Presidents UK state visit


I have no first hand experience of dealing with the IRA or their splinter groups(just more criminal gangs) or living in Northern Ireland while they murdered and intimidated people of all persuasions so I'll bow to your opinions on that.

I do find the West-Brit preening and lick-spittle fawning by many of our leaders sickening. I have nothing against the UK; I visit there for work and holidays regularly and think it's a great country but I'm Irish. I am proud that I live in a republic and I don't want to forget or ignore our history or see it morphed into a revisionist view where we are really part of the greater British family, wayward children seeking to reconcile with our parents.
 

This is just plain wrong. Don't try to portray your personal take on history as fact. You've spouted this deluded and bigoted view before and it's still as disgusting as ever.
 
bullbars said:
This is just plain wrong. Don't try to portray your personal take on history as fact. You've spouted this deluded and bigoted view before and it's still as disgusting as ever.
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Now you know what happens Garda Commissioners when they use language like that.

Which bit is "disgusting"? Do you remember the 90's peace process. It was all about - "will the IRA really stop the war?". This was not a two sided thing - people weren't asking "but will the British give up the war?". They were not even asking "will the Loyalists stop?". That was despite the fact that in terms of body count the Loyalists were up there with the IRA. The Loyalists were almost an irrelevance - if the IRA stopped everybody would stop. And so it came to pass.

Or do you take issue with my assertion that the U-turn by Republicans since Sunningdale was in response to their new found electoral standing? Maybe that wasn't the whole reason, maybe it had finally dawned on them that the campaign was going nowhere - Basque ETA style.

What cannot be disputed is that the GF settlement was available from 1974 if only the IRA had seized it. 25 years of this war are assuredly the responsibility of the IRA and gained Catholics not one jot.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
War and Peace in NI has for the last 50 years at least been at the behest of extreme republicans. Loyalist violence was a reaction. British security policy was a reaction.
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So Bloody Sunday was a reaction to what, specifically? And interment, what was that a reaction to?
 
RainyDay said:
So Bloody Sunday was a reaction to what, specifically? And interment, what was that a reaction to?
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Look the descent of NI into bloody violence in 1969 was essentially a Catholic uprising. Before everybody screams - I have a certain sympathy for that uprising. My point is that there can be no sympathy for the continuation of that uprising post 1974.

The 1998 settlement, which everybody acclaims as the righting of all Catholic grievances, was available in 1974. The IRA spurned it. These are the facts. What might be in dispute is what changed their minds - for it sure wasn't any noticeable improvement in the settlement.
 

'a certain sympathy'...how quaint. It's very clear where your 'sympathies' sit
 

You simply cannot ignore the reaction of the Unionists to Sunningdale. Their opposition was vociferous and all encompassing. It was they that brought it down, not Republicans or the IRA.
Pre-Sunningdale Unionist rule was the Northern Ireland equivalent of Apartheid; unequal representation, unequal economic opportunity, unequal access to justice. There was a sectarian police force and judiciary, a sectarian government and sectarian access state services.
 

Who claims the 1998 Agreement was the righting of all Catholic grievances? I have never heard it described as such.

The climate for the 1998 Agreement was completely different to the climate in 1974. As mentioned elsewhere, Unionist opposition was even stronger to the Sunningdale Agreement with an open rebellion against the Unionist Leadership leading to formation of the new Unionist Party and Worker Protests in support of bringing it down. The Dublin and Monaghan bombings were also carried out in opposition to the Agreement so I am not sure how you can simply blame the Republicans for the failure of the Agreement.

Of course it was a lost opportunity and there were countless lives destroyed by the subsequent 20 years of violence and nobody can defend the IRA's actions over that period but the simple fact is that no-one in Northern Ireland was ready for peace in the 1970's and even the 1980's. The republican and loyalist scum still enjoyed huge public support within their communities and there was very little cross community work in place to ensure the success of something like the Sunningdale Agreement. There is also the small fact that there is no way the Irish people would have changed Articles 2 & 3 of the Constitution in the 1970's. Sunningdale was a good Agreement at the wrong time.
 
Good post Sunny. Unfortunately Northern Ireland remains a sectarian state-let and while children are educated in parallel sectarian school systems that won't change. The main, but not only, culprit for that situation is the Catholic Church. They strongly oppose Catholic children going to anything other than Catholic schools. Kids who play together from early childhood are less likely to kill each other when they get older.

