question well sussed.
Turgon,
Did I see him claim that he was on a hunger and thirst strike in an English police cell? Presumably he wasn’t on it for very long. It’s bad enough that republican propaganda gets spun out from true events, but utter fabrications are beyond the Pale.
Blair
I wouldn’t know my trips were by train or plane. It was some years and the peace was well advanced before I drove through border areas.
But enough of this. It is about the emotions engendered by those events, and such events did happen if not in the location given.
You and Turgon are in danger of sounding like play ground bullies. You may be right about the location, let that be your ‘victory’. Be away with the pair of you.
Pippakin,
They didn’t happen to him though. That is the point. If someone has a plausible tale about the horrors of being stopped and searched at a checkpoint then I will be glad to hear it. Though I will then point out that such checkpoints were only necessary on account of the rather serious terrorist murder campaign that happened to be going on at the time.
Blair
I don’t know it did not happen. I know he says it did and you say it didn’t.
If I were the jumping to conclusion kind I might begin to think you are ex RUC or army. I might even think you once wore a trench coat, and yes some people did and do wear them, although admittedly it is an old fashioned term for the garment,
I have no argument with you or Turgon, but you can see from the above that it is possible to read all sorts into comments.
Pippakin,
It’s not about jumping to conclusions. It’s about pointing out obvious falsehoods. This website is often quoted in the press. God forbid that the fantasies of some Irish American gulpin should be quoted as fact in the real world.
Blair
I am not sure if Slugger is quoted in the press. I take it for granted though that they will not be quoting me! LOL.
The truth is often different things to different people, and sometimes it is ‘dressed’ in different clothes to enhance the meaning.
I am not saying that is the case here, not at all, but it is true that innocent people, often young and almost always male, were stopped, searched and obviously delayed. If there was justification for the searches it was nevertheless an invasion and a humiliation.
It is time to move on. To dissect the past in this fruitless manner is to endanger the future.
Pippakin,
If the ‘invasion and humiliation’ of being stopped and searched saved just one life then it was more than worth it.
Blair / Turgon
Yes indeed it must be quite an agravation for you and like minded souls to have an unrepentant republican voice on a unionist site willing to slugg it out with all comer. Neither am I surprised that when a poster can keep the nationalist / republican ball in play that it then reverts to ‘ forget the ball bring down the man’ strategy.
It has not escaped my notice either that these occasional attacks on my personal autenticiy tend to follow on the heels of when I draw attention to some pseudo nationalist posters who take a deliberately insulting line with all aspects of Unionist tradition to get the hackles up and stymie any receptivity that may be coming from ‘middle ground’ or reasonable decent people the unionist side.
We had this in the Fr James Chesney affair ( to which I will be returning shortly), we have it now with the GAA and we will have it again in a few more weeks with something else. These views paraded are not about the events per se, under discussion, but about the underlying issues and on the visceral bigoted unionist side ( from which I am exempting many slugger unionist posters) ‘of a truth that dares not speak its name’.
In short naked sectarianism and an irrational detestation and intolerance of anything nationalist or republican !
This type of counter propaganda is as old as time itself, as a tactic and ‘tool of the trade’ I enjoy a bit of good craftwork as well as anybody else in the ‘hearts and minds’ game but it requires a certain amount of sophistication to pull off. The efforts here are crude, amateurish and about as polished as the ranting of Lord Ha Ha !
Ah come on folks, standards and all to that, when at home in my library and I take down Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples or Burkes impeachment speeches of Hastings, there is English and polemic propaganda by people who knew how to wield a pen and make a point to win hearts and minds. Back however with the weary resignation that Churchill himself knew to the… ‘Dreary steeples of Tyrone and Fermanagh, ….. before thoughts of the refined pen-ship of such masters as I have referred to, some of the crudities of the attempts here can only introduce the cringe factor..
At least Turgon, to use a metaphor from his own analogy word locker, has the good sense to cruise out of broadside range, he knows how fragile his petty little craft really is and dispite the ‘all flags flying’ bluster, that since the election those of his crew who have not jumped ship are in the main furiously manning the pumps and patching holes below the waterline.
Like Drake when confronted with the Spanish Armada, before so many United Ireland vessels bearing down, he knows all he can do is nip in harass the enemy with grape shot once in a while and scamper off again while praying for a ‘protestant wind’ miracle as without it there is no respite and this Armada will make port!
