Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[trueblue1234]

Can't see the issue. If he was defamed he'll win. If not, he'll lose. If he believes he was defamed, he's every right to take action. Can't see what the problem is. Won't cry any tears over protecting the press.

[trailer]

Mary Lou sending condolences to Ben Dunne's family is the sort of shithousery you'd get on this board. Absolute top level effort from Mary Lou.

I cannot wait for a SF government in the south. The nonsense will be off the charts.

[Snapchap]

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/11/07/sinn-fein-td-chris-andrews-sues-the-irish-times/

This is very worrying.

Why?

In your own time Trailer....

[Itchy]

Mary Lou sending condolences to Ben Dunne's family is the sort of shithousery you'd get on this board. Absolute top level effort from Mary Lou.

I cannot wait for a SF government in the south. The nonsense will be off the charts.

I think Ben moved on, maybe you should too...


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ira-victim-backs-sinn-fein-qtx3zjtvl8g

He also appeared on newstalk in Dec 2010 supporting Sinn Fein going into government

[Tubberman]

Mary Lou sending condolences to Ben Dunne's family is the sort of shithousery you'd get on this board. Absolute top level effort from Mary Lou.

I cannot wait for a SF government in the south. The nonsense will be off the charts.

I think Ben moved on, maybe you should too...


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ira-victim-backs-sinn-fein-qtx3zjtvl8g

He also appeared on newstalk in Dec 2010 supporting Sinn Fein going into government

Yes, forget all the awkward stuff like kidnappings and murders.  It's much easier to shout about housing and health from opposition benches.
They'll probably get their chance soon enough - fine gael will be 13 years in power which is enough, but when in power, SF are either going to have to disappoint a lot of their core vote or alienate the rest of the electorate.

[JohnDenver]

Mary Lou sending condolences to Ben Dunne's family is the sort of shithousery you'd get on this board. Absolute top level effort from Mary Lou.

I cannot wait for a SF government in the south. The nonsense will be off the charts.

I think Ben moved on, maybe you should too...


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ira-victim-backs-sinn-fein-qtx3zjtvl8g

He also appeared on newstalk in Dec 2010 supporting Sinn Fein going into government

Yes, forget all the awkward stuff like kidnappings and murders.  It's much easier to shout about housing and health from opposition benches.
They'll probably get their chance soon enough - fine gael will be 13 years in power which is enough, but when in power, SF are either going to have to disappoint a lot of their core vote or alienate the rest of the electorate.

There seems to have been plenty forgotten / forgiven from the early 20th century....

[Itchy]

Mary Lou sending condolences to Ben Dunne's family is the sort of shithousery you'd get on this board. Absolute top level effort from Mary Lou.

I cannot wait for a SF government in the south. The nonsense will be off the charts.

I think Ben moved on, maybe you should too...


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ira-victim-backs-sinn-fein-qtx3zjtvl8g

He also appeared on newstalk in Dec 2010 supporting Sinn Fein going into government

Yes, forget all the awkward stuff like kidnappings and murders.  It's much easier to shout about housing and health from opposition benches.
They'll probably get their chance soon enough - fine gael will be 13 years in power which is enough, but when in power, SF are either going to have to disappoint a lot of their core vote or alienate the rest of the electorate.

Well FF and FG have forgotten about all the kidnaps and murders they did in the 1920s so I suppose its only fair SF are allowed to move on or maybe you have a definition on how long it should take. I mean Ben Dunne is dead and his kidnap was 40 years ago. Mary Lou was a toddler when it happened. Ben himself had got to a point of endorsing SF for government. But for you does it need another 5 yrs, 10 yrs? How long?

[thewobbler]

I doubt I'll ever reach a point where I'd vote Sinn Fein. I just prefer a middle ground government.

But yesterday's Twitter pile-on in reaction to Mary Lou was excruciating to read. Ireland's most pious, intolerant, inconsistent and revolting mouthpieces were out in force. Those people actually deserve a term or two under Sinn Fein. It might just wake them up a little.

[trailer]

For Sinn Féin, war crimes exist only in the eye of the beholder
Party's hypocrisy on show as it lauds IRA men who slaughtered civilians while condemning suffering in Gaza and failing to exercise influence with Hamas

Mary Lou McDonald highlighted the impact on premature babies in incubators. Photo: AP

Sam McBride

Is deliberately killing civilians a war crime? Not necessarily, Sinn Féin seems to think. If it happened on this island between 1968 and 1998, and if it was done by the Provisional IRA, then those killers receive the highest respect. If it's happening now in Gaza, it's an act of unspeakable barbarity and no effort should be spared in prosecuting those responsible.
No political party is wholly consistent. No nation is wholly consistent. None of us as individuals are wholly consistent. But the hypocrisy involved in Sinn Féin's pronouncements about the war in Gaza over recent weeks has been astronomical.

The whole concept of war crimes, of the Geneva Conventions and of international courts to enforce those rules rests on the concept that certain actions are always crimes — regardless of whether the war is just or whether we love or hate the side in question. On that basis, both Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday were war crimes — but that's not how Sinn Féin views it.

At the start of this month, republicans gathered at Belfast's Milltown Cemetery. Sean Kelly, one of the two men who planted the Shankill Bomb and who regularly canvasses for Sinn Féin, was present with other republicans as they unveiled a new plaque to the other bomber, Thomas Begley, who died in his own attack in 1993. The plaque states: "Proudly remembered by his comrades and friends."


