Free Staters and their hypocrisy on their violent, bloody past

[Snapchap]

I really cannot be bothered with all this quoting nonsense. Particularly when your counter arguments are gems like "I didn't accuse of you trying to justify every act" when if you went back up a few lines in quotes to your previous comment, you said:

So that is Canary Wharf chaulked off. Whats up next? Presumably you are going to justify every act?

So what was that you were saying about faux arguments?

So how about cut the waffle and answer straight:

If you believe the PIRA campaign was a terrorist one, then was the Old IRA campaign also a terrorist one?

Don't fall into the Angelo trap. As much as I fundamentally disagree with you, you have at least engaged in the debate up to this point.

Angelo on the other hand appears to be a Loyalist agent trying to bring republicanism down from within.

But more importantly I would ask you to read my post again. I have given you response to the points you have raised. I appreciate the posts are long and so each has to fill in the gaps but you can't just fill them in with wild assumptions in your favour.

On the point of justifying every act. I never said you had. I have now explained twice what I (clearly) meant. Not much more I can do.

On the old IRA you seem to under the misapprehension that I have justified them. I haven't. I have set the rules that I would judge them by. I have invited you to put any act to that test. Which you haven't done.

Were I at a PC, I might be more inclined to engage in longer debate and reply to individual quotes. Writing on a phone is not worth the effort.

I have never said you endorse the Old IRA. I merely asked you if you do. My problem is hypocritical attitudes to the two eras of conflict. If someone thinks the violence in 1921 was not terrorism, but that violence 50 years later was, then I would be interested in hearing a valid excuse why they believe so. I've yet to hear one sensible, rational reason. If someone thinks both conflicts were terrorist, then I have no issue. I might disagree, but I recognise the consistency.

[Snapchap]

https://politics.ie/threads/40-years-on-the-murder-of-senator-billy-fox.222859/

Sure we can all play that game, Ross:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/carlow-1921-the-ira-shoot-a-pharmacist-who-wouldn-t-close-his-shop-1.4036174

What point are you trying to make with your link and what relevance does posting this link have to the thread title?

A number of pages back I pointed out that by taking their war to the 26 Counties the Provos alienated a lot of support/sympathy they might have had.
I listed some of their actions in this war on the 26 Co State  including the sectarian murder of an elected* representative.
The silence from the Provo supporters on that act was notable (with one exception...."But the 1921 IRA...).

The Fox murder was the last straw for my dad and he says a lot of others who had been sympathisers were the same.
Making war on and denying the legitimacy of a State which had been legitimised by 98% of its population were not very wise
moves.

* only the Senate I know.

That's all well and good but it is not a rational excuse for holding two different attitudes. Why would an utterly unjustifiable action like the murder of Senator Fox be enough to deem the entire campaign as terrorist, but the murder of a man in 1921 for refusing to close his shop for a funeral, not be enough to cause the same assessment of that conflict's validity?

Why, in a thread specifically about the violent formation of the free state (a topic you seem desperate to avoid), would you choose to only post a link to a story about one single PIRA sectarian attack without comment? Why not post a link about an Old IRA sectarian attack without comment?

[trailer]

PIRA had one aim. Brits Out. They failed. 30 years over 3000 dead and for what?

[Angelo]

https://politics.ie/threads/40-years-on-the-murder-of-senator-billy-fox.222859/

Sure we can all play that game, Ross:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/carlow-1921-the-ira-shoot-a-pharmacist-who-wouldn-t-close-his-shop-1.4036174

What point are you trying to make with your link and what relevance does posting this link have to the thread title?

A number of pages back I pointed out that by taking their war to the 26 Counties the Provos alienated a lot of support/sympathy they might have had.
I listed some of their actions in this war on the 26 Co State  including the sectarian murder of an elected* representative.
The silence from the Provo supporters on that act was notable (with one exception...."But the 1921 IRA...).

The Fox murder was the last straw for my dad and he says a lot of others who had been sympathisers were the same.
Making war on and denying the legitimacy of a State which had been legitimised by 98% of its population were not very wise
moves.

* only the Senate I know.

The Assassination of Kevin O'Higgins (1927)
November 24, 2010 by Sam

O'Higgins, who was once called the 'Irish Mussolini',  is one of the most notorious Free State figures and has been a figure of hate of republicans for generations. Between 1922 and 1923, he personally ordered the execution of seventy-seven republican prisoners including Rory O'Connor (who had been best man at O'Higgins' wedding), Liam Mellows and Erskine Childers. A unapologetic social traditionalist, he famously remarked that was part of a generation of 'the most conservative-minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution'. [1]


back row l-r: Eamon de Valera, O'Higgins and Rory O'Connor at O'Higgins' wedding, 1921.

He was killed just before midday on Sunday, 10 July 1927 as he walked from his home Dunamase House on Cross Avenue to the Church of the Assumption on Booterstown Avenue. As he approached the junction of Booterstown and Cross Avenue, a man stepped out of a parked motor car and fired at point-blank range.

