Free Staters and their hypocrisy on their violent, bloody past

[Itchy]

In fairness, having played football for 10 years at this stage, the only time I've ever got any abuse on the pitch was by "Southern" teams.

One team in particular in Cavan of all places were right and good at letting us know we were rotten dirty northerners who liked to kill each other.

Another Donegal team in the Ulster League a few years ago was fond of a bit casual baiting too but not to the level of the above.

Water off a ducks back I suppose but there is a bit of it about.

Funny you say that about Cavan,  I vividly remember playing a D'alton Cup game in Clontibret against St Pats Cavan and being abused the whole way through the game for being a dirty northern British bastard and for me to f**k off back to the black north and before that we played in the Community games for Cross in Cootehill and were roundly abused by the Cavan team in similar terms. Also the time Ciaran McKeever was allegedly abused by Laois players for being British, funny we got the same from Portlaoise as well. Wooly would have been proud.

There has been an historical feeling of isolation from the 26 and that has been engendered by certain elements with the political arena and also within the MSM. I know for a fact this is presently being challenged within the MSM but whether that will change is questionable. I know what I went through growing up and if someone across the border in Blayney or Dundalk went through it i would like to think that I could understand it. I don't know if the same comes the other way

As much as its a disgusting thing in football, the idea is to get you to stop focussing on your game. So I think the abuse you get is not neccessarily heart felt from the person giving it. I could tell y ou similar stories about getting abuse in the north for being a dirty f**king Mexican to be told to f**k off back to England by a fella in Mayo (being from Cavan you are neither a northerner or a southerner it seems).

As for Cootehill, I remember coaching an U12 team in Cavan and Cootehill had started sledging at that age before the term had even been invented in Armagh and Tyrone

[brokencrossbar1]

In fairness, having played football for 10 years at this stage, the only time I've ever got any abuse on the pitch was by "Southern" teams.

One team in particular in Cavan of all places were right and good at letting us know we were rotten dirty northerners who liked to kill each other.

Another Donegal team in the Ulster League a few years ago was fond of a bit casual baiting too but not to the level of the above.

Water off a ducks back I suppose but there is a bit of it about.

Funny you say that about Cavan,  I vividly remember playing a D'alton Cup game in Clontibret against St Pats Cavan and being abused the whole way through the game for being a dirty northern British bastard and for me to f**k off back to the black north and before that we played in the Community games for Cross in Cootehill and were roundly abused by the Cavan team in similar terms. Also the time Ciaran McKeever was allegedly abused by Laois players for being British, funny we got the same from Portlaoise as well. Wooly would have been proud.

There has been an historical feeling of isolation from the 26 and that has been engendered by certain elements with the political arena and also within the MSM. I know for a fact this is presently being challenged within the MSM but whether that will change is questionable. I know what I went through growing up and if someone across the border in Blayney or Dundalk went through it i would like to think that I could understand it. I don't know if the same comes the other way

As much as its a disgusting thing in football, the idea is to get you to stop focussing on your game. So I think the abuse you get is not neccessarily heart felt from the person giving it. I could tell y ou similar stories about getting abuse in the north for being a dirty f**king Mexican to be told to f**k off back to England by a fella in Mayo (being from Cavan you are neither a northerner or a southerner it seems).

As for Cootehill, I remember coaching an U12 team in Cavan and Cootehill had started sledging at that age before the term had even been invented in Armagh and Tyrone

Sledging is pet and parcel of it 'tell her ma I'll drop her knickers back later' etc etc. And you are right it goes both ways. My question is, nearly 35 years ago now, what would a 12-13 year old know about Black north or British bastards or orange c***ts unless they heard it somewhere and were repeating it?  They were repeating it as it was coming from the sidelines, not from the players. From adults, and from teachers in some instances. Let that sink in.....

[seafoid]

Angelo is a TERF
Tyrone Eejit Republican Faction

And you're an unashamed, unintelligent hypocrite.

You're a hoot, Angelo
Try selling thug enforcers and kneecappings in Mayo. Ring the Tommy Marren show and see how you get on.
https://www.midwestradio.ie/

Thug enforcers and kneecappings.

That's the type of hysterical diatribes you engage in. It merely does nothing more than serve the type of ignorance you have on the northern situation and what people had to go through.

It also shows the brazen arrogance that you feel you are qualified to comment when you don't know the first thing about what you're talking about.

