Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Was the Republican campaign justifiable?

Options
1…1617192122…37

Comments

  • Options
    #542
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,078 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    Dotsey wrote: »
    The UFF was essentially a puppet with it's strings being pulled fully by the UDA, maybe in another way the UDA were a government and the UFF it's army. Now I can accept there's hawks and doves within every organisation and people within the UDA didn't fire a gun but they were complicit in everything they did.

    Still waiting for an answer to 431 :rolleyes:


  • Options
    #543
    trendyvicar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 208 ✭✭trendyvicar


    Dotsey wrote: »
    The UFF was essentially a puppet with it's strings being pulled fully by the UDA, maybe in another way the UDA were a government and the UFF it's army. Now I can accept there's hawks and doves within every organisation and people within the UDA didn't fire a gun but they were complicit in everything they did.

    That's not quite how it worked in the early seventies (the period in question). The UDA had a hard core who used The UFF as a flag of convenience, but their association with the 'stick men' was limited as regards killing Nationalists. In effect, The UFF was a separate grouping. Obviously The UFF (virtual organisation) was nominally answerable to the specific UDA brigades, but only nominally. Control over The UFF varied from brigade to brigade and from time to time.

    Many 'stick men' were actually frightened of the hard core at that time.

    It was the 'stick men' who made up most of those UDA men in The UDR - but that's not to say some of the hard core (UFF) didn't avail themselves of the facilities. Who knows.


  • Options
    #544
    Hannibal
    Registered Users Posts: 1,815 ✭✭✭Hannibal


    LordSutch wrote: »
    Still waiting for an answer to 431 :rolleyes:
    look at the original post I made there's a slight typing error, change the word "demographs" to "demographics" and there's your answer!!


  • Options
    #545
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    Dotsey wrote: »
    The UFF was essentially a puppet with it's strings being pulled fully by the UDA, maybe in another way the UDA were a government and the UFF it's army. Now I can accept there's hawks and doves within every organisation and people within the UDA didn't fire a gun but they were complicit in everything they did.
    Same could be said for Sinn Fein. And Sinn Fein are actually a political party.


  • Options
    #546
    K-9
    Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Read post wrong!

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #547
    laoch na mona
    Registered Users Posts: 2,965 ✭✭✭laoch na mona


    how about we agree everyone was wrong


  • Options
    #548
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    trendyvicar wrote: »
    What would you have called PIRA?

    More accurate than those they were fighting.

    Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,824 people

    621 (34%) of these casualties were civilians.

    British Army killed 305 people during Operation Banner.

    156 (~51%) were civilians.

    the UVF and RHC was responsible for 481 deaths

    412 85% civilian.

    Republican paramilitary 4%.

    I'd imagine firing blindly into a group of 481 randomly chosen people would return the same results.

    621 vs 156 vs 412 in real figures. So the IRA murdered more than the others put together.

    And since most apologists will pretend that IRA were the only ones that didn't target civilians, those statistics are even more damning - 621 civilians murdered by those supposedly going out of their way not to murder civilians, if you were to believe the apologists.


  • Options
    #549
    Hannibal
    Registered Users Posts: 1,815 ✭✭✭Hannibal


    KeithAFC wrote: »
    Same could be said for Sinn Fein. And Sinn Fein are actually a political party.
    It could be said of Sinn Fein but it wouldn't be entirely true. There was a crossover of members between SF and the IRA but SF had no direct control over the IRA, they could exert political influence but not control.
    This is where the likes of Adams came in, while having never being in the IRA he knew a lot of members from his area and they respected his political nouse and this opened up avenues to him to get the SF point of view across on how to play the political game. In many ways SF's input into the IRA caused the splits that created the CIRA and RIRA as some military hardliners couldn't accept or understand the political alternative and went off in another direction


  • Options
    #550
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    Dotsey wrote: »
    It could be said of Sinn Fein but it wouldn't be entirely true. There was a crossover of members between SF and the IRA but SF had no direct control over the IRA, they could exert political influence but not control.
    This is where the likes of Adams came in, while having never being in the IRA he knew a lot of members from his area and they respected his political nouse and this opened up avenues to him to get the SF point of view across on how to play the political game. In many ways SF's input into the IRA caused the splits that created the CIRA and RIRA as some military hardliners couldn't accept or understand the political alternative and went off in another direction
    Ignoring the utter nonsense in bold, Sinn Fein had a huge say in the PIRA. A lot of Sinn Fein members are ex PIRA. Ever heard of the armalite and ballot box strategy? Sinn Fein would run in elections, while behind the scenes organise the PIRA around Ulster planting bombs and killing people.


