Ok so are you now implying that any of the other parties who are all further left than either of those two parties would somehow give less of that money to social welfare recipients?
No danger of the 'Ra taking power.
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Ok so are you now implying that any of the other parties who are all further left than either of those two parties would somehow give less of that money to social welfare recipients?
I've been asking him that question for days. Best of luck getting an answer.
Duke of Marmalade
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I think RTE have a learning point here for the next GE. It should hold its debates at two o'clock in the morning so that we get to know what they really think.
Were you happy to see the leader of Sinn Fein in this country and their leader in the UK at the funeral of the IRA enforcer, convicted terrorist and probobal bank robber Bobby Storey? Another "good Republican" who was a close friend of Gerry Adams, a man accused of being the head man in the IRA and of covering up the rape of his niece by his daughter. Storey was an active member of the IRA when they were murdering children in the UK. I think I'd rather see politicians at the Galway Races.
?? I'm not sure what you mean. Why would I be 'happy'?
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I dunno, you seem to be a fan of theirs. Do you think it is appropriate that their leaders addend the funeral of a terrorist?
Oh, OK. Well first things first, I'm no fan of any political party. I may cast votes for a political party at any given time, but always, my vote is dependent on my political perceptions rather than any political ideology.
To answer your question , absolutely it is appropriate that SF leaders attend the funeral the funerals of IRA members (save the apparent social distancing breakdown!).
I can't imagine what purpose or benefit it would serve anyone if SF leaders stopped attending the funerals of IRA members.
PaddyBloggit
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I thought the IRA was a terrorist organisation? Surely that would be one reason why members of a political party who are mad anxious to govern us would not attend?
Why is it that Sinn Féin keeps aligning itself to its darker past? With the shenanigins that FG and FF are up to I would be inclined to voting for SF but when I see SFs continued alignment with para militarism, it's turns me off them.
I did vote for a SF euro candidate at one point.
Duke of Marmalade
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So it took 4 months for the bleeding obvious to happenI'm usually with you Sunny but I am not sure here. The disaffected/looney base is not much bigger than 30% and maybe at an apogee. A stable centrist government for 5 years which might actually get things done compared to the zombie confidence trick and supply farce will not add to that 30%. The big problem for FF/FG is maintaining their individual raison d'etre and is Leo prepared to be MM's Tan for 5 years? Leo might have to step aside.
FF/FG/Greens now 7/4 favourite with PP, looks like I won't get that Sunny pint after all.
Whatever your views on SF, disassociation from the IRA is not going to happen. The key issue for someone like myself is, is there a peaceful political path for SF, and everyone else, to pursue their objectives. If the answer is yes, then there is no need for a paramilitary wing.
I really don't care if the IRA exists or not, I care if they are armed or not. The evidence to me suggests they are not armed.
To you it's their darker past, to them its the past of brave volunteers who stood against internment, collusion, shoot-to-kill, censorship, while their communities came under attack and were abandoned by the authorities.
The tragic consequences of a prolonged dirty war which we all aware of.
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PaddyBloggit
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The Irish electorate (as a whole)
Yes but do Sinn Féin want to represent all of the people of Ireland?
My own great grandfather was shot by the Black and Tans. My grand uncle was a commander in the old IRA. History and the past has to be remembered and lessons learned from it but if the likes of SF want to govern they have to be seen as a party for all.
I'm uncomfortable when I see people who want to govern and say they want to do right by us marching and honouring IRA members.
SF may not be uncomfortable with it but I am and the only way I can deal with that discomfort is to not vote for SF in a general election.
Saying that, I haven't much time for FG or FF either. I'm beginning to think that we human beings are inherently built to cause mayhem and hurt to each other and that no amount of 'civilising' can eradicate that.
The lockdown and how people went cuckoo queuing at the shops was evidence of me, mé féin and myself.
Sinn Féin are no different. We all grapple to defend what we have by any means at our disposal.
Ms. Foster on her side of the woods in no different. She'll fight like cats and dogs to get her dogma across.
I'm just saying that it's a pity that SF can't appeal to the likes of me more.
Sometimes I think, it would be great to see a SF majority led government. Other times I say... that's mad Ted, they have no experience of running a country, they'll run it into the ground. They're in government in the North and I see how that's turned out. You can hear the echo of silence all around Stormont.
