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By 1998 the RUC still existed, the British Army was still in Northern Ireland

All that had changed by August 1998 from say, May 1997, was that the leadership of Sinn Fein had effectively surrendered and given up on violence

But there were still people out there who hadn't

So if you're to say that Claudy or Bloody Friday or Enniskillen or Warrington were justified, why not Omagh?

Because the cause was the exact same as any of those

The GFA Agreement was signed in April 1998. Four months before the Omagh Bombing. When the Omaagh Bombing happened, the imminent disbandment of the RUC, and the removal of the British Army were legally set in stone. If you can tell me that that was the case during the PIRA campaign, then you're a whole good one. If you can't, then you're a clueless Free Stater.

The Good Friday Agreement was effectively the PIRA's surrender and signing of terms

The PIRA lost, they were defeated, they gave up, the murder campaign had reached a complete dead end

They did not get what they wanted - they did not get a united Ireland

Therefore those who carried out the Omagh bomb, who disagreed with the PIRA's surrender and signing of terms, can quite reasonably claim the exact same justification as the PIRA claimed for all their atrocities - even if that "justification" was ludicrous - it was ludicrous in 1998 and it was ludicrous in 1972

And dissos today can still claim that ludicrous justification -  why wouldn't they - they have present day Sinn Fein telling them that that justification was valid for the PIRA 1969-1997

But the essential fact has not changed, Northern Ireland is still British - and Sinn Fein accept that

So why wouldn't the dissos - who don't accept that NI is British - claim the exact same justification for murdering people now

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?

The RUC weren't disbanded by peaceful protest, you clown. They were disbanded as part of the GFA. An agreement which only came about because the British were dragged kicking and screaming by the IRA to the negotiating table.

And you keep perpetuating this "peaceful protest" crap. Again, were the bodies of 14 peaceful protesters in Derry not enough for you? With the eyes of the world on Britain after how it treated civil rights protestors, did it buckle under the pressure of the international community and bring in sweeping reforms? Did it f**k. But sure just you keep believing that they'd have done so if the taigs keep asking nicely enough, often enough 

And once again, could peaceful protest not have happened in 1916 or 1919, instead of armed republican aggression? If not, why not?

The RUC was ended by peaceful negotiation

This is a basic fact

Actually, go back to what Chris Patten said - the RUC was "not being disbanded, it was being transformed"

Just thought I'd throw that in - so Sinn Fein actually accepted a force which, straight from the horse's mouth, was not a disbandment of the RUC at all

What a victory that was, eh

For what died the sons of Roisin? A renamed RUC, apparently!

Are the bodies of 14 people Derry "not enough for me?"

"Not enough" for what?

Not enough that I should want another three thousand bodies piled on top of them?

That seems to be the lesson that you learned from Bloody Sunday - that because 14 innocent civilians were slaughtered, we should have another 25 years of that

My lesson from it would be that such slaughter is evil and futile and that the pain suffered by the families of the Bloody Sunday victims should not be suffered by others

That's the lesson pretty much everybody took from Omagh

By your rationale, the lesson we should have taken from Omagh, was "more of this, please", as long as it's themmuns who get it

That is the "lesson" you and the PIRA took from Bloody Sunday

The Abercorn restaurant bombing, the Donegall Street bombing, the Short Strand bomb, Claudy, Bloody Friday - all later in 1972, but shure, what glorious, glorious days for the oul' sod, eh

Though many if not most of those who died in those atrocities were Catholic civilians

[i) a hypothetical - 30 years of peaceful Catholic protest and the end of the RUC in 2000]

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?

Riddle me this... Catholics put themselves up front and centre as sitting ducks

Who from the international community comes to the rescue, and in what era and in what guise?

Seeing as you've leapt headlong into the realm of fantasy bordering on an episode of Quantum Leap you might as well finish the story off in your own inimitable style...

Saying that there are better alternatives to 28 years of murder is not a fantasy

The fantasy is to believe that there was no alternative to 28 years of murder

Do you believe there was no alternative to 28 years of murder?

What sort of a person believes that?

A psychopath, that's who

[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

[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

The question you have to answer is if you support the current dissidents and if not, why not - because they do they exact same things the PIRA did, they have the exact same aims and the exact same methods
The deluded hypocrisy Sinn Feiners have as regards their views on the dissos is staggering

Once again displaying a mindblowing level of ignorance.The dissidents are active in an era where there is no British army on the streets, no RUC, equality for Catholics, and when we are in the midst of a lengthy and successful peace process. Is that the environment you believe the IRA operated in? If you think it is, then you're just stupid. If you realise that it's not the same environment/circumstances, then you are basing your whole argument on what you then know to be a lie.

The PIRA campaign of murder was not for civil rights or fair treatment

The PIRA campaign of murder was to get the Brits out of Ireland

There would never be civil right or fair treatment if Catholics sat on their hands.

