Messages

Sorry but that's more bluster

What you are saying is that if I lived in the North between 1969 and 1997, I'd have supported the IRA's campaign of murder

But the majority of the Catholic population who lived in the North did not support it

The majority wanted it to stop and to live normal lives, not lives clouded with suspicion and fear

If the IRA had not abandoned their ceasefire, Sean Brown would probably not have been murdered, he might even still be alive - because the circle of tit for tat would have been broken or at least greatly lessened - the LVF would likely never have come into being

I was going to reply to a different aspect of your post but to be honest, you've just exposed yourself as a twisted little lowlife in your comments abour Sean Brown. We're now in Regina Doherty territory whereby loyalists are now absolved of responsibility for their killings and instead, in typical mental gymnastics fashion, those killings too are to now be regarded as the responsibility of the IRA.

Really? What's lowlife about them?

I specifically did not do the thing you're accusing me of, but you didn't have the decency to quote that - it might disturb your lies - as always, the Sinn Fein way - flat out lie when outpointed

Nothing I said about the murder of Sean Brown was wrong - the murder happened as part of a vicious, senseless tit for tat cycle of violence - which the IRA, after the ceasefires of 1994, took it upon themselves to restart

No resumption of that cycle of violence by the IRA, very likely no murder of Sean Brown by the sc**bag Loyalists that did it

But of course the IRA couldn't leave well alone, they had to go back and start all over again

Oh and by the way, you totally fail to get the irony that your narrative all along, and the narrative of the Shinners across this forum, has been that Unionist intransigence justified a campaign of which civilian murder was an integral part - for you the blame for the murder of the civilians at Claudy, Bloody Friday, Kingsmills, La Mon, Enniskillen and Warrington was on Unionist and British intransigence, not on the people who carried them out

On this very thread, we've had posts justifying all that on the basis of Bloody Sunday

And the narrative about Kingsmills in Republican circles has always been that if the Reaveys and O'Dowds had not been murdered, Kingsmills would not have happened

The narrative is that the Glennane Gang were to blame for Kingsmills - not the IRA

As a narrative of buck passing, defending the indefensible, and outright hypocrisy, that's gold medal stuff

The IRA, sectarian murderers of workmen and eternally innocent in the eyes of its cheerleaders, just as the Loyalist scum who murdered the Reaveys and the O'Dowds are eternally innocent in the eyes of theirs

Two sides of the same coin

You're out of your depth in this discussion, Angelo

Considering the kicking you are taking, I'm more than happy to sit back and take a backseat. It's good to see a malicious slabberer like you get exposed as such.

Oh look, you said "I'm taking a kicking" and you called me a "malicious slabberer"

How on earth could I ever come back from such razor sharp debating skills?

There's a barstool that's missing a blatherer somewhere

Don't forget to order your €9 meal first, and wear a mask, it might prevent others from having to listen to you

The escalation in violence in the 70's was not for a United Ireland. It was a breaking point in that Catholic frustration finally boiled over and knew they were never going to be treated equally by talking. There may have been some headbangers in the movement where a United Ireland was the only goal but equality was the driving force.

Saying GFA was a surrender is only half right, it was British surrender. Sunningdale in 73 would have achieved power sharing and the violence of the years that followed would never have been. What was the British response to this? Murder of 33 Irish civilians in Monaghan and Dublin in 74. Women and children deliberately targeted in a no warning attack, worst single atrocity in the whole of the Troubles. As clear a statement as ever that they would not tolerate negotiations with vermin.

Major dragged his heels on GFA, he was under political pressure at home and needed Unionist support (all through the years they always had too much influence in the House of Lords and by proxy, British Government policy). But Canary Warf and time finally caught up with them. The money men in London took the decision out of his hands, the financial cost of the IRA campaign was too much. World was changing, Europe was changing, the troubles possibly caused the ECB to not be in London or at least never to be on the negotiating table. The cost was greater than they will ever admit, same as their surrender will never be admitted. But it wasn't talking brought them to the table.

To say that the PIRA's goal was not a united Ireland is a rewriting of history

At every single juncture of history, the goal of anybody who called themselves the IRA was an all island Irish Republic - the clue is in the title - the Irish Republican Army - not the Irish Equality Army or the Irish Fair Housing Army

The British did not surrender anything with the Good Friday Agreement - they won, completely, there was no downside whatsoever for them

What did the Unionists lose? Sod all, a title of a police force, that's about it

What did the victims of the Troubles lose? Justice

if the british government (won entirely) and the unionists lost( sod all) as part of the GFA why did the majority of the unionist population vote against it?   Baffling

Not really baffling at all

Paranoia and propaganda and unfounded belief in superiority is the answer, hundreds of years of belief that they were the chosen people, superior to the sub-human Catholics

When an ethnic or religious group traditionally has hegemony, any extension of rights or equality to those who have traditionally been oppressed seems like a defeat - because the group identity is based on superiority to the "other" - not equality

That's why they build ever bigger bonfires festooned with"KAT" and burning tricolours, the NI team continues to play God Save The Queen, why they continue to demand the Union Jack be flown from public buildings as a matter of priority and why they demanded Garvaghy Road to march on

The mindset of a lot of Unionists was or is very like the mindset of white racists in America

So by this logic, they lost superiority?