"You don't know anything" and "hysterical diatribes" are Ideology 1.01
Get some new memes.

That's it.

Let your mask skip.

How old are you, angelo?

[Snapchap]

Seafoid, you seem to have gone to ground in the Indo thread. Maybe I'll repeat the question here.

If the PIRA were terrorist psychopaths, then surely the Old IRA must have been too, since they killed at least the same proportion of civilians, and likely a higher proportion. If not, can you explain why not? I ask this because you have repeatedly used the PIRA's proportion of civilian casualties as your reason for terming them as terrorist psychopaths.

[Angelo]

Angelo is a TERF
Tyrone Eejit Republican Faction

And you're an unashamed, unintelligent hypocrite.

You're a hoot, Angelo
Try selling thug enforcers and kneecappings in Mayo. Ring the Tommy Marren show and see how you get on.
https://www.midwestradio.ie/

Thug enforcers and kneecappings.

That's the type of hysterical diatribes you engage in. It merely does nothing more than serve the type of ignorance you have on the northern situation and what people had to go through.

It also shows the brazen arrogance that you feel you are qualified to comment when you don't know the first thing about what you're talking about.

"You don't know anything" and "hysterical diatribes" are Ideology 1.01
Get some new memes.

That's it.

Let your mask skip.

How old are you, angelo?

Ironic that's where you're going when you're behaving like an infant.

[smelmoth]

It's no surprise that many in the south don't support the armed struggle of the past. Remember most catholics in the north didn't support it at the time.

Did you read the thread title? This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

Not the first time something obvious went over your head.

Look who has got their own wee thread and getting all protective of it.

My point is valid. It's no surprise that people in the south don't buy into the so called justifications of armed struggle in the north. As for the various armed struggles in the south not too many remember them or give them much thought. Ask anyone who was their favourite paedophile Roger Casement or Padraig Pearse and they will probably confess to knowing very little about either character. 100+ years can do that

So we have ignorant free staters passing judgement on a conflict that never impacted them but can't be bothered to do their own history on the founding fathers of their state and the political parties they vote into power?

You keep wanting to discuss the north. This thread is about the bloody violence free staters engaged in to win their own freedom and I haven't heard the same condemnation or seen the mass hand wringing about the numbers they disappeared, the sectarian murders they committed, the elected politicians they assassinated.

Odd that in a thread about that you want to detract away from it.

Like it or not but your own thread is about the north. You say that "freestaters" exhibit "hypocrisy" when dealing with their own violent. For it to be hypocrisy it has to be at odds with their attittude to another violent conflict. Its seemed fairly obvious that the other conflict you were in inferring was the troubles in NI. Indeed one poster stated

This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

.

So absolutely the troubles in NI are at the heart of this thread (your thread!).

So no detraction. Keep up the qood work champion

No you are trying to make this about the North.

This is about Free Staters being unwilling to address their own bloody and violent past. It's in the thread title, so you must be illiterate if you can't make that out.

Not illiterate wee man.

I read your reference to hypocrisy. I read your clarification that it's hypocrisy relative to their views on the troubles in NI. You are definitely putting NI at the centre of this. Good thread. Keep up the good work Champion.

You are illiterate "wee man".

The thread title makes no reference to the north. This is about free staters who don't want to address their only bloody past while moralising on using violence to gain a political means.

I am putting the hypocrisy of free staters and how they defend their own violence at the front of it and you are attempting to detract the title away from free staters and their hypocrisy on the actions of the Old IRA.

Here's a brazen example of it yesterday. The leader of the Free State brazenly championing an Old IRA gunman and killer.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-criticises-shameful-lack-of-memorial-to-se%C3%A1n-lemass-in-dublin-1.4560841

Wee man you need to get your story straight. You cannot say that this thread is about the hypocrisy of treating Old IRA in Ireland and more recent IRA in the NI troubles differently and then say it's not about the IRA activities during the troubles in NI.

People's view of the activities of the IRA and others during the troubles is fundamental to your thread, Champion.

[Angelo]

It's no surprise that many in the south don't support the armed struggle of the past. Remember most catholics in the north didn't support it at the time.

Did you read the thread title? This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

Not the first time something obvious went over your head.

Look who has got their own wee thread and getting all protective of it.

