Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[Therealdonald]

If present day FF and FG have blood on their hands because of what their predecessors may have done then -
The Provo Army Council and it's successors SF, have inherited guilt for Dunmanway because
The Provo Army Council were appointed as the True  Government of the Republic by Comdt.General Maguire the last survivor of the 2nd Dàil.
Just wondering how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could advance the securing of equality for Northern Nationalists?
How did fire bombing a hotel while a function was being held do so?
How did the killing of Gerry McCabe do so?
How did leaving a bomb in a rubbish bin in Warrington do so?

Ye're free to vote for who ye like up North - some prize specimens have been elected alright God Help us!!!! With the DUPUDA providing most of them.

However the Shinners will have major problems getting beyond 15% in the 26 and especially if Bomber and others keep up their "free state (sic) bad SF wonderful" mantra.

I suspect we'll see Marylou appointed Leader to get away from the warlords/Army Council leadership and a load of bright young shiny untainted candidates for the next election.

It doesn't matter if you understand how them incidents advanced the securing of equality....they did.  No SF will have more difficulty electing getting beyond 15% in the south, if the people of the South continually turn a blind eye to their own murky, violent history whilst constantly looking down at us in the North because of ours. We only need to look at the way Martin McGuiness was treated when he was running for President in the South, it was despicable, yet De Valera whilst a brilliant man had blood on his hands too but is basically a hero in the South.

I agree, the appointments of Mary Lou and Michelle O'Neill will bring about wholesale changes in the public face of SF, but the fact will always remain that the present voters of SF will never forget those that came before them and the work they did.

[Il Bomber Destro]

If present day FF and FG have blood on their hands because of what their predecessors may have done then -
The Provo Army Council and it's successors SF, have inherited guilt for Dunmanway because
The Provo Army Council were appointed as the True  Government of the Republic by Comdt.General Maguire the last survivor of the 2nd Dàil.
Just wondering how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could advance the securing of equality for Northern Nationalists?
How did fire bombing a hotel while a function was being held do so?
How did the killing of Gerry McCabe do so?
How did leaving a bomb in a rubbish bin in Warrington do so?

Ye're free to vote for who ye like up North - some prize specimens have been elected alright God Help us!!!! With the DUPUDA providing most of them.

However the Shinners will have major problems getting beyond 15% in the 26 and especially if Bomber and others keep up their "free state (sic) bad SF wonderful" mantra.

I suspect we'll see Marylou appointed Leader to get away from the warlords/Army Council leadership and a load of bright young shiny untainted candidates for the next election.

How did Jack Lynch saying the Free State would not stand idly by when Catholics were being beat off the streets for demanding their equality and basic human rights, before idly standing by and watching British Troops, the state police force and loyalist mobs burning nationalists out of their home and murdering them advance the security of equality in the North.

Nationalists were abandoned by the south, we tried a civil rights movement which only increased loyalist and police state force violence. Nationalists had to stand up for themselves as nobody else would. This started a war and a war never goes well for anyone. I don't condone everything the Provos did, but these were not ordinary times, these were young guys by and large who would never be drawn into violence in a normal society and they put their lives on the line. You wouldn't understand, a spell under the Brits in 70-80's Occupied Ulster would have done you the world of good.

[red hander]

The last week has underlined for me how far gone politics in the north is. Maybe i'm missing something here,but there is no way McElduff meant that in the way he has been accused of.not a single doubt in my mind.not a shinnerbot,not a Sinn Fein voter but I do follow politics. I don't find McElduff entertaining,more cringeworthy.but he's been hung out to dry here.
  It's understandable the DUP jumping on this bandwagon,with the amount of similar blunders they have made,they must have thought their prayers had been answered.even possibly the UUP to a lesser extent. I was disappointed however with the SDLP and their response to the situation. I'm presuming some,the likes of Mccrossan,would know McElduff well enough through work to know he wouldn't have meant the video to be offensive.yet they chose political point scoring as their priority,and along with the other parties,are the people I would hold responsible for this horrible attrocity being dragged back up and causing fresh grief for the relatives.

You can practically see the ambition seeping out of that odious little c**t. If I were Colum Eastwood I'd seriously watch my back

[playwiththewind1st]

Sure everyone gets a wee turn to be SDLP leader for a day or two eventually.