I say this, not as a smart arsed internet comment but 100% genuinely - your incoherence can only be explained by mental illness or drug use.

Thanks as always for the personal abuse

I don't know what is difficult for you to understand about my point

You say the unionist community lost nothing in the GFA.  Then a couple of posts later you say they no longer enjoy superiority over their neighbours?

It can't be both?

You say the IRA were not justified in taking up arms after the mid seventies... then a couple of posts later say black folks in America ARE currently justified in doing so?  In between times you agree that the British government were actively murdering catholic civilians, long after the mid seventies?

So I stand by my comment.

It's not meant as abuse, but in light of the evidence of what you've posted here in the past few hours, it's a legitimate observation.

There are no contradictions at all

Extension of rights to a traditionally marginalised community is not a loss for traditionally hegemonic community, it's simple human rights, which is the way it should be

My human rights do not depend on you being denied them

Men did not lose when women got the vote, straight people did not lose when gay people gained the right to get married, whites in America lost no rights when the Civil Rights struggle in America achieved its greatest triumphs

This is not a zero sum game

In fact the whole of society gains

An extension of human rights is a challenge to the idea of superiority in a particular ethnic group - it's a challenge to an ingrained mental pathology

But in reality the traditional hegemonic group has lost nothing at all, they just think they have - because their pathology has taught them so

Many Protestant Unionists genuinely did believe they were inherently superior to Catholics, but of course they weren't

Unionist hegemony had been decreasing by the year for many years in any case p even before the Troubles - and would have continued to do so whatever happened, the NI Civil Rights movement showed that Catholics were no longer prepared to put up with being second class citizens

Group hegemony is not a human right

I've already outlined what I think is morally justified for the black communities in America and they can do it within the law - US law allows for arming yourself publicly - but you do so without killing people

The most likely outcome to armed black mobilisation - which doesn't have to be violent in any way - is a change in the gun laws - which would actually be good for everybody - it would exploit the racist nature of white US society to make it rethink its own pathology as regards guns

In the mid 1970s in NI there was a vicious circle of murder - you clearly believe there was no alternative to continuing that

Why do you believe that?

It was not a case of there being no alternative to the worst option of all, a perpetuation of that cycle of murder

There certainly were alternatives

They absolutely did lose.

Things like employment/public housing are and were finite resources - and the unionist community no longer had the 'right' to the lions share.  They no longer have the luxury of being able to forget about 40-50% of the population when competing for decent employment.  The six counties are less prosperous now than they were pre-partition, yet the 'Catholic' section of population has never been more prosperous.  Where do you think that wealth has come from?

Also, if you think that BLM/Antifa are going to publicly arm themselves and it is not going to lead to violence, you are providing further evidence to back up my earlier assertion.  Could I ask you again to answer the questions I asked you earlier?

Catholics/Nationalists embraced education from a long way back - they saw it as a route out of oppression - much of Unionism as a culture rejected education in favour of a self indulgent retreat into navel gazing

Anything the Unionists had "lost", they had lost long before the GFA - but it wasn't the IRA who took it from them, it was ordinary Catholics fed up with playing second fiddle, it was people like John Hume and Seamus Mallon who gave the Catholic population a self respect

Fair rights, fair housing, fair voting, fair education, fair employment is not a loss for the traditionally hegemonic group - it's simple extension of human rights

The problem is in the conceptualisation of such as a "loss", and that comes down to mental pathology

Unfortunately there is a section of Catholic Nationalism, both north and south, which would see any recognition of Unionist rights in a future united Ireland, or any giving up of official nationalist paraphernalia such as the Irish tricolour or Anhran na bhFiann, as a loss - and that's a mental pathology too

You didn't answer my question about whether you believe there were alternatives to mass murder in the 1970s

You can arm yourself without being a death squad, you know, and you can certainly do so if it's within the law, as it is in the US

Oh, and what the Unionists very definitely won from Sinn Fein/PIRA was the disbandment of the PIRA, a commitment to the newly renamed/revamped police force, a return to a cushy number at Stormont, the decommissioning of arms, a statement that the war was over, and a commitment to recognise that the future political status of NI would be determined by democratic vote

That's an almost total victory in anybody's language

But their mental pathology prevented them from recognising that

It's tremendously interesting from a psychological point of view

Imagine winning that much and thinking you've lost, crazy shit altogether

The escalation in violence in the 70's was not for a United Ireland. It was a breaking point in that Catholic frustration finally boiled over and knew they were never going to be treated equally by talking. There may have been some headbangers in the movement where a United Ireland was the only goal but equality was the driving force.