I'm all for an Ghaeilge agus tá Gaeilge agam agus labhraím í but I think SF could have picked a better time to have a battle with an Ghaeilge and stalling the governmental process in NI.
It's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater....
Ní fheadar cathain a thiocfaidh an lá a mbeidh gach duine sásta maireachtaáil go sona sásta le chéile? B'fhéidir nach dtiocfaidh an lá in aon chor.
Is fíor ráiteas é sin, ach is é de dhualgas orainn go léir iarrachtaí á dhéanamh arís is arís.
Ever tried? Ever failed? Try again, fail better!
I think that is a key point. The Shinners define themselves as being enemies of part of the population. They know nothing other than division. They talk about hard working families but they only mean hard working families on low and middle incomes. They frame their rhetoric in the old socialist presumption that there is a limited amount of potential wealth and so if one family is poor it is because another family is rich.
Their links to the Provisional IRA are there and they are real and to me that matters. My family was heavily involved in 1916, the War of Independence and the Civil War. I've family members who were in prison during all three events, one that was shot during all three (and twice in the Civil War) and another who is a famous founding member of SIPTU (back when they represented the poor and the vulnerable).
Many of us can call on our family history but we cannot be slaves to it and we should not excuse bank robbery, extortion rackets, licencing drug dealers, intimidation and blowing up pensioners and children on the grounds of a historical struggle when stems from the betrayal of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins.
The IRA murdered and intimidated people from their own community who engaged with the Protestant establishment. They saw the other side as an intractable enemy. That mindset is evident to see in their present political incarnation in this country. I consider the commitment to constitutional politics by their leadership (the artists formerly known as the Army Council) as nothing more than a veneer. That in my opinion, coupled with their populist pseudo-socialism, make are utterly unsuitable for government.
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Duke of Marmalade
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We are already aware that Mary Lou lied that if she had been in West Belfast she would have joined the IRA. She couldn't dare say anything else. It was risk a temporary pushback from the Southern chattering classes or an immediate call from Falls Road HQ to explain herself.
So no surprise to see Mary Lou at an IRA funeral in Belfast. But Fierce Doherty That was a shock. I thought he represented the new respectable face of SF. So he too shouts "Up the 'Ra" in the privacy of his own comrades.
So no surprise to see Mary Lou at an IRA funeral in Belfast. But Fierce Doherty
That was a shock. I thought he represented the new respectable face of SF. So he too shouts "Up the 'Ra" in the privacy of his own comrades.You don't even need to get into a discussion about Northern Ireland, civil rights and the IRA/SF. The IRA were a murdering criminal organisation who murdered innocent people who had nothing to do with the 'struggle' including members of the Gardai. They have robbed, they have stolen, smuggled, involved in drugs/guns and had entire communities to live in fear of gangsters. We have had SF, a so called political party meet Gardai killers out of prision. We have seen them involved in the cover up of he killing of Robert McCarthy. We have the disgusting murder of Paul Quinn and the subsequent attempt to say he was a criminal by sitting SF ministers. We have heard about the missing and contempt shown to the families. We have heard SF politicians on both side of the borders attempting to deny or justify criminal activities by the IRA as some sort of romantic armed struggle against oppression. Attending funerals like this of people who have blood on their hands and declaring him to be a hero is evidence that SF have no interest in the future or representing all people of Ireland. If they were so inclined, they could have shown their respects privately but no they had to be seen on the streets showing support to their fallen 'comrade'. At the same time, they have shown themselves to be once again a party stuck in past and full of IRA apologists and idiots. Let them stay in West Belfast if the people there want them but Mary Lou and Pierce have shown themselves to be still prisoners of their IRA masters.
I thought it was the other way around. Fierce is too "Nordie" to gain mainstream support in "the saoth" whereas Mary-Lou used to be in FF and is only interested in helping the Wuuukers you know and has nothing to do with the IRA, no, she is the New Sinn Fein, with all the blood washed off.So no surprise to see Mary Lou at an IRA funeral in Belfast. But Fierce Doherty
Duke of Marmalade
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Get over yourself Theo. A young Catholic in 1969 Belfast had far better prospects than his counterpart in, say, Ballymun. I was that soldier.
