On the twenty-eighth day of November....

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

As regards support for the IRA in the Occupied Six Counties, from the late sixties through the early seventies, support among the Nationalist population would have been very high, as the violence intensified in the seventies, it fell off, only to increase again in the aftermath of the hungerstrikes.
From the mid eighties support for the armed struggle has slowly diminished amongst Northern Nationalists/Republicans, only to be replaced by a growing support for Sinn Fein and a path along a more political route.
Also support for the IRA and the armed struggle was quite high in the Free State during the early years as the people in the 26 saw the pogroms and discrimination and violence suffered by Catholics in the North.

[Evil Genius]

So they turn their back on violence and look to achieve their aims through peaceful methods, as this seems the most likely way to get a united ireland currently, and this is somehow giving up their principles??

Jesus I thought going the peaceful route was what everyone wanted, but you use it to ridicule them?

Makes absolutely no sense EG. They stick with violence and you calll them terrorists, they give up the violence and talk and you make fun for this reason.
You really dont like republicans at all do you?

No contradiction in my stance, whatever. As I understand it, SF have always pledged to work towards a United Ireland, by both political means, and by paramilitary means (i.e. through the IRA). As such, the former has always involved refusing to recognise Partition and the various Governments in Dublin, Belfast and Dublin which recognise or administer it, as well as the organs of state (Police, Security Forces, Courts etc) which they see as upholding Partition.

Fair enough. But on the political front, whatever happened to the abstentionist policy which resulted, whereby they didn't even contest elections to those bodies? And when they did start to contest elections, why did they change their policy of not taking their seats? More to the point, how does playing an active part in the clearly partitionist Stormont administration square with their previous determination to smash the place entirely? Or their recognition of the Courts, and endorsement/support of the PSNI?

I could just understand if such actions were part of a process which was clearly designed and planned to lead towards a British withdrawal etc.  However, the whole GFA etc is constructed upon the principle of consent i.e. the consent of a majority of the people of NI. So while SF has never publicly accepted the right of just a section of the people of Ireland to prevent or delay unity, they are actively participating in a settlement which allows the NI population only to do just that.

Now don't get me wrong, I welcome their conversion to what I see as being a democratic settlement. But no-one can persuade me that it didn't require a breathtaking about-face on the part of SF, including a complete abandonment of their long held and fundamental principles, whether publicly acknowledged by them or not.

As for their simultaneous abandonment of their paramilitary campaign towards a United Ireland, of course I welcome that (even more). But that is/was a matter of pragmatism on their part, not a shift of principle, since they have never renounced their "right" to use "armed struggle" should the need arise, nor shown any sincere regret for what I personally consider to have been a totally unjustified campaign.

P.S. Whilst I may disagree with Republicans, that does not give me the right to dislike them, nor do I. However, I loathe those Republicans who also supported or participated in what they call the "armed struggle". Just like I loathe those Loyalists [sic] who supported and participated in their version of "armed struggle", as well.

[MW]

Well there you go. On the one hand we have a bunch of men with weapons, lying in wait to ambush a police patrol. They open up on the police and afterwards go around and execute the presumably unarmed wounded as they lie helpless on the ground. Before they've even finished for the day, they kidnap another, shoot him dead and 'disappear' his body into a bog for years to come, leaving the family without a grave to visit. Then we have the brutal IRA murderers from 50 years later and well dare they claim the republican mantel without first gaining approval from our great moral Blueshirt (or is it Sky Blue, Hill is Blue, Hardy) majority as they sit it out and pass judgement on their countrymen from the safety of their Free State.

How come it's OK to murder police officers in cold blood in 1997, but it's wrong to attempt the same in 2007?

[Rossfan]

How come it was OK to force Orange bigots down the Garvaghy Road in 1997 but it's not anymore?

[Main Street]

Rossfan, are you talking about the Orange Order? the  same Orange Order an English Judge in 2004 ruled that it was fair comment to label them sectarian, anti- catholic and protestant supremacist group?
The same Orange Order that completly dominated the governing Unionist Party policies in NI.?

[Rossfan]

Rossfan, are you talking about the Orange Order? the  same Orange Order an English Judge in 2004 ruled that it was fair comment to label them sectarian, anti- catholic and protestant supremacist group?
The same Orange Order that completly dominated the governing Unionist Party policies in NI.?

Indeed. i'm not aware of any other Orange Order.

[MW]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

[Main Street]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

MW with your Q, it looks like the thread has moved to asking any old dumb question.

Was Clark, when Prime Minister, saying below he was proud to be sectarian, a protestant supremacist and an anti catholic?
"Indeed, I am proud to be in the (Orange) Order and those criticising it know nothing about it" - Major James D. Chichester Clark, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in 1969.

[MW]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

MW with your Q, it looks like the thread has moved to asking any old dumb question.

I didn't realise the point I was making was all that subtle, but evidently it was too subtle for your understanding.

I'll try to break it down for you.

This thread headed in the direction of Donagh (and others) asking how a Blueshirt could commemorate and (retrospecrively) support the actions of the IRA during the Anglo-Irish War given that they opposed the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. Donagh talked of a line of continuity and of attacks of a similar nature being carried out in both periods.

My point being, surely those who make this argument leave themselves open to the question of why they oppose the same actions now that they might have seen as legitimate ten, fifteen or twenty years ago.

[Evil Genius]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

MW with your Q, it looks like the thread has moved to asking any old dumb question.

Was Clark, when Prime Minister, saying below he was proud to be sectarian, a protestant supremacist and an anti catholic?
"Indeed, I am proud to be in the (Orange) Order and those criticising it know nothing about it" - Major James D. Chichester Clark, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in 1969.