I hate Nationalism and jingoism, flag waving and patriotism, Monarchy and misty-eyed history, and all the crap that goes with it.
 
Sunny, I agree that was a good post. I agree with most of it. I was being tongue in cheek on the merits of GF, slagging off the hypocrisy of the IRA who claim it as a wonderful achievement brought about by their obscenely extended "war".

As I have explained to Purple before, his narrative on the blame for bringing down Sunningdale is the orthodox one. Having been there on the ground (and I am not claiming any superiority in the debate on that count) and as someone who thrilled at the civil rights movement etc. and was equally thrilled that the Brits imposed Sunningdale, I was disgusted (Callinan style) that the IRA, backed by the Haughey "copperfasten partition" cabal, in Dublin were determined to destroy it.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
What cannot be disputed is that the GF settlement was available from 1974 if only the IRA had seized it.
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The Unionist/ British governments could have given people equal rights from the outset, instilled a fair and open police force and faced the fact that gerrymandered elections weren't ethical, but then again, you'd think those oppressed would just accept it and take their place in the system. One can be quite bothered when the peasants wish to better themselves.

Duke of Marmalade said:
That picture of the Q smiling up at and shaking warmly the hands of the man who would have acclaimed the murder of her uncle was to me the most sickening sight of this whole peace process.
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Or as the reigning monarch, she realises that thousands have suffered worse than her and that personal bitterness has no place in reconciling past wrongs. A concept you seem determined to ignore along with the realities and well documented facts ad infinitum.
 
Haughey, Blaney, Boland et al couldn't give a toss about the "oppressed people" in the six counties. Indeed when they saw the potential for a real political breakthrough by Garret Fitzgerald they rejected it outright as "copperfastening" partition.

Come to think of it, I don't really blame Gerry and Marty for their rejection of a fair settlement in 1974. But I do blame Haughey and his cohorts who had armed and nurtured the Provos and who were extremely keen that their frankenstein would continue to thrive.

So I include an additional twist to my narrative as to why the Provos changed their minds 25 years and 2,000 lives later. It was not just because their electoral star was in the ascendant but also because their sponsors in Dublin had lost their ascendancy.
 
 
Why was essentially the same settlement acceptable to the IRA 25 years and 2,000 lives after it had been firmly rejected by them?


As someone truistically commented, "because the time wasn't right". But why was the time not right then but was right 25 years later?

1. I have already alluded to the fact that IRA/Sinn Fein were in the electoral wilderness back in 1974 so a political settlement threatened to freeze them out. But there was more to it. The "uprising" had been successful beyond nationalist dreams. There was euphoria in West Belfast evidenced by "Tocaigh ar La" slogans blazoned on gable walls. There was a feeling that one final push and the Brits would throw in the towel. Even Paul McCartney sung "give Ireland back to the Irish". The civil rights movement of 1969 had been long replaced by the 50 year elephant in the room - the national question. Paisley shouted that "NI was on the window ledge of the union". The IRA thought they could get more and Paisley believed them, not without cause. The IRA's sponsors in Dublin also believed this. It was not the right time.

That explains why 1974 was not the right time. Why was 25 years later the right time for the same thing?

2. IRA/Sinn Fein were now a significant electoral force thanks mainly to the hunger strike. The Ballot box/Bullet dynamic had changed dramatically so far as the IRA were concerned.

3. War weariness. The euphoria of 1974 had given way to a realisation that the Brits were not going to cave in to the next push. The Brits themselves talked about an "acceptable level of violence" in NI.

4. The Dublin sponsors of the Provos had lost ascendancy. The Provos were on their own.
 
 
SG had no chance of winning. The Bookies do not always get it right!

I don't know any person who would have voted for him.

I certainly did not vote for the presidency based on an RTE presentation.

You give too much credence to a couple of celebrity journalists.

Marion

BTW: I am not a labour supporter per se.
 
Marion, I think most people believe that the Frontline programme had a decisive influence. That doesn't necessarily mean that RTE deliberately manipulated the result. But your belief that the people are totally uninfluenced by TV coverage would not be shared by the candidates themselves.
 

Nothing of this added false opinion is relevant to what I stated. Adding your own twists just highlights that you're just making it up as you go along.
 

Of course we don't know how many people who watched this RTE programme actually voted.

I'm sure the candidates are sufficiently biased.

But, I accept your general premise that some people may have been influenced by the RTE programme.


Marion
 
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