United Ireland first and Civil Rights second - wrong way round?

Bog Butter

Burntollet bridge 4th January 1969
Bloody Sunday 30th January 1972

The outcome of the above events show that there was no mechanism within the state of Northern Ireland for which Catholics could air their grievences. There is no doubt the law had to be broken.

I don't think the PIRA truely served the Nationalist community. There aim was to bring about a united Ireland and in doing so bring about civil rights. But shouldn't the aim have been to bring about civil rights first?

brianthebard

Well the civil rights movement did arrive ahead of the rise in paramilitary activity. I've always believed that the civils rights activists of the late 60s should have been allowed continue without the IRA becoming involved, as soon as they did the British and indeed the international community could write off the big issues on the grounds of terrorism. But whether that was a choice open to the catholic community as a whole in NI at the time is open to interpretation.

Also, just to get a mod warning in here now, I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I prefer reasoned discussion over emotional or insulting rhetoric, ok peeps? Great.

Fratton Fred

I guess the PIRA would argue that a united Ireland would mean defacto human rights for Catholics, so in their eyes they were joined.

What should have happened, rather than bringing bombs to the streets of London, they should have brought peaceful demonstrations. The British public and media only react to marches in London, not Derry, it is too far away and too easy to ignore. Catholic rights demonstrations on the scale of the CND marches, anti Aparthied £arches and the poll tax marches would have been a much swifter way of bringing about reform.

Imho of course.

walrusgumble

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I guess the PIRA would argue that a united Ireland would mean defacto human rights for Catholics, so in their eyes they were joined.

What should have happened, rather than bringing bombs to the streets of London, they should have brought peaceful demonstrations. The British public and media only react to marches in London, not Derry, it is too far away and too easy to ignore. Catholic rights demonstrations on the scale of the CND marches, anti Aparthied £arches and the poll tax marches would have been a much swifter way of bringing about reform.

Imho of course.

It would have being nice if that happened

By no means wishing to sound disrepectful

but the IRA's attitude towards the English (and former British government's position on Ireland) was that they only way they learned was through the bullet and the bomb. Considering the No Black No Irish signs hanging out in some establishments around England since the end of WW2, would the people of London pay much heed even if there were protests there, in light of huge Irish presence in the city?

Apparently the bombs were not intended to kill Londoners, just to destory the business districts (of course, no doubt you or Londeners - may of our relations btw, were safe in the knowledge of this)

I know the point you are making (make the people aware not the politicans), but its not like there was a lack of media coverage of these events for the ordinary english person to see on tv, bar tv reports won't give you the full story and balance.

Fratton Fred

walrusgumble wrote: »

It would have being nice if that happened

By no means wishing to sound disrepectful

but the IRA's attitude towards the English (and former British government's position on Ireland) was that they only way they learned was through the bullet and the bomb. Considering the No Black No Irish signs hanging out in some establishments around England since the end of WW2, would the people of London pay much heed even if there were protests there, in light of huge Irish presence in the city?

Apparently the bombs were not intended to kill Londoners, just to destory the business districts (of course, no doubt you or Londeners - may of our relations btw, were safe in the knowledge of this)

I know the point you are making (make the people aware not the politicans), but its not like there was a lack of media coverage of these events for the ordinary english person to see on tv, bar tv reports won't give you the full story and balance.

surely you aren't labelling an entire population based on a few signs seen in West Midlands boarding houses are you?

believe me, people in England were not aware what was going on. The first i heard about names of Catholics being put on bonfires was when i moved to Ireland and many English people were surprised to hear it when i tell them.

What the IRA did was to create a "Them and Us" attitude amongst English people, the IRA were our enemies (brilliantly demonstrated everytime they threw a bomb into a restaurant) so their enemies were obviously our friends, no?

No one in England cared about unionism, or whether or not NI remained within the UK, but no one wanted the IRA to win and, by association, the nationalist cause was thus tainted.