I have said before that aside from one brief period in a management training program spend in the East Coast of the US, I have never resided outside Ireland. I had home neighbors that fought for America in both WW2 and the Korean war. I have had family in the States since pre famine, my late uncles and aunts made it and my first cousins there all comfortable professionals. My Granduncles descendants are even better placed and yes one of them flew Nam as an AirForce Officer and came home to one hundred and ten job offers from US government and private sectors, without having to make one application.
The system sure takes care of it’s own. One of my relatives retired close to the top in the New York fire services, he and his family were influential Democratic supporters and I have other relative in the Mid-West also successful business people that hosted a ‘Tea Party’ some weeks back. In short I am no different to most Southern Irish with my North American connections, they span Canada, the East, Mid, West and South US.
I can do the same with relatives in UK from my one of my children living in Edinburg, through Carisle area cousins down to London and East Essex, all areas I like and frequently visit. I have had English friends over yacht sailing with me and I will be joining them next year for the same. I am not the one here with narrow horizons and a one dimensional focus.
The fact that some posters cannot get their mind around that is if anything a sad inditement of their own poverty of imagination and propensity for navel gazing!
Blair,
That’s not quite the point though, is it. Stopping ALL terrorism was a legitimate goal of the RUC.
The real point is would the majority of the old – mainly Protestant/Unionist – RUC have been as quick to stop and harrass a car load of Linfield supporters who were possible Loyalist terrorists as eagerly as they would have stopped a car load of GAA fans or players who were possible Republican terrorists?
Connaught,
In my experience they most certainly would have been. The RUC regarded themselves as the ‘third community’. They had no love for loyalists, and in fact many of them were burned out of their homes by them.
Blair,
And that’s the sad thing for the honest RUC men who did try to act honestly as a ‘third community’ The bad apples in the ranks stained the whole outfit.
I didn’t live in the north during those times to have first hand experience to know the truth either way. But my gut feeling is I’d have rather had a Linfield shirt on than a GAA one if I was being stopped by RUC and British army at a checkpoint during the troubles.
pippakin
“…a trench coat, and yes some people did and do wear them, although admittedly it is an old fashioned term for the garment,”
An old fashioned term in UK English but I think still a term in common usage in the US.
Blair
“If the ‘invasion and humiliation’ of being stopped and searched saved just one life then it was more than worth it.”
The above is often an explanation put forward by those doing the searching. It is understandable and even laudable, but it is not the whole truth.
I try always to be neutral and I’m not entirely opposed to stop and search. I can see that there were times when it was necessary. It should have been a quick and relatively painless moment, but that was not the experience of quite a number of the unfortunates stopped.
Connaught/Pippakin,
The experience of being stopped and searched would largely be dependant on the attitude and behaviour of the person being searched, and whether or not a P Check revealed them to be a member of a terrorist organisation. For the vast majority of people the process was relatively painless regardless of the type of shirt they were wearing.
The Stalker Inquiry centered on shootings of unarmed civilians at various RUC checkpoints in Armagh, so they were obviously in place in the county cicra 1982.
Alias,
Are you suggesting that they carried huts around with them?
Just a few Americanisms from that latest spiel:
“resided outside: not exclusively American but less often used here.
“neighbors” neighbours in UK (or Irish) English
“flew Nam” Leaving aside the use of the term Nam: Americanism but whilst odd I suppose the American cousin might have used it. However, to “fly Nam” is not a usual sentence construction in British (or Irish) English. We would use flew in Vietnam (or Nam). the dropping of the “in” is classically American English.
“other relative” may be a typo for another but again a very odd phrase for supposedly Irish English
“Edinburg, through Carisle” The misspelling of Edinburgh, not having the h at the end would be more typical of an American place name. However, as with Carlisle it may be a typo. More interesting again is the term “through Carisle” which again is a classic Americanism as in going through. Again we would have some sort of a link word.
I could go on all night with this but the point is that Munster Mitty seems extraordinarily American in spelling, sentence structure and terms.
Alias,
Yes in the 1980s but Munster Mitty was telling us this happened in 1994. Furthermore he told us that at this vehicle checkpoint a posh British intelligence officer type was in the nearby hut (the one Blair has pointed out did not exist). Munster Mitty suggested this posh person was in MI5. In reality of course MI5 officers would not be hanging around at vehicle check points. Apart of course in the fevered imagine of a plastic paddy American where such an occurrence is no doubt routine along with the aforementioned plastic paddy’s facing down of this evil colonial oppressor.