Saying GFA was a surrender is only half right, it was British surrender. Sunningdale in 73 would have achieved power sharing and the violence of the years that followed would never have been. What was the British response to this? Murder of 33 Irish civilians in Monaghan and Dublin in 74. Women and children deliberately targeted in a no warning attack, worst single atrocity in the whole of the Troubles. As clear a statement as ever that they would not tolerate negotiations with vermin.

Major dragged his heels on GFA, he was under political pressure at home and needed Unionist support (all through the years they always had too much influence in the House of Lords and by proxy, British Government policy). But Canary Warf and time finally caught up with them. The money men in London took the decision out of his hands, the financial cost of the IRA campaign was too much. World was changing, Europe was changing, the troubles possibly caused the ECB to not be in London or at least never to be on the negotiating table. The cost was greater than they will ever admit, same as their surrender will never be admitted. But it wasn't talking brought them to the table.

To say that the PIRA's goal was not a united Ireland is a rewriting of history

At every single juncture of history, the goal of anybody who called themselves the IRA was an all island Irish Republic - the clue is in the title - the Irish Republican Army - not the Irish Equality Army or the Irish Fair Housing Army

The British did not surrender anything with the Good Friday Agreement - they won, completely, there was no downside whatsoever for them

What did the Unionists lose? Sod all, a title of a police force, that's about it

What did the victims of the Troubles lose? Justice

if the british government (won entirely) and the unionists lost( sod all) as part of the GFA why did the majority of the unionist population vote against it?   Baffling

Not really baffling at all

Paranoia and propaganda and unfounded belief in superiority is the answer, hundreds of years of belief that they were the chosen people, superior to the sub-human Catholics

When an ethnic or religious group traditionally has hegemony, any extension of rights or equality to those who have traditionally been oppressed seems like a defeat - because the group identity is based on superiority to the "other" - not equality

That's why they build ever bigger bonfires festooned with"KAT" and burning tricolours, the NI team continues to play God Save The Queen, why they continue to demand the Union Jack be flown from public buildings as a matter of priority and why they demanded Garvaghy Road to march on

The mindset of a lot of Unionists was or is very like the mindset of white racists in America

So by this logic, they lost superiority?

I say this, not as a smart arsed internet comment but 100% genuinely - your incoherence can only be explained by mental illness or drug use.

Thanks as always for the personal abuse

I don't know what is difficult for you to understand about my point

You say the unionist community lost nothing in the GFA.  Then a couple of posts later you say they no longer enjoy superiority over their neighbours?

It can't be both?

You say the IRA were not justified in taking up arms after the mid seventies... then a couple of posts later say black folks in America ARE currently justified in doing so?  In between times you agree that the British government were actively murdering catholic civilians, long after the mid seventies?

So I stand by my comment.

It's not meant as abuse, but in light of the evidence of what you've posted here in the past few hours, it's a legitimate observation.

There are no contradictions at all

Extension of rights to a traditionally marginalised community is not a loss for traditionally hegemonic community, it's simple human rights, which is the way it should be

My human rights do not depend on you being denied them

Men did not lose when women got the vote, straight people did not lose when gay people gained the right to get married, whites in America lost no rights when the Civil Rights struggle in America achieved its greatest triumphs

This is not a zero sum game

In fact the whole of society gains

An extension of human rights is a challenge to the idea of superiority in a particular ethnic group - it's a challenge to an ingrained mental pathology

But in reality the traditional hegemonic group has lost nothing at all, they just think they have - because their pathology has taught them so

Many Protestant Unionists genuinely did believe they were inherently superior to Catholics, but of course they weren't

Unionist hegemony had been decreasing by the year for many years in any case p even before the Troubles - and would have continued to do so whatever happened, the NI Civil Rights movement showed that Catholics were no longer prepared to put up with being second class citizens

Group hegemony is not a human right

I've already outlined what I think is morally justified for the black communities in America and they can do it within the law - US law allows for arming yourself publicly - but you do so without killing people

The most likely outcome to armed black mobilisation - which doesn't have to be violent in any way - is a change in the gun laws - which would actually be good for everybody - it would exploit the racist nature of white US society to make it rethink its own pathology as regards guns

In the mid 1970s in NI there was a vicious circle of murder - you clearly believe there was no alternative to continuing that

Why do you believe that?

It was not a case of there being no alternative to the worst option of all, a perpetuation of that cycle of murder

There certainly were alternatives

Sid - you have regularly called white racists in the US fascists and that they need to be destroyed and now you're saying loyalists/unionists are the same but the downtrodden catholic community should bow down to them. I'm not into personal insults but you're certainly a contradiction, I'll give you that.

