RIC Commemoration

Purple said:
The Nordies still have a 1950's education system with what are frighteningly bad outcomes.
Click to expand...
Purple, as a product of that system, if not quite 1950's, I am not sure I would agree with that You sound like Charlie Lennon. I think our Corporate Tax rate was far more important than the fact we did Irish at Leaving Cert level. Didn't a recent OECD report damn our Leaving Cert system? But let's not go down that rabbit hole.
 
WolfeTone said:
I know it happened a 100yrs ago. Im asking, why does our political establishment continue to commemorate events that it would, by its own standards today, condemn as terrorism?
Click to expand...
I don't know. In my opinion it is probably time to look at our history in a more balanced way.

Can you answer this;
 
Purple said:
I don't know.
Click to expand...

Its because they inherently believe in the right to armed revolt to ride over the democratic process when the political conditions suits their narrative.

Purple said:
Can you answer this;
Click to expand...

I have already answered this earlier in the thread under a different question from you.

But to repeat, my opinion on the moral equivalence of PIRA and GOIRA is that they shared the exact same ideal - to establish an independent Irish Republic, through force of arms, for the people of Ireland alone to determine their own destiny without external impediment from Britain or anywhere else.
 
WolfeTone said:
Its because they inherently believe in the right to armed revolt to ride over the democratic process when the political conditions suits their narrative.
Click to expand...
That's a bit simplistic.
That's not an answer.
Do you think that the actions of the PIRA were broadly legitimate and justified?

Do you support the affirmation they receive from their former (or not so former) political wing?
 
So they are morally equivalent in your eyes as must be the Real IRA and Continuity IRA.
 
Purple said:
That's a bit simplistic.
Click to expand...

With respect, your earlier answer of "I don't know" is alarmingly simplistic. Why it is perceived ok for our political establishment denounce vociferously on the one hand, the armed actions of private armies in pursuit of legitimate political aims, while simultaneously, on the other hand commemorate the bravery of armed actions of private armies in pursuit of legitimate aims - all of whom, regardless of their ideals, committed heinous war crimes?
Just because it was a "100 years ago" doesn't make it alright. It was as illegal then as it is illegal today. If such actions are to be condemned, then condemn them all.

Purple said:
Do you think that the actions of the PIRA were broadly legitimate and justified?
Click to expand...
Purple said:
Do you support the affirmation they receive from their former (or not so former) political wing?
Click to expand...

The aims of using force were as broadly legitimate and justified for PIRA as it was for IRB and GOIRA. That, in the midst of taking such actions, it descended into chaos and acts of war crimes cannot be justified, by either PIRA or any other engaged party.
I don't support the affirmation SF affords PIRA but I do not condemn it either. I'm no more going to condemn (or commemorate) the actions and memory of Thomas Begley that I am the actions and memory of Thomas Clarke.


Duke of Marmalade said:
So they are morally equivalent in your eyes as must be the Real IRA and Continuity IRA.
Click to expand...

Duke, with respect, you will be aware that in 1998 the people of Ireland, north and south, collectively voted for the GFA. For the first time in the history of this country a resounding majority spoke to the political establishment and militarists and voted to endorse that our constitutional political differences, whatever they may be, can only and shall only ever be challenged by exclusively peaceful and democratic means. We can argue the night and day of when that should have happened, but in 1998 is the time that it did happen.

As I have mentioned earlier, constitutional politics is firmly in the ascendency and the militarists are firmly on the margins. There is no moral equivalence for RIRA or CIRA, there is no justification for any armed groupings to exist as long as the democratic institutions prevail. Only the in the vacuum of usurping democratic institutions does the militant breathe life.
 
