Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[AQMP]

From Wiki:

Free Stater or pro-Treatyite is a term often used by opponents to describe those in Ireland who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 that led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.  The pro-Treaty side included members of the old IRA who had fought the British during the recent Irish War of Independence. Led by Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, it soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army that overcame their anti-Treaty IRA opponents during the often bitter Irish Civil War of 1922–23.

The term is sometimes heard anachronistically in Northern Ireland for anyone from the South of the country, occasionally as a pejorative term.

The term is also used across Ireland to describe people from the Republic of Ireland who do not support a united Ireland.

Followers of Irish republican legitimatism use the term to describe those who defected from the Republican movement and accept the institutions of the 26-county state, as opposed to giving allegiance to the Irish Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

[AQMP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4v8RWRaWYA

I joined the Flying Column in 19 and 16
In Cork with Sean Moylan in Tipperary with Dan Breen
Arrested by Free Staters and sentenced for to die
Farewell to Tipperary said the Galtee Mountain boy.

[weareros]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

[Il Bomber Destro]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

I think both the Free State and Occupied Ulster have been abhorrent failures.

[seafoid]

From Wiki:

Free Stater or pro-Treatyite is a term often used by opponents to describe those in Ireland who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 that led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.  The pro-Treaty side included members of the old IRA who had fought the British during the recent Irish War of Independence. Led by Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, it soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army that overcame their anti-Treaty IRA opponents during the often bitter Irish Civil War of 1922–23.

The term is sometimes heard anachronistically in Northern Ireland for anyone from the South of the country, occasionally as a pejorative term.

The term is also used across Ireland to describe people from the Republic of Ireland who do not support a united Ireland.

Followers of Irish republican legitimatism use the term to describe those who defected from the Republican movement and accept the institutions of the 26-county state, as opposed to giving allegiance to the Irish Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

"The term is also used across Ireland to describe people from the Republic of Ireland who do not support a united Ireland."

It isn't.  Free Stater is used by people in the north who object to beING excluded from the Republic of Ireland . Its use indicates unfinished business.

Free State is used extensively online in the service of whataboutery. 

Après Match should look into it.

https://youtu.be/fjEkjeVzL34

[seafoid]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

As soon as Mike Denver has the song ready on Midwest

https://youtu.be/ttMt9SHRwsM

[johnneycool]

Time to bail out of this ridiculous thread. As a SF voter (up until now at least) I have to say I am disgusted with the behaviour on here of bomber and others. His generalised attacks on everyone south of the border is insulting. His whataboutery is pathetic. I'm out if here.

Whataboutery is important in terms of balance, when those who are continually lining up to have potshots have been shown to feign ignorance when the establishment parties of their own state are up to their necks in it.

I can't help you if you don't want to see the bigger picture.

On here, the FG and FF threads are left with tumbleweed rolling through them when the last scandal of their murky past arises. Yet the usual Free Staters are queuing up when a bit of controversy arises on SF. I'll ask it again, why is that? I'd say I've asked it a good 20 times now and still no answer.

The list of shame of FG and FF is deep, it's murky and it's fit for outrage but the only interest from free staters seems to be what happens across the border.

The fact that you guys seem to get so offended at me pointing out that you have massive skeletons in your closet that you should address before pontificating about the northern conflict seems to offend for a very bizarre reason. The Free Staters in this thread have behaved like ostriches, I am very fair minded when it comes to these things. I will criticise the IRA and republicans over certain acts and atrocities and indeed how they handled certain situations but I will also judge them on the merits that they were abandoned on all sides in a sectarian statelet and were left with little option but to arm themselves and fight back and we know from every conflict that has happened the world over, bad things are an inevitability.

I think it is about time, the Irish Free State apologised to Norhtern nationalists for close 100 years of abandonment, smear and misrepresentation but you guys, to any sane person's disbelief, seem to think your state did no wrong.

There is no balance between SF''s situation and FF's.
SF has not dealt coherently with the past. It tried to PR its way out of the bread crisis this week and lost.
The families of the victims won. How will SF move forward ?  How can it sanitise the past?

FF and FG haven't exactly dealt with the past either.
There seems to be an embarrassment about the Easter rising in the ruling classes in Dublin whereas every other country celebrates theirs with gusto

[tonto1888]

From Wiki:

Free Stater or pro-Treatyite is a term often used by opponents to describe those in Ireland who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 that led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.  The pro-Treaty side included members of the old IRA who had fought the British during the recent Irish War of Independence. Led by Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, it soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army that overcame their anti-Treaty IRA opponents during the often bitter Irish Civil War of 1922–23.