White racists in America are fascists

When I say they need to be destroyed, I mean that white supremacist groups should be classed as terrorist organisations, I mean that the Republican party, which is the driver of fascism, needs to be thoroughly defeated, discredited and ultimately disbanded, the purveyors of fascist corruption and criminality like Trump and cronies need to feel the full force of justice, there needs to be mass mobiliisation including civil disobedience if necessary, boycotting of police if necessary until they are reformed thoroughly, and a thorough changing of the public narrative, a radical public re-evaluation of America's racist history and present, and that people stop biting their lips about what much of white America is, and stop giving undue credit and respect to what is a cancerous racist ideology

What I don't support is a sustained mass murder spree, like what the IRA did

Oh, and precisely nowhere did I say the Catholic population of the north should have ever "bowed down" to anybody

The problem there is you see anything short of a mass murder spree as "bowing down"

The escalation in violence in the 70's was not for a United Ireland. It was a breaking point in that Catholic frustration finally boiled over and knew they were never going to be treated equally by talking. There may have been some headbangers in the movement where a United Ireland was the only goal but equality was the driving force.

Saying GFA was a surrender is only half right, it was British surrender. Sunningdale in 73 would have achieved power sharing and the violence of the years that followed would never have been. What was the British response to this? Murder of 33 Irish civilians in Monaghan and Dublin in 74. Women and children deliberately targeted in a no warning attack, worst single atrocity in the whole of the Troubles. As clear a statement as ever that they would not tolerate negotiations with vermin.

Major dragged his heels on GFA, he was under political pressure at home and needed Unionist support (all through the years they always had too much influence in the House of Lords and by proxy, British Government policy). But Canary Warf and time finally caught up with them. The money men in London took the decision out of his hands, the financial cost of the IRA campaign was too much. World was changing, Europe was changing, the troubles possibly caused the ECB to not be in London or at least never to be on the negotiating table. The cost was greater than they will ever admit, same as their surrender will never be admitted. But it wasn't talking brought them to the table.

To say that the PIRA's goal was not a united Ireland is a rewriting of history

At every single juncture of history, the goal of anybody who called themselves the IRA was an all island Irish Republic - the clue is in the title - the Irish Republican Army - not the Irish Equality Army or the Irish Fair Housing Army

The British did not surrender anything with the Good Friday Agreement - they won, completely, there was no downside whatsoever for them

What did the Unionists lose? Sod all, a title of a police force, that's about it

What did the victims of the Troubles lose? Justice

if the british government (won entirely) and the unionists lost( sod all) as part of the GFA why did the majority of the unionist population vote against it?   Baffling

Not really baffling at all

Paranoia and propaganda and unfounded belief in superiority is the answer, hundreds of years of belief that they were the chosen people, superior to the sub-human Catholics

When an ethnic or religious group traditionally has hegemony, any extension of rights or equality to those who have traditionally been oppressed seems like a defeat - because the group identity is based on superiority to the "other" - not equality

That's why they build ever bigger bonfires festooned with"KAT" and burning tricolours, the NI team continues to play God Save The Queen, why they continue to demand the Union Jack be flown from public buildings as a matter of priority and why they demanded Garvaghy Road to march on

The mindset of a lot of Unionists was or is very like the mindset of white racists in America

So by this logic, they lost superiority?

I say this, not as a smart arsed internet comment but 100% genuinely - your incoherence can only be explained by mental illness or drug use.

Thanks as always for the personal abuse

I don't know what is difficult for you to understand about my point

The escalation in violence in the 70's was not for a United Ireland. It was a breaking point in that Catholic frustration finally boiled over and knew they were never going to be treated equally by talking. There may have been some headbangers in the movement where a United Ireland was the only goal but equality was the driving force.

Saying GFA was a surrender is only half right, it was British surrender. Sunningdale in 73 would have achieved power sharing and the violence of the years that followed would never have been. What was the British response to this? Murder of 33 Irish civilians in Monaghan and Dublin in 74. Women and children deliberately targeted in a no warning attack, worst single atrocity in the whole of the Troubles. As clear a statement as ever that they would not tolerate negotiations with vermin.

Major dragged his heels on GFA, he was under political pressure at home and needed Unionist support (all through the years they always had too much influence in the House of Lords and by proxy, British Government policy). But Canary Warf and time finally caught up with them. The money men in London took the decision out of his hands, the financial cost of the IRA campaign was too much. World was changing, Europe was changing, the troubles possibly caused the ECB to not be in London or at least never to be on the negotiating table. The cost was greater than they will ever admit, same as their surrender will never be admitted. But it wasn't talking brought them to the table.

