RIC Commemoration

Excellent article by Stephen Collins in today's IT. He warns against RTE continuing to paint the WoI in "cowboys and Indians" terms and how this plays into the SF narrative justifying the Provo campaign of violence.
I am inclined to agree with Theo that there is not that much moral daylight between the GOIRA and the Provos. But the latter were fighting for an all Ireland socialist republic which had no democratic mandate and had no possible chance of success. Putting the moral question aside I for one do not want any links whatsoever between the Provos and members of our government, I'm glad I left NI.
Where I fundamentally disagree with Theo is in his drawing an equivalence between the British Army role in the Troubles and that of the Provos. Yes he can cite a tit for tat atrocity for atrocity up to a point but the big picture IMHO was that the BA where there to control the situation and prevent it from descending into civil war, they eventually succeeded. They had no strategic interest in the campaign, so yes their motives were honourable including a feeling of responsibility to maintain NI within the UK as desired by the majority of its inhabitants.
Frankly we in the 26 counties should be grateful for the BA role for if they had upped sticks in 1974 we would indeed have been engulfed in an all island civil war and possibly find ourselves now in that 32 county socialist republic.
Not sure about the BA of 100 years ago, they certainly did have a strategic interest in Ireland.
 
Purple said:
Okay, so you have deflected from the topic which you started which is why I refer to Sinn Fein as the Child Killers.
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I haven't deflected from anything. I was asking questions of comments made by another which appeared, to me at least, to contradict themselves.

You have extrapolated from those questions an interpretation of my views that are so wide off the mark it is hard to know where to begin with your follow-on questions.
Instead, you might answer some of the questions put to you previously which you have avoided? The criteria you set for labelling democratically elected members of the Irish Parliament as 'child killers' is borne out of nothing but political bias. You proclaim to have information to support your claims but it is not clear if you have passed it on to the lawful authorities to investigate?
If you have, then the substance of your information is obviously not held in high regard as every security assessment from the PSNI and Gardaí confirm that PIRA have stood down, pose no threat, that it's members are engaged in exclusively democratic programs, that there is no recruitment to any military apparatus.

You seem to claim different?
 
Can you answer any of the question I asked or at least clarify your views on the matter?
Were the PIRA a terrorist organisation?
Are (former?) members who are unrepentant of their actions and the actions of the PIRA suitable people to have running this country?
Given their past do they have any credibility when criticising other politicians?
 

When you bring Thomas Clarke into the equation you are taking someone from a defunct organisation who joined another and adding it all together into one narrative as it it applied to all. I find that odd to say the least.

The Old IRA did not systematically set out to kill English people doing their Mother's day Shopping or sitting in a pub in Aldershot or Birmingham having a pint. They never planted bombs in fish and chip shops. They never strapped innocent men into cars and forced them to drive a bomb into an army base and then detonate whilst holding their families hostage.

Maybe I'm biased because my grandparents were all in the Old IRA and Cumman na mBan?. Maybe I'm biased because our farm was raised 3 times by the Tans and my grandparents saw what they were doing as defending their families as much as fighting for independence.? However I do know one thing, they never deliberately targetted civilians unlike the animals in the PIRA.
 
There is a way of doing this Purple, I'm questioning the application of your term 'Child Killers' to democratically elected members of this State when, with the exception of information that you say you have, no such member of our Parliament is under investigation for killing any child, or that I am aware of.
It appears to me that your application of the term is nothing more that highly charged emotive term derived out of your own political bias. I base this on your comments that reference membership of IRA, attendance at funerals, etc as your qualifying criteria for casting such assertions, and not some hidden nugget of information your purport to hold.
To which end, I ask you if you apply the same emotive term to members of the BA, and its government who cover-up and stand over the killing of children in this country. This is my question to you that remains unanswered

WolfeTone said:
This is guilt by association. It stands to reason then that you think anyone who was in the British Army is also a child killer, directly or indirectly?
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But in the spirit of goodwill, and in the interests of progressing the discussion I will, on this occasion, offer to answer your questions ahead of the question that I put to you earlier, I would hope that you may in turn reciprocate?