The term is sometimes heard anachronistically in Northern Ireland for anyone from the South of the country, occasionally as a pejorative term.

The term is also used across Ireland to describe people from the Republic of Ireland who do not support a united Ireland.

Followers of Irish republican legitimatism use the term to describe those who defected from the Republican movement and accept the institutions of the 26-county state, as opposed to giving allegiance to the Irish Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

"The term is also used across Ireland to describe people from the Republic of Ireland who do not support a united Ireland."

It isn't.  Free Stater is used by people in the north who object to beING excluded from the Republic of Ireland . Its use indicates unfinished business.

Free State is used extensively online in the service of whataboutery. 

Après Match should look into it.

https://youtu.be/fjEkjeVzL34

Ive only ever used it to describe people from the south in neither a negative nor a positive manner. It was always just a term for you guys for me

[NetNitrate]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

I think both the Free State and Occupied Ulster have been abhorrent failures.

Well you may think so. Country has it problems but it's a country unlike six counties where marriage equality exists. It's a country that's frequently amongst the top in human development index, world happiness index, best place to live, best place to do business. We've maintained a strong native culture in sports, language, literature, music. Tourism industry is increasing all the time, often due to smart marketing like The Wild Atlantic Way. The top global brands are content to make Ireland their Euro HQ - obviously there's a big tax incentive, but they are big employers. Would be foolish to say we don't have big problems in health and homeless. We of course always had the self-loathing Paddy that loves to proclaim the country an abject failure. They spend a lot of their time on politics.ie and in the comments on journal.ie. And we have the types that say we couldn't afford to run the North. We could, and I hope that day will come soon.

[Il Bomber Destro]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

I think both the Free State and Occupied Ulster have been abhorrent failures.

Well you may think so. Country has it problems but it's a country unlike six counties where marriage equality exists. It's a country that's frequently amongst the top in human development index, world happiness index, best place to live, best place to do business. We've maintained a strong native culture in sports, language, literature, music. Tourism industry is increasing all the time, often due to smart marketing like The Wild Atlantic Way. The top global brands are content to make Ireland their Euro HQ - obviously there's a big tax incentive, but they are big employers. Would be foolish to say we don't have big problems in health and homeless. We of course always had the self-loathing Paddy that loves to proclaim the country an abject failure. They spend a lot of their time on politics.ie and in the comments on journal.ie. And we have the types that say we couldn't afford to run the North. We could, and I hope that day will come soon.

It's a state where political corruption has been the norm since day 1, where politicians have been the puppets for big developers and wealthy families. It's a state which recently had to ship off hundreds of thousands of their youths after the Government felt citizens should take on the burden of the debts that bondholders reneged on. It's a state which currently has a widening wealth inequality with huge social problems in housing and health.

And that's ignoring the Free State's disgraceful record with the North of Ireland.

[NetNitrate]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

I think both the Free State and Occupied Ulster have been abhorrent failures.

Well you may think so. Country has it problems but it's a country unlike six counties where marriage equality exists. It's a country that's frequently amongst the top in human development index, world happiness index, best place to live, best place to do business. We've maintained a strong native culture in sports, language, literature, music. Tourism industry is increasing all the time, often due to smart marketing like The Wild Atlantic Way. The top global brands are content to make Ireland their Euro HQ - obviously there's a big tax incentive, but they are big employers. Would be foolish to say we don't have big problems in health and homeless. We of course always had the self-loathing Paddy that loves to proclaim the country an abject failure. They spend a lot of their time on politics.ie and in the comments on journal.ie. And we have the types that say we couldn't afford to run the North. We could, and I hope that day will come soon.

It's a state where political corruption has been the norm since day 1, where politicians have been the puppets for big developers and wealthy families. It's a state which recently had to ship off hundreds of thousands of their youths after the Government felt citizens should take on the burden of the debts that bondholders reneged on. It's a state which currently has a widening wealth inequality with huge social problems in housing and health.

And that's ignoring the Free State's disgraceful record with the North of Ireland.

It's an island that when part of the most powerful empire in the world 2 million of it's people starved, and millions more emigrated. The state that went it alone is now a country that can stand on it's own two feet. In contrast, the majority of Scots, Unionists and Welsh never had the balls to do this and dependent on Mother England to feed them. While there's corruption in Ireland and many did well out of a brown envelope, there is in every country and we are still considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world by global standards. As regards bailing out the banks, both the UK and US governments bailed out their banks too. While distasteful, they all believed it would be better for their economies in the long run with a healthy banking system. They were proved right with BOI and AIB which look to return back to the taxpayer what was invested in saving them. Anglo should have been let fail. Ultimately Ireland recovered a lot quicker than anyone expected.