I can understand why, after the events in 1972, so many young people picked up a gun, but if the point of human rights had been pushed peacefully rather than through bloodshed, I think that at the very least the human rights issues would have been addressed earlier.

there is though, the possibility that the IRA did not want the nationalist community to have peace and harmony in NI, a disaffected and marginalised youth are ideal recruits for extremism so surely it was in their best interests that the RUC etc were victimising catholics, no?

meathstevie

Folks, correct me if you think I'm wrong but wasn't it mainly due to the actions of the then Stormont government and the way they deployed or allowed the then RUC to deploy that a number of people on the nationalist side decided they also were capable of using violence for a political end ?

If I remember correctly the initial actions of the IRA and after a parting of the ways the PIRA were mainly defensive ?

Let's face it, the then British government felt compelled to deploy the army on the streets of Derry and Belfast to pacify the place. And that wasn't only because of rioting nationalists and republicans. Let's not forget that the first policeman killed in the troubles was killed by so called loyalists.

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I guess the PIRA would argue that a united Ireland would mean defacto human rights for Catholics, so in their eyes they were joined.

What should have happened, rather than bringing bombs to the streets of London, they should have brought peaceful demonstrations. The British public and media only react to marches in London, not Derry, it is too far away and too easy to ignore. Catholic rights demonstrations on the scale of the CND marches, anti Aparthied £arches and the poll tax marches would have been a much swifter way of bringing about reform.

Imho of course.

I've heard it said during the troubles that the way to get the british left active on campaigning for british withdrawal from the occupied counties was to say that the north was a country in south east Asia and that the American army was in occupation of it. The brits would be out in their droves then ofcourse :rolleyes:.

" What should have happened, rather than bringing bombs to the streets of London, they should have brought peaceful demonstrations. " They did try their best with peaceful deomonstrations, it was called the Civil Rights movement but were attacked and beaten and murdered by the RUC, brit army and unionists mobs. The first death of the troubles was on 14 July 1969 when 67 year old Francis McCloskey was murdered by the RUC after been beaten merciless with batons during a Civl Rights march in Dungiven. The very last Civil Rights march was on Bloody Sunday in 1972.

The IRA was been led by a bunch of bar stool Stalinists who later went on to call themselves the Offical IRA and Sinn Fein the Workers party. These half wits had left the IRA almost weaponless to defend the nationalist community. IRA - I Ran Away was daubed on the walls.

As we know, the brits arrived in Belfast in August 1969. As you can see from the Cain website, they first started shooting civilians in October 1969. The first brit to be killed by the IRA was on 6 February 1971. The first operation carried out in England was 8 March 1973 with the a bomb outside Scotland Yard ( Gerry Kelly who is now the deputy first minister in Stormont was one of the unit that did it ). So the brit public had 4 years to get off it's behind and protest about the murders and injustice been inflicted on the nationalists of the six counties, but no, as you rightly point out they were more concerned with South Africa etc instead of their own murdering bastards in Ireland.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1969.html

Fratton Fred

Nice rant. The IRA obviously spent a fortune arming their death squads to bring murder and mayhem to the mainland, but how much did they dedicate to the civil rights movement? How much money did the IRA actually dedicate to defendinf the Nationalist community rather than flying people around the world so smuggle arms and murder Brits?

I may be wrong, but I don't recall a single civil rights march in London, but I do remember plenty of bombs.

Maybe if they had concentrated on civil rights there would be a few less dead bodies. That is, of course, presuming the IRA were interested in civil rights.

walrusgumble

McArmalite wrote: »

I've heard it said during the troubles that the way to get the british left active on campaigning for british withdrawal from the occupied counties was to say that the north was a country in south east Asia and that the American army was in occupation of it. The brits would be out in their droves then ofcourse :rolleyes:.

" What should have happened, rather than bringing bombs to the streets of London, they should have brought peaceful demonstrations. " They did try their best with peaceful deomonstrations, it was called the Civil Rights movement but were attacked and beaten and murdered by the RUC, brit army and unionists mobs. The first death of the troubles was on 14 July 1969 when 67 year old Francis McCloskey was murdered by the RUC after been beaten merciless with batons during a Civl Rights march in Dungiven. The very last Civil Rights march was on Bloody Sunday in 1972.