Turgon,
In order for there to have been a hut it would have had to be a PVCP. A fixed installation. No such thing existed in Armagh city. The nearest would have been south of Newry and it most certainly would not have seen a lot of loyalist traffic. Much less twenty car loads of them.
Alias will also be well aware that any FRU/MI5 types in a PVCP would not reveal themselves to a passing belligerent motorist. Further to that the RUC were in charge of the security situation since the mid seventies and would certainly not have deferred to the military in a situation like that.
Blair
For what it is worth !
First off there are rules to the game for both sides. On my way into the UK I was driving a top of the range car, I was accompanied by my late wife and ten month old child. On disembarkation in the UK port I asked for the Intel Security commanding Officer attached to the port.
The man was was contacted, when he came to my car pulled off to the side I told him I was on his list as I knew I had been observed by the Irish Special Branch boarding. He opened his folder and had indeed my details. He satisfied himself as to what I was doing in England, cleared me to proceed and thanked my for my professional curtsey as ‘ it made life easy for all of us”
He also informed me that he was on for all the weekend, monday included and in the event of any difficulties at a check to get back to him and he would ‘ clear me ‘ He gave me a salute and also left me out through the police entrance to avoid the ferry bumper to bumper traffic.
On my way out through a different port some days later, I was detained, not for anything I personally did or was suspected of but because something had happened in the area and Guilford four style in their words, they ” needed bodies and as I was high profile, I would do.” ! I was also threatened with being fitted up and being given a long sentence for directing terrorism in the UK etc.
They could have and they probably would have. Once my family, car and property were safe in the Ferry and under an Irish Flag, I informed the Intel people that I was as of then on hunger and thirst strike.
Some readers will have build up their own business, they will know what it is like to have been run ragged, I had months of that on the lead up, the UK trip was supposed to be a break as well as business and I was exhausted and in poor physical shape to begin with.
Within days I was on one hour hospital watch and due to go into hospital the same evening that I was placed on one hour watch. At that stage it would have become a very embarrising international incident that neither government wanted and would have been raised in the commons and Dail.
I was then told that I would be released the following morning, I came off hunger strike. I would not take their word for anything, a Southern Irish born police detective sergeant from the uniform poliece was found and he brokered the terms of my release to suit all parties. As that man had also told me where he came from and who his home Irish family were , I knew that he would not mess me around.
My cell walls were covered with dozens of palm prints of mainly Northern lads saying who they were, dates detained and the usual script after the name was ….. beaten and deported !
My personal experience was very mild and far less tramautic compare to the dozens of other much younger and less prepared political prisoners who had been through those cells ! I see another three such cells also covered in inked palm prints !
Blair,
Yes I agree entirely. You will notice above that I have had a look at one of Munster Mitty’s contributions and suggested a few Americanisms. It was not very difficult.
Munster,
Have you ever considered telling your life story to anyone in Hollywood? I don’t mean Palace Barracks btw.
There were very few thirst strikes during the Troubles. If one had occurred of a person arrested and not yet convicted it would have been a bit of a sensation and widely reported in the media. The fact that it is not remembered is a further example of Munsterview’s lack of deserved fame in republican folklore. If Munsterview is such a hero it is a little odd that his republican activism has left him with no greater reward than blogging.
Alternatively Minster Mitty strikes again (pun intended) and another example of the Plastic Paddy’s death defying feats for the good of Oireland known only to his own fevered imagination.
Munster,
The ball can only be played if it actually exists.
Oh and i think you will find that the Spanish Armada was defeated by Drake and his sniping attacks.
Turgon
I have previously stated in exchanges with Grannie Trix that despite having more than a few books written and edited and having won a few literary awards, I am also hopelessly dyslexic and have been from earliest memory.
My apple system have two flag settings for these postings, Irish and US. Since Slugger was revamped I loose the sign in facility frequently and sometimes a few times a night. Each time I do the default wordpress flag system is US and continue until I notice it, which I do only when checking the time in the tool bar, I never do from the spelling.
I say this for the benefit of other readers suffering from the same dyslexic problem, it is not an in surmountable obstacle to writing given a good spell check.
Feel free to try and dissect by all means but given the foregoing I cannot think of a bigger waste of time !
Munster,
An impressive system indeed which translated whatever you typed into ‘flew Nam’.
Munster Mitty,
My goodness you are an award winning author as well. Is there no end to your talents? What are you like at Brain Surgery and Rocket science?