To say that the PIRA's goal was not a united Ireland is a rewriting of history

At every single juncture of history, the goal of anybody who called themselves the IRA was an all island Irish Republic - the clue is in the title - the Irish Republican Army - not the Irish Equality Army or the Irish Fair Housing Army

The British did not surrender anything with the Good Friday Agreement - they won, completely, there was no downside whatsoever for them

What did the Unionists lose? Sod all, a title of a police force, that's about it

What did the victims of the Troubles lose? Justice

if the british government (won entirely) and the unionists lost( sod all) as part of the GFA why did the majority of the unionist population vote against it?   Baffling

Not really baffling at all

Paranoia and propaganda and unfounded belief in superiority is the answer, hundreds of years of belief that they were the chosen people, superior to the sub-human Catholics

When an ethnic or religious group traditionally has hegemony, any extension of rights or equality to those who have traditionally been oppressed seems like a defeat - because the group identity is based on superiority to the "other" - not equality

It's a collective pathology

That's why they build ever bigger bonfires festooned with"KAT" and burning tricolours, the NI team continues to play God Save The Queen, why they continue to demand the Union Jack be flown from public buildings as a matter of priority and why they demanded Garvaghy Road to march on

The mindset of a lot of Unionists was or is very like the mindset of white racists in America

I see you edited your post to include a Ruth Dudley Edwards reference - thanks for the personal abuse - it's always welcome

Ruth Dudley Edwards is an example of that pathology of mind

But so is calling anybody who says the IRA's mass murder spree was wrong "Ruth Dudley Edwards" also a pathology of the mind

You're out of your depth in this discussion, Angelo

[30 years of peaceful Catholic protest]

The end of the RUC didn't happen by murdering people, it happened by peaceful negotiation

Just like the RIC could have? Explain how the RUC could have been disbanded, and at what point? The Anglo-Irish Agreement didn't countenance the idea. Neither did Sunngingdale. So you'll need something more convincing than "oh it just would have magically happened if nationalists agitated for it enough or if enough peaceful nationalist protesters got shot dead in the street"

In the exact same way it eventually happened in 2000, by peaceful negotiation

You achieve this by mass political mobilisation and protest, mass sustained civil disobedience, international attention continually being drawn to the plight of Catholic civilians

And even if the RUC hadn't ended until 2000, well you would have been spared the intervening years of murder

Two situations:
i) a hypothetical - 30 years of peaceful Catholic protest and the end of the RUC in 2000
ii) the reality - 28 years of murder, societal devastation and the end of the RUC in 2000

i) is miles better than ii)

Isn't it?

Unlike others on here, I actually agree with some of your stuff on this board, not this thread though. This bit here I'm afraid you have no idea of what life is like up here. If plenty of the unionists had their way catholics would be living in hovels still with little chance of getting out of it. They'd quite happily slaughter catholics if they were able to. The vitriol, if you have ever experienced it which you clearly haven't it, is akin to Trump on speed!

Shouting "you have no idea what life is like up here" is a non sequitur

A cousin of mine, a Catholic, a civilian with no connections whatsoever to the Brits or the British state, was kidnapped by the PIRA for the crime of working in a bank

Firstly, I do have an idea, a very good idea, I have been extremely interested in the Northern conflict and history for my whole life and visited it more times than I'd care to remember and you don't need to have lived anywhere to know basic, easily identifiable facts about life on the ground

Secondly, the majority of the Catholic population of the North agreed with me - during the Troubles, they voted for the SDLP, not Sinn Fein

Your post effectively says that John Hume, Seamus Mallon, the rest of the SDLP, and the majority of the Catholic population of the six counties did not know what they were talking about

I will say it again - you have no idea what life is like up here. You haven't lived here, vicariously via your cousin doesn't count.

I worked in a Catholic bar around the time of the Greysteel massacre and everyone was bricking themselves but refused to be housebound. Try living in Co Antrim (all of the O6) in those times, you'd have a totally different viewpoint on it. As I said Loyalists and many Unionists would slaughter Catholics if they could and they did at times with British state collusion. A man locking up a GAA ground at night in 1997 (not the 70s) and getting brutally killed like Sean Brown in Bellaghy, these things would exist to this day if they could get away with it.

Sorry but that's more bluster

What you are saying is that if I lived in the North between 1969 and 1997, I'd have supported the IRA's campaign of murder

But the majority of the Catholic population who lived in the North did not support it

The majority wanted it to stop and to live normal lives, not lives clouded with suspicion and fear

If the IRA had not abandoned their ceasefire, Sean Brown would probably not have been murdered, he might even still be alive - because the circle of tit for tat would have been broken or at least greatly lessened - the LVF would likely never have come into being

No - that last paragraph is out of order.

The people who killed Sean Brown take responsibility for it alone - they don't get to drag any other protagonists into it to share responsibility.

The same goes for any other killing of civilians by any other protagonist.