[Rossfan]

Still can't see how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could do anything to advance equality for Northern Nationalists no matter what Lynch did or didn't do in 1969.
It is very hard to avoid the impression that it was a nasty sectarian killing.
If they wanted to disrupt the Fermanagh Unionists' big day they could have left a few hoax devices around and made a string of hoax bomb calls.

[seafoid]

If present day FF and FG have blood on their hands because of what their predecessors may have done then -
The Provo Army Council and it's successors SF, have inherited guilt for Dunmanway because
The Provo Army Council were appointed as the True  Government of the Republic by Comdt.General Maguire the last survivor of the 2nd Dàil.
Just wondering how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could advance the securing of equality for Northern Nationalists?
How did fire bombing a hotel while a function was being held do so?
How did the killing of Gerry McCabe do so?
How did leaving a bomb in a rubbish bin in Warrington do so?

Ye're free to vote for who ye like up North - some prize specimens have been elected alright God Help us!!!! With the DUPUDA providing most of them.

However the Shinners will have major problems getting beyond 15% in the 26 and especially if Bomber and others keep up their "free state (sic) bad SF wonderful" mantra.

I suspect we'll see Marylou appointed Leader to get away from the warlords/Army Council leadership and a load of bright young shiny untainted candidates for the next election.

How did Jack Lynch saying the Free State would not stand idly by when Catholics were being beat off the streets for demanding their equality and basic human rights, before idly standing by and watching British Troops, the state police force and loyalist mobs burning nationalists out of their home and murdering them advance the security of equality in the North.

Nationalists were abandoned by the south, we tried a civil rights movement which only increased loyalist and police state force violence. Nationalists had to stand up for themselves as nobody else would. This started a war and a war never goes well for anyone. I don't condone everything the Provos did, but these were not ordinary times, these were young guys by and large who would never be drawn into violence in a normal society and they put their lives on the line. You wouldn't understand, a spell under the Brits in 70-80's Occupied Ulster would have done you the world of good.

Dolours Price believed in the romance of it. She did the bombing and everything but she couldn't deal with the aftermath. She drank herself to death. She didn't want to understand. Too disturbing.

[foxcommander]

Still can't see how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could do anything to advance equality for Northern Nationalists no matter what Lynch did or didn't do in 1969.
It is very hard to avoid the impression that it was a nasty sectarian killing.
If they wanted to disrupt the Fermanagh Unionists' big day they could have left a few hoax devices around and made a string of hoax bomb calls.

I agree with Rossfan. I still don't know why the catholics in northern ireland just didn't nicely ask the unionists to treat them better either. Would have saved a lot of bother.

[Il Bomber Destro]

Still can't see how planting a bomb in the middle of a large gathering in 1987 could do anything to advance equality for Northern Nationalists no matter what Lynch did or didn't do in 1969.
It is very hard to avoid the impression that it was a nasty sectarian killing.
If they wanted to disrupt the Fermanagh Unionists' big day they could have left a few hoax devices around and made a string of hoax bomb calls.

The same way as I have failed to see how shooting a number of innocents the IRA killed during their War of Independence served to further the advance Ireland's quest for freedom but you have no interest in dealing with your own state's murky past now do you?

[Il Bomber Destro]

In February 1921, for example, the 93 deaths recorded made it the worst month of the conflict for deaths. But the 39 IRA deaths were almost matched by 30 civilians who died, including eight killed on February 15 in the IRA's disastrous Upton train ambush.


Upton train station in west Cork, where three IRA volunteers and eight civilians were killed on February 15, 1921. Picture: Irish Examiner photographic archive
"It's one of the most egregious examples of commemoration, where three IRA volunteers who were killed are regularly remembered. Eight civilians died when the train carrying British personnel was attacked, but hardly anything is ever mentioned of that," said Mr Bielenberg.

Up to July 1921, civilians were more likely to be killed by the IRA than by British police or military forces. This controversial aspect of the Irish revolution has already been well explored by the work of Bielenberg and Donnelly in the Cork Spy Files, an examination of known or alleged informers killed by the IRA and published last year on The Irish Revolution website.

Cork's War of Independence Fatality Register is online at theirishrevolution.ie.