As to your spell checker. That does not explain either your incorrect correction of my using an “s” where Americans would use a “z” or zee as you like to call it. Furthermore it does not explain your very American grammar and sentence construction.
Then again it may be that an award winning author like yourself is deliberately using Americanisms as part of your art. In your award winning work did you use British / Irish English, American English, Irish or any of the dozen or more other languages in which you are fluent?
Blair……. ” The experience of being stopped and searched would largely be dependent on the attitude and behavior of the person being searched, and whether or not a P Check revealed them to be a member of a terrorist organization. For the vast majority of people the process was relatively painless regardless of the type of shirt they were wearing…….”
My personal experience was twofold :police most times my cultural credentials and identity were taken at face value and I got the ” Yes sir. No Sir, three bags full sir” polite treatment.
Often on the same night I went through the same check again with cultural friends in their transport and the way the driver and front passengers would be treated was abrupt, disrespectful and sometimes abusive. However when my credentials were produced there would be a mark change in attitude. There was immediate caution and back tracking.
I always gave proof of my identity by producing one of my books with my photo on the back cover that just happened to have folded letters here and there through the pages with headings of Dail , House of Commons ANC ministers, University Departments and such like. Since most RUC took the all too common slugger unionist view that culture and provo did not go together, if the first credentials were accepted at face value, there was no need to check for the second and I was waved on!
As for RUC third force and professional police etc….. that is not how any Northern Nationalists I knew viewed them and that included some SDLP politicians who had a private view that was completely at odds with their stated public view.
This is one area where there will always be a divide. Most unionists will see the RUC as their police force, which in effect it was, and could see the force doing no wrong. Unionists understandably had in the main positive experiences with the RUC.
Most nationalists would likewise see the force as a unionist force but one that could do no right. Their experiences were in the main negative and there is no fond memories in most Nationalists circles for that force or regrets about it’s long overdue demise.
I don’t know enough about how the checkpoints operated, and my comment was that they did operate. I’ve derided MV for his anecdotes before (which I feel are unnecessary) but to each his own.
That’s a bit unfair. MV has never claimed to anything more than a ‘minor’ republican activist on the fringes of it, so that claimed role is not consistent with some elaborate fantasy where he is at the dashing protagonist at centre of some heroic daring do.
Only three typos there, so I’m getting better at this!
Given the foregoing and that the fact that these check points experiences were common place for Nationalists is it any surprise that most Nationalists / republicans will not bother posting in slugger.
For most it is not a question of middle unionism not knowing they happened, it is for them a matter of unionism denying that this abuse took place.
The English jail experiences of hundreds if not thousands of Nationalists fingerprinted by force and then put back in their cells with their hands covered in ink after being kicked and beaten was commonplace for the nationalists.
I would be very surprise indeed to find that even one unionist student or young person from a middle class unionist background were but through this experience, if they had been all hell would have broken out with questions in parliament etc.
I would have no such difficulty with credibility on any of the Republican sites, there would be dozens of such stories with name, date, time and place to back up what I contend.
I choose to write in slugger and slugg it out here for the same reason that to-morrow among the papers,I will buy the Sunday Times and during the week the Irish times, despite the politics and some extremes, there is a good centre core that all three cater for.
There is little point in appealing to the extremes….. Turgon is as likely to be positively influenced by anything I write as I am by him……. with this difference, his attacks on me are a matter for amusement while mine on him and those of like ilk are a matter it seems for annoyance !
However my remarks are intended for the middle unionist ground….. I do not expect acceptance for what I write…….. just enough openness for the concerned and fair minded to question ….. ‘Could this be so !
Thank goodness for the net, most historical claims I make here can be googled and checked. On that I stand of fall.
As to the rest in preparation for Article blogging which I may or not yet do, I wanted to get as much aggravation as possible out of the way and I have used these postings to do so.
What credibility or not I have will depend on the reader, just as I pick who to read on any given thread and who in the main to ignore, most middle of the road unionist readers will have done likewise and at this stage I either have credibility or I have not.
Unlike most republicans who sometimes read but otherwise ignore this site, holding it like the old Irish Times, ‘A protestant site for a Protestant people’ I believe there can be communication and dialogue and that it is a practical expression of Republicanism to give that point of view.
My English language is that of childhood Munster English, and whatever influenced it since. Watching TV and typing at the same time is hardly conjunctive to good writing anyway, but be that as it may, that is how it is.