In military terms, what Begley and Kelly did that day involved a justification identical to that used by Israel in striking targets in Gaza. The IRA was targeting a meeting of the UDA above the shop where the bomb was placed. There was clearly a risk that civilians would die, but the IRA believed that was acceptable because of the significance of the target. This is precisely the legal defence put forward by Israel which Sinn Féin denounces.�

Gerry Adams, who carried Begley's coffin, now claims to be "shocked and distressed by the appalling events in the Middle East", saying that "the attack by Hamas fighters which targeted civilians cannot be defended". This is the same Adams who when challenged about Jean McConville's abduction, murder and the hiding of her body for decades — leaving 10 tiny children orphaned — said it was "what happens in war".

Sinn Féin TDs queued up to express their horror at the suffering in Gaza. Chris Andrews told the Dáil: "The slaughter of civilians, whether they be Palestinian or Israeli, is unforgivable and a war crime." Yet Sinn Féin still lauds IRA men who slaughtered civilians and would be livid if any of its members faced war crimes charges.

Last week a Sinn Féin motion in the Dáil said it "condemns and deplores...the targeting of civilian infrastructure". Yet one of the IRA's most regular targets was civilian infrastructure, which it deliberately destroyed with car bombs or incendiary devices.

The party now calls for hostages to be released — yet the IRA took hostages, some of whom it murdered. In 1983 the IRA kidnapped businessman Don Tidey in front of his 13-year-old daughter. Adams refused to condemn the crime. As Private Patrick Kelly and trainee garda Gary Sheehan searched for the businessman in Leitrim, the IRA opened fire without warning and threw a grenade, killing both men.

Matt Carthy last week referred to "the basic rules of humanity", talked about "atrocities", and said he was appalled Palestinian fishing boats had been set on fire. Yet republicans remain proud of killing Lord Mountbatten on a fishing boat, even though two boys were slaughtered in the process.

Party colleague Paul Donnelly was forthright in condemning Hamas's massacre of Israelis, saying: "Those who carried out any attacks on innocent civilians should be held accountable." Yet when members of Sinn Féin or the IRA have been arrested by police investigating their alleged involvement in serious crimes, Sinn Féin has furiously protested.

Referring to how Israel's attack on what it says were Hamas fighters under Al-Shifa hospital had led to deaths in the hospital, Mary Lou McDonald highlighted the impact on premature babies in incubators.

Yet in 1996 the then DUP Belfast councillor Nigel Dodds and his wife Diane were visiting their son Andrew, who had spina bifida and was gravely ill at the time (he would die two years later just before his ninth birthday) when two IRA gunmen approached the ward in The Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. After being challenged by Dodds's bodyguard, they opened fire. One bullet hit an empty incubator. As recently as 2019, Sinn Féin's John Finucane refused to condemn the attack.

Some in Sinn Féin seem genuinely oblivious to these contradictions. Mairéad Farrell told TDs that "war crimes are war crimes, no matter the perpetrator", and denounced the "hypocrisy" of European countries who "call out war crimes only when it suits their own agenda... the lives of all must be deemed equal, and the double standards must end".�

This is not to suggest that many people in Sinn Féin are anything other than genuinely appalled at the scale of civilian deaths in Gaza. But the indulgence in rhetoric obscures the party's unwillingness to use all the power at its disposal to influence what's happening.

Sinn Féin has no influence whatsoever with Israel. But it does have influence with Hamas and in Washington's corridors of the powerful. The party skilfully used its US friends to put pressure on the British government over Brexit. If Sinn Féin believes as strongly about what is happening in Gaza as its words imply, why is it not pushing key Americans who could try to turn off the supply of US armaments raining down on Gaza?

The suspicion is Sinn Féin doesn't want to offend its US friends. Mary Lou McDonald wants to be in the White House on St Patrick's Day having her photo taken with Joe Biden, and keep in with the party's wealthy US backers.

Not so long ago, Sinn Féin was comfortable in the presence of senior Hamas figures. Now it is publicly condemning things happening in Gaza which if they'd happened years ago on this island it would now be cheering. What is a war crime? For Sinn Féin, it's in the eye of the beholder.

[Itchy]

Sorry, stopped at Sam McBride. I genuinely never thought I'd see anyone use anything he wrote on GAA board

[Rossfan]

I bet you did!

Any thing incorrect in what he wrote?

[trailer]

Too many truths for some people

[Snapchap]

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/11/07/sinn-fein-td-chris-andrews-sues-the-irish-times/

This is very worrying.

Why?

In your own time Trailer....

[Snapchap]

I bet you did!

Any thing incorrect in what he wrote?

So you reckon Sinn Féin have influence over Hamas? I'll tell you what, even the most craven unionist politicians haven't dared sound as daft as to try to blame SF for the Gaza situation, but Sam has really reached for the stars with that little gem.

Anyway, I asslume since we're into drawing parallels between Gaza and what happened here four or five decades ago, why not go back just a few decades further: I assume you'l have no qualms about conceeding that the Old IRA carried out any amount of war crimes too? You must have nothing but unequivocal disdain for them, just as you have for the PIRA?

[Rossfan]

Whatabout.....
You only picked 1 item to quibble with in McBride's piece I see😉