Purple said:
do you think that the very recent history and utterly unrepentant recent past of prominent members of Sinn Fein make them unsuitable for high office?
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There are most likely members of SF (or its active supporters) who committed awful atrocities during the conflict that I would most probably consider unfit for high office - the shambolic and wreck less killing of Garda McCabe for a start.
I am not aware of any such member now that holds office that would fall into this category.

Purple said:
Do you think that people who were active members of a terrorist organisation, and are proud of their membership, are hypocritical when they criticise other TD's about relatively minor transgressions.
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I probably would if you could identify the context, but I hope my next answer helps.

Purple said:
Do you regard the PIRA as a terrorist organisation?
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No, it is an organisation that is defunct. And according to every recent security assessment from Gardaí and PSNI its has wound down its military capabilities and its members are engaged in exclusively democratic programs. I take their word for it, do you?
 

I don't disagree with the general sentiment expressed. Certainly the BA were brought in to try quell an eruption of political and sectarian strife in the civilian population.
However, it cannot be said that succeeded much in anyway as an efficient peace-keeping force. The tables turned quickly and it was the aggression from Republicans that was identified as the primary threat rather than Republicans and Loyalists. This sentiment no doubt architected by RUC, who already a discredited police force, and their liasons with BA.
It becomes apparent that the BA role quickly morphed into maintaining the status quo of the Orange State, the supremacy of the Protestant political establishment, in the Protestant state for a Protestant people.

Duke of Marmalade said:
Frankly we in the 26 counties should be grateful for the BA role for if they had upped sticks in 1974 we would indeed have been engulfed in an all island civil war and possibly find ourselves now in that 32 county socialist republic.
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The socialists I thought were your old crew? The OIRA? Who were subsequently sidelined whilst dithering in Dublin pondering Marxist ideology while Belfast burned.
The Provos had no such inclination in the 1970's, communities were under siege and the only order was to attack back.
Socialism would re-emerge in the prison camps and under Adams leadership of SF. But in the 1970s it was a distant second, hence the split.

In the context of this discussion I do not purport to claim that Provos did not commit some awful criminal atrocities, I am quite adamant that they did, and shameful atrocities they were.
I simply do not buy into the mainstream narrative that it was all the fault of the Provos. That they were the aggressors and everyone else just wanted peace.
To use one example, one narrative that you have mentioned is that when the Provos stopped, then everyone else stopped. The implication being, why didn't they stop sooner?
On the face of it this is a vslid point. But any examination of events will tell a different tale.
The Provos only stopped after the political establishments in British and Irish governments, backed by the US, showed a real momentum to enter talks for a new negotiated settlement for the people of NI.
Without such signals and intent from the political establishment then chances of a ceasefire were not likely.
So conversely, why did the political establishment take so long to get their act together and do what was always going to have to be done anyway? Adams had already brought SF to accepting Dáil recognition in 1986, Hume-Adams was 1988, why did it take another 6 yrs to agree to enter political negotiation?
 
@WolfeTone can I ask a question? Do you think the PIRA campaign for the 20 years post Sunningdale was justifiable?
That is a subjective matter. Clearly Gerry Adams thinks it was. Mary Lou claims that she thinks it was and would have been in the thick of it if she lived where I grew up.
To avoid any doubt I do not think it was justifiable and these are some of my reasons.
The Civil Rights movement had been vindicated. Catholics were on course to have their grievances addressed, this happened anyway under Direct Rule.
Their cause ( a 32 county socialist republic) had no democratic mandate.
Anyone could see that they had no chance of success, they simply led to 20 years of unnecessary carnage.
 