My point is valid. It's no surprise that people in the south don't buy into the so called justifications of armed struggle in the north. As for the various armed struggles in the south not too many remember them or give them much thought. Ask anyone who was their favourite paedophile Roger Casement or Padraig Pearse and they will probably confess to knowing very little about either character. 100+ years can do that

So we have ignorant free staters passing judgement on a conflict that never impacted them but can't be bothered to do their own history on the founding fathers of their state and the political parties they vote into power?

You keep wanting to discuss the north. This thread is about the bloody violence free staters engaged in to win their own freedom and I haven't heard the same condemnation or seen the mass hand wringing about the numbers they disappeared, the sectarian murders they committed, the elected politicians they assassinated.

Odd that in a thread about that you want to detract away from it.

Like it or not but your own thread is about the north. You say that "freestaters" exhibit "hypocrisy" when dealing with their own violent. For it to be hypocrisy it has to be at odds with their attittude to another violent conflict. Its seemed fairly obvious that the other conflict you were in inferring was the troubles in NI. Indeed one poster stated

This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

.

So absolutely the troubles in NI are at the heart of this thread (your thread!).

So no detraction. Keep up the qood work champion

No you are trying to make this about the North.

This is about Free Staters being unwilling to address their own bloody and violent past. It's in the thread title, so you must be illiterate if you can't make that out.

Not illiterate wee man.

I read your reference to hypocrisy. I read your clarification that it's hypocrisy relative to their views on the troubles in NI. You are definitely putting NI at the centre of this. Good thread. Keep up the good work Champion.

You are illiterate "wee man".

The thread title makes no reference to the north. This is about free staters who don't want to address their only bloody past while moralising on using violence to gain a political means.

I am putting the hypocrisy of free staters and how they defend their own violence at the front of it and you are attempting to detract the title away from free staters and their hypocrisy on the actions of the Old IRA.

Here's a brazen example of it yesterday. The leader of the Free State brazenly championing an Old IRA gunman and killer.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-criticises-shameful-lack-of-memorial-to-se%C3%A1n-lemass-in-dublin-1.4560841

Wee man you need to get your story straight. You cannot say that this thread is about the hypocrisy of treating Old IRA in Ireland and more recent IRA in the NI troubles differently and then say it's not about the IRA activities during the troubles in NI.

People's view of the activities of the IRA and others during the troubles is fundamental to your thread, Champion.

"Wee man", you may be intent on throwing this thread away from the free state hypocrisy on their bloody past but that's what this thread is about and you trying to shoe horn your agenda in here is not what it's about.

If you have nothing to say on this topic then stop spamming the board up with your rubbish.

[smelmoth]

It's no surprise that many in the south don't support the armed struggle of the past. Remember most catholics in the north didn't support it at the time.

Did you read the thread title? This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

Not the first time something obvious went over your head.

Look who has got their own wee thread and getting all protective of it.

My point is valid. It's no surprise that people in the south don't buy into the so called justifications of armed struggle in the north. As for the various armed struggles in the south not too many remember them or give them much thought. Ask anyone who was their favourite paedophile Roger Casement or Padraig Pearse and they will probably confess to knowing very little about either character. 100+ years can do that

So we have ignorant free staters passing judgement on a conflict that never impacted them but can't be bothered to do their own history on the founding fathers of their state and the political parties they vote into power?

You keep wanting to discuss the north. This thread is about the bloody violence free staters engaged in to win their own freedom and I haven't heard the same condemnation or seen the mass hand wringing about the numbers they disappeared, the sectarian murders they committed, the elected politicians they assassinated.

Odd that in a thread about that you want to detract away from it.

Like it or not but your own thread is about the north. You say that "freestaters" exhibit "hypocrisy" when dealing with their own violent. For it to be hypocrisy it has to be at odds with their attittude to another violent conflict. Its seemed fairly obvious that the other conflict you were in inferring was the troubles in NI. Indeed one poster stated

This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

.

So absolutely the troubles in NI are at the heart of this thread (your thread!).

So no detraction. Keep up the qood work champion

No you are trying to make this about the North.

This is about Free Staters being unwilling to address their own bloody and violent past. It's in the thread title, so you must be illiterate if you can't make that out.

Not illiterate wee man.

I read your reference to hypocrisy. I read your clarification that it's hypocrisy relative to their views on the troubles in NI. You are definitely putting NI at the centre of this. Good thread. Keep up the good work Champion.

You are illiterate "wee man".

The thread title makes no reference to the north. This is about free staters who don't want to address their only bloody past while moralising on using violence to gain a political means.

