Hunger strike commemoration at a GAA ground

[magpie seanie]

I see no issue whatsoever with a Hunger Strike commemoration, in fact it's something that should be remembered, however the fact that it was held in a GAA ground is regrettable and very short sighted indeed by the Sinn Fein leadership.I also feel that most Unionists don't understand why so many Nationalists/Republicans feel the need to commemorate these men and this period in our recent history. I would love to know if anyone has ever actually tried to explain to the wider Unionist community why we feel these events are so important.

Yeah - thats the nub of it really. It seems to me all Unioniost just write off the Hunger Strikers as terrorists whereas a lot of very anti-IRA nationalists have sympathy for them and what they did.

[tyrone86]

Just don't try and blame us for believing the GAA's claim to be "open to all" to be a crock of shit. Or for declining to get involved with such an organisation. Or for feeling aggrieved that taxpayers' money which ought by law to be allocated to sporting groups which are non-partisan, is instead going to clubs such as Galbally Pearses GAC, which prove unwilling and/or unwilling to live up to the spirit of such law, if not the letter:
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/qanda/2007mandate/writtenans/2008/090213.htm
Galbally Pearses GFC - Construction of a natural turf training pitch - £200,565

Here we go, the crux of the matter. Begrudgery at its finest. Don't the club members of Galbally pay taxes as well? The plain and simple fact is that because a club/community like Galbally can get its shit together and do their planning, satisfy funders that the money will be spent were it is supposed to be spent and provide top quality facilities for a rural area, it's the way of the world people will try to knock their achievement. Lets be perfectly fair about this, every time Unionists representatives are "outraged" about something that happens within the GAA the funding issue is always dragged up. Where I'm standing, much of this faux outrage is blatantly attempting to take this funding away because of the inability of Unionist community groups to get their own houses in order.

[lynchbhoy]

Just don't try and blame us for believing the GAA's claim to be "open to all" to be a crock of shit. Or for declining to get involved with such an organisation. Or for feeling aggrieved that taxpayers' money which ought by law to be allocated to sporting groups which are non-partisan, is instead going to clubs such as Galbally Pearses GAC, which prove unwilling and/or unwilling to live up to the spirit of such law, if not the letter:
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/qanda/2007mandate/writtenans/2008/090213.htm
Galbally Pearses GFC - Construction of a natural turf training pitch - £200,565

Here we go, the crux of the matter. Begrudgery at its finest. Don't the club members of Galbally pay taxes as well? The plain and simple fact is that because a club/community like Galbally can get its shit together and do their planning, satisfy funders that the money will be spent were it is supposed to be spent and provide top quality facilities for a rural area, it's the way of the world people will try to knock their achievement. Lets be perfectly fair about this, every time Unionists representatives are "outraged" about something that happens within the GAA the funding issue is always dragged up. Where I'm standing, much of this faux outrage is blatantly attempting to take this funding away because of the inability of Unionist community groups to get their own houses in order.

when we hear and see action from the unionist (Irish or british) side of the house getting stuck into the still yet sectarian bodies and operations from the likes of n. Ireland soccer, psni, oo, dup etc - then I'll believe that this is anything other than a sectarian bleat.

Ultimately all these marches from both sides will be banned and rightly so.
Until there is equality on this front the hypocricy from unionist mouthpieces is laughable.

as for sf leadership giving a feck- they dont and wont because their own agenda is nothing to do with that of the GAA's.

the GAA could come out and ban events being held in their grounds by third party groups - but this would and could lead to the likes fo croke park being off limits to soccer/rugby/u2 when they all come cap in hand looking for the use of the stadium again...
I certanly dont want to ban stuff from our grounds that should be dealt with in legal areas in the sectarian north. looking at the ni soccer,oo and psni examples, I wont hold my breath for anything to be done.

[Evil Genius]

I see no issue whatsoever with a Hunger Strike commemoration, in fact it's something that should be remembered, however the fact that it was held in a GAA ground is regrettable and very short sighted indeed by the Sinn Fein leadership.