I see your point of view Theo but I mostly disagree. We mostly agree what happened but at times make polar opposite interpretations of these events. Actually at the time and on the ground that was my point of view. I recall being asked at a road checkpoint by the BA something about my attitude to their presence - I forget what it was and I didn't feel threatened but I do remember my answer, I asked why are you not interning Loyalists. But with hindsight I see it clearer now. I remember the first deaths of British soldiers. 3 of them in Ligoniel and right out of the blue - no provocation at all. Clearly the idea of the BA being protectors of the Catholic population was anathema to them.
It becomes apparent that the BA role quickly morphed into maintaining the status quo of the Orange State, the supremacy of the Protestant political establishment, in the Protestant state for a Protestant people.
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You know that's not a fair interpretation. Under direct rule Catholic grievances were largely addressed. By the time of negotiating the GFA it was no longer an argument for improving the Catholic economic and social conditions, it was about that grandiose sentiment "parity of esteem" for nationalist aspirations. But I do say that the British were deeply mistaken in originally allowing NI a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.
The socialists I thought were your old crew? The OIRA?
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Ah, you're reading my mail. You know what they say: if a man of 18 is not a socialist he has no heart. I think by Sunningdale the 32 county socialist republicans were in the ascendancy, but I may be wrong there. I agree that the founders of the PIRA, Charlie Haughey, Neil Blaney et. al. were not socialists.

Clearly any implication that 100% of the blame falls to Provos would be OTT. Loyalists certainly kept it stirring but I still argue that their sectarian attacks were largely reactive. Once the Provos called it a day, the Loyalist gangs reverted to extortion and exploiting their own community.
Fundamentally disagree. The British, Irish and US governments were always prepared to negotiate a return to Sunningdale. The game changer was that SF/IRA started to see that that would not be too bad and their campaign was being infiltrated and going nowhere. And the real game changer behind that was the Hunger Strike which made SF an electoral force, something completely absent at the time of Sunningdale.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
Do you think the PIRA campaign for the 20 years post Sunningdale was justifiable?
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On the cold face of it, absolutely no, of course not. I revert to the solemn words of QE2 in Dublin.
But I have never tried to, nor am I trying to, justify the PIRA campaign. I simply don't join in chorus of condemnation that prevails in political discourse in some quarters. The reason I do this is, because if you scratch beneath the surface of the morally righteous, you will find a very thin veneer of political expediency justifying the very things that they now condemn.
Instead, my interest lies in what drove the campaign, the motivations, and what could possibly sustain it for so long.
I will endeavour to explain somewhat.

Duke of Marmalade said:
The Civil Rights movement had been vindicated. Catholics were on course to have their grievances addressed, this happened anyway under Direct Rule.
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Yes, from a political establishment point of view you are correct. But the proof is always in the pudding.

To use a very loose analogy - If you happen to be an AIB employee who received news of impending redundancies this week, and on the exact same day a government minister peddled optimistic news about the economic outlook you may be inclined to be a bit more cynical and skeptical about what you are hearing?
Similarly, if the political establishment is pronouncing all sorts of wonderful reforms for your civil rights, you may still be a bit skeptical if you happen to live in a small city where the quest for such rights had recently been met with gunfire and slaughtering of the innocents?
And to make matters worse, if these reforms translate into covering up the truth of what actually happened, then I for one would forgive you for believing that any proposed reforms amounted to nothing more than toilet paper.



Duke of Marmalade said:
Their cause (a 32 county independent Republic) had no democratic mandate.
Anyone could see that they had no chance of success, they simply led to a century littered with political and sectarian violence.
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(my edits in bold) ... 1916.

Yet each year, the office holders of my President and of my Taoiseach, are paraded out to lay homage to the 'gallantry' of a city brought to its knees and hundreds of civilians being killed. All to try convince me and the generations to come that it was all worth it.
Forgive me for being a bit cynical of that narrative.

Duke of Marmalade said:
We mostly agree what happened but at times make polar opposite interpretations of these events.
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True, as your next post will succinctly demonstrate.

Duke of Marmalade said:
I remember the first deaths of British soldiers. 3 of them in Ligoniel and right out of the blue - no provocation at all.
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I would consider the deaths of some 10 Catholic civilians/IRA at the hands of the BA in the months preceeding Ligoneil as a provocation.
I'm not condoning it, I just consider that there was motive to retaliate.


Again, I have to question this. Yes, on paper that may be the case, but the reality of festering injustices - internment without trial, BA cover-ups, Derry, Ballymurphy, a discredited police force and collusion weigh heavily on the communities most affected.