  • Options
    #551
    snafuk35
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 833 ✭✭✭snafuk35


    Noreen1 wrote: »
    The Republican campaign was justifiable, in the sense that Civil rights were clearly not going to be given willingly by either the British Government, or some members of the Unionist tradition.

    The IRA campaign had nothing to do with Civil Rights. They didn't want civil rights for Catholics under British rule. They wanted Irish independence and a 32 county republic. Some impressionable idiots were fed that crap about civil rights. The ambitions of Adams and McGuinness were to become top dog once they knew the armed campaign was going nowhere so they instead switch tack and focused on a gradualist process of phasing out terror and phasing in normal politics. They have only recently completed the transformation and having left shed layers of dead skin they leave the killing and murdering up to the idiots in the RIRA.
    I rather suspect that, without the example shown by these "leaders", peace would have been achieved in the North decades earlier.

    The aim was power. Peace only came when the provos saw the door open for political power.
    At the end of the day, the vast majority of people of both political persuasions, voted for peace when given the opportunity.

    The people were voting for peace since 1922.
    Those "leaders", have a great deal of blood on their hands, imo.

    So what? They don't care and there's no chance of them going to prison now. They let Bobby Sands starve while they were planning their political trajectories.
    However, much of what occurred was entirely unjustifiable. The Omagh bombing, to cite just one instance, was absolutely appalling.

    If the Provos had done it they would telling us all contextualize it as part of the war. It's only an atrocity because they didn't do it!
    However, if a balanced, and honest view of the atrocities in Northern Ireland is ever to be achieved

    Good luck with that friendo!
    - then people of both persuasions need to be prepared to admit the wrongs committed by both sides.

    You know they never will.
    There was collusion by the security forces with Loyalist paramilitaries - and anyone who is genuinely interested in the truth should not only admit it - but openly condemn it.

    Never going to happen.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #552
    screamer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,131 ✭✭✭screamer


    There is no land on this earth worth one drop of human blood, this is my true belief, so to me, no, it was not justified, but neither was occupation. Remember, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.


  • Options
    #553
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    621 vs 156 vs 412 in real figures. So the IRA murdered more than the others put together.

    It's your problem if you don't want to accept the fact that proportionately the IRA killed less civilians than any other protagonist.


  • Options
    #554
    trendyvicar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 208 ✭✭trendyvicar


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    It's your problem if you don't want to accept the fact that proportionately the IRA killed less civilians than any other protagonist.

    Perhaps The Security Forces should have executed every militant Republican they got their hands on and improved their ratios?

    And it would have saved the cost of spraying down all those sh*t covered prison walls.


  • Options
    #555
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    trendyvicar wrote: »
    Perhaps The Security Forces should have executed every militant Republican they got their hands on and improved their ratios?

    Republicans didn't have the option of building internment camps and jails so they could throw hundreds of the enemy in them whether they were innocent or guilty.


  • Options
    #556
    trendyvicar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 208 ✭✭trendyvicar


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    Republicans didn't have the option of building internment camps and jails so they could throw hundreds of the enemy in them whether they were innocent or guilty.

    Ahhhhhhhhh. Poor little Irish murderers. You'd have thought building would have been their forte. LOL.

    Couldn't afford uniforms either from what I gather - hence the need for Loyalists to kill members of the broader Nationalist community instead.

    The IRA didn't so much die for their community, as insure their community died for them...

    And the thickos still vote for them. LOL


  • Options
    #557
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    trendyvicar wrote: »
    Ahhhhhhhhh. Poor little Irish murderers. You'd have thought building would have been their forte. LOL.

    Couldn't afford uniforms either from what I gather - hence the need for Loyalists to kill members of the broader Nationalist community instead.

    The IRA didn't so much die for their community, as insure their community died for them...

    And the thickos still vote for them. LOL

    That's it.. let all that hatred and bitterness flow... just let it all out...


  • Options
    #558
    Noreen1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,654 ✭✭✭Noreen1


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    Curious phrasing. The "Republican campaign" involved murdering people, and so while other parts of it may have been justifiable, you cannot say that "it" was justifiable while simultaneously saying that the other parts of it were "entirely unjustifiable".