That's the bit idiotic free staters like you can never grasp.

What happened on Bloody Sunday told us all that.

The PIRA provided civil rights and fair treatment for precisely nobody

It certainly took them away from a lot of people though

[They were achievable, you do it by mass peaceful political mobilisation and a massive, sustained campaign of civil disobedience and protest, you do it by drawing attention to your cause internationally]

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

There's you argument boiled right down. Are you seriously arguing that the north was as easy for nationalists to live in now than it was in 1972?

Or is it that you believe the end of the RUC, British soldiers off the street, religious equality, end of unionist misrule, were all achievable in 1972 by peaceful means?

If it's the former, you're more deluded that even I ive you credit for. If it's the latter, well, once again I'll challenge you to explain how all that could have been achieved peacefully so quickly without the use of armed force?

One last question, Sid. Do you condemn the Old IRA and their campaign, given that it resulted in a higher proportion of civilians than the PIRA campaign?

They were achievable, you do it by mass peaceful political mobilisation and a massive, sustained campaign of civil disobedience and protest, you do it by drawing attention to your cause internationally

The Anglo-Irish Agreement didn't happen by murdering people, it happened by peaceful negotiation

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

A united Ireland did not happen by murdering people, it will happen by democratic vote

But the PIRA didn't fight for these things, they fought for "Brits out of Ireland" - something they never had a remote chance
of achieving - and they failed

I do not class the old IRA as heroes at all, however they had at least some democratic legitimacy, they had widespread support which the PIRA did not have, and they knew when to stop

The question you have to answer is if you support the current dissidents and if not, why not - because they do they exact same things the PIRA did, they have the exact same aims and the exact same methods

The deluded hypocrisy Sinn Feiners have as regards their views on the dissos is staggering

You're saying it was incumbent on the oppressed to mobalise peacefully in order to achieve a set of stated aims yet its clear the sectarian statelet had been systematically eradicating that population by force from its inception, and indeed before with the help of the British. So basically put yourself in the firing line as sitting ducks until what the Americans came to the rescue?

The only way to deliver peace and equality in any sort of sustained way prior to The Agreement relied on the Unionists and British rolling out equality in their administrative processes, and they refused to do that, had they listened to Terence O'Neill things might have been different, but the Unionists were set on having a brutish domineering anti-Catholic/Republican statelet, and well the Brits, it was basically shits and giggles for them, a territorial claim while the Empire crumbled, a testing ground for political gerrymandering and new forms of barbarism in an occupied land.

"It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have eighteen children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless, and lives in the most ghastly hovel he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance. If you treat Roman Catholics with due consideration and kindness they will live like Protestants in spite of the authoritative nature of their Church"

They were not systematically eradicating the Catholic population

They were systematically discriminating against the Catholic population

There is a big, big difference

Treatment of Catholics in NI was bad enough without resorting to fake history

The question you have to answer is if you support the current dissidents and if not, why not - because they do they exact same things the PIRA did, they have the exact same aims and the exact same methods
The deluded hypocrisy Sinn Feiners have as regards their views on the dissos is staggering

Once again displaying a mindblowing level of ignorance.The dissidents are active in an era where there is no British army on the streets, no RUC, equality for Catholics, and when we are in the midst of a lengthy and successful peace process. Is that the environment you believe the IRA operated in? If you think it is, then you're just stupid. If you realise that it's not the same environment/circumstances, then you are basing your whole argument on what you then know to be a lie.

The PIRA campaign of murder was not for civil rights or fair treatment

The PIRA campaign of murder was to get the Brits out of Ireland

Brits out of Ireland was not about the British Army or the RUC - the British Army were not in NI until 1969 - it referred to British rule, ie. Northern Ireland being part of the United Kingdom

The PIRA campaign was for a united Ireland

There is no united Ireland, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom in 2020

Therefore the exact same justification given for the PIRA campaign 1969-1997 still exists, and the dissos can reasonably claim that same justification

And any Sinn Fein condemnation of the dissos is total hypocrisy

There is a retrospective revisionism about what the aims of the PIRA campaign were

They did not achieve their aim - they had one aim and they didn't get it, or come close to it - they gave up knowing they couldn't achieve that aim, but they cannot admit they lost and that the murder and violence was futile, and so now Sinn Fein has to lie through its teeth about what the aims of that failed, devastating campaign were

A bit like how the Brexiteers continually move the goalposts around what it was they wanted when they don't get what they want - but at least the Brexiteers don't murder people, crazy though they are

I do not class the old IRA as heroes at all, however they had at least some democratic legitimacy, they had widespread support which the PIRA did not have, and they knew when to stop

I did not ask if you viewed them as heroes. I asked if you condemned them and their campaign. I also asked the same about the 1916 Volunteers. What democratic mandate did they have? And here we go again about how "they knew when to stop". They disappeared 100-200 (mostly innocent) people in that short campaign. The Provos disappeared 14 in theirs. So how can only the Provos campaign be morally indefensible?