Quite the most pathetic attempt at irrelevant "whataboutery" this Board has seen for a while - and that's saying something! If you want to start a thread on the OO and/or Chichester Clark, go ahead. I might even be tempted to reply...

P.S. It was actually Rossfan, and his "dumb question" about Garvaghy etc, who moved this thread way off topic. Still, why miss a chance to blame it on MW? After all, "themmuns" is responsible for everything...

[Evil Genius]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

MW with your Q, it looks like the thread has moved to asking any old dumb question.

This thread headed in the direction of Donagh (and others) asking how a Blueshirt could commemorate and (retrospecrively) support the actions of the IRA during the Anglo-Irish War given that they opposed the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. Donagh talked of a line of continuity and of attacks of a similar nature being carried out in both periods.

My point being, surely those who make this argument leave themselves open to the question of why they oppose the same actions now that they might have seen as legitimate ten, fifteen or twenty years ago.

In Donagh's case, there is a simple explanation for this seeming inconsistency: Connolly House says so, so it must be so. I'm surprised you need to ask...

[scalder]

To me the idea that the leaders in 1916 required a "democratic mandate" is bizarre, surely the conflict began with the Anglo-Norman Invasion and subsequent conquests? This conflict ebbed and flowed over the centuries and when did resisting this lose its legitimacy or more correctly when did the conquest of Ireland gain legitimacy?

The vote for the treaty by the 2nd Dáil could be argued to have ended the conflict and certainly standard histories of the period would have us believe that the 1922 election – which has been billed as a referendum on the treaty – was popular endorsement of the treaty. However looking more closely at it a different picture emerges, the election was first off a 26 county only affair yet was pronouncing on the future of the island and so undermines its mandate. Also, the election was fought (up to the day before polling) on the basis of the Collins-DeVelara Pact which was to be an agreed platform with the Free State Constitution to have been published in advance to allow discussion on it. Collins repudiated it the day before the poll and only published the constitution on the day of the poll, allowing no time for debate or even for voters to reflect on this new situation. Effectively Collins had made the basis on which the election had been fought a sham. His actions were in contravention of what had been passed by the Dáil on the 2nd of March when it stated
"That in the meantime no Parliamentary Election shall be held, and that when held the constitution of the Saorstát in its final form shall be presented at the same time as the Articles of Agreement."

The agreement was published in May but the constitution was not until the day of the election in September! The legitimacy of mandidate that Collins used to launch the civil was was dubious at best.


In 1979, Michael Gallagher's study "The "Pact" General Election of 1922"  examines the results and shows that over 70 per cent of anti-treatyite transfers went to treatyite
panel candidates when there were no more anti-treatyites left to vote for. Treatyites reciprocated generously in equal measure.
John Regan in his work, "Southern Irish Nationalism as a historical problem" says,

Transfers between panel candidates indicate significant voter solidarity on the issue of coalition government which, in the absence of any superior authority, undermines interpretations suggesting a mandate for the treaty, treatyites, the Provisional government, or any democratic premise for the Civil War.
From the available evidence, it can be concluded correctly that a significant, but undeterminable, proportion of panel votes, and perhaps even a majority, were cast supporting the pact's obligation to form a coalition.

Accepting the primacy of transfer patterns over any other available evidence, it is unsound to interpret the combined pro-treaty panel and non-panel vote as a majority endorsing the Provisional government. Precisely what voters intended remains a matter for conjecture.
To extrapolate a mandate for anything, however, least of all a war, imposes impossible demands on both evidence and definitions of democracy. Such, however, is the exacting requirement of the democratic state formation thesis. Of equal importance is the way in which Gallagher's main conclusions have been rejected by historians without satisfactory refutation.

[Main Street]

Erm...can someone explain to me how we've suddenly jumped to the Orange Order?

MW with your Q, it looks like the thread has moved to asking any old dumb question.

I didn't realise the point I was making was all that subtle, but evidently it was too subtle for your understanding.

I'll try to break it down for you.

This thread headed in the direction of Donagh (and others) asking how a Blueshirt could commemorate and (retrospecrively) support the actions of the IRA during the Anglo-Irish War given that they opposed the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. Donagh talked of a line of continuity and of attacks of a similar nature being carried out in both periods.

My point being, surely those who make this argument leave themselves open to the question of why they oppose the same actions now that they might have seen as legitimate ten, fifteen or twenty years ago.

You must be  joking trying to explain your question, it´s as an obvious a hob nail boot. 

[Solomon Kane]

Anyone still pledged to and working for the establishment of the Irish Republic.

Are the Omagh bombers part of that lineage?

[Main Street]

Accepting the primacy of transfer patterns over any other available evidence, it is unsound to interpret the combined pro-treaty panel and non-panel vote as a majority endorsing the Provisional government. Precisely what voters intended remains a matter for conjecture.
To extrapolate a mandate for anything, however, least of all a war, imposes impossible demands on both evidence and definitions of democracy. Such, however, is the exacting requirement of the democratic state formation thesis. Of equal importance is the way in which Gallagher's main conclusions have been rejected by historians without satisfactory refutation.

So Scalder to cut to the chase, I take it that you say pro treatyites claim they had a mandate from the 1922 election but another interpretation/examination of the election voting patterns indicate mixed sentiments from the voting public and nothing can be claimed with any certainty.
That would be a hard one to sell to a Blueshirt
It's safe to say that the Orange Order dominated Stormont Government was hated and regarded as oppressive.
The IRA had claimed a moral right to fight against both occupation and oppression. Afair a mandate from the majority was never a claim nor a requirement. Has it ever been a requirement in our history? I don´t think so.

The French Resistance in WW2 did not have a democratic mandate nor had they sought one would they have got one.
What were the estimates of their popular support, less that 10%?