Free Staters and their hypocrisy on their violent, bloody past

[smelmoth]

Have the Free Staters on here who are obsessed with the PIRA ever asked themselves why SF are the largest political party in the nationalist community in the north. Have they ever asked themselves why the generations who lived through that conflict and their children don't seem to have any truck with the Provisional campaign and why they return SF to office? No, they think we are all animals clearly, while they sit on their holes in Roscommon and Galway moralising about something they have not the faintest notion about.

So why then for many years, including a post-GFA spell, were the SDLP the largest nationalist party in NI?

Many years? The SDLP were the largest nationalist party in the Assembly elections held a couple of months after the GFA, from every election since then SF have been the largest nationalist party.

So what you are saying is just completely and utterly incorrect and is not consistent with the facts. 6 Assembly elections since the GFA was signed, SF have been the biggest nationalist party in the 5 of those 6 elections. They now have over double the no of MLAs the SDLP have. Why do you think that is? Why do you think nationalist communities who lived through The Troubles and whose families and friends did return SF as their representatives?

Why did nationalist communities not return SF as their representatives during the Troubles?

Because they were focused on the military campaign, did not take their seats and only began to shift toward consitutional politics post the Hunger strikes. No Stormont election was held 1982-96

I note that when I put a question to you, you were only able to ask a question in return.

I've answered your question, despite the fact you dodged mine.

Why are you afraid to address the question I asked? What will it show that worries or scares you>?

This is a cracker. Angelo is now contending that the nationslist people of NI did not vote for the SF candidates that did run in elections because the republican movement was busy with an armed campaign with focus on the "business" rather than the "armed campaign".

Maybehis argument is that the candiates where poor qaulity and SF's best people where busy elsewhere?

[smelmoth]

So in other words, SF only gained traction as a political party post-GFA and that their military campaign prior to this achieved nothing for them. I guess they were too afraid to run as representatives at the height of the Troubles.

Would you have stood for a party knowing that you were setting yourself up as a target for a state sponsored assassination? SF members and workers were targeted for their membership. Does that sound like a party that was competing for votes in a fair and level electoral playing field to you?

Another belter.

SF were busy harrassing people outside polling stations trying to stop them voting.

And did republicanism have some sort of embargo on not targeting the lives of political candidates or was it only wrong when other people did it?

[Angelo]

Have the Free Staters on here who are obsessed with the PIRA ever asked themselves why SF are the largest political party in the nationalist community in the north. Have they ever asked themselves why the generations who lived through that conflict and their children don't seem to have any truck with the Provisional campaign and why they return SF to office? No, they think we are all animals clearly, while they sit on their holes in Roscommon and Galway moralising about something they have not the faintest notion about.

So why then for many years, including a post-GFA spell, were the SDLP the largest nationalist party in NI?

Many years? The SDLP were the largest nationalist party in the Assembly elections held a couple of months after the GFA, from every election since then SF have been the largest nationalist party.

So what you are saying is just completely and utterly incorrect and is not consistent with the facts. 6 Assembly elections since the GFA was signed, SF have been the biggest nationalist party in the 5 of those 6 elections. They now have over double the no of MLAs the SDLP have. Why do you think that is? Why do you think nationalist communities who lived through The Troubles and whose families and friends did return SF as their representatives?

Even you will accept that SF did not enjoy mass nationalist support when there was an onging armed campaign?

The PIRA took primacy over SF until that gradually began to shift in the late 80s/90s.

The aim of the republican movement up until the late 80s was to do it by military means.

Just because people voted for the SDLP back then was not to say they did not support or have some sympathy for the PIRA. Whenever it was Stormont collapsed in the late 80s and returned in the 90s, SF had more than trebled their seats. As soon as the political wing of the republican movement took primacy, nationalists had no truck with supporting SF despite their violent past. Why would that be the case?

[Franko]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

And bang goes your credibility.

[Snapchap]

it was you who said that you that campaign was legitimate but that you were not happy about the deaths. Its not me who is trying to separate the two. Its you

And? Are you suggesting that someone who feels they had no choice but to take up arms to effect change, must enjoy killing? Is that what you are trying to say?

Does that mean that those who engaged in it did so because they just wanted an excuse to kill people?

