1981 remembered

[johnneycool]

Still remember where I was when I heard the news that John Lennon had been killed. True hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVp7lkH10Gc

Myles, you mention you always remember where you were when John Lennon was killed. Fair enough. You forgot the date though. It was 1980, not 1981 (oops!). Though as the proud Unionist you are, I'm surprised, but nevertheless happy, to hear you regard John Lennon as a true hero.
Here's another of his songs (with a few lyrics added below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NvWFQt2fD8
You anglo pigs and scotties
Sent to colonize the north
You wave your bloody Union Jacks
And you know what it's worth!
How dare you hold on to ransom
A people proud and free
Keep ireland for the irish
Put the english back to sea!

Sunday bloody sunday
Bloody sunday's the day!

Yes it's always bloody sunday
In the concentration camps
Keep Falls and roads free forever
From the bloody english hands
Repatriate to britain
All of you who call it home
Leave ireland to the irish
Not for London or for Rome!

Here's a photo you could print and frame of your "true hero" too:

And his old song writing mucker penned this little ditty as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

[Evil Genius]

And his old song writing mucker penned this little ditty as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

And you trust the judgement of someone who (a) believed Heather Mills when she told him she loved him for himself; (b) thought"Mull of Kintyre" was worth recording; and (c) evidently thinks we all believe that he still retains his original chestnut-brown hair at the age of 69

I dunno which of you is the bigger eejit, but at least he's got the money not to care...

[armagho9]

And his old song writing mucker penned this little ditty as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

And you trust the judgement of someone who (a) believed Heather Mills when she told him she loved him for himself; (b) thought"Mull of Kintyre" was worth recording; and (c) evidently thinks we all believe that he still retains his original chestnut-brown hair at the age of 69

I dunno which of you is the bigger eejit, but at least he's got the money not to care...

great comeback 

[Hurler on the Bitch]

http://www.sbpost.ie/agenda/hierarchy-of-hunger-57968.html

Food for thought? (excuse bad pun)  ... saw this in the Sunday Business Post ...

[mylestheslasher]

And his old song writing mucker penned this little ditty as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

And you trust the judgement of someone who (a) believed Heather Mills when she told him she loved him for himself; (b) thought"Mull of Kintyre" was worth recording; and (c) evidently thinks we all believe that he still retains his original chestnut-brown hair at the age of 69

I dunno which of you is the bigger eejit, but at least he's got the money not to care...

You are fishing for the rise EG and no one is biting! Just one question, have you ever read the book "10 men dead" by David Beresford. It would be a good place to start for you as you don't seem to want to acknowledge the sacrifice these men made for what they believed in. You may strongly disagree on what they believed in but the sacrifice remains the same.

As for MGHU - about time your balls dropped me boy, your running around the board getting caught out for being a clueless clown and now your on the this thread disrespecting the dead heroes of Ireland.

[johnneycool]

And his old song writing mucker penned this little ditty as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

And you trust the judgement of someone who (a) believed Heather Mills when she told him she loved him for himself; (b) thought"Mull of Kintyre" was worth recording; and (c) evidently thinks we all believe that he still retains his original chestnut-brown hair at the age of 69

I dunno which of you is the bigger eejit, but at least he's got the money not to care...

Well he has an MBE, so he must be of sound mind 

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

now your on the this thread disrespecting the dead heroes of Ireland.

Clearly a matter of opinion.

[mylestheslasher]

now your on the this thread disrespecting the dead heroes of Ireland.

Clearly a matter of opinion.

And what would a child like you know about it, only what you can find on a Google search or Wikipedia. At least you had the decency to scratch off irishman from your motto.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

At least you had the decency to scratch off irishman from your motto.

After the self-appointed guardians of what a real Irishman is, decided to spout their vitriol & tell us all who are the real Irishmen and who are not.

[Rois]

Can I ask a serious question - I was 1 in 1981 and obv don't remember the hunger strikes and their impact. I don't really remember the tyranny of Margaret Thatcher. My question is really what the legacy of the hunger strikers has been for someone like me? Why should I call them heroes if I consider myself Irish? Because when I think of what makes me feel Irish, the hunger strikers never ever feature in my thoughts, but they are obviously held in high esteem by many.
I have incredible sympathy for their plight and the inhumanity of it by the way, but it would never motivate me to attend a commemoration event.