The Loyalist terrorists who killed Sean Brown - not the IRA - were the people who killed Sean Brown

That is true

But the people who killed civilians at Claudy and on Bloody Friday killed those civilians - and that was the IRA and nobody else - it wasn't the Brits, it wasn't the RUC or the B-Specials or Paisley

But if NI had not been a cold house for Catholics, Claudy and Bloody Friday would almost certainly not have happened

One reaction begets another, begets another, begets another, begets another

And so on

Violence is a circle, and if the circle is not ended, it continues

So the best thing to do is to break the circle

And it was people like Sean Brown, innocent civilians, who suffered needlessly from the non-breaking of that circle

But murdering civilians was a central, integral component of the PIRA's campaign, that's just a fact

And therein lies the central lie upon which you base your entire hypocrisy. The overwhelmimg majority of PIRA operations were directed against British security force personnel/infrastructure and against commercial targets where no life was lost. The sort of small scale daily attacks that didn't make headlines in the Free State. It's already been pointed out here that the Old IRA actually killed a higher proportion of civilians. Just consider the absolute savagery with which the Old IRA pursued a campaign of disappearing victims (most of whom were innocent). Somewhere between 100 and 200 people. Numbers that absolutely dwarf the number disappeared by the Provos in a fraction of the time. So like I say, hypocritical bull. The savagery of the Old IRA campaign is excusable to you. It doesn't matter to you how many civilians they killed or disappeared. When presented with the reality of what they did, the best you can do is come out with "yeah but it was a shorter war". Gold medal standard mental gymnastics.

The other key lie in your waffle is that the PIRA campaign stopped being justified "some time in the seventies". But of course, it's very easy for a sanctimonious Free State p***k to believe such when he/she wasn't getting harrased and abused on the roadsides on literally a daily basis by the British State, well into the 90s. You never experienced the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you saw the red torch of UDR patrol wagging your car to stop on a quiet road at night and not knowing if you would still be alive on the other side of it. To Free Staters, that is probably (to borrow a phrase) "just another northerner sob story" but to people like me it was the psycologically traumatic reality of going about daily life in this part of the world, well into the 1990's. No doubt your reality of living through the conflict was hearing what your Section 31 state censored media decided it was OK to tell you about; and now, years later, you are just unable to countenance the possibility that your notion of truth in relation to the conflict could be compromised having been informed about it by said censored media. Your argument also patently ignores the reality that were it not for the IRA campaign, the level of peace and equality we have today simply wouldn't exist and was not available to achieve "sometime in the seventies". It's often been said that the Brits had to be bombed to the negotiating table but that's not just something people say glibly. The fact is that the bombing of Canary Wharf literally only happened because the John Major government was refusing to take attempts at talks in any way seriously.John Major wasn't PM in the seventies.

This is true.

Derry won the All Ireland in 1993.  As thousands of supporters made their way home late on the Sunday night from Dublin, they happened upon a traffic jam in the middle of Cookstown.

A British Army checkpoint had backed the cars up the whole way along the (very long) main street.  This was targeted harassment on it's own but the kicker is that this traffic jam conveniently allowed mobs of drunken Loyalists to stone the supporter's cars, loaded with families - jubilant men, women and children.

The Army continued to stop the cars and left the people in the firing line.  They pretended not to notice the Loyalists.

Things like this cause things like Canary Wharf.

Reminder to Sid - this was 1993.

Edit:  You would not have heard mention of this on RTE that night.  Hypothetically, had Kerry supporters been stoned by angry Dublin fans at Newlands Cross, it would have been plastered all over your news.

I got stopped by the Brits coming out of Clones when Dublin played Derry in 2003, just over the border on the Cavan road, about a mile from the Diamond

Big guns hanging around their necks

By this rationale I could then justify a future 28 year bombing, shooting and maiming campaign from 2003 on

We can all play that game

Given the quoted passage here relates to something that happened in September 1993, it would appear to imply regret that the first ceasefire happened less than a year later

Because if its a justification for why the 28 year PIRA campaign happened, it's also a justification for continuing it

I presented the story as it showed (in one small way) why the IRA were still active into the nineties, when you reckoned there was no justification for their existence after "some point in the seventies".

I was in one of those cars with my aunt that night.  A more pacifist woman you could not meet.  She idolised John Hume.  Her response sticks in my mind because it was so unbelievably out of character for her - "Is it any wonder they shoot those bastards".

It's the same reason that BLM and Antifa movements in America exist.  It wasn't that these people just developed a sudden bloodlust (or a penchant for riotous behaviour in the case of BLM/Antifa).  It was a direct response to the circumstances of the time.  IMO this response was absolutely inevitable.

The rest of what you've said is so far into the realms of straw man stuff that it doesn't warrant replying to.  When this is the line you are forced to go down it only demonstrates the weakness of your argument.

The response from 1969 on was inevitable

Of course it was inevitable

But that doesn't mean a campaign of murder which stretched all the way up to 1997 was right, does it?

