ira – Slugger O'Toole

“One of the most disturbing features of contemporary Ireland is the almost universal ignorance among the younger generation of the Northern Troubles…”

Andy Pollak on October 31, 2022, 11:00 am

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Una Mullally is a high profile Irish Times columnist: a gay left-wing feminist (although I have never seen or heard her describe herself as a socialist) who is particularly popular among the young. This is not surprising given that one of her recurrent themes is that young Irish people (idealistic, open-minded, liberal in gender and identity politics, probably Sinn Fein inclined) are mobilising to take over the running of this country from old Irish people (reactionary, narrow-minded, Catholic Church-influenced, probably …

Sinn Féin are winning the peace, as people forget the IRA’s war…

Andy Pollak on September 2, 2022, 7:00 am

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Sinn Fein are winning the post-1998 peace. They are now the largest party in Northern Ireland, and almost certainly will be the largest party in the Republic after the next election. A combination of internal and external events have come together to make their brand of ‘left populism’ (housing spokesman’s Eoin Ó Broin’s telling phrase) seem unstoppable. The housing crisis in the South and the chaotic aftermath of Brexit, the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis caused by the Ukraine …

Why I think The IRA War was a failure…

Frank Schnittger on August 26, 2022, 7:00 am

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Various posts by Mick Fealty and many others, most recently by Brian Walker in “Leave futile arguments about equivalence aside. We all need to come clean about why the Troubles lasted so unforgivably long” have asked us to re-examine culpability for the Troubles and the need to let the healing process proceed through a truth recovery process. Despite their best efforts, the ensuing conversations have always descended into a welter of “whataboutery” and the sins of the other side. The …

The Forgotten Troubles 1920-1922: The Altnaveigh Massacre…

Patrick Concannon on July 28, 2020, 7:43 am

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The violence which engulfed Northern Ireland in 1922 was possibly the most intense the region has ever seen. The massacre at Altnaveigh has become synonymous with the sectarian violence which occurred particularly in the first half of 1922. It has also become a symbol of Republican aggression in the border regions, for Unionists living along that area particularly. Altnaveigh elicits comparisons with the abhorrent Kingsmill massacre when ten Protestant workmen were taken from their bus by Republican paramilitaries and murdered …

Why Sinn Féin should retire Tiocfaidh ár lá…

Hugo on May 6, 2020, 6:15 pm

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This week marks the 39th anniversary of Bobby Sands death, the first and most infamous of the ten IRA men who perished in the 1981 hunger strike. These fatal protests were a dramatic inflexion point in the Troubles with immense consequences – both accelerating the brutal violence and, through the election of Sands as a British MP, sowing the seeds for Sinn Féin’s successful entry into politics. The events sharply divide opinions, now as then, but whatever your view, most …

The murder of Thomas Niedermayer shows how tragedy can reverberate down the generations…

Brian O'Neill on June 28, 2019, 10:13 am

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Powerful story by Allison Morris in today’s Irish News on the IRA murder of businessman Thomas Niedermayer in 1973: THE IRA abduction and murder of Thomas Niedermayer, the German manager of the Grundig electronics plant on the outskirts of Belfast in 1973, set off a tragic chain of events that would see his entire family wiped out. Niedermayer was seized from his west Belfast bungalow on December 27 1973. The IRA had planned to use the businessman – who was …

Even though Karen Bradley is an embarrassment who should quit but won’t, there is an easier way than Bloody Sunday prosecutions

Brian Walker on March 6, 2019, 3:19 pm

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It is quite an event when a minister has to return to the despatch box of the Commons to correct a misstatement – in this case one so elementary it beggars belief, although in tune with her basic ignorance of local politics. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mrs Bradley was responding to a question from DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly about legacy issues. “Over 90% of the killings during the Troubles were at the hands of terrorists, every single …

I, Dolours – an unsettling cinematic memoir about an IRA activist whose deadly idealism turned out to be hollow

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 26, 2018, 6:30 am

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A cinematic memoir which allows Dolours Price tell her story from the grave. This 82-minute film, revolving around a 2010 interview conducted by Ed Moloney, explains and reconstructs her IRA activism and role in the ‘disappeared’. I Dolours will be screened as part of Belfast Film Festival’s documentary season on 13 August before going on general release from 31 August.

1991 fear of panic if IRA had threatened to detonate a nuclear or anthrax device #20YearRule

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 27, 2017, 12:00 pm

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DECLASSIFED FILES released under the 30/20 Year Rule show that in 1991, Emergency Planning envisaged panic if the IRA placed a small nuclear device in Belfast or threatened to release anthrax germs. At the time the NI food stockpile was sufficient to bake 250 million scones (assuming there was a source of heat).