[Geoff Tipps]

They're not my idea of Irish heroes either.

[Nally Stand]

Can I ask a serious question - I was 1 in 1981 and obv don't remember the hunger strikes and their impact. I don't really remember the tyranny of Margaret Thatcher. My question is really what the legacy of the hunger strikers has been for someone like me? Why should I call them heroes if I consider myself Irish? Because when I think of what makes me feel Irish, the hunger strikers never ever feature in my thoughts, but they are obviously held in high esteem by many.
I have incredible sympathy for their plight and the inhumanity of it by the way, but it would never motivate me to attend a commemoration event.

Well if you regard yourself as a Nationalist who aspires for a United Ireland, then think where we might be today had the Hunger Strike not occured. In Bobby Sands own words, "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children". It's easy to take that at face value as a nowadays overused catchphrase/quote which we don't think deeply about, but it it a potent comment from Sands and hints at what motivated himself and the other men. The British regarded the IRA prisoners as (to borrow a phrase), the "soft underbelly" of nationalism and as a result of that belief, the prisoners were used and abused in britains deisre to "ulsterize" nationalists by the  "normalization" of their sectarian run state by reintroducing the policy of "criminalization". The prisoners were motivated to resist this. They were aware that the campaign being waged against them was as part of a wider state campaign, not just against the IRA, but against nationalism. Thanks to the Hunger Strike, attention was drawn in a massively public fashion onto the abuses by the state which led to the election of two of the strikers, plus Owen Carron, as TD's and MP's. This accelerated the process of electoral policy for republicans massively. Had it not, the peace process would not have been possible at the time it did eventually begin, nationalism would have been demoralised, republicanism would have been effectively criminalized, the sectarian state (with its sectarian police etc etc) would have been normalized. On a more human level, when you read a book like Ten Men Dead, it really gives an idea of what these men suffered through not only on their strike, but the years leading up to it. Locked up 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, lying on urine soaked matresses on the floor, excrement on the walls, waking up in the morning and lifting the maggots of their bodies and throwing them out the window to the birds, regular and brutal searches, regular and brutal beatings. It was unimaginable horror which hundreds of men lived through for what they believed was right, and which eventually led ten men to die for. Aside from their desire to fight the state, they died for you & me, and for each other, in an act of supreme selflessness. As Bobby Sands said in his Bible quote, in reply to the Prison Chaplain when questioned on the strike- "Greater love than this hath no man, than to lay down his life for his friends".

Even to those who dispise the IRA, I still suggest looking at the Hunger Strike from an objective basis by reading Ten Men Dead, by David Beresford. It just plain and simply tells what happened. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Applesisapples]

now your on the this thread disrespecting the dead heroes of Ireland.

Clearly a matter of opinion.

And what would a child like you know about it, only what you can find on a Google search or Wikipedia. At least you had the decency to scratch off irishman from your motto.

He should have replaced it with D***h**d

[lynchbhoy]

Can I ask a serious question - I was 1 in 1981 and obv don't remember the hunger strikes and their impact. I don't really remember the tyranny of Margaret Thatcher. My question is really what the legacy of the hunger strikers has been for someone like me? Why should I call them heroes if I consider myself Irish? Because when I think of what makes me feel Irish, the hunger strikers never ever feature in my thoughts, but they are obviously held in high esteem by many.
I have incredible sympathy for their plight and the inhumanity of it by the way, but it would never motivate me to attend a commemoration event.

your post is exactly what the Hunger strikers and those that fought to break the tyranny and terror regieme wanted for your generation.
The oppression and systematic repression of the nationalist/Irish people in the north gave rise to the fight back. The civil rights marches and bloody sunday showed what the establishment and their unionist/loyalist peoples view of what our second class citizen place should be.
Nothing would have changed otherwise. That the fight back caused our plight to be globally observed which cracked the regieme and the hunger strikes brought the fight onto a higher ground - that was one of political engagement. Before then, sure the nationalist/Republicans were stopped every which way in the north.
this was the beginning of the end for that sectarian run state.
things are so much better now , that the younger generation dont even know what had went on before them.
that was the goal of at least two hunger strikers that I knew.

[Trout]

They died, unknowingly, to further the cause and raise the profile of Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams. Simple.