Misspelling ? As I pointed out I am dyslexic and as such what the spell check do not pick up is what appears. Edinburgh…… if you wan to be pedantic and look up previous posts I expect there are also a number of other variants of the word used for that city that also missed the spell check.
Some fifty posts back I drew attention to the fact that there could be a ‘false flag’ posting in that some clever clogs was posting as a pseudo nationalist and posting deliberately offensive views to unionists with the intention of getting center ground, moderate unionist hackles up and turning them off.
This poser poster has not come back but by remarkable co-incidence a certain Admiral sailed out from whatever port he has been repairing his floundering vessel in of late, guns bristling to fire a broadside after broadside. However thankfully his powder appears damp after the earlier considerable election damage below the waterline. While I have seen much smoke accompanied by loud bangs on the horizon, I am happy to report that no cannon balls have so far reached the MV Republic much less inflicting any damage and she sails serenely on.
In fact the gun and fire crews have been stood down for the night.
However since we have had fifty distractions that avoided discussing real issues the Admiral can retire with certain satisfaction…… the Union is save for another night!
This false Flag lark has run it’s course and while it may be a little pesky to deal with, a false flag can only work while unidentified. It is going to be interesting to see when it is again flown !
“…….Oh and i think you will find that the Spanish Armada was defeated by Drake and his sniping attacks……”
No he bloody well did not!
The armada was defeated by the one of the worst storms in that century or indeed any other time. That and that only defeated the Armada ! The Naval efforts of Drake in stopping the Spanish Armada were inconsequential.
Simple if I was held more than a two weeks my business was gone !
I had to bring about a quick biological system collapse which I did…… it was either hospital or freedom ! One good thing about the Brits, unlike some unionists they learn and do not have to be taught the same lesson twice. I have had no problem in or out of the UK since.
Two years back I was pulled at random with other assorted passengers, when I was put through the computer and details of my brief stay as a guest of the queen came up, they went to great pains to explain to me and assure me that it was a random check and that they were not picking on me !
Turgon
“……Sometimes Munsterview has been a journalist; a senior member of the Republican movement; a friend of senior republicans. He has been arrested by the police, subjected to harassment. Indeed Munster Mitty has had a life of intrigue and glamour in the republican cause. Or maybe he is just a rather sad fantastist……..”
1)…….. I challange you Turgon to a bet of £ 1000 on each of these these items above as of now with Mick as the arbritator when he returns and he has had a little time to pick up the pieces !
2)……….I challange you Turgon to another bet of £ 1000 as regards my literary credentials in that on today October 16 there are at least eight different titles of my books for sale in the internet through various rare book dealers, again with Mick as arbritator, established to his satisfaction and our mutual acceprance of his decision!
3)………..In regard to my Literary merit claims, I challange you Turgon to a bet of £1000, on the same, that I will be able to show National and International literary awards with Mick as established to his satisfaction and our mutual acceprance of his decision!
4)…………In regard to my claimed UK prison experience, I challange you Turgon again to a bet of £ 1,000 with Mick as arbritator that I will be able to provide the proofs of that, established to his satisfaction and our mutual acceprance of his decision!
5)………….With regard to my my citizinship of The Irish Republic and the fact that I have never resided outside it save for some weeks in America in the seventies I challange you Turgon to a £1,000 bet with Mick as arbritator that I can supply proofs of that fact, established to his satisfaction and our mutual acceprance of his decision!
6) …………I extend the same challange to Blair as to you on all of the above.
In other words gentlemen put up or shut up!
I have not, or will not discuss this with Mick in his present circumstances but the gauntlet is down for when he comes back. This seems to me about the only way that I can preserve both honor and anomity!
While you may consider yourself an enemy Turgon, I also believe that you hold yourself to be an honourable one.
In consideration of that and in the event of your unqualified acceptance of all of the above that you have previously questioned, I will consider honour satisfied on my part and sheat the sword for another for another day!
Otherwise Good Sir put your money where your mouth is and let us be done with this !
MV
Funny then that one of the ‘worst storms in that century or indeed any other time’ aided the English fleet. If you don’t mind I will stick with the opinion that the English ships were smaller, faster and more maneuverable. The alternative, ie your interpretation suggests it may have been some form of divine intervention.
Do take your emerald glasses off.
Should have read…
1)…….. I challenge you Turgon to a bet of £ 1000 on each of these these items above as of now with Mick as the arbitrator, as established to his satisfaction and our mutual acceptance of his decision! when he returns and he has had a little time to pick up the pieces.