My attitude towards the Rising is one of shades of grey

I sympathise with the Connolly view, the internationalist view, the one of fighting for the worker regardless of their background, the view that World War I was an imperial evil, and the system which perpetuated that needed to be overthrown

That the flag under which you live is essentially meaningless - that nationalism is irrelevant - that the fairness of the society you live in is what matters

Connolly believed that the only way that could achieved was separation from the British Empire

I do not sympathise with the Pearse view at all - Pearse was a nationalist psychopath who wanted a pure Gaelic Ireland and believed that blood sacrifice was glorious

In the Rising, people were murdered on the streets by the rebels and that was very wrong

The Rising had no democratic legitimacy

But the Rising lasted less than a week

The IRA campaign lasted 28 years

The War Of Independence was what it was

But again, it contained terrible events which absolutely are condemnable - Soloheadbeg which started the war was murder pure and simple - even Seamus Robinson who commanded the operation admitted this - the other went rogue

The difference was it had the support of the people - Sinn Fein had 73 MPs - and it always had a likelihood of success

That was never, ever the case with the PIRA campaign - it never, ever had a chance of success

A valid comparison would be if this war had continued until 1947 with zero chance of success - because that's what the PIRA did

The moral cases around the Rising and the War of Independence are grey - the moral case around the 28 year PIRA campaign is not

It was a totally futile campaign of wanton murder and societal devastation which was an utter abomination

But the PIRA didn't fight for these things, they fought for "Brits out of Ireland" - something they never had a remote chance
of achieving - and they failed

They also wound up their campaign when it became clear to both sides that neither could militarily succeed and when it became clear thatn the Brits were taking peace talks seriously. Remember what I told you about Canary Wharf?

It was clear from the get go that the PIRA could not militarily succeed

It was even clearer by 1972 they could not succeed

It was clearer again by 1978 they could not militarily succeed

And so on, and so on

And they continued all the way to 1997

Talk about being slow learners

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?

The Anglo-Irish Agreement didn't happen by murdering people, it happened by peaceful negotiation

It was also roundly rejected by the entirety of unionism. Was that the fault of the IRA too? Or should it have just pressed ahead regardless?  When I asked for how what we have today could have been achieved peacefully, I was hoping you would try to come back with something better than this nonsense. Did the Anglo Irish Agreement advocate the disbandment of the RUC btw? In one memorable incident, the RUC actually moved one of their landrovers out of the way to facilitate a violent loyalist protest entering the Stomont Estate). Did the agreement allow for demilitarization? No. In reality, one of the trade-off's for allowing southern civil servants to have an advisory role, was increased British militarization of the border counties.

And? Unionism lost as regards the Anglo-Irish Agreement

Democratic politics won

The IRA didn't achieve that and they didn't achieve the disbandment of the RUC, and they certainly hadn't achieved the disbandment of the RUC by 1985

They hadn't achieved it by 1997 when they gave up

Calling something you can't accept "nonsense" is just so much wore SF waffle

They were achievable, you do it by mass peaceful political mobilisation and a massive, sustained campaign of civil disobedience and protest, you do it by drawing attention to your cause internationally

Remember what happened in Derry on Bloody Sunday? How many civil rights protesters had to die for you that day before you'd think maybe peaceful protest isn't enough here? 14 clearly wasn't enough.

And sure if civil disobedience was enough to drive the Brits out of the north, I assume you regard the Easter Rising and Tan Wars as morally repugnant too?

So a further 25 years of murder was the appropriate response to Bloody Sunday in Derry, was it?

Would a further 25 years of murder have been the appropriate response to Bloody Sunday in Croke Park?

Would a further 25 years of murder have been the best available response to the Shankill Road bomb?

You see you're trying to completely justify tit for tat murder here

You're trying to justify the red mist and loss of reason - you're saying that the red mist, loss of reason, and further quarter century of murder was the best answer to Bloody Sunday

And in that, you're unintentionally providing a justification for Bloody Sunday in Derry itself - a justification that no reasonable person could have any truck with whatsoever - because there was never and could never be a justification for Bloody Sunday

I don't think you learned the lessons of Bloody Sunday at all

Question for Sinn Feiners: did you support the Omagh bomb?

Do you consider it murder?

If you didn't support it, why not?

Because it's the exact same thing the PIRA did for decades

By 1998 the RUC still existed, the British Army was still in Northern Ireland

All that had changed by August 1998 from say, May 1997, was that the leadership of Sinn Fein had effectively surrendered and given up on violence

But there were still people out there who hadn't

So if you're to say that Claudy or Bloody Friday or Enniskillen or Warrington were justified, why not Omagh?

Because the cause was the exact same as any of those

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