[Il Bomber Destro]

The Irish Free State was abolished 80 years ago.
Do keep up😆😆😆
Well said above Itchy.

Meanwhile when does Marylou get officially crowned?

and that's your issue with being called a free stater?
when can Northern republicans stop feeling shame? What is the time limit? Or does shame only apply to Northern republicans?

I think his issues about being called a free stater is the connotations it brings up about the way his state callously abandoned their northern brethren in their hour of need and left them to fend for themselves. The rest is history as they say and the free staters have now decided that history only starts from the 1970s so they can moralise and pontificate to northern nationalists about armed republicanism and relieve themselves somewhat of that shame.

The free state would have got obliterated in a military battle after treaty. What emerged was a priest ridden country that was anathema to Unionists, and in opinion poll after opinion poll a large percentage of Catholics preferred their lot in UK to their gombeen brethren down south. Until now. Because the dirty secret is the only means the "free state" can bring about a UI is by becoming a more forward thinking country with better economic prospects than the failed state the Unionists created. However, I get the impression you are not convinced.

I think both the Free State and Occupied Ulster have been abhorrent failures.

Well you may think so. Country has it problems but it's a country unlike six counties where marriage equality exists. It's a country that's frequently amongst the top in human development index, world happiness index, best place to live, best place to do business. We've maintained a strong native culture in sports, language, literature, music. Tourism industry is increasing all the time, often due to smart marketing like The Wild Atlantic Way. The top global brands are content to make Ireland their Euro HQ - obviously there's a big tax incentive, but they are big employers. Would be foolish to say we don't have big problems in health and homeless. We of course always had the self-loathing Paddy that loves to proclaim the country an abject failure. They spend a lot of their time on politics.ie and in the comments on journal.ie. And we have the types that say we couldn't afford to run the North. We could, and I hope that day will come soon.

It's a state where political corruption has been the norm since day 1, where politicians have been the puppets for big developers and wealthy families. It's a state which recently had to ship off hundreds of thousands of their youths after the Government felt citizens should take on the burden of the debts that bondholders reneged on. It's a state which currently has a widening wealth inequality with huge social problems in housing and health.

And that's ignoring the Free State's disgraceful record with the North of Ireland.

It's an island that when part of the most powerful empire in the world 2 million of it's people starved, and millions more emigrated. The state that went it alone is now a country that can stand on it's own two feet. In contrast, the majority of Scots, Unionists and Welsh never had the balls to do this and dependent on Mother England to feed them. While there's corruption in Ireland and many did well out of a brown envelope, there is in every country and we are still considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world by global standards. As regards bailing out the banks, both the UK and US governments bailed out their banks too. While distasteful, they all believed it would be better for their economies in the long run with a healthy banking system. They were proved right with BOI and AIB which look to return back to the taxpayer what was invested in saving them. Anglo should have been let fail. Ultimately Ireland recovered a lot quicker than anyone expected.

Are you on the windup?

The Irish banks have not tried to pay back those who saved them, they've recently been embroiled in a tracker mortgage scandal that saw loads of people lose their homes and furthered financial hardship?

[rosnarun]

ive always said that bailing out the banks was very much misunderstood by the nation who I don't think understood the effect of not bailing out the regular banks.
most savings would have been obliterated and loans next to impossible to get business would have fallen over night .
they were the real beneficiaries of the bail out not the owners (shareholder) who investment were decimated or the senior management who were all gotten rid of except boucher who did a heroic job and made sure BOI repaid the Government with intrest

[Wildweasel74]

Some men are making total clowns of themselves on heree! If they are that bad why any of you looking a united ireland! In some deluded reality do you think Sinn Fein be running things@ dont think so; their inability to govern up here and lack of any political talent; will have seen to that@

[Il Bomber Destro]

Some men are making total clowns of themselves on heree! If they are that bad why any of you looking a united ireland! In some deluded reality do you think Sinn Fein be running things@ dont think so; their inability to govern up here and lacl of amy political talent; will have seen to that@

Both states are failures, I think it's a bit arrogant of the Free State to assume they would be absorbing us, if it happens it should be a new state with new values - I have little interest in their corruption and duplicity