I did not say that and my reason for not saying that is because there will not be a single motivation that covers all combatants or even all combatants on one side. I don't think anyone would disagree that some of the willing participants in the troubles were just wrong'uns who would have ended up in trouble whenever and wherever they where born. That applies to all sides.
Taking a life and meaning to take a life is a pretty big rubicon to cross. If you really want to set out a case that a given individual did not want to take life but did so out of real (actually real not some twisted/imagined self justification) then set it out and I will read it and respond.

Why do you only apply that to the Troubles then? The Old IRA targeted and killed the same and likely a higher proportion of civilians than the PIRA. Safe to assume there were just some bad apples in the basket there too? You say that there is no single motivation, yet you refute my suggestion that it's possible to engage in conflict but not be happy at having to do so, and happy at having to feel you have have no choice but to kill. You are the one arguing that if you engage in armed conflict, you must automatically be happy about killing others. That is utter tripe.
I would argue that just like Francis Hughes, Michael Collins didn't want to be involved in war and involved in killing, but did so because he believe the ends justified the means. Are you suggesting I'm wrong? That Collins just wanted the thrill of killing and hid behind a "twisted/imagined self justification"?

An overwhelming majority of northern catholics/nationslists experiencing the same oppression did not take up arms.

And? The overwhelming majority of people didn't join the Old IRA either. I know countless people who weren't members of the IRA but who supported them and provided safe houses and shelter etc.

A vast majority of northern catholics/nationslists experiencing the same oppression did not support those that did take up arms.

Any stats to back up your "vast majority" claim?

Why so if it was inevitable/there was no other choice? Its simply wrong to say there was no other choice or that the only other choice that catholics/nationslists faced was to sit and do nothing. The majority did not take up arms and their chances of progressing their lot could have been made a lot easier if the armed campaign was not going on around them suppressing life chances and fueling suspicions of community of another.

Of course, it's very easy for someone sitting in the comfort of the south, who to quote Waterford Whispers today "at the last count, lost no relatives", so sit in judgement at how the nationalist community in the north reacted. Particularly when we see how their grandparents reacted to much less provocation in 1921. But like every sanctimonious southerner, when asked what alternative would have brought us to here we are today without armed struggle, there's never an answer. So maybe you can furnish me with one. Peaceful protest? Many sacrifice ourselves in a few more Bloody Sundays?

Within the trouble there is a litany of atrocities that there was not and could not be any justification for. There was no upside to these. How do you account for these? Is it a case that if there is oppression then an armed response is automatically ok and we just have to accept that there will be atrocities along the way.

Has there been an armed conflict in history, anywhere, by any group, where this has not also been the case? The same happened, to a proportionally greater extent, in the Tan War. Do you accept that it was a legitimate campaign by the Old IRA, despite the utter savagery in involved and the high proportion of old IRA atrocities that there can be no justification for?

You have to forge a link between the oppression, the resolution of the oppression and the violent act. Can you draw a link between all the acts that you consider legitimate and how it did or even could address some act of oppression?

I already did. Read up on Canary Wharf, for instance. The above line from you just equates to the claim, again, that the IRA campaign achieved nothing and that what we have today could have been achieved without it. But, again, you offer no step-by-step guide to exactly how. Was there an alternative to conflict in 1921? If not, then how on earth could a nationalist population, living under a more oppressive regime, have had an alternative option. If you think that conflict in the six counties was not an inevitability, then you are far more detached from the reality of what life was like here than even I was giving you credit for.

[GetOverTheBar]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

Jesus Wept.

[Snapchap]

So in other words, SF only gained traction as a political party post-GFA and that their military campaign prior to this achieved nothing for them. I guess they were too afraid to run as representatives at the height of the Troubles.

Would you have stood for a party knowing that you were setting yourself up as a target for a state sponsored assassination? SF members and workers were targeted for their membership. Does that sound like a party that was competing for votes in a fair and level electoral playing field to you?

Another belter.

SF were busy harrassing people outside polling stations trying to stop them voting.

And did republicanism have some sort of embargo on not targeting the lives of political candidates or was it only wrong when other people did it?

So nationalists in the six counties were disengaged form political/electoral involvement because SF? You really don't know the first f**king thing about what it was like to live through conflict, do you.