The IRA was been led by a bunch of bar stool Stalinists who later went on to call themselves the Offical IRA and Sinn Fein the Workers party. These half wits had left the IRA almost weaponless to defend the nationalist community. IRA - I Ran Away was daubed on the walls.

As we know, the brits arrived in Belfast in August 1969. As you can see from the Cain website, they first started shooting civilians in October 1969. The first brit to be killed by the IRA was on 6 February 1971. The first operation carried out in England was 8 March 1973 with the a bomb outside Scotland Yard ( Gerry Kelly who is now the deputy first minister in Stormont was one of the unit that did it ). So the brit public had 4 years to get off it's behind and protest about the murders and injustice been inflicted on the nationalists of the six counties, but no, as you rightly point out they were more concerned with South Africa etc instead of their own murdering bastards in Ireland.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1969.html

"barstool stalinists"? , barstool?

And what did you ever do for the Republican cause?

Didn't Gerry Adams in the end follow and repeat/implement some of the things Officals had being calling for (and later O'Braidigh/O'Connell)

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

surely you aren't labelling an entire population based on a few signs seen in West Midlands boarding houses are you?

Their was a lot more of it going on than just a few boarding houses in the West Midlands. But sure your just british, you just love yourselves, you can never admit the truth.

believe me, people in England were not aware what was going on. The first i heard about names of Catholics being put on bonfires was when i moved to Ireland and many English people were surprised to hear it when i tell them.

What the IRA did was to create a "Them and Us" attitude amongst English people, the IRA were our enemies (brilliantly demonstrated everytime they threw a bomb into a restaurant) so their enemies were obviously our friends, no?

No one in England cared about unionism, or whether or not NI remained within the UK, but no one wanted the IRA to win and, by association, the nationalist cause was thus tainted.

I can understand why, after the events in 1972, so many young people picked up a gun, but if the point of human rights had been pushed peacefully rather than through bloodshed, I think that at the very least the human rights issues would have been addressed earlier.

The brit public didn't care what ' their boys ' got up to in Ireland, not until our boys started killing their boys and went over there stiffing the brits in Birminhgham, Guildford etc. Reap as you sow

there is though, the possibility that the IRA did not want the nationalist community to have peace and harmony in NI, a disaffected and marginalised youth are ideal recruits for extremism so surely it was in their best interests that the RUC etc were victimising catholics, no?

The Provos were the marginalised youth, the vast majority of them were in their late teens/ early twenties. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Kelly etc are the proof of it.

Fratton Fred

McArmalite wrote: »

Their was a lot more of it going on than just a few boarding houses in the West Midlands. But sure your just british, you just love yourselves, you can never admit the truth.


The brit public didn't care what ' their boys ' got up to in Ireland, not until our boys started killing their boys and went over there stiffing the brits in Birminhgham, Guildford etc. Reap as you sow


The Provos were the marginalised youth, the vast majority of them were in their late teens/ early twenties. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Kelly etc are the proof of it.

Do you never feel ashamed about the way you glorify violence, or is it your way of compensating for your own inadequacies?

The marginalised youth are what my point is. Without them, the godfathers would have no mugs to go out and kill innocent people, or take a bullet on their behalf (ie the hunger strikers, loughgall "martyrs" etc). So oppression of the nationalist community was in their best interests surely?

McArmalite

walrusgumble wrote: »

"barstool stalinists"? , barstool?

And what did you ever do for the Republican cause?

I've been involed in God knows how many marches, postering, leafletting etc down the years. I've mentioned it once or twice before, end of story. Unlike the Stickies ( Offical IRA/SF the Workers Party ) who ended up supporting partition, probably selling weapons to the loyalists and looking for drinking money from just about every disreputable regeime you can think of - Communist East Germany, Ceauşescu's Romania, even North Korea.

Didn't Gerry Adams in the end follow and repeat/implement some of the things Officals had being calling for (and later O'Braidigh/O'Connell)

Agreed, I was against the GFA and campaigned against it. You can discuss it with one of the SFer's, I'm not interested.

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Do you never feel ashamed about the way you glorify violence, or is it your way of compensating for your own inadequacies?