Yes, Corbyn condemned the IRA. And the rest

Elaine Crory on May 22, 2017, 4:42 pm

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Yesterday Jeremy Corbyn allegedly refused to condemn the IRA when pressed multiple times during a television interview. This sent various media into a frothing overdrive, delighted Conservatives, and apparently set off the whataboutery alarm at DUP headquarters, who immediately and predictably declared Corbyn “beyond the political pale”. Except, of course, he did not refuse to condemn the IRA. Rather, he insisted on condemning the IRA and any other perpetrator of violence by condemning “violence on all sides”. James Brokenshire, who …

Brendan Duddy RIP. A peace maker in real time

Brian Walker on May 13, 2017, 7:30 pm

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It is remarkable, in an age of sophisticated back channels and espionage replete with digital and satellite communications, how a modest domestic background figured so significantly in the moves which eventually led to the ceasefires – and all the more effectively for it. The problem was how to establish trust when contacts had to be deniable, were often dangerous and were frequently interrupted by another piece of violence. Key contacts were often made in Derry, presumably because the town never …

Martin McGuinness’s limited self revelations of the IRA boss and the peace-making politician, will be worth studying for years

Brian Walker on March 21, 2017, 10:36 am

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Although I may be speaking too soon, it comes as a relief that the traditional Irish decencies are being observed on the death of Martin McGuinness, not only on merit but for the sake of preserving relations between the DUP and Sinn Fein. It’s too early to speculate how his death will affect the interparty talks. I doubt if we’ll ever be sure whether quitting the Assembly was fully his own decision, or if his need to retire from illness …

Now the turn of Seamus Mallon at 80. Why he and Trimble were unable to unite over arms decommissioning remains unexplained

Brian Walker on January 21, 2017, 9:04 pm

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Following the tributes to John Hume on his 80th birthday, the venerable SDLP deputy leader and the initial deputy first minster Seamus Mallon has given a fascinating interview to the Irish News for his own 80th. In passing I can’t help noticing the comparisons and contrasts with Sinn Fein. What are yours? On working with David Trimble, Ulster unionist leader and the first FM Mallon says his permanent secretary, civil servant Billy Gamble – “an absolute gem” – regularly had …

Martin McGuinness believes the NI Assembly is a successor organisation to the Provisional IRA

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2016, 11:59 am

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Sam McBride first reported this from a lively Question Time at Stormont yesterday. It’s Martin McGuinness responding to a rather pointed question from Jim Allister: Worse still is the pretence that there is an IRA when, quite clearly, the IRA has long-since left the stage and handed over the responsibility for the politics of the North of Ireland to the 108 Members in the House. Now that may be the settled view inside Sinn Fein and within whatever remains of …

21 flavours of ice-cream. The murder of Constable John Larmour…

Brian O'Neill on June 30, 2016, 2:13 pm

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I came across this video browsing Brian John Spencers Youtube channel. Here is some background to the story from the Irish News and the Belfast Telegraph: Constable John Larmour was off-duty and helping out at his brother’s ice-cream parlour in south Belfast when he was shot dead by the IRA in 1988. Two men entered, unmasked, ordered ice cream, and then one of them shot him as he turned his back on him. Constable Larmour’s son Gavin, who was just 13 …

Kingsmills Inquest latest

Turgon on June 6, 2016, 10:09 pm

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The Kingsmills inquest has been going on now for a couple of weeks. A new twist has, however, just been announced. Last week we were told that a finger print expert decided spontaneously to look again at a palm print on the get away vehicle and that a match had been found. It has now been claimed (unsurprisingly) that the palm print belongs to a well known republican. Little more surprisingly this republican is one who opposes the current Sinn …

Ian Paisley – “We are Irish!”

Brian Spencer on May 29, 2016, 3:54 pm

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Of the DUP membership, 1.4% self-identify as Irish. Yet the founder of the DUP was 100% Irish. This is not speculation or conjecture or troublemaking, this is a statement of fact based upon unequivocal and repeated testimony from Ian Paisley. Ian paisley wrote in 2012 on the centenary of the signing of the Ulster Covenant: “Edward Carson was a life-long Irishman, as well as being a life-long unionist, and that made all the difference… On this 28th day …

The common thread between Ken Livingstone on the IRA and on Jews and Israel

Brian Walker on April 28, 2016, 2:45 pm

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It looks as if Ken Livingstone faces a tougher time with the Labour party over his “Hitler was a Zionist” remarks than he did over consorting with Gerry Adams when the IRA campaign had ten years to run to the first ceasefire. What was the charge against him in 1983-4? That he gave comfort to the IRA by supporting their key demand of “Brits Out,” without demanding an IRA ceasefire. The evenhandedness of his call for an end to violence …

Do we need the “old ” IRA to contain the “new”?

Brian Walker on April 28, 2016, 10:28 am

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Gang activity labelled “dissident republican” is spreading and is proving very difficult to check. What is the connection between the killings in Dublin and the fatal shooting taxi driver of Michael McGibbon? Perhaps the most chilling aspect of McGibbon “ punishment shooting “ was that, rather than go the the police – or even Gerry Kelly – he went to take his punishment, just as in the worst of the bad old days. The 33-year-old had gone to meet …

David Beresford hunger strike journalist and historian, RIP

Brian Walker on April 23, 2016, 10:31 am

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The best journalists are often oddballs. They can win close access to power, regardless of whether power is of the state or anti -state variety. They lack – and often spurn – status. They tend to walk alone and barely recognise dress codes. Perhaps their greatest quality is persistence against the odds, in which courage and ego play equal parts. If they have to, they skirt round or quietly ignore the rules of the institutions they work for and …