And this specific argument has nothing to do with the legitimacy or otherwise of targeting political party candidates. The issue is specifically that you wanted to use the electoral performance of SF as a barometer to test nationalist support for the republican movement, even though SF were barely organised as a party and people associated with it set themselves up as assassination targets - so to think that this is a suitable way to gauge nationalist support for republican movement is just plain stupid. My own family, throughout the conflict, supported the PIRA campaign as legitimate. We never engaged in electoral politics until the latter years. That was just the norm for so many. Your problem is that you live in the south and just don't understand why. The problem is that you don't realise the extend to which you don't understand.

[Angelo]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

Jesus Wept.

The guy is a troll of the highest order.

[Armagh18]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

Is that why they phoned in warnings for those bombs?

[Farrandeelin]

it was you who said that you that campaign was legitimate but that you were not happy about the deaths. Its not me who is trying to separate the two. Its you

And? Are you suggesting that someone who feels they had no choice but to take up arms to effect change, must enjoy killing? Is that what you are trying to say?

Does that mean that those who engaged in it did so because they just wanted an excuse to kill people?

I did not say that and my reason for not saying that is because there will not be a single motivation that covers all combatants or even all combatants on one side. I don't think anyone would disagree that some of the willing participants in the troubles were just wrong'uns who would have ended up in trouble whenever and wherever they where born. That applies to all sides.
Taking a life and meaning to take a life is a pretty big rubicon to cross. If you really want to set out a case that a given individual did not want to take life but did so out of real (actually real not some twisted/imagined self justification) then set it out and I will read it and respond.

Why do you only apply that to the Troubles then? The Old IRA targeted and killed the same and likely a higher proportion of civilians than the PIRA. Safe to assume there were just some bad apples in the basket there too? You say that there is no single motivation, yet you refute my suggestion that it's possible to engage in conflict but not be happy at having to do so, and happy at having to feel you have have no choice but to kill. You are the one arguing that if you engage in armed conflict, you must automatically be happy about killing others. That is utter tripe.
I would argue that just like Francis Hughes, Michael Collins didn't want to be involved in war and involved in killing, but did so because he believe the ends justified the means. Are you suggesting I'm wrong? That Collins just wanted the thrill of killing and hid behind a "twisted/imagined self justification"?

An overwhelming majority of northern catholics/nationslists experiencing the same oppression did not take up arms.

And? The overwhelming majority of people didn't join the Old IRA either. I know countless people who weren't members of the IRA but who supported them and provided safe houses and shelter etc.

A vast majority of northern catholics/nationslists experiencing the same oppression did not support those that did take up arms.

Any stats to back up your "vast majority" claim?

Why so if it was inevitable/there was no other choice? Its simply wrong to say there was no other choice or that the only other choice that catholics/nationslists faced was to sit and do nothing. The majority did not take up arms and their chances of progressing their lot could have been made a lot easier if the armed campaign was not going on around them suppressing life chances and fueling suspicions of community of another.

Of course, it's very easy for someone sitting in the comfort of the south, who to quote Waterford Whispers today "at the last count, lost no relatives", so sit in judgement at how the nationalist community in the north reacted. Particularly when we see how their grandparents reacted to much less provocation in 1921. But like every sanctimonious southerner, when asked what alternative would have brought us to here we are today without armed struggle, there's never an answer. So maybe you can furnish me with one. Peaceful protest? Many sacrifice ourselves in a few more Bloody Sundays?

Within the trouble there is a litany of atrocities that there was not and could not be any justification for. There was no upside to these. How do you account for these? Is it a case that if there is oppression then an armed response is automatically ok and we just have to accept that there will be atrocities along the way.

Has there been an armed conflict in history, anywhere, by any group, where this has not also been the case? The same happened, to a proportionally greater extent, in the Tan War. Do you accept that it was a legitimate campaign by the Old IRA, despite the utter savagery in involved and the high proportion of old IRA atrocities that there can be no justification for?

You have to forge a link between the oppression, the resolution of the oppression and the violent act. Can you draw a link between all the acts that you consider legitimate and how it did or even could address some act of oppression?

I already did. Read up on Canary Wharf, for instance. The above line from you just equates to the claim, again, that the IRA campaign achieved nothing and that what we have today could have been achieved without it. But, again, you offer no step-by-step guide to exactly how. Was there an alternative to conflict in 1921? If not, then how on earth could a nationalist population, living under a more oppressive regime, have had an alternative option. If you think that conflict in the six counties was not an inevitability, then you are far more detached from the reality of what life was like here than even I was giving you credit for.