On the contrary, imo the SF leadership is being rather far-sighted (or at least "cute"), in pursuing a strategy of entryism into the GAA in NI.
It is the GAA (Central Council) which is being "short-sighted", if not blind, by failing to take effective action to bolster those ordinary members who may feel uneasy at seeing what should be primarily a sporting organisation being hijacked for nefarious political ends by partisan political/paramilitary figures.
Unless, of course, the leadership of the GAA does not actually object to events such as those at Galbally (or a previous similar event at Kevin Lynch's new pitch laying ceremony, when Nicky Brennan happily shared a platform with eg Martin McGuinness, whilst another "colour party" paraded along the pitch in front of him).

I also feel that most Unionists don't understand why so many Nationalists/Republicans feel the need to commemorate these men and this period in our recent history. I would love to know if anyone has ever actually tried to explain to the wider Unionist community why we feel these events are so important.

I dare say you are right that Unionists don't fully understand Republican attitudes towards eg the Hunger Strikes.
Indeed I would go further by agreeing that it would benefit us greatly to understand more.
But do you honestly believe that a carefully orchestrated display of pure propaganda, such as that mounted by SF etc at Galbally, is ever going to be taken seriously for its objectivity and "educational" value, by any but the most gullible of Unionists? Get real! 

Galbally was nothing to do with SF's "mission to explain" the Hunger Strikes etc to a Unionist audience, and everything to do with re-asserting their own Republican credentials to its (Ourselves Alone) own constituency, in the face of a potential leeching of support to the Dissidents. That is, SF can no longer be seen to be brandishing real weapons wearing its IRA beret or balaclava, so they march up and down with plastic weapons and term the "volunteers" in the berets and balaclavas "Historical re-enactors"...
And the fact that they can drag the GAA into their politicking is merely "two for the price of one", since everyone knows that the GAA's "constituency" is a purely* Nationalist one, too.


* - At least since Darren Graham was (ahem) "disappeared"...

[redhugh]

I see no issue whatsoever with a Hunger Strike commemoration, in fact it's something that should be remembered, however the fact that it was held in a GAA ground is regrettable and very short sighted indeed by the Sinn Fein leadership.

On the contrary, imo the SF leadership is being rather far-sighted (or at least "cute"), in pursuing a strategy of entryism into the GAA in NI.
It is the GAA (Central Council) which is being "short-sighted", if not blind, by failing to take effective action to bolster those ordinary members who may feel uneasy at seeing what should be primarily a sporting organisation being hijacked for nefarious political ends by partisan political/paramilitary figures.
Unless, of course, the leadership of the GAA does not actually object to events such as those at Galbally (or a previous similar event at Kevin Lynch's new pitch laying ceremony, when Nicky Brennan happily shared a platform with eg Martin McGuinness, whilst another "colour party" paraded along the pitch in front of him).

I also feel that most Unionists don't understand why so many Nationalists/Republicans feel the need to commemorate these men and this period in our recent history. I would love to know if anyone has ever actually tried to explain to the wider Unionist community why we feel these events are so important.

I dare say you are right that Unionists don't fully understand Republican attitudes towards eg the Hunger Strikes.
Indeed I would go further by agreeing that it would benefit us greatly to understand more.
But do you honestly believe that a carefully orchestrated display of pure propaganda, such as that mounted by SF etc at Galbally, is ever going to be taken seriously for its objectivity and "educational" value, by any but the most gullible of Unionists? Get real! 

Galbally was nothing to do with SF's "mission to explain" the Hunger Strikes etc to a Unionist audience, and everything to do with re-asserting their own Republican credentials to its (Ourselves Alone) own constituency, in the face of a potential leeching of support to the Dissidents. That is, SF can no longer be seen to be brandishing real weapons wearing its IRA beret or balaclava, so they march up and down with plastic weapons and term the "volunteers" in the berets and balaclavas "Historical re-enactors"...
And the fact that they can drag the GAA into their politicking is merely "two for the price of one", since everyone knows that the GAA's "constituency" is a purely* Nationalist one, too.