I am putting the hypocrisy of free staters and how they defend their own violence at the front of it and you are attempting to detract the title away from free staters and their hypocrisy on the actions of the Old IRA.

Here's a brazen example of it yesterday. The leader of the Free State brazenly championing an Old IRA gunman and killer.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-criticises-shameful-lack-of-memorial-to-se%C3%A1n-lemass-in-dublin-1.4560841

Wee man you need to get your story straight. You cannot say that this thread is about the hypocrisy of treating Old IRA in Ireland and more recent IRA in the NI troubles differently and then say it's not about the IRA activities during the troubles in NI.

People's view of the activities of the IRA and others during the troubles is fundamental to your thread, Champion.

"Wee man", you may be intent on throwing this thread away from the free state hypocrisy on their bloody past but that's what this thread is about and you trying to shoe horn your agenda in here is not what it's about.

If you have nothing to say on this topic then stop spamming the board up with your rubbish.

Listen wee man if you think this thread is about the hypocrisy between the people of RoI's view of the armed campaign of the old IRA and their view of a different armed campaign you only have to point out what that other armed campaign is. Your move Champion

[Itchy]

In fairness, having played football for 10 years at this stage, the only time I've ever got any abuse on the pitch was by "Southern" teams.

One team in particular in Cavan of all places were right and good at letting us know we were rotten dirty northerners who liked to kill each other.

Another Donegal team in the Ulster League a few years ago was fond of a bit casual baiting too but not to the level of the above.

Water off a ducks back I suppose but there is a bit of it about.

Funny you say that about Cavan,  I vividly remember playing a D'alton Cup game in Clontibret against St Pats Cavan and being abused the whole way through the game for being a dirty northern British bastard and for me to f**k off back to the black north and before that we played in the Community games for Cross in Cootehill and were roundly abused by the Cavan team in similar terms. Also the time Ciaran McKeever was allegedly abused by Laois players for being British, funny we got the same from Portlaoise as well. Wooly would have been proud.

There has been an historical feeling of isolation from the 26 and that has been engendered by certain elements with the political arena and also within the MSM. I know for a fact this is presently being challenged within the MSM but whether that will change is questionable. I know what I went through growing up and if someone across the border in Blayney or Dundalk went through it i would like to think that I could understand it. I don't know if the same comes the other way

As much as its a disgusting thing in football, the idea is to get you to stop focussing on your game. So I think the abuse you get is not neccessarily heart felt from the person giving it. I could tell y ou similar stories about getting abuse in the north for being a dirty f**king Mexican to be told to f**k off back to England by a fella in Mayo (being from Cavan you are neither a northerner or a southerner it seems).

As for Cootehill, I remember coaching an U12 team in Cavan and Cootehill had started sledging at that age before the term had even been invented in Armagh and Tyrone

Sledging is pet and parcel of it 'tell her ma I'll drop her knickers back later' etc etc. And you are right it goes both ways. My question is, nearly 35 years ago now, what would a 12-13 year old know about Black north or British bastards or orange c***ts unless they heard it somewhere and were repeating it?  They were repeating it as it was coming from the sidelines, not from the players. From adults, and from teachers in some instances. Let that sink in.....

I understand, not something I would ever say to anyone myself and not something I have ever heard said at any match. But I dont doubt you that it happened. Some people havent the brains they were born with and are just scumbags.

[Angelo]

It's no surprise that many in the south don't support the armed struggle of the past. Remember most catholics in the north didn't support it at the time.

Did you read the thread title? This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

Not the first time something obvious went over your head.

Look who has got their own wee thread and getting all protective of it.

My point is valid. It's no surprise that people in the south don't buy into the so called justifications of armed struggle in the north. As for the various armed struggles in the south not too many remember them or give them much thought. Ask anyone who was their favourite paedophile Roger Casement or Padraig Pearse and they will probably confess to knowing very little about either character. 100+ years can do that

So we have ignorant free staters passing judgement on a conflict that never impacted them but can't be bothered to do their own history on the founding fathers of their state and the political parties they vote into power?

You keep wanting to discuss the north. This thread is about the bloody violence free staters engaged in to win their own freedom and I haven't heard the same condemnation or seen the mass hand wringing about the numbers they disappeared, the sectarian murders they committed, the elected politicians they assassinated.

Odd that in a thread about that you want to detract away from it.