Last edited:
@WolfeTone that is a tecate like shift of position. Your earlier assertion was unequivocal that the shared goals of an independent Ireland free of British interference and won through violence granted moral equivalence between GOIRA and PIRA. RIRA and CIRA share those goals.
However, I see a chink of common ground here. We both seem to agree that RIRA has no moral justification whatsoever. GOIRA at least garnered some moral justification as the WoI progressed. In fact I would say we are not a million miles away in the extent of the moral justification that we ascribe to GOIRA.
That gives us an agreed spectrum or moral compass to work with, from absolute zero (RIRA) to probably the best that any such terrorist enterprise can muster (GOIRA). So where does PIRA rate on that compass? You seem to accord them maximum respectability.
My position is a bit more nuanced. PIRA at the very beginning (1969 - 72, say) where on a par with GOIRA. Even in the immediate wake of Sunningdale one can see their campaign being justified by their own lights - if they have got this much out of the Brits in a relatively short space of time maybe one more push would see the them off, Garret Fitzgerald wrote in his memoirs that he was really afraid the Brits would up sticks. But as time wore on and it became clear the Brits were here for the long haul and anyway the civil rights demands were being met PIRA slipped very sharply down the moral compass, hitting rock bottom with the Enniskillen massacre of 1988.
The WoI ended after a short period of about 2 years with a victory of sorts, that in itself is some sort of justification. The pointless and increasingly depraved never ending campaign of PIRA puts them in RIRA moral territory so far as I am concerned.
.
 
I don't know why people hold the views that they hold. Therefore the only answer I can give is that I don't know.
In my opinion post independence we had to construct a version of Irishness that never really existed as we were culturally dominated by England and then Britain for 800 years. So we created a Celtic Ireland in which a kind of Celtic Catholicism and Nationalism were intertwined and ethnically cleansed most of our Protestant population.
We constructed a narrative in which "The Irish" were oppressed by "The British" and ignored the fact that the Nation State as we know it and fought for in 1916 and during the Civil War didn't exist, even as a concept, when Strongbow rocked up in Bannow Bay in 1169. The reality of history didn't suit us and didn't allow us to assert our identity, a constructed identity based on what those in power thought it would have been had we been free all of that time.
In that context the glorification of our independence struggle was inevitable. We are not alone in that; the Americans remember a War in which the French fought the British, with a third of the local population siding with each and a third not getting involved at all, as their War of Independence. They remember it as a war in which the entire population of what is now the United States fought the British, with some help from the French.

That's my view but, as I said before, I don't know why others hold the views they do.
 
@Duke of Marmalade I don't underestimate the sensitivities applicable here so I am trying to be mindful of the language I use, suffice to say, and as @Purple demonstrates in his following post, that there are many differing narratives.

I'm not endorsing PIRA anymore than I'm endorsing GOIRA - I do not endorse either. I thought it quite clear that I have challenged the GOIRA myth?
They had no formal mandate and they engaged in sectarian muder.

I have come to the sombre conclusion that all of the violence of the last century did not achieve one identifiable success that could not, and would not, have been achieved through constitutional politics over the same period of time anyway. I claim hindsight as my witness.

In your scope of reasoning, there appears at least to be some understanding that at the outset of the Troubles as to why an armed revolt was at least initiated. The prolongation of that strategy is what appears to be the critical factor, combined with the reality of no chance of winning. It is an unfortunate reality of war, that once commenced, there is no defining moment from the outset when it should end.
I refer again to 1916. As I have said before the 20th century is littered with political and sectarian violence. In 1916 some 260 citizens of Dublin lost their lives violently in one week. 1916 had no chance of success, and it that much was known by those who organised and orchestrated it.

Does the fact that it was all over in a week, instead of years, give it some moral justification? If that is your narrative, then I will have to respectfully disagree. Maybe it was because they fought head-to-head with the British? That does holds some honour, but the ensuing defeat was a catalyst for engaging guerilla tactics thereafter.

I have asked, but none has come forward, to point to a (the) time when the political impetus was there to bring about an end to the recent period of violence. Sunningdale was the best effort but fell short in no small part from Unionisms intransigence as much as anything. The policy of internment was still implemented so there was little chance of IRA stopping while that was on-going. Internment only ended in 1975.

The policy of criminalisation was then adopted, culminating in the hunger strikes - at which point, from every perceivable angle trust was at an all-time low.
Censorship, collusion, shoot-to-kill, etc were all policies being applied by the British State overtly and covertly. It is simply inconceivable in my view, to have expected the IRA to unilaterally and unconditionally cease-fire without it have been considered as a surrender in their own quarters - proponents of such a move most likely facing an early grave.