Smelmoth is from Armagh.

[JoG2]

North men, South men, comrades all!

[GiveItToTheShooters]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

Oh dear
You're a clown. Is that clear enough?

Proof in black and white that the free staters would know more about a big loaf than what went on, or are just twisting the truth to suit their own agenda. Most likely both.

[Angelo]

This has been a great win for the forum republicans.

[tonto1888]

It's quite delicious to see all our resident Provos suddenly coming across as the bastard love children of Eoghan Harris and Ruth Dudley Edwards. 

Their self hatred must be off the charts.

They hate the IRA of the war of independence era because they were led and manned by Southerners

And the key point

They Won

They drove the Brits out of their areas

Something they couldn't achieve in the north

They failed. They wanted to free ireland. They didn't

[johnnycool]

What was the legitimate case for the Provos bearing arms in the 26?
And then using them to murder Gardai, Pte.Kelly, Prison Officer Stack, a Protestant Senator, Tom Oliver, bank robbing, kidnapping etc etc.
What ever happened to Army Order 8?

Didn't the Old IRA also rob banks and Post Offices, and do so on a routine basis?

Was it OK back then?

Your refusal to acknowledge any wrong doing by the IRA is remarkable and admirable in a strange way. Despite everything you're sticking to whataboutery from a century ago as if that somehow makes everything ok

I've never once denied wrongdoing by the IRA. If you can find a quote where I did, please post it up.

I have repeatedly said both the Old IRA and PIRA carried out unjustifiable actions. I have merely pointed out that the Old IRA  killed at least the same, and in all liklihood a higher, proportion of civilians than the PIRA did. How is it "whataboutery" to examine the actions of the Old IRA in a thread specifically about them?

Which PIRA actions were you happy enough about?  The 300+ RUC personnel murdered okay?

I'm not "happy" about any deaths but I regard the PIRA campaign as having been legitimate and the utterly discredited and sectarian RUC were willing protagonists in that conflict and as such were wholly legitimate targets.

You cannot separate the campaign which you describe as "legitimate" and the consequential deaths with which you are not "happy" with.

Should the PIRA have planted the bomb and hoped it didn't go off? Fire the bullet and hope it be blown off course? Kidnap the guy and hope he was Houdini?

So because you think an armed campaign was legitimate, that means you have to be happy about it and enjoy it? By that logic, people can only join armed groups because they like war and death, and not because they believe they are left with no alternative but to take up arms?

Francis Hughes, who died in Hunger Strike 40 years ago yesterday, talking about his involvement in attacks on British forces said "They're just kids. For God's sake, I don't want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning." He was perhaps the most active IRA Volunteer there was and he certaintly wasn't happy with there being a conflict.

I think it's sad that anyone had to lose a life as a result of violence here either in 1921 or 1969. The reality remains though that in each case, Irish republicans becoming involved in conflict was both inevitable and legitimate.

I don't like to hear of anyone being killed, but I'm not naive enough to believe bad things don't happen and innocent people don't get hurt/killed during conflicts such as during the Michael Collins era. It's some leap from that though to the PIRA carrying out a bombing campaign in England in civilian areas to deliberately target ordinary working people. That was a pretty sick and twisted "military strategy" to adopt and in reality it's just terrorism. They couldn't defeat the British (the many informers in their own organisation didn't help) so they adopted the most cowardly approach as possible. I don't see how you can consider that a legitimate campaign

Your careful use of language is revealing. You say the PIRA "targeted" civilians in a "sick and twisted strategy", but that civilians "got hurt or killed" by the Old IRA. They were TARGETED by the Old IRA. In the same, if not higher proportion than they were targeted by the PIRA did. So you're notion that it's "some leap" between targeting civilians in 1921 and targeting them in 1969 is just a symptom of your complete and utter hypocrisy. With your word games like that you could end up writing headlines for the Indo if you're not careful.

The provisonals deliberately targeted and wanted to kill/injure as as innocent people as possible when they planted bombs in places like Canary Wharf. Is that clear enough? If that's not terrorism, what is? Clearly we aren't going to agree on this so I'll be saying no more on this

There's

Why did they phone in a warning then? Surely they should have just let it go off unexpectedly if killing innocent people was their goal.