You talk about straw men, yet you create straw men yourself

Unlike others on this board, my position is nuanced

I understand the reasons why the PIRA happened and why there was violence

I believe you can make a very plausible moral case for a proportionate armed resistance from 1969 to some point in the early 1970s, as a strategy it was deeply flawed but in moral terms the case was probably there, the moral case was to defend your community

There is currently a similar moral case for a proportionate armed resistance by black communities in America

But what you cannot do is make a plausible moral case for a sustained campaign of murder which continued all the way up to 1997

Nobody has ever done it, and nobody ever will

And if one attempts to, well, then they're making the moral case for the murder of Ronan Kerr, Lyra McKee and the attempted murder of Peadar Heffron - because these were the same exact same sort of things which were justified up to 1997

This campaign of violence devastated Northern Ireland, and ruined many lives outside Northern Ireland

And at the end of it, it produced nothing

Any advances came from peaceful means and NI could have been a hell of lot further down the road of a peaceful society than it is now without that campaign of murder

The story you tell of intimidation by the Brits in 1993, and of which there are probably millions of such small stories over the years, is presented as a rationalisation for continuing the PIRA's campaign up to 1994 and then 1997

Yet the first ceasefire happened less than a year later, in 1994

But if these sorts of stories are to be offered as a rationalisation for the campaign of murder up to 1994 and then 1997, you could offer up the same justifications for continuing the campaign of violence beyond 1997, you could attempt to rationalise why it should continue up to the present day, 2020

And these rationalisations or justifications would be wrong

It would have been better had it stopped in 1974 rather than 1994, or 1997

It would have been better had it stopped in 1972, or indeed 1969

As it was, we just got an extra quarter century of a mass murder spree - for nothing

You say that armed resistance is CURRENTLY justified in America.

In February 1989, the British government murdered a solicitor in the North.

But at this point you say that armed resistance from the nationalist community was NOT justified, and had not been so for over a decade - as things had somehow improved, I assume?

There are some serious mental hoops to jump through to paint this as a consistent position.

In March 1999, a solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, was murdered, quite possibly by people who had worked for the British government, certainly by Loyalist terrorists

By your rationale, this was the basis for a continuation of the IRA's mass murder spree

A proportionate armed resistance by the black community is probably morally justified currently in the US

This certainly doesn't have to take the form of a mass murder spree, it doesn't even have to take the form of a single shot, but if the black community mobilised and armed itself in the same way that the pro-Trump lunatics have done - and as the Black Panthers did back in the 60s, ie. that would be perfectly legitimate indeed

If they formed their own armed patrols to police and protect black communities and boycotted the police, that would be legitimate

What I don't propose is booby trap bombs under the cars of random police officers or the shooting dead of people who work as cleaners at police stations

The escalation in violence in the 70's was not for a United Ireland. It was a breaking point in that Catholic frustration finally boiled over and knew they were never going to be treated equally by talking. There may have been some headbangers in the movement where a United Ireland was the only goal but equality was the driving force.

Saying GFA was a surrender is only half right, it was British surrender. Sunningdale in 73 would have achieved power sharing and the violence of the years that followed would never have been. What was the British response to this? Murder of 33 Irish civilians in Monaghan and Dublin in 74. Women and children deliberately targeted in a no warning attack, worst single atrocity in the whole of the Troubles. As clear a statement as ever that they would not tolerate negotiations with vermin.

Major dragged his heels on GFA, he was under political pressure at home and needed Unionist support (all through the years they always had too much influence in the House of Lords and by proxy, British Government policy). But Canary Warf and time finally caught up with them. The money men in London took the decision out of his hands, the financial cost of the IRA campaign was too much. World was changing, Europe was changing, the troubles possibly caused the ECB to not be in London or at least never to be on the negotiating table. The cost was greater than they will ever admit, same as their surrender will never be admitted. But it wasn't talking brought them to the table.

To say that the PIRA's goal was not a united Ireland is a rewriting of history

At every single juncture of history, the goal of anybody who called themselves the IRA was an all island Irish Republic - the clue is in the title - the Irish Republican Army - not the Irish Equality Army or the Irish Fair Housing Army

The British did not surrender anything with the Good Friday Agreement - they won, completely, there was no downside whatsoever for them

What did the Unionists lose? Sod all, a title of a police force, that's about it

What did the victims of the Troubles lose? Justice

[30 years of peaceful Catholic protest]

The end of the RUC didn't happen by murdering people, it happened by peaceful negotiation

Just like the RIC could have? Explain how the RUC could have been disbanded, and at what point? The Anglo-Irish Agreement didn't countenance the idea. Neither did Sunngingdale. So you'll need something more convincing than "oh it just would have magically happened if nationalists agitated for it enough or if enough peaceful nationalist protesters got shot dead in the street"

In the exact same way it eventually happened in 2000, by peaceful negotiation

You achieve this by mass political mobilisation and protest, mass sustained civil disobedience, international attention continually being drawn to the plight of Catholic civilians

And even if the RUC hadn't ended until 2000, well you would have been spared the intervening years of murder

Two situations:
i) a hypothetical - 30 years of peaceful Catholic protest and the end of the RUC in 2000
ii) the reality - 28 years of murder, societal devastation and the end of the RUC in 2000

i) is miles better than ii)

Isn't it?