So where was the political impetus to bring the violence to an end?

Contrast with WoI and demands by Llyod George for the IRA to surrender its weapons also fell on deaf ears. It was only when King George applied some pressure to his own government to resolve matters that an invitation to peace talks was forthcoming. Such a invitation was not forthcoming in the Troubles era until 1994.
In 1989 Peter Brooke, acknowledging that the IRA could not be defeated, declared that talks could commence following a cease-fire but failed to follow this up with actual contact. Contact did not begin until 1990 but even then it was all back-door and tentative as trust was non-existent.

I did suggest beforehand that when Gerry Adams was shot in Belfast in 1984 it followed that SF literature contained references to 'peace' and 'peaceful resolution'. When Thatcher was dismissing our Government efforts of political resolution the Brighton bomb attack occurred and within a year she was signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Hume-Adams began in secret a couple of months after Enniskillen atrocity. Hume would be subsequently vilified from all quarters when it became public, including those high up in his own party. It was however, the impetus needed to eventually get to a position to end the violence.

I am not endorsing any of the violent actions above, other than to say if peace was the political imperative, why did it take so long? It wasn't a political imperative, that was the problem, throughout 70's and 80's it was British/Unionist policy to destroy the IRA, and IRA had no inclination but to attack.
Billy Hutchinson, PUP, admits as much saying that the working class Protestants were used by the British elite. Used to prolong the war against the IRA. Catholics were to be targeted to get them to drive out the IRA out of their communities, instead, he admits, they drove them into the bosom of the IRA.

We can look with hindsight and wish things happened sooner, or not at all, but they did and each side has its own narrative to play.

The fact is, democratic and constitutional politics has taken the outright ascendency. Hopefully it will stay that way, but I suspect there is always an underlying threat of intimidation when 50%+1 may not be considered a sufficient majority by some. It is designed to raise fear and the prospect of loyalist violence should Irish people even consider voting, democratically and peacefully, in a particular way for a UI.
 
Last edited:
Purple said:
I don't know why people hold the views that they hold.
Click to expand...

But you are ok with the President and Taoiseach routinely paying homage to a secret rebel army that brought a city to its knees without a mandate and led to the deaths of hundreds of its own citizens, including children? Your qualifying criteria so far seems to be the passage of time makes it ok.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
The WoI ended after a short period of about 2 years with a victory of sorts, that in itself is some sort of justification.
Click to expand...

It ended after two and half years after the British government agreed to enter into peace talks with the IRA.

That those talks would subsequently lead to the partition of the country, a civil war and the establishment of a northern government that would invoke discriminatory practices against its the Catholic population would transpire to be a very shallow victory, or rather no victory at all, in my opinion.
 
No, I'm not. If we want a united Ireland at any stage then we need to cast a more rational eye on our history rather than framing it within the false narrative which came from within what was a necessary but fanciful construct of what Irishness is, created at the time of our independence.
 
Last edited:
Purple said:
No, I'm not. If we want a united Ireland at any stage then we need to cast a more rational eye on our history
Click to expand...

Agreed.
I watched a debate with Leo Vradakar in attendence in West Belfast. He made a reasonable observation, that Bunreacht na hÉireann is a constitution for an Irish Ireland, whereas if we are ever to have a UI by consent, any constitution underpinning it will have to recognise the identity rights of Irishness and Britishness, and other. He pointed to the GFA as already recognising that up north. The quest will be to expand that recognition to the whole island. The primacy afforded to the Irish language under the constitution, the tricolor, the national anthem, and the narrative of State commemorations of 1916 etc will all have to be reviewed, as well as recognition of loyalty to British Crown, etc.
 
WolfeTone said:
the tricolor
Click to expand...

I'd be sad to see it go, when you consider its original idea as a bridge across the 'green' & 'orange' communities and the history behind that with Thomas Francis Meagher. Not sure what non-corporate bland flag with some connection to Ireland will fly with both sides... shamrock?
 
Agreed. That, along with the economic and social issues (their racism, homophobia, xenophobia and religious bigotry) is why I don't want a united Ireland any time soon. Maybe sometime in the next 100 years. We'll wait for the break up of the UK first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register