* - At least since Darren Graham was (ahem) "disappeared"...

"GET REAL"??
Did I suggest that the events of Galbally were supposed to be of educational value to Unionists?....or did you just imagine that part?

[Evil Genius]

It seems to me all Unioniost just write off the Hunger Strikers as terrorists whereas a lot of very anti-IRA nationalists have sympathy for them and what they did.

No doubt.

But As Gail Walker pointed out:  "Good relations cut both ways. It isn't just up to unionists to be nice to nationalists. It works the other way round too"

On which point, do Nationalists ever consider the feelings of Unionists towards the Hunger Strikers? After all, those prisoners weren't in Long Kesh for dodging their TV Licence; nor were any of us taken in by the fact that for the sake of appearances, the IRA and INLA were careful to select prisoners who were not in for murder.

Equally, we are all too aware eg that Bobby Sand's place as "O.C." was taken over by Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, a sectarian mass murderer of Bayardo Bar notoriety:
"In 1976 McFarlane was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with a gun and bomb attack on the Bayardo Bar on Aberdeen street in the area of Belfast's Protestant Shankill Road that killed five people - two male civilians, two female civilians and a loyalist paramilitary. In a 1995 House of Lords debate Gerry Fitt, formerly nationalist MP for West Belfast, alleged that McFarlane had machine-gunned three female pedestrians who were passing by the Bayardo as it was blown up. The bar was attacked because it was allegedly frequented by member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, however, only one of the five people who were killed had links to loyalist paramilitaries. The IRA initially denied it had carried out the attack"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_McFarlane

Therefore, when a (so-called) "Historical Re-Enactment" such as that at Galbally goes beyond a simple portrayal of what it was like for the Hunger Strikers in their cells* etc, and out "onto the streets" to portray Gunmen in Balaclavas etc, it is murderers like Brendan McFarlane whom Unionists think of, just as much as "martyrs" [sic] like Bobby Sands - you can't have it both ways.


* - On a point of accuracy, it is worth noting that the Hunger Strikers all died in the (scupulously clean) Hospital Wing at Long Kesh, not in excreta-smeared cells, as the "re-enactment" at Galbally attempted to portray.

[Evil Genius]

Just don't try and blame us for believing the GAA's claim to be "open to all" to be a crock of shit. Or for declining to get involved with such an organisation. Or for feeling aggrieved that taxpayers' money which ought by law to be allocated to sporting groups which are non-partisan, is instead going to clubs such as Galbally Pearses GAC, which prove unwilling and/or unwilling to live up to the spirit of such law, if not the letter:
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/qanda/2007mandate/writtenans/2008/090213.htm
Galbally Pearses GFC - Construction of a natural turf training pitch - £200,565

Here we go, the crux of the matter. Begrudgery at its finest. Don't the club members of Galbally pay taxes as well? The plain and simple fact is that because a club/community like Galbally can get its shit together and do their planning, satisfy funders that the money will be spent were it is supposed to be spent and provide top quality facilities for a rural area, it's the way of the world people will try to knock their achievement. Lets be perfectly fair about this, every time Unionists representatives are "outraged" about something that happens within the GAA the funding issue is always dragged up. Where I'm standing, much of this faux outrage is blatantly attempting to take this funding away because of the inability of Unionist community groups to get their own houses in order.

I  do not begrudge any sports club, including GAC's, from receiving public funding. However, it is a clear legal requirement that such funding should only go to clubs and organisations which are open to all sections of the community, without fear or favour.
As such, I am happy to accept that the majority of GAC's in NI comply with such a requirement (at least within the practicalities of the situation on the ground etc).
However, there are a number of clubs, of which Galbally Pearses GAC is one, whose involvement in events such as these paramilitary hunger strike commemorations are clearly incompatible with the law. Therefore, I feel strongly that these should be considered to be excluding themselves from any public funding whilst they permit such activity to be carried out on their premises.
And I would say exactly the same if it were eg a soccer club hosting a paramilitary parade by the UDA and UVF etc.