Duke of Marmalade said:
The British, Irish and US governments were always prepared to negotiate a return to Sunningdale
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Yes, but not with the protagonists engaged in conflict. As much as some would like to think otherwise, they did have the support of not insignificant amounts of their respective communities, particularly on the nationalist side.


I don't disagree with this. The Catch 22 was the political establishment would not engage with militarists. The militarists, commanding significant support from their own communities had no political mandate.

Enter Gerry Adams.

While Adams is detested by many, it was his political nous and leadership that brought the Republican community from a position of zero regard for political activity and institutions and to turn it to their strength. He seized upon the sacrifice of Sands and the Hunger Strikers and elections to parliament. We should all be for ever grateful for Bobby Sands sacrifice. In the midst of the propaganda war of the British policy of criminalising the Republican Movement, Sands and the other Strikers projected to the world the legitimacy of their political ideals.
Adams capitalised on that. First through his own election, then leading SF to accept the Dáil, Hume-Adams, US engagement, ceasefire, and eventually a standing down of the IRA.
Whatever the exact truth about his IRA activities, his political activities are open public knowledge.

For the first time since I decided back in 1798 that the only way to shift British rule out of Ireland was through violent insurrection, we have a unified island that is overwhelmingly agreed the future can, and will, only be determined through democratic and peaceful means only.

The case for violent insurrection is now bankrupt, constitutional democratic politics has taken the ascendency and the moral justifications attributed by those engaged in armed revolt in 1969-1994, 1916-23, 1881, 1848, 1803, 1798 are now cast aside.
 
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Gosh you are much older than I thought. Were you active at Vinegar Hill? Joking aside, I will respond tomorrow.
 
@WolfeTone Decided to read Wikipedia on the Troubles. It does give scope for your narrative esp the one sided response of the BA in internment, but it also allows for mine. It will be impossible to have an agreed narrative at least not until this is all ancient history.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Excellent article by Stephen Collins in today's IT. He warns against RTE continuing to paint the WoI in "cowboys and Indians" terms and how this plays into the SF narrative justifying the Provo campaign of violence.
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It's a good article in some respects but it is also guilty of propagating the very narrative that it proposes should be questioned. The very opening sentence is the clue, "Brian Stanleys offensive tweet about IRA killings in 1979...".

Stanley didn't tweet about IRA killings in 1979, he tweeted about IRA killings in 1979 and 1920.
Collins isn't the only public commentator to try apply a blind side to the content of Stanley's tweet. Colette Brown in Irish Independent did something similar when she derided Stanley's tweet for glorifying the death of '18 British soldiers' when it's clear, that if Stanley was glorifying anything, it was the death of 35 British soldiers - 17 in 1920 and 18 in 1979.

How could two prominent Irish journalists make such a clear and obvious omission when commenting on Stanley's tweet? Was it a coincidental error?
In Browns case, no, it was deliberate. She was challenged on this on her own twitter account responding along the lines that Kilmichael was "a matter of freedom of the State" - the exact rethoric that the Provos would use.
I would suggest that Collins omission was no error either.
It would appear that Stanley's lording over dead British soldiers in 1920 is not to be considered offensive?
Tell that to the Unionist community and British people who so overtly commemorate the memory of all British soldiers who died in service each November, in particular, the memory of soldiers of that period.
Is the narrative of accepting the glorifying the death of British soldiers in Ireland in 1920, and the violence of the period in general, not the very thing that Collins is suggesting we need to challenge in his article ?
I think it is, odd then that he should omit the reference in Stanley's tweet and focus solely on the glorification of the 1979 attack.
It's that scratching of the thin veneer.
 
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@WolfeTone same article, completely different perspectives. I see Collins' article as almost exclusively outing the tendency for over glorification of the WoI which I understood to be one of your points but you seem to imply that his focus was mainly on the recent Troubles.
I see Fintan O'Toole has joined the fray in today's IT. This time he does exclusively refer to the recent Troubles where he gives an ascendant order of culpability. First the IRA, second the Loyalist thugs and thirdly the British state. I know bookies generally only pay out on the first three but if PP happened to pay out on 4th it would have gone to certain sections of Southern Irish military industrial complex. The Provos got a huge boost at the formation from the likes of Haughey and Blaney. Throughout the whole period the South was a source of materiel and a safe haven. But I suppose that is a rabbit hole.
 