You probably heard me at this before. I remember being questioned in a windowless room with bare electric light bulb (you know the scene, I was a tad intimidated) for about two hours by British soldiers during internment. The session opened up with them taking a photo of me in front of one of those height clapperboard thingees with my name and RC written on it.
They asked me where my sympathies lay. Naively I said with the Official IRA. (See I have a heart, I too was once leftie, but I also have a brain- you know the rest). It was of course helpful that the Stickies had declared a cease fire. To cut a long story short, I was released without charge, without internment and without physical hurt. But then unlike Mary Lou I was not inclined to join the Provos.
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Interesting perspectives Purple, and I suppose it is out of all of this and our individual understandings of matters and perspectives emerge.
My grandfather was involved in WoI and Civil War (pro-Treaty). As a child I admired his army uniform portrait in my grandmother's house. When I used to ask" did grandad fight a war" I was quickly dismissed - it was not something that was spoke about.
Later, I discovered that there was allegation against my grandfather. Allegedly, he was part of a gang that abducted, tortured, murdered and disappeared an informer to the IRA (anti-treaty).
I don't know how much of this is true, or even if the apparent victim was an informer, but I did some cursory research and yes, the practice of abducting, torturing, murdering and disappearing alleged informers did occur.
The veneer of the "good ol'" IRA was smashed.
I take this to mean the Treaty that brought partition?
I go back a little further, to the usurpation of the Home Rule Act, 1914, at the behest of armed Ulster Volunteers and British Army mutineers.
The fundamental principles of the democracy and law & order were usurped by the threat of violence - invoking the planning and execution of the 1916 Rising by IRB who now saw that as far as Ireland was concerned, Britain only answered to the gun.
As did the "good ol'" IRA, now revered by the political consensus as "brave volunteers".
The IRA of Dé Valera and Collins engaged in a sectarian campaign of murder and intimidation against the Protestant community during WoI, particularly in Cork where some 13 Protestants were murdered.
Then I would have thought that the public presence of the SF leadership at the funeral of a prominent IRA leader a good thing?
It shows the public who they are and what their genus is?
My grandfather was involved in WoI and Civil War (pro-Treaty). As a child I admired his army uniform portrait in my grandmother's house. When I used to ask" did grandad fight a war" I was quickly dismissed
- it was not something that was spoke about.Later, I discovered that there was allegation against my grandfather. Allegedly, he was part of a gang that abducted, tortured, murdered and disappeared an informer to the IRA (anti-treaty).
I don't know how much of this is true, or even if the apparent victim was an informer, but I did some cursory research and yes, the practice of abducting, torturing, murdering and disappearing alleged informers did occur.
The veneer of the "good ol'" IRA was smashed.
I take this to mean the Treaty that brought partition?
I go back a little further, to the usurpation of the Home Rule Act, 1914, at the behest of armed Ulster Volunteers and British Army mutineers.
The fundamental principles of the democracy and law & order were usurped by the threat of violence - invoking the planning and execution of the 1916 Rising by IRB who now saw that as far as Ireland was concerned, Britain only answered to the gun.
As did the "good ol'" IRA, now revered by the political consensus as "brave volunteers".
The IRA of Dé Valera and Collins engaged in a sectarian campaign of murder and intimidation against the Protestant community during WoI, particularly in Cork where some 13 Protestants were murdered.
Then I would have thought that the public presence of the SF leadership at the funeral of a prominent IRA leader a good thing?
It shows the public who they are and what their genus is?
I beg your pardon? Please don't tell me we have another Trump/Solomani episode again where you accuse me of peddling conspiracy theories, only for me to explain that it isn't actually my view but the views of others?
I don't advocate the IRA, the sectarian, child killing, torturing, body disappearing, intimidating, murdering IRA - old, official, provo, or whatever.
I've been clear on this before - the IRA and ALL armed groupings including British Army and RUC have been a cancer on this island.
They all represent nothing more than a failure of constitutional democratic politics.
I'm don't peddle the "Catholic oppressed" line, SF does.
To be clear, any support I may give to SF now is wholly conditional on their participation in constitutional democratic politics.
And do you believe that the Party, the organisation at a top level, is fully committed to constitutional democratic politics? For my part I don't think that are and, along with their politics of division and their populist pseudo-socialism I would never support them.
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