    In addition, those objectionable and entirely unjustifiable parts didn't "occur"; that's far too passive. They were planned and caused.[/QUOTE]

    Fair enough. A campaign was justifiable, but certainly not the blood of innocents, of whatever political persuasion.

    I worked in England for part of the 80s.
    I clearly remember an Italian colleague, whose best friends son had been killed in an IRA ambush, coming up to me, and genuinely trying to understand why this lad had been killed. His mother had asked her to get me to explain. (Genuine case of Italian lady, married to an Englishman, and not knowing the history).

    It turned out, the lad had just turned 18, had joined the army to learn a trade, and was posted to Northern Ireland. He was dead within a week.

    Now, the IRA regarded him as a legitimate target. I saw him as a lad who only wanted to learn a trade. He had never done the people of NI any harm - hence, I could not condone his death. On the other hand, there were undoubtedly other soldiers, be it those who chose to open fire on unarmed civilians, or those who colluded with, and enabled, loyalist paramilitaries - who would receive considerably less sympathy, were they to meet the same fate.
    Their families, on the other hand, are fully deserving of sympathy. Bereavement is difficult in any circumstance - it must be truly horrendous when it's as a result of a deliberate action by another person, though.


    It would be nice if the situation in NI were black and white.
    Unfortunately, there were several shades of grey there, too.

    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    We need to stop the double-speak and tell it like it is.[/QUOTE]

    You're right. We do need to tell it like it is - all of us!

    There's far too much defensiveness, and indeed, deliberate point-scoring, designed only to infuriate "The other side".

    It's pointless. The only objective is to win a point in the debate, much like a school debating competition - there is little real, constructive dialogue, designed to bring understanding.

    The truth is, atrocities were committed by both sides. When there is finally real recognition of that - by all of the people on both sides - without forgetting any of the victims, or the horror, then we will have achieved real, lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

    The sooner, the better, imo.


  • Options
    #559
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    621 vs 156 vs 412 in real figures. So the IRA murdered more than the others put together.

    It's your problem if you don't want to accept the fact that proportionately the IRA killed less civilians than any other protagonist.

    Conversely it's your problem if you choose to only spout statistics that show then in a better light and overlook the fact that they murdered more than anyone else.

    Statistics can prove an awful lot when you are biased and of the mindset to excuse murder.


  • Options
    #560
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Noreen1 wrote:
    You're right. We do need to tell it like it is - all of us!

    There's far too much defensiveness, and indeed, deliberate point-scoring, designed only to infuriate "The other side".

    I've said it before; the usual definition of "sides" in this is skewed. It's not actually loyalist v republican or anything like that.

    The only true sides are those who excuse and play down murder and those who don't.

    I'm not on either colloquial "side", but I am on the side who refuse to accept the murder of innocents - by anyone.


  • Options
    #561
    Noreen1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,654 ✭✭✭Noreen1


    snafuk35 wrote: »

    The IRA campaign had nothing to do with Civil Rights. They didn't want civil rights for Catholics under British rule. They wanted Irish independence and a 32 county republic. Some impressionable idiots were fed that crap about civil rights. The ambitions of Adams and McGuinness were to become top dog once they knew the armed campaign was going nowhere so they instead switch tack and focused on a gradualist process of phasing out terror and phasing in normal politics. They have only recently completed the transformation and having left shed layers of dead skin they leave the killing and murdering up to the idiots in the RIRA.



    The aim was power. Peace only came when the provos saw the door open for political power.



    The people were voting for peace since 1922.



    So what? They don't care and there's no chance of them going to prison now. They let Bobby Sands starve while they were planning their political trajectories.



    If the Provos had done it they would telling us all contextualize it as part of the war. It's only an atrocity because they didn't do it!



    Good luck with that friendo!



    You know they never will.



    Never going to happen.

    You think not?
    Yet people can live in peace together on the other side of the invisible line that is the border!

    It will happen. The bitterness will die down as time goes by, and the "troubles" will end up another lesson in the history book - just like other conflicts!


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #562
    Fiatach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 55 ✭✭Fiatach


    Noreen1 wrote: »
    snafuk35 wrote: »

    You think not?
    Yet people can live in peace together on the other side of the invisible line that is the border!

    It will happen. The bitterness will die down as time goes by, and the "troubles" will end up another lesson in the history book - just like other conflicts!

    Don't be so naive, a lesson from history is that as long as British rule remains in Ireland there will always be people to oppose it using force. This has been going on over an 800 year period and is unlikely to change or simply 'die down'.