For someone with such literary credentials it seems in Irish as well as English (albeit American English) I am surprised you that I cannot find you having commented on any of the Irish language posts on this site. Maybe Munster Mitty’s Irish is more correctly called Oirish.
As to £1,000 bets, keep your money Mitty. I do not gamble and have little intention of massaging the ego of a fantasist be he American or Irish. I will return periodically to demonstrate the extreme American-ness of you Oirishness.
As to winning literary awards: If you have won awards, I must get writing: a Booker must be very close for me.
In terms of feeling your honour satisfied (well done you remembered the u in honour) I care little. Indeed I do not regard you as an enemy: just a rather pathetic Irish American wannabe. I will not, however, shut up. I will point out your American-ness betimes for my own amusement.
Now run along and write a few more award winning books. Alternatively regale us with some more tales of your republican daring do.
Alias,
On the typos why not get Firefox. It has a pretty good spell checker. Munster Mitty might also like it as it has a British and American spell checker. It would help him when he gets spelling the wrong way round.
As to Munster Mitty only claiming to be a minor republican activist: that used to be true. now he is claiming to have been on hunger and thirst strike so it seems his importance (or actually deluded self importance) is increasing pretty exponentially.
pippakin,
I think you will find the emerald glasses have a hint of star spangled-ness about them.
Turgon
MV and I are old adversaries. We argue most of the time, which if nothing else emphasizes the difference between nationalists, republicans and pacifists. It has on occasion been what some might call a real ‘cat’ fight!
In spite of our differences I maintain that his opinion is as valid as anyones and his knowledge of history as outlined in other threads, is not often factually wrong, merely as with most histories, it is open to others to interpret differently.
His opinions he has a right to: just as I (and you) have a right to challenge them. It is not the validity of his opinions I have been highlighting here. Rather it is the imagined stories which he tells. Blair has carefully pointed out that the police check point story could not have happened. I have suggested that from all Munsterview has written it is likely that he is an American fantastist.
Alternatively he is bilingual (at least), an award winning author, successful business man who has been involved in republican activism, has been repeatedly arrested and harassed and has been on hunger (and thirst) strike. Despite all these problems he has also been financially successful to the extent that his hobby (for this post anyway) is yachting.
In spite of all this he finds the time to comment on slugger. Oh yes at one stage he told us Mick was going to have him start blogging – that was months ago and as yet: funnily enough nothing.
Now maybe all this is true. Maybe some pigs are flying past my window.
Turgon
I’m not sure how old MV is but I can tell you, that were I not such a pedestrian creature, I too might have packed many a journey into my years. My ambitions were more domestic.
All I can say is things happen almost seamlessly that advance, delay or completely change the course of peoples lives. It is not for me to comment on the likelihood of lives unknown.
Perhaps MV will respond to your comment. I am not expecting any response to mine. We are not ‘talking’! Our last encounter being, to say the least, combustible.
I have no idea how much of what any commenter says is true. How can any of us know that, or even want to.
pippakin,
Very true. However, the difference between the Walter Mittys of this world and real people is that the Walter Mittys have always succeeded remarkably well yet are not household names.
Maybe MV has achieved all this. Then again maybe not.
On a final note. Munsterview always posts in the evenings and very late into the night. His last comment here was at 3:16am. Now maybe he keeps extremely late hours. Alternatively there is something of a time difference between the part of Munster he is in and Northern Ireland. The sort of time difference one finds across the Atlantic Ocean perhaps.
Turgon
I would have thought that there was more to you than this, perhaps there was a very good reason for your rejection at the polls by the people that know you best. I wonder how these same people would consider how you have up held Unionist honor here !
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England’s far, and Honor a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
“Play up! play up! and play the game!”
You propose to lead your people into some unionist promised land and yet you have been faced down and your bluster called by a lone republican prepared ‘ to play the game’ on a 90% + unionist site. Where is your pride man…..are you devoid of all shame to dis-engage like this?
Pity is not a sentiment that I ever thought I would to have to apply to you but it seems no other sentiment is now appropriate.
You were called out to put up or shut up or take an honorable way out …… you have declined all in true Drumcree spirit, and that says all there is to say on the matter.
I provided a way that all of these issues you questioned, could be verified as fact in my favor by Mick, a source who presumably you have the same respect for as I also have. Once it became obvious that they could be, you scampered !
There is only one conclusion any fair minded person can come to regarding this exchange and I am well satisfied as to what that will be.