[full back]

Evil Genius I would appreciate your comments on the rival loyalist paramilitary fallout at the post Irish Cup Final dinner hosted by the winning club in Belfast a while back? How on earth did these paramilitaries get an official invite?

You are batting them away rightly EG

What about the above question??

[lynchbhoy]

It seems to me all Unioniost just write off the Hunger Strikers as terrorists whereas a lot of very anti-IRA nationalists have sympathy for them and what they did.

No doubt.

But As Gail Walker pointed out:  "Good relations cut both ways. It isn't just up to unionists to be nice to nationalists. It works the other way round too"

insofar as her pointless piece goes, lets see the long awaited unionist/loyalist action towards 'being nice' - lets see the actions getting rid of oo marches, sectarianism in ni soccer , psni intransigence and inequality etc
then we will have something 'equal'
so far there has been 'no moves' by unionists to eradicate this other than name changes and 'empty pr campaigns' stating that there are changes afoot...but in reality none forthcoming.

why should nationalists go out on a limb, after all its the unionists place to lead now by apology and actions after the apartheid regime by unionist/loyalists.

[lynchbhoy]

Just don't try and blame us for believing the GAA's claim to be "open to all" to be a crock of shit. Or for declining to get involved with such an organisation. Or for feeling aggrieved that taxpayers' money which ought by law to be allocated to sporting groups which are non-partisan, is instead going to clubs such as Galbally Pearses GAC, which prove unwilling and/or unwilling to live up to the spirit of such law, if not the letter:
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/qanda/2007mandate/writtenans/2008/090213.htm
Galbally Pearses GFC - Construction of a natural turf training pitch - £200,565

Here we go, the crux of the matter. Begrudgery at its finest. Don't the club members of Galbally pay taxes as well? The plain and simple fact is that because a club/community like Galbally can get its shit together and do their planning, satisfy funders that the money will be spent were it is supposed to be spent and provide top quality facilities for a rural area, it's the way of the world people will try to knock their achievement. Lets be perfectly fair about this, every time Unionists representatives are "outraged" about something that happens within the GAA the funding issue is always dragged up. Where I'm standing, much of this faux outrage is blatantly attempting to take this funding away because of the inability of Unionist community groups to get their own houses in order.

I  do not begrudge any sports club, including GAC's, from receiving public funding. However, it is a clear legal requirement that such funding should only go to clubs and organisations which are open to all sections of the community, without fear or favour.
As such, I am happy to accept that the majority of GAC's in NI comply with such a requirement (at least within the practicalities of the situation on the ground etc).
However, there are a number of clubs, of which Galbally Pearses GAC is one, whose involvement in events such as these paramilitary hunger strike commemorations are clearly incompatible with the law. Therefore, I feel strongly that these should be considered to be excluding themselves from any public funding whilst they permit such activity to be carried out on their premises.
And I would say exactly the same if it were eg a soccer club hosting a paramilitary parade by the UDA and UVF etc.

people like yourself TAKe offence and FEEL excluded
as pointed out repeatedly, the GAA did not do anything untoward or wrong.
it you and the likes of you that will want to take offence to pretend that there is  glass wall.

as I said, the numerous protestants that play hurling and football throughout the six counties dont think the same way as you thankfully.

keep trying to dress this up as the GAA wrongdoing, it isnt.
concentrate on yourown sectarian ni soccer team and association if you want to channel your energies into something useful !

[redhugh]

I see no issue whatsoever with a Hunger Strike commemoration, in fact it's something that should be remembered, however the fact that it was held in a GAA ground is regrettable and very short sighted indeed by the Sinn Fein leadership.