  • Options
    #563
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Fiatach wrote: »
    Noreen1 wrote: »
    snafuk35 wrote: »

    You think not?
    Yet people can live in peace together on the other side of the invisible line that is the border!

    It will happen. The bitterness will die down as time goes by, and the "troubles" will end up another lesson in the history book - just like other conflicts!

    Don't be so naive, a lesson from history is that as long as British rule remains in Ireland there will always be people to oppose it using force. This has been going on over an 800 year period and is unlikely to change or simply 'die down'.

    So much for democracy and the GFA, eh ?

    Guess we released all those murderers for nothing. :mad:


  • Options
    #564
    K-9
    Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    It's your problem if you don't want to accept the fact that proportionately the IRA killed less civilians than any other protagonist.

    Do you have a link for those figures?

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Options
    #565
    blahfckingblah
    Registered Users Posts: 1,666 ✭✭✭blahfckingblah


    Liam Byrne wrote: »

    So much for democracy and the GFA, eh ?

    Guess we released all those murderers for nothing. :mad:
    you act as if you havnt heard of the real ira or the continuity ira why?


  • Options
    #566
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    trendyvicar wrote: »
    Perhaps The Security Forces should have executed every militant Republican they got their hands on and improved their ratios?

    Republicans didn't have the option of building internment camps and jails so they could throw hundreds of the enemy in them whether they were innocent or guilty.

    No - they just sent the boys round to kneecap or execute them regardless of whether they were innocent or guilty.....no trials required worked both ways as far as I can see.

    Any chance you'd surprise me by stating your equal objection to both ?


  • Options
    #567
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    K-9 wrote: »
    Do you have a link for those figures?

    http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/book/


  • Options
    #568
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    No - they just sent the boys round to kneecap or execute them regardless of whether they were innocent or guilty.....no trials required worked both ways as far as I can see.

    I've said earlier in the thread that I don't think Republicans have much to complain about when they give out about shoot-to-kill. Live by the sword and die by it and all that.
    Any chance you'd surprise me by stating your equal objection to both?

    Both what? Both sides killing civilians? Yeah I object to that. I've already said that.


  • Options
    #569
    Liam Byrne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    No - they just sent the boys round to kneecap or execute them regardless of whether they were innocent or guilty.....no trials required worked both ways as far as I can see.

    I've said earlier in the thread that I don't think Republicans have much to complain about when they give out about shoot-to-kill. Live by the sword and die by it and all that.
    Any chance you'd surprise me by stating your equal objection to both?

    Both what? Both sides killing civilians? Yeah I object to that. I've already said that.

    Good to know.

    But why did you start making points about internment then, or pretend that a percentage was more important than the actual number of people murdered?


  • Options
    #570
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Liam Byrne wrote: »
    Good to know.

    But why did you start making points about internment then,

    They're different issues. :confused:

    Internment was aimed at suppressing Catholics and did nothing but further energize the IRA. The security forces were not referees they were players. Only the most delusional apologists for the dominance of Unionism/Loyalism over the Catholic community would deny this.
    or pretend that a percentage was more important than the actual number of people murdered?

    Trust me - I'm not pretending. Looking at the percentage of civilians killed by each organisation is perfectly legitimate.

    Remember too that the RUC and BA had recourse to a statutory legal apparatus making their civilian killings even more questionable.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #571
    KeithAFC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,239 ✭✭✭✭KeithAFC


    The war of Republican aggression just made the vast majority of people from the PUL community resist. Sinn Fein are actually turning away from many of the major Republican ideals. They are upsetting a lot of Republicans. If the SDLP had anything about them, they would pick up on that but they don't.

    As it has been said already, the PIRA made the Republican and Nationalist communities suffer the most. Not only did they Hi jack a civil rights movement but they also used propaganda and the deaths of fellow Republicans and Socialists die on Hunger strike to make improvements in the political field.

    If I was a Republican, I would be ashamed of Sinn Fein and all they stood for. They betrayed many of the people they claimed to be representing and defending and let people on Hunger strike die.

    They have weak leaders representing them in Gerry Adams and Martin Mcguinness. One will meet the Queen and the other has decided to move down to the Irish Republic. Two things which many Republicans would find unforgivable.

    It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things I suppose. Gerry and Martin pick up a good wage packet and Sinn Fein now help run Northern Ireland. Sooner or later they will take their seats in Westminster.


Advertisement