@Duke of Marmalade im not sure how we come at Collins article from completely different perspectives? I agree the thrust of article is focusing on glorification WoI. What puzzles me is the glaring miskick-in-front-of-goal in his opening sentence.
Instead of referencing Stanley's glorification of Kilmichael, in the period which is the subject of his article, he references only Stanley's glorification of Warrenpoint?

I'd give him the benefit of the doubt if it were not for a number of other public commentarys that follow in the same suit, Colette Brown being most obvious.

So in the speak of the morally righteous, projecting the concept of a 'shared island', trying to proclaim the 'true' narrative of our violent past, the mask slips and underneath lies a tolerance that says - yes, stand on the graves of dead British soldiers and proclaim victory, as long as it is the 'right' British soldiers.
Collins asserts this view to an extent in his article "The vitriolic opposition to the planned commemoration [RIC] revealed an ugly level of ignorance and intolerance which went well beyond the ranks of Sinn Féin. It showed that much of the widely trumpeted respect for all traditions on the island is mere lip service"

Duke of Marmalade said:
The Provos got a huge boost at the formation from the likes of Haughey and Blaney. Throughout the whole period the South was a source of materiel and a safe haven. But I suppose that is a rabbit hole.
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Indeed, such a can of worms would only further erode the Haughey "I did the State some service" veneer.
 
Has he been reading my posts?
Also in the same paper Declan Lynch highlights the hypocrisy of Mary Lou. Stanley was merely tweeting SF orthodox credo.
 
@Duke of Marmalade that's not going to wash.

Declaring that civil rights demands will be met is one thing, delivering on them is another. I made this point earlier.

Is O'Malley seriously trying to suggest that the British had delivered a comprehensive programme of reforms that satisfied and quelled the CRM by 30 January 1972? Seriously? Is he suggesting the marchers had no cause? Why were they marching then?

Whatever measures were offered by the British ran parallel with protestors gunned down and slaughtered, with the ignominy of being labelled as terrorists by a complicit media. The truth of matter taking 40yrs to be established. Ballymurphy happened six months before, still waiting for the truth there.

With respect, hard to take such a view as O'Malleys seriously.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Yes, I can see it hard for you.
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Ah Duke, you left me dangling?

O'Malley and Lynch... maybe I've missed something?

Sunday morning routines are not what they used to be, hopefully vaccine roll-out will restore normal order. I miss the morning stop for a sit-in coffee after a brisk walk on crisp winter mornings. Free copies of the Sindo abound, straight to the back page for Kerrigan, searing, sometimes merciless, incisions of our political class - you have to hand it to him, easy to see why holds the back page.

After that, much ado about nothing, there is only so much brow-beating septic vitriol one can take in a lifetime from Eoghan Harris. And if you lived in a household where one occupant religiously tuned three times a week into episodes of Eastenders, its dire depictions of the human species and their future prospects, by Sunday, the Harris column and "WE ARE DOOMED! I TELL YA! THE SHINNERS ARE COMING!!" ...becomes all a bit wearisome.

So coffee, Kerrigan, and coffee mat... certainly not handing cash over for it

All that aside, having no coffee shop to sit in, there is a peculiar absence from my Sunday morning routine and your mentioning of two articles, from Lynch and O'Malley, opened not so much a doubt, more pricked an inquisitive tick.

So here I am, €9.99 worse off.

Lynch, I acknowledge is an engaging writer, very much accredited in his field and deservedly so. A writer, in my opinion, that can pretty much assign his talents to any particular topic with much aplomb.

And could I have asked for a better example of his seemingly effortless column writing on any random thing? Maybe, but I could have no complaints this week with regard to output on the Stanley Tweet(s) Outrage.

Lynch writes, unaffected by the black comedy of the whole affair, his reaction was... "not much really". He doesn't hold back about Stanley "... appreciate that he willing to publicly state this kind of garbage".