O'Higgins staggered, turned and began to run, followed by the man firing. O'Higgins collapsed on the other side of the road and two men came from the rear of the car and fired down at O'Higgins as he lay on the ground. The men then leaped into the car and drove off.[2]

The three anti-Treaty IRA men who killed him – Archie Doyle, Bill Gannon and Tim Coughlan – apparently saw him by chance. Gannon later recalled:

'seeing him ... we were just taken over and incensed with hatered. You can have no idea what it was like, with the memory of the executions, and the sight of him just walking along on his own. We started shooting from the car, then getting out of the car we continued to shoot. We all shot at him, he didn't have a chance'.[3]

The motor car in which they used was believed to have been stolen from a Captain McDonnell on the night before. After the shooting, the car was later found abandoned at Richmond Avenue in close by Milltown. [4]

A weekly mass goer, O'Higgins was usually accompanied by his wife or by P. J. Hogan the Minister for Agriculture and his closest friend. This week however he was escorted by Detective O'Grady. When the two men were 'between their house and Booterstown avenue', O'Higgins sent the detective back to collect something that he had forgotten. It was later believed that the Garda escort was in fact sent to Blackrock to buy cigarettes [5]

O'Higgins was found lying by a 'lamppost outside the gates of the house Sans Souci, which directly faces up Cross Avenue' [6] by locals on their way to mass who heard the shots. Apparently local resident Eoin MacNeill was one of the first people to reach the dying O'Higgins. He was moved to his house and miraculously lingered on for another five hours. (Tens of thousands attended his funeral. You can see footage of it here.)

The Boards.ie user GusherING believes that there used to be a 'little cross' to mark the spot in which he was shot 'near the entrance to Sans Souci'. A local history site confirms that there a 'small cross inscribed on the present footpath' that identified the location.

The question that now has to be asked is whether 'historians' like ourselves should be pushing to replace the cross that marked the spot of O'Higgins assassination. I think we should be. No matter your political views or opinions on individuals, historical moments in our city's life should be properly identified.

[sid waddell]

PIRA had one aim. Brits Out. They failed. 30 years over 3000 dead and for what?

They make a nice few quid from selling t-shirts bearing Bobby Sands' image

And they get to administer British rule in NI now

So you can't say it was futile

[sid waddell]

Why would an utterly unjustifiable action like the murder of Senator Fox be enough to deem the entire campaign as terrorist,

Wha

You think that was the only nasty thing the Provos did? 

[Farrandeelin]

PIRA had one aim. Brits Out. They failed. 30 years over 3000 dead and for what?

The Old IRA failed too to get the Brits out. Hence the sectarian statelet being formed and the 'border campaign' of the 50s IRA and the troubled plight of northern nationalists which eventually led to the PIRA being formed.

I don't know if there will ever be a united Ireland now, given GB has turned into a Tory-reich, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Snapchap]

Why would an utterly unjustifiable action like the murder of Senator Fox be enough to deem the entire campaign as terrorist,

Wha

You think that was the only nasty thing the Provos did? 

You accused me of being "into dead children" and made a false allegation that another poster accused you of child rape. Stop trying to engage with me, you lowlife.

[sid waddell]

Why would an utterly unjustifiable action like the murder of Senator Fox be enough to deem the entire campaign as terrorist,

Wha

You think that was the only nasty thing the Provos did? 

You accused me of being "into dead children" and made an allegation that another poster accused you of child rape.

Yes

Absolutely

[Angelo]

This thread has confirmed what I said in the opening post.

The hypocrisy is off the charts from the Free Staters.

[sid waddell]

The Old IRA failed too to get the Brits out.

Many Brits in Mayo over the last 100 years?

[seafoid]

This thread has confirmed what I said in the opening post.

The hypocrisy is off the charts from the Free Staters.

If you find citizens of the RoI so distasteful, Angelo, you must be happy to live in the UK.

[trueblue1234]

This thread has confirmed what I said in the opening post.

The hypocrisy is off the charts from the Free Staters.

If you find citizens of the RoI so distasteful, Angelo, you must be happy to live in the UK.

He doesn't want to live in ROI.

[Lar Naparka]

The Old IRA failed too to get the Brits out.

Many Brits in Mayo over the last 100 years?

Far from me be it open up another front but if one wants to give credit to the people who did most to gain Irish (partial) independence, the Black and Tans must be given credit where it's rightfully due.
The bastards won Ireland's freedom by default.
The heinousness of their actions caused so much revulsion amongst the British general public  that the pressure on Lloyd George to reach an agreement with his adversaries was overpowering. He just had to call off the tans.
The same thing was happening in the US where Dev had been on a fundraising campaign and the very large Irish American faction had been pressurising Woodrow Wilson to force Lloyd George to end the war.  Most impartial commentators felt that a stalemate had been reached in the war; neither the Crown forces nor the IRA could overcome the other and a state of stalemate existed. Imo, you had a similar situation at the end of the more recent troubles; bothe the security forces and the Provos  realised that neither could gain an outright victory and both were sick of conflict after close on 40 years of fighting.

[sid waddell]

The Old IRA failed too to get the Brits out.

Many Brits in Mayo over the last 100 years?

Far from me be it open up another front but if one wants to give credit to the people who did most to gain Irish (partial) independence, the Black and Tans must be given credit where it's rightfully due.
The bastards won Ireland's freedom by default.
The heinousness of their actions caused so much revulsion amongst the British general public  that the pressure on Lloyd George to reach an agreement with his adversaries was overpowering. He just had to call off the tans.
The same thing was happening in the US where Dev had been on a fundraising campaign and the very large Irish American faction had been pressurising Woodrow Wilson to force Lloyd George to end the war.  Most impartial commentators felt that a stalemate had been reached in the war; neither the Crown forces nor the IRA could overcome the other and a state of stalemate existed. Imo, you had a similar situation at the end of the more recent troubles; bothe the security forces and the Provos  realised that neither could gain an outright victory and both were sick of conflict after close on 40 years of fighting.

It's a pity the Provos didn't realise that after, say, four years of fighting that they could not win

As was obvious

The Brits were not "fighting to win"

Neither were Loyalists

Only the Provos were