On the contrary, imo the SF leadership is being rather far-sighted (or at least "cute"), in pursuing a strategy of entryism into the GAA in NI.
It is the GAA (Central Council) which is being "short-sighted", if not blind, by failing to take effective action to bolster those ordinary members who may feel uneasy at seeing what should be primarily a sporting organisation being hijacked for nefarious political ends by partisan political/paramilitary figures.
Unless, of course, the leadership of the GAA does not actually object to events such as those at Galbally (or a previous similar event at Kevin Lynch's new pitch laying ceremony, when Nicky Brennan happily shared a platform with eg Martin McGuinness, whilst another "colour party" paraded along the pitch in front of him).

I also feel that most Unionists don't understand why so many Nationalists/Republicans feel the need to commemorate these men and this period in our recent history. I would love to know if anyone has ever actually tried to explain to the wider Unionist community why we feel these events are so important.

I dare say you are right that Unionists don't fully understand Republican attitudes towards eg the Hunger Strikes.
Indeed I would go further by agreeing that it would benefit us greatly to understand more.
But do you honestly believe that a carefully orchestrated display of pure propaganda, such as that mounted by SF etc at Galbally, is ever going to be taken seriously for its objectivity and "educational" value, by any but the most gullible of Unionists? Get real! 

Galbally was nothing to do with SF's "mission to explain" the Hunger Strikes etc to a Unionist audience, and everything to do with re-asserting their own Republican credentials to its (Ourselves Alone) own constituency, in the face of a potential leeching of support to the Dissidents. That is, SF can no longer be seen to be brandishing real weapons wearing its IRA beret or balaclava, so they march up and down with plastic weapons and term the "volunteers" in the berets and balaclavas "Historical re-enactors"...
And the fact that they can drag the GAA into their politicking is merely "two for the price of one", since everyone knows that the GAA's "constituency" is a purely* Nationalist one, too.


* - At least since Darren Graham was (ahem) "disappeared"...

"GET REAL"??
Did I suggest that the events of Galbally were supposed to be of educational value to Unionists?....or did you just imagine that part?

Well - any chance of an answer............you Evil Genius you.

[Myles Na G.]

in our estate we had a man kicked to death in front of his wife and another nearly so. if you think i'm going to listen to you spouting shite and let it go unchallenged you are very much mistaken. you may be ashamed of what you are pal but i'm not. you sound like an alliance candidate who has never lived in ireland. this is a GAA discussion board so i fail to see the point you were making. it was certainly off topic at the very least. no one said sectarianism was a one way street but my point was in relation to northern irish catholics having a gaelic/irish/republican viewpoint that is dangerous to your own safety. when the IRA walk into the fountain with 100 people(like the UDA did here) then i will agree with the arguement you were trying to make.
And when you've finished with the therapy, try an anger management course. 

[Myles Na G.]

Myles, how did you find this board? What attracted you to it?

Genuine questions.

I go to Ravenhill to watch Ulster on a regular basis, so I started posting on the supporters' discussion board on the Ulster Rugby site. I followed up a few references to other discussion boards - Munster rugby, OWC - and started posting on those. On OWC I came across quite a few references to this board (mostly unflattering, it has to be said) so I had a look and here I is. On all of the boards, I tend to post more on the current affairs / non sporting sections, as this is what I find interesting.

[magpie seanie]

It seems to me all Unioniost just write off the Hunger Strikers as terrorists whereas a lot of very anti-IRA nationalists have sympathy for them and what they did.

No doubt.

But As Gail Walker pointed out:  "Good relations cut both ways. It isn't just up to unionists to be nice to nationalists. It works the other way round too"

On which point, do Nationalists ever consider the feelings of Unionists towards the Hunger Strikers? After all, those prisoners weren't in Long Kesh for dodging their TV Licence; nor were any of us taken in by the fact that for the sake of appearances, the IRA and INLA were careful to select prisoners who were not in for murder.