The marginalised youth are what my point is. Without them, the godfathers would have no mugs to go out and kill innocent people, or take a bullet on their behalf (ie the hunger strikers, loughgall "martyrs" etc). So oppression of the nationalist community was in their best interests surely?

As stated, the Provos were the marginalised youth, the vast majority of them were in their late teens/ early twenties, british injustice did all the marginalising.

But since you mentioned " godfathers would have.....mugs to go out and kill innocent people, or take a bullet on their behalf " Would you not think you should be directing that at the Jeremy Kyle type guests who make up the british Army and take an oath to Mrs Windsor promising to a stop a bullet for the british banksters of the "City" of London?

brianthebard

People need to calm down and drop the personal attacks of this thread will be locked, and bans/infractions given if needed. mod.

Fred, for your points to be taken seriously you will have to acknowledge that a civil rights movement did occur in the North prior to the resurgence of the IRA at the start of the 1970s. So far I haven't seen that in your arguments. B.

Fratton Fred

brianthebard wrote: »

People need to calm down and drop the personal attacks of this thread will be locked, and bans/infractions given if needed. mod.

Fred, for your points to be taken seriously you will have to acknowledge that a civil rights movement did occur in the North prior to the resurgence of the IRA at the start of the 1970s. So far I haven't seen that in your arguments. B.

I could make it a bit more obvious I suppose, but that is what I thought I inferred in post number 3.

People in London don't see civil rights marches in Derry, they only notice them when they are marching around Marble Arch. Therefore, if the IRA were so worried about civil rights, why did they not pay for the civil rights movement to come to London? they could march all they like in Armagh, or Belfast, they needed to come to london.

Easier though, to claim the Brits aren't interested and are all scum and radicalise your disaffected youth, just like the Muslim extremists are doing now. painting false pictures of the Brits makes it easier for people to feel less guilty about killing them.

brianthebard

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I could make it a bit more obvious I suppose, but that is what I thought I inferred in post number 3.

People in London don't see civil rights marches in Derry, they only notice them when they are marching around Marble Arch. Therefore, if the IRA were so worried about civil rights, why did they not pay for the civil rights movement to come to London? they could march all they like in Armagh, or Belfast, they needed to come to london.

tbh I don't believe the idea that the protest marches would have to be moved to London before being seen or recognised is valid. I can't think of any similar situation where this would be required, or where one could pass judgement on a movement as having failed for this reason. The problem of Catholics lacking equal rights was an issue of the North, and should have been dealt with there. That is after all why there is now a devolved Government.
As for whether the IRA were worried about marches, I think its clear that the IRA grew up in the 70s as a result of the perceived failure of the civil rights campaign in the face of British army violence. To suggest anything else is a bit of a strawman really.

Fratton Fred

brianthebard wrote: »

tbh I don't believe the idea that the protest marches would have to be moved to London before being seen or recognised is valid. I can't think of any similar situation where this would be required, or where one could pass judgement on a movement as having failed for this reason. The problem of Catholics lacking equal rights was an issue of the North, and should have been dealt with there. That is after all why there is now a devolved Government.
As for whether the IRA were worried about marches, I think its clear that the IRA grew up in the 70s as a result of the perceived failure of the civil rights campaign in the face of British army violence. To suggest anything else is a bit of a strawman really.

martin McGuinness was commander in chief of the IRA's londonderry brigade was he not and he was in that role at the time of the Bloody Sunday massacre?

Bloody Sunday strenghtened the IRA, it did not create it.

there is a government in the UK, at Westminster. If there is part of the community who is being oppressed, then that is the place to raise it. you could argue that if SF were worried about civil rights as well, they would have swallowed their pride and represented their people in Parliament where it would be debated normally.

But, as I said earlier, marginalised youth benefitted the IRA so i would question if they were actually interested in improving the life of the average nationalist when disaffected young men were their recruiting ground.

what is strawman about that?