Lynch, using his literary skills for audience engagement, nevertheless proceeds to write a full article on an issue that provoked little interest in him and that basically he thinks is a load of garbage.

Why am I starting to get that familiar empty feeling after watching an episode of Eastenders?
I can almost hear my €9.99 landing in the Sindo slot machine. Reading this stuff will, if you are into it, certainly trigger the pleasure endorphins.
Lynch writes authoritively about the gambling industry and the dark side of its profit-churning tactics. He knows what he is doing, ching-ching!

As for O'Malley, I'm not familiar with his work. I'm unlikely to be enticed much further after today given his wholesale simplified Ladybird version of events, "First, he [Stanley] was wrong to claim that Narrow Water [1979] taught the British elite anything. The British in the 1970s had little interest in Northern Ireland, and were actively exploring a policy of withdrawal [no reference]... When Margaret Thatcher took over [1977], she did not approve that approach"...

Do the maths.

Narrow Water occurred at the time when O' Malley admits that the British government, led by Thatcher, were not actively exploring a policy of withdrawal.

It gets worse, O'Malley assures us that Stanley's 'slow learners' quip was not targeted at the British military elite as explicitly mentioned in his tweet, but instead it was "in fact the leadership of the Provisional IRA".... Dum, dum, de, dum, dede, dum (sorry, Eastenders finale).

I have to switch over.

Barry Egan, that ol' rocker and critique of the arts will provide some distraction. But even he has bought into (or paid to) the Stanley Twitterati bug this week.
Egan, another excellent writer, writes a poignant personal scribe about IRA events, dramatic and traumatic, from his own family tree that he was reminded of recently. There is a welcome sense throughout his piece of trying to portray the real raw tragedy inflicted on the individual lives caught up in the affairs of the IRA and the blessings for those of us that never have to endure such occurrences.
Egans episode portrays a gun running gangster/mafia intimidation affair with his grandfather caught up in the middle.
The events occurred in Dublin in the 1940's, which makes it a kind of "Whose IRA Is It Anyway?" affair. But joking aside, Egans father, with death threats and a gun put to his head, would die at a young age in 1952.

But what was the event that reminded Egan of his grandad and the affairs of that time?
Was it the series of RTÉ productions that Stephen Collins identified, and agreed by Egans editor Eoghan Harris, as RTÉ portraying Irish revolutionary past in Cowboys and Indians format (men with guns intimidating other men and their families)?

Nope.

Was it the recent national commemoration of events in Bloody Sunday 1920 where early in the day of that fatal Sunday IRA men with guns entered the homes of other men and let loose?

Nope.

It was in fact... the Netflix series 'The Crown', and in particular the episode that depicts the IRA atrocity in Mullaghmore that killed young children and Mountbatten...in the year 1979. Mullaghmore being an event where no men with no guns entered nobodys home.

Egan never makes it clear if he is associating the PIRA bomber of Mullaghmore (Thomas McMahon, born 1948) with the "Whose IRA is it anyway?" of 1940's, the IRA Irregulars of Civil War, pro-Treaty IRA or GOIRA.
Whichever IRA he chooses, he is unwittingly making an obvious link from PIRA back to a previous IRA, which in the Sindo neck of the woods is surely a no-no?

Am I scratching that veneer again?

I've said enough. In real news, in real reporting, the events of our past are coming to the fore and ugly truth is simmering before us.

Just in the last week

Winston Rea trial
Garda IRA collusion claims

What chances Harris, Lynch, O Malley et al getting stuck into these stories?
I think we will be waiting?

Instead the weekly soap opera of "The Shinners Are Coming To Get You! " will continue its serial fetish for the addicted.

Can I get my €9.99 back?
 
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WolfeTone said:
Instead, my interest lies in what drove the campaign, the motivations, and what could possibly sustain it for so long.
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That one is obvious; when the IRA saw a political solution for Nationalists being dominated by the SDLP they kept murdering children. When they saw that their political wing could be the driving force they were willing to stop murdering children. They were interested in power, that's all.
 
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