Equally, we are all too aware eg that Bobby Sand's place as "O.C." was taken over by Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, a sectarian mass murderer of Bayardo Bar notoriety:
"In 1976 McFarlane was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with a gun and bomb attack on the Bayardo Bar on Aberdeen street in the area of Belfast's Protestant Shankill Road that killed five people - two male civilians, two female civilians and a loyalist paramilitary. In a 1995 House of Lords debate Gerry Fitt, formerly nationalist MP for West Belfast, alleged that McFarlane had machine-gunned three female pedestrians who were passing by the Bayardo as it was blown up. The bar was attacked because it was allegedly frequented by member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, however, only one of the five people who were killed had links to loyalist paramilitaries. The IRA initially denied it had carried out the attack"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_McFarlane

EG - I'll add the bit that you must have missed by accident that in the same paragraph on McFarlane that you included. It goes as follows:

The IRA killed 91 Protestant civilians in similar attacks in 1974-76, in reprisal for loyalist attacks on Catholics, which killed 250 civilians in the same period

That crucial last piece of information gives a clue to why McFarlane might have committed such an act. The Catholic/Nationalist community were being picked off at random by loyalist paramilitaries, fuelled up on the rhetoric of Paisley and his ilk (good, law abiding Christians). The police, the army, the state were doing nothing. They were second class citizens at best. I've no time for the provos or SF and never had but if I'd lived there at that time in that situation I ask myself - what would I have done? Good and all as I think I am I cannot say for sure what I'd have done and I doubt very many honest people can either.

[Evil Genius]

The people with, if not loyalist paramilitaries themselves, then with very strong links, currently serving as Directors at Irish League football clubs. FFS all hell broke loose not so long ago at a post Irish Cup Final Official Club dinner when rival loyalists fell out, that shows how closely the links are.

"Links" my hole!
What "links" are there between IL clubs and paramilitaries? When have paramilitaries been known to use IL premises for paramilitary-style, or even political, purposes? When has a soccer club/stadium/competition etc in NI ever been named after a convicted "Loyalist" [sic] paramilitary, as has happened any number of times for Republican paramilitaries in GAA?
If you are claiming that some former (or even present) members of paramilitary organisations in NI are also known to be keen, even active fans of certain soccer clubs, then that is hardly surprising - Martin McGuinness/Derry City FC springs to mind, for one.
May we assume that no-one involved in the running of a GAC has ever also been "associated with" any Republican paramilitary organisation?
The fact is, events such as those at Galbally take such coincidences to a whole new level entirely, i.e from it just so happening that members of GAC's or soccer clubs may also be high profile individuals in their other life, to the club  actively and publicly identifying itself with an overtly political/paramilitary event, without either the club officials or County or Central authorities, seeming to be in the least bit concerned.

As for people getting drunk and fighting over politics at a Dinner - I suppose that is the first and only time such a thing ever happened in NI 

But what Evil Genius and Miss Walker fail to understand is the impossibility (that is if they value their lives, limbs property etc) of a few GAA club men saying no to paramilitary linked organisations if they come calling as it were at Club grounds.

Even if "a few club men" at Galbally Pearses GAC were of a mind to object (something which I suspect may be unlikely?), such matter are not just down to them. For both the County Board and Central Council have a role to play in supporting their club members, as well as maintaining the sport's public image.
From what we have seen so far, I doubt very much whether either will mete out even the lightest slap on the wrist to disassociate themselves, their organisation or their sport, from what went on at Galbally (at least if precedent is anything to go by).
Which prompts the question, are they completely unable to do so, or merely unwilling? 

I mean the PSNI ran a mile in the opposite direction last weekend when they chanced upon a real IRA checkpoint in Meigh. Now if the Police are afraid to tackle overt armed paramilitary displays, what chance has the ordinary GAA Club members?

Are you saying that the weapons on display in the "re-enactment" at Galbally were real, like the four sub-machine guns and the rocket launcher being brandished at Meigh, when the two community policemen happened to chance upon them the other evening?

If nothing else, it remains open to the Central council of the GAA to issue a Statement condemning the use of GAA premises for the staging of overtly political/paramilitary displays, such as we saw at Galbally, in the same way as Sir Hugh Orde unequivocally condemned the activities of the Real IRA in Meigh, during today's Press Conference.

But I won't be holding my breath to hear something similar about Galbally from Croke Park, if you don't mind...