Was the Republican campaign justifiable?

Nodin wrote: »

Internment saw 1,981 nationalists detained, vs 105 loyalists.
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/intern/sum.htm

Although the UVF had begun the killing and bombing, this organisation was left untouched, as were other violent Loyalist satellite organisations such as TARAthe SHANKILL DEFENCE ASSOCIATION and the Ulster protestant volunteers.

irishh_bob wrote: »

you would weep if ( a) statue of oliver cromwell in drogheda was blown up

irishh_bob wrote: »

+1 , if the unionists had an an ounce of common sense , they would have saw it as in thier interest to woo , court and win over the minority catholic population after 1921 , equal access and opportunity with regards , employment , housing etc would have put paid to any significant republican rebellion taking shape , instead they chose to take the jackboot approach and mirror the botha types in south africa

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

I wouldn't put it like that because it implies unionists were inherently stupid, which they were not - and it was a complicated situation.

Northern Ireland was a very young entity at the yime which fed into insecurity in the legitimacy of the state. Look at the mad sh*t Israel get up to today.

Whilst the Ulster covenant provided some legitamacy, the 6 county version was a deviation from that as it wasn't Ulster in its entirety. Republicans had the 1918 election which was fresher in the mind in the 60s than it is today, in addition to that it was an official vote for the whole of Ireland as one entity, which is what it was constitutionally considered as a home nation of the UK at the time. The Ulster covenant - whilst as I said, could be considered in my opinion as some grounds for separation from the rest of Ireland, was in legal or constitutional terms just a petition

So there was likely an intense fear Northern Ireland could be erased as quickly as it was formed. Fear and rationality don't go hand in hand.

trendyvicar wrote: »

You're not American are you bob? The reason I ask this, is because you have a hopeless grasp of both historical context and human nature. Partition created two states that were cold places for their respective national minorities - the pro-British minority in the south and the pro-Irish minority in the north. The only difference is that the minority in the south effectively got up and left, so no problems (at least violent ones) resulted. In the north the minority was much larger, stayed and thanks to it's slavish obedience to RC doctrine actually grew in size. This meant they were viewed as a threat to the majority community. In those days (and indeed today in most parts of the world), national minorities are not accorded equality because they are viewed as a threat to the state. So it was in Northern Ireland. The situation was not helped by the irredentist claim the southern state maintained towards the north until very recently and by the Republican campaigns that occurred in every decade of Northern Ireland's history (and which continue to this day).

The continuous attempts by Republicans and ill informed others to equate the situation in Northern Ireland with the situation in the American deep south ignores the fact that Blacks in the deep south were a racial minority and not a national minority and as such were not a potential threat to the state itself.

In addition, it should be noted that the difference in standard of living between NI's Catholics and Protestants was nowhere near the same as that existing between Blacks/Whites in The US southern states, let alone between Blacks/Whites in apartheid era South Africa.

Strangely, there was no mass slaughter entered into by Blacks in Alabama - perhaps because they had more brains, or perhaps they were aware of how The US State would have reacted.

A statement of monochromatic bigotry. To attribute large families solely to the RC church betrays your poor understanding of the situation. Poverty and large families go hand-in-hand.

The situation is analogous. Blacks were very much considered a threat to the status quo if not 'the state' in the US. Like Unionism southern states white's paranoia cost the black community dearly.

The constitution empowered Black people in the US. They had a right to bear arms and the Black Panthers exercised that right. Car loads of Black Panthers used to follow the the police around tooled up to the teeth.