Like it or not but your own thread is about the north. You say that "freestaters" exhibit "hypocrisy" when dealing with their own violent. For it to be hypocrisy it has to be at odds with their attittude to another violent conflict. Its seemed fairly obvious that the other conflict you were in inferring was the troubles in NI. Indeed one poster stated

This is a thread about hoe FSers ignore their own violent and bloody past when moralising on The Troubles?

.

So absolutely the troubles in NI are at the heart of this thread (your thread!).

So no detraction. Keep up the qood work champion

No you are trying to make this about the North.

This is about Free Staters being unwilling to address their own bloody and violent past. It's in the thread title, so you must be illiterate if you can't make that out.

Not illiterate wee man.

I read your reference to hypocrisy. I read your clarification that it's hypocrisy relative to their views on the troubles in NI. You are definitely putting NI at the centre of this. Good thread. Keep up the good work Champion.

You are illiterate "wee man".

The thread title makes no reference to the north. This is about free staters who don't want to address their only bloody past while moralising on using violence to gain a political means.

I am putting the hypocrisy of free staters and how they defend their own violence at the front of it and you are attempting to detract the title away from free staters and their hypocrisy on the actions of the Old IRA.

Here's a brazen example of it yesterday. The leader of the Free State brazenly championing an Old IRA gunman and killer.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-criticises-shameful-lack-of-memorial-to-se%C3%A1n-lemass-in-dublin-1.4560841

Wee man you need to get your story straight. You cannot say that this thread is about the hypocrisy of treating Old IRA in Ireland and more recent IRA in the NI troubles differently and then say it's not about the IRA activities during the troubles in NI.

People's view of the activities of the IRA and others during the troubles is fundamental to your thread, Champion.

"Wee man", you may be intent on throwing this thread away from the free state hypocrisy on their bloody past but that's what this thread is about and you trying to shoe horn your agenda in here is not what it's about.

If you have nothing to say on this topic then stop spamming the board up with your rubbish.

Listen wee man if you think this thread is about the hypocrisy between the people of RoI's view of the armed campaign of the old IRA and their view of a different armed campaign you only have to point out what that other armed campaign is. Your move Champion

"Wee man"

The thread is as the thread title says. Stop spamming.

[J70]

I've commented before on my personal difficulty reconciling Irish celebration of 1916, the war of independence and the various 19th century risings and common revulsion at the conduct of the various parties in the Troubles, including the IRA. My grandfather, a young man at the time of the war of independence and civil war, fought for the IRA, and was among those who were monitored for years afterwards, once he returned from a few years in the states. I never really knew him personally, but I've heard no one ever refer to him or his colleagues as a terrorist. I have heard how, among that generation, someone being off fighting for the IRA was seen as a noble pursuit in my family.

Maybe any revulsion in the south towards the PIRA and simultaneous celebration of the heroes of old comes down to personal involvement and responsibility. Its easy to celebrate an airbrushed violent struggle from back in the day. You've no control over something far in the past and no responsibility or accountability for what happened. Its rather harder to endorse or lend acceptance to, even reluctantly, the bloody images and actions you see on the TV in real time or to get personally involved if you're not stuck in the middle of it and you or your close ones are not victims of the injustice that gave rise to it.  Especially if you don't bother to look into the extreme (and often close personal) violence and horror of what actually took place from 1919-22.

[trueblue1234]

I've commented before on my personal difficulty reconciling Irish celebration of 1916, the war of independence and the various 19th century risings and common revulsion at the conduct of the various parties in the Troubles, including the IRA. My grandfather, a young man at the time of the war of independence and civil war, fought for the IRA, and was among those who were monitored for years afterwards, once he returned from a few years in the states. I never really knew him personally, but I've heard no one ever refer to him or his colleagues as a terrorist. I have heard how, among that generation, someone being off fighting for the IRA was seen as a noble pursuit in my family.

Maybe any revulsion in the south towards the PIRA and simultaneous celebration of the heroes of old comes down to personal involvement and responsibility. Its easy to celebrate an airbrushed violent struggle from back in the day. You've no control over something far in the past and no responsibility or accountability for what happened. Its rather harder to endorse or lend acceptance to, even reluctantly, the bloody images and actions you see on the TV in real time or to get personally involved if you're not stuck in the middle of it and you or your close ones are not victims of the injustice that gave rise to it.  Especially if you don't bother to look into the extreme (and often close personal) violence and horror of what actually took place from 1918-22.