R.Dub.Fusilier

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Easier though, to claim the Brits aren't interested and are all scum and radicalise your disaffected youth, just like the Muslim extremists are doing now. painting false pictures of the Brits makes it easier for people to feel less guilty about killing them.

i am by no means anti the british people i am against what english and later british have done to our country. if you can have a honest look at what they have done to destroy the irish people you might be able to understand how and why McArmalite , no offence intended McA, and the nationalist people of the six counties think . you dont have to agree with but at least you will know.

i support a united ireland but i cant say i agree with the killing of civilians be they british or irish.

Fratton Fred

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

i am by no means anti the british people i am against what english and later british have done to our country. if you can have a honest look at what they have done to destroy the irish people you might be able to understand how and why McArmalite , no offence intended McA, and the nationalist people of the six counties think . you dont have to agree with but at least you will know.

i support a united ireland but i cant say i agree with the killing of civilians be they british or irish.

I don't deny that at all. A Muslim would use the same arguement against the West, that for centuries we have destroyed their countries and lives.

The Muslim extremists tale of woe has been hijacked by extremists though, mainly for their own purposes. Just like the cause of the Irish people.

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

there is a government in the UK, at Westminster. If there is part of the community who is being oppressed, then that is the place to raise it. you could argue that if SF were worried about civil rights as well, they would have swallowed their pride and represented their people in Parliament where it would be debated normally.

It was on an invention called a TV, the whole world knew it. With the brits it's always the victims fault, whether it be Ireland or India etc. They just LOVE themselves, " we couldn't be in any way to balme, the british sense of fairplay " etc

A similair situation occured in America with the Civil Rights marches in Alabahma etc.Did the American civil rights movemet have to start marching in New York, San Francisco etc for public sympathy to demand immediate change ? Ofcourse not. But as I said, the brits just LOVE themselves, it's always the victims fault with them, " Our boys can do no wrong, the british sense of fairplay " etc

what is strawman about that?

Why ask a question when you know the answer better yourself ?

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

there is a government in the UK, at Westminster. If there is part of the community who is being oppressed, then that is the place to raise it. you could argue that if SF were worried about civil rights as well, they would have swallowed their pride and represented their people in Parliament where it would be debated normally.

The issue was raised via a number of ways at Westminster. There was absolutely no way that anyone in England should have remained ignorant of what was going on in Ireland. There was a large Irish Civil Rights demonstration in Trafalgar Square in London in the summer 1968. I have a large photo of the event that shows a huge assembly of people with a outsized banner hanging up on the main podium in the square reading "DEMAND DEMOCRACY IN NORTHERN IRELAND" - all in caps.

In addition later in the new year after the Burntollet Ambush a group from the DCAC organised a trip to London via a charter plane and marched to Westminster Hall and 10 Downing St and handed in a letter of protest at conditions in Northern Ireland. About 200 people travelled on the plane and many others were outside Downing Street for that protest.

I have to say - as MacArmalite is saying, getting the British press to cover these events was really difficult. I was an undergrad at an English Univ two years later and hardly anyone there knew about the situation in Northern Ireland. But they sure as hell knew how to lead protests to the US Embassy against Vietnam.

R.Dub.Fusilier

MarchDub wrote: »

The issue was raised via a number of ways at Westminster. There was absolutely no way that anyone in England should have remained ignorant of what was going on in Ireland. There was a large Irish Civil Rights demonstration in Trafalgar Square in London in the summer 1968. I have a large photo of the event that shows a huge assembly of people with a outsized banner hanging up on the main podium in the square reading "DEMAND DEMOCRACY IN NORTHERN IRELAND" - all in caps.

In addition later in the new year after the Burntollet Ambush a group from the DCAC organised a trip to London via a charter plane and marched to Westminster Hall and 10 Downing St and handed in a letter of protest at conditions in Northern Ireland. About 200 people travelled on the plane and many others were outside Downing Street for that protest.

I have to say - as MacArmalite is saying, getting the British press to cover these events was really difficult. I was an undergrad at an English Univ two years later and hardly anyone there knew about the situation in Northern Ireland. But they sure as hell knew how to lead protests to the US Embassy against Vietnam.

hear hear.