Andy Bielenberg will give a free public lecture on the project at UCC's civil engineering building this Wednesday, May 17, at 6pm


It's like the Free State has tried to airbrush the innocent lives their heroes took in their quest for freedom.

[Il Bomber Destro]

AROUND 200 PEOPLE were 'disappeared' by the old IRA throughout the War of Independence and Civil War, according to a documentary to be screened on Monday evening.

TCD Professor Eunan O'Halpin hosts the two-part programme, which is based on research he has carried out over a decade into the victims of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

He points out that details of the cases of many of the 'disappeared' may be contained in the National Archives but that, as of 90 years later, thousands of Department of Justice and Defence files remain closed. He says:

Ninety years on, it's surely time that we knew what these contained. The families of the dead, and the public generally, have a right to know how and why these people died.
O'Halpin has a personal interest in the period. Both of his grandfathers were senior IRA officers, his maternal grandmother a leading anti-Treaty activist and two of his great-uncles were killed. One of these was Paddy Moloney, who was shot dead outside Tipperary town in May 1921. The other was Kevin Barry, who was immortalised in song after his execution by hanging in Dublin by the British authorities in November 1920.

However, says O'Halpin, the IRA of the time was also responsible for its share of disappearances and murders in this period. (During the Civil War, Free State forces were also responsible for a share of murderous violence, he adds, and RIC policemen were frequently involved in swift reprisals for murders by the IRA, as well as the Black and Tans.)

In 1920 and 1921 at least 200 people were abducted, executed and their bodies hidden by the then IRA, says O'Halpin. Over 180 of these were civilians as well as policemen and soldiers. The identities of these people are difficult to establish. He says:

Many families who suffered the disappearance of a loved one never had a body to bury or a chance to grieve properly or a chance to commemorate their loss.
Were they spies? Were they informers? Some were; some were not.

Some murders, O'Halpin establishes, were motivated by incompetency, misinformation or even, sometimes, to settle an old score. Some were shot and buried in a wood, field or bog; some unfortunates had their hands and feet bound and dumped, alive, in rivers or lakes to drown.

O'Halpin's research leads him to commission archaeologists to carry out investigations into local stories about the bodies of two executed men from Tipperary being buried on a farm in Co Laois. Research at the National Archives in Dublin reveals that two men did disappear from north Tipperary in the period pinpointed by the then-farm owner.

The results of his enquiries into this case and others, and the overall context of the disappearances can be seen on Monday, 18 March, on In The Name of the Republic, TV3, 9pm.

Interesting, one would think Michael Martin parading that patsy Austin Stack around the place would demand some of these files be opened, or maybe he's not sincere in his wishes.

[Farrandeelin]

Funny how they haven't dismissed Frankos post though.  Probably because that's a bit more difficult.

I've waded through approx 10 pages and can't find it. What is it? And Bomber would you stop calling us freestaters.

[Il Bomber Destro]

Funny how they haven't dismissed Frankos post though.  Probably because that's a bit more difficult.

I've waded through approx 10 pages and can't find it. What is it? And Bomber would you stop calling us freestaters.

Why? Does it shame you?

[Farrandeelin]

Funny how they haven't dismissed Frankos post though.  Probably because that's a bit more difficult.

I've waded through approx 10 pages and can't find it. What is it? And Bomber would you stop calling us freestaters.

Why? Does it shame you?

I don't know how to answer this question. I do however believe the Northern nationalists were right to do what they did, i.e, you know take up arms and fight for their rights.

I hate the establishment in this country and it sickens me that the Catholic church ran it for so long. Btw, the church's hierarchy were historically anti-republican. Dev was in cahoots with them so maybe that's why he was seen as ok. The only good thing I think he did was keep 'us' out of WW2. Us as us down south.

I agree with you on the point that you're saying re Dunmanway and the conflict by the  Provos in the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. I spoke to someone who remarked, imagine McGuinness in the Áras and him an IRA man... I told him, he wouldn't be the first one 

Should it shame me?

[Wildweasel74]

What the hell you going through stuff from nearly a 100yrs ago! Were u alive for any of it? You only making a fool of uself on here bomber!!

[Rossfan]

Do all the Meath folk feel shame because Malachi drowned Turgéis in Lough Owel back in the 10th Century?