I think that's a fair post. And I completely agree that's prob the case. It's easier for some people not to face up to the reality of that the old IRA did. And I think that's the bit that rubs some Northern posters the wrong way when discussing the more recent troubles.

[Snapchap]

I've commented before on my personal difficulty reconciling Irish celebration of 1916, the war of independence and the various 19th century risings and common revulsion at the conduct of the various parties in the Troubles, including the IRA. My grandfather, a young man at the time of the war of independence and civil war, fought for the IRA, and was among those who were monitored for years afterwards, once he returned from a few years in the states. I never really knew him personally, but I've heard no one ever refer to him or his colleagues as a terrorist. I have heard how, among that generation, someone being off fighting for the IRA was seen as a noble pursuit in my family.

Maybe any revulsion in the south towards the PIRA and simultaneous celebration of the heroes of old comes down to personal involvement and responsibility. Its easy to celebrate an airbrushed violent struggle from back in the day. You've no control over something far in the past and no responsibility or accountability for what happened. Its rather harder to endorse or lend acceptance to, even reluctantly, the bloody images and actions you see on the TV in real time or to get personally involved if you're not stuck in the middle of it and you or your close ones are not victims of the injustice that gave rise to it.  Especially if you don't bother to look into the extreme (and often close personal) violence and horror of what actually took place from 1918-22.

Indeed, J70. It's clear that it's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses at a campaign that took place in the early 1920s. The bit that gets me is how so many people (including certain posters here) like to use the metric of civilian casualties as their explanation as to why they consider the PIRA as "psychopaths" and "terrorists", but the Old IRA not; and who, when it's pointed out to them that the Old IRA's proportion of civilian casualties was at the very least equal (and likely higher) to that of the PIRA, still inexplicably cling tight to their initial delusions and steadfastly refuse to challenge/reassess themselves. At that stage, they are not looking at the past through rose tinted glasses. They are just being totally willfully blind to the facts, because it must be just easier to do that than to face up to the possibility of being an absolute sanctimonious hypocrite. It's seemingly much more comfortable to spout the guff that "my granddad didn't do what you bunch of nordie provo psychopaths did" than to face up to the reality that Grandad, in his motivations and actions, was no different to the average PIRA Volunteer. Worth noting, in regards the recency argument too, that the PIRA came along just 50 years later and not 100 years later, as some prefer have us believe.

[yellowcard]

I think a lot of it is simply down to recency bias, some of it is down to a lack of knowledge, understanding or pure ignorance and then in some cases it is just a few posters so determined to create an argument that they will stick anything up in order to get a reaction. The one that springs to mind regarding the latter is the poster who stated that the old 1916 IRA vintage were a brave group of winners who banished the British whilst the PIRA were a group of cowardly losers or something to that effect.       

[johnnycool]

I've commented before on my personal difficulty reconciling Irish celebration of 1916, the war of independence and the various 19th century risings and common revulsion at the conduct of the various parties in the Troubles, including the IRA. My grandfather, a young man at the time of the war of independence and civil war, fought for the IRA, and was among those who were monitored for years afterwards, once he returned from a few years in the states. I never really knew him personally, but I've heard no one ever refer to him or his colleagues as a terrorist. I have heard how, among that generation, someone being off fighting for the IRA was seen as a noble pursuit in my family.

Maybe any revulsion in the south towards the PIRA and simultaneous celebration of the heroes of old comes down to personal involvement and responsibility. Its easy to celebrate an airbrushed violent struggle from back in the day. You've no control over something far in the past and no responsibility or accountability for what happened. Its rather harder to endorse or lend acceptance to, even reluctantly, the bloody images and actions you see on the TV in real time or to get personally involved if you're not stuck in the middle of it and you or your close ones are not victims of the injustice that gave rise to it.  Especially if you don't bother to look into the extreme (and often close personal) violence and horror of what actually took place from 1918-22.

I think that's a fair post. And I completely agree that's prob the case. It's easier for some people not to face up to the reality of that the old IRA did. And I think that's the bit that rubs some Northern posters the wrong way when discussing the more recent troubles.

In a nutshell.

But it goes further than that at times as being openly hostile to modern republicans for things that happened in the modern conflict yet Dan Breen and Mick Collins are great fellas (which they are in my mind).
As we see with Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday at lot that got caught up in armed struggle had this visited upon them rather than they go looking for it, just the same as Collins and Breen.
Yes they had a choice and it was the same choice Collins and Breen had, no different.