Unlike others on here, I actually agree with some of your stuff on this board, not this thread though. This bit here I'm afraid you have no idea of what life is like up here. If plenty of the unionists had their way catholics would be living in hovels still with little chance of getting out of it. They'd quite happily slaughter catholics if they were able to. The vitriol, if you have ever experienced it which you clearly haven't it, is akin to Trump on speed!

Shouting "you have no idea what life is like up here" is a non sequitur

A cousin of mine, a Catholic, a civilian with no connections whatsoever to the Brits or the British state, was kidnapped by the PIRA for the crime of working in a bank

Firstly, I do have an idea, a very good idea, I have been extremely interested in the Northern conflict and history for my whole life and visited it more times than I'd care to remember and you don't need to have lived anywhere to know basic, easily identifiable facts about life on the ground

Secondly, the majority of the Catholic population of the North agreed with me - during the Troubles, they voted for the SDLP, not Sinn Fein

Your post effectively says that John Hume, Seamus Mallon, the rest of the SDLP, and the majority of the Catholic population of the six counties did not know what they were talking about

I will say it again - you have no idea what life is like up here. You haven't lived here, vicariously via your cousin doesn't count.

I worked in a Catholic bar around the time of the Greysteel massacre and everyone was bricking themselves but refused to be housebound. Try living in Co Antrim (all of the O6) in those times, you'd have a totally different viewpoint on it. As I said Loyalists and many Unionists would slaughter Catholics if they could and they did at times with British state collusion. A man locking up a GAA ground at night in 1997 (not the 70s) and getting brutally killed like Sean Brown in Bellaghy, these things would exist to this day if they could get away with it.

Sorry but that's more bluster

What you are saying is that if I lived in the North between 1969 and 1997, I'd have supported the IRA's campaign of murder

But the majority of the Catholic population who lived in the North did not support it

The majority wanted it to stop and to live normal lives, not lives clouded with suspicion and fear

If the IRA had not abandoned their ceasefire, Sean Brown would probably not have been murdered, he might even still be alive - because the circle of tit for tat would have been broken or at least greatly lessened - the LVF would likely never have come into being

[Also the apartheid system was a much more evil foe than that faced by Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland in 1968, awful as it was]

By Sid's logic Mandela was a bloodthirsty psychopath because his terrorist grouping waged a 30 year violent campaign that cost hundreds of civilian lives.

But the ANC did not mount a sustained 28 year campaign of murder like the IRA, there were occasional isolated events

The ANC won by peaceful means, they had mass support, they continually mobilised mass peaceful resistance and continually drew international attention to their cause, and eventually apartheid collapsed because of its inherent absurdity

Also the apartheid system was a much more evil foe than that faced by Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland in 1968, awful as it was

Aye the Belfast pogroms weren't that bad rite enuf ...the street was a mass of brain matter and blood... bit of a mad one to wrap the head around

The apartheid system was a much more evil foe than the NI system

That isn't to say that the NI system wasn't terrible because it obviously was

But proper historical context is important and Irish nationalists tend not to understand that, or deliberately dismiss it - the title of "most oppressed people ever" is important to them

Maintaining that Irish Catholics were as oppressed as the blacks in South Africa or chattel slaves in America or indeed the Jews in Nazi Germany is unfortunately a commonly enough expressed point of view in these sorts of discussions and it displays a profoundly ignorant reading of history, again it's fake history

You're behaving like a holocaust denier now.

What holocaust took place in Northern Ireland?

Could you fill us in on this surprisingly little known "historical event"?

The end of the RUC didn't happen by murdering people, it happened by peaceful negotiation

Just like the RIC could have? Explain how the RUC could have been disbanded, and at what point? The Anglo-Irish Agreement didn't countenance the idea. Neither did Sunngingdale. So you'll need something more convincing than "oh it just would have magically happened if nationalists agitated for it enough or if enough peaceful nationalist protesters got shot dead in the street"

In the exact same way it eventually happened in 2000, by peaceful negotiation

You achieve this by mass political mobilisation and protest, mass sustained civil disobedience, international attention continually being drawn to the plight of Catholic civilians

And even if the RUC hadn't ended until 2000, well you would have been spared the intervening years of murder

Two situations:
i) a hypothetical - 30 years of peaceful Catholic protest and the end of the RUC in 2000
ii) the reality - 28 years of murder, societal devastation and the end of the RUC in 2000

i) is miles better than ii)

Isn't it?

You're talking about the difference between fiction and reality.

The real fiction is the fiction you believe - that a 28 year mass murder spree was necessary