Fratton Fred

McArmalite wrote: »

It was on an invention called a TV, the whole world knew it. With the brits it's always the victims fault, whether it be Ireland or India etc. They just LOVE themselves, " we couldn't be in any way to balme, the british sense of fairplay " etc

A similair situation occured in America with the Civil Rights marches in Alabahma etc.Did the American civil rights movemet have to start marching in New York, San Francisco etc for public sympathy to demand immediate change ? Ofcourse not. But as I said, the brits just LOVE themselves, it's always the victims fault with them, " Our boys can do no wrong, the british sense of fairplay " etc

we love ourselves.

that's why we all run around wearling "Kiss Me I'm English" t shirts, or being convinced we are the wealthiest, most popular nation in the world, when in reality, we continuously **** up our own country through incompetance, greed and nepotism.

yep, that's the Englsih sure enough:rolleyes:

Fratton Fred

MarchDub wrote: »

The issue was raised via a number of ways at Westminster. There was absolutely no way that anyone in England should have remained ignorant of what was going on in Ireland. There was a large Irish Civil Rights demonstration in Trafalgar Square in London in the summer 1968. I have a large photo of the event that shows a huge assembly of people with a outsized banner hanging up on the main podium in the square reading "DEMAND DEMOCRACY IN NORTHERN IRELAND" - all in caps.

In addition later in the new year after the Burntollet Ambush a group from the DCAC organised a trip to London via a charter plane and marched to Westminster Hall and 10 Downing St and handed in a letter of protest at conditions in Northern Ireland. About 200 people travelled on the plane and many others were outside Downing Street for that protest.

I have to say - as MacArmalite is saying, getting the British press to cover these events was really difficult. I was an undergrad at an English Univ two years later and hardly anyone there knew about the situation in Northern Ireland. But they sure as hell knew how to lead protests to the US Embassy against Vietnam.

but you've just confirmed my point. you went to Uni and no one knew what was really going on. The only real outrage i can recall, was the holy cross dispute, which received a lot of media coverage here and showed a lot of people in their true light.

edited to remove unpleasantness. mod.

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

but you've just confirmed my point. you went to Uni and no one knew what was really going on.

That's not what McArmalite is saying, McArmalite is just off on another one of his pathetic trolls/rants about how much the Brits love themselves.

I knew because I was from Ireland but was amazed to find out that the British people were clueless. The British press had failed to inform the public of what was actually going on in Ireland - and was also going on in Britain amongst Irish civil rights protesters. And there were civil rights protests in London so no excuse about this being far away and out of our range. I think that McA is saying that they should have known had they used the press coverage that the rest of the world was using and used the TV footage that was patently available to them.

I was in NY in late 1970 with my parents on a visit there and there was no one there who was ignorant of events in Ireland. In fact US TV was full of scenes of Irish civil right marchers being met with violence. I also remember meeting French students who came to Britain a few years later and who were equally well informed. It was the British who were apparently censoring events in their own media regarding Ireland. At the time it felt like they just did not want to deal with it and did not want to address the issue of serious Catholic Irish discontent with life within the UK. Maybe they thought they didn't have to and the army would sort it all out. Big mistake.

It all came home to roost. The Civil Rights marches and the entire movement should have been better taken care of and listened to instead of being met with the violence [often with police compliance] of the hooligans who called themselves...loyalists or unionists or whatever.

Fratton Fred

MarchDub wrote: »

IAt the time it felt like they just did not want to deal with it and did not want to address the issue of serious Catholic Irish discontent with life within the UK.

I think that may be one possible reason why there was a certain level of disbelief in England about the civil rights violations, because the Catholics in the rest of the UK were not and are not discriminated against. I remember a friend of mine mentioning that he was a catholic, and my wife being absolutely amazed. she didn't realise we had Catholics in England, as far as she was concerned, everyone was a Protestant and Catholics were pretty much banned.

I'm not too sure i would put too much belief in the US news coverage, they reported every murder of a nationalist in Ireland, but never reported any ITA attrocities. I have met a lot of Americans that never realised the IRA were a terrorist organisation.

they also thought that Britain still controlled all of Ireland as well:D

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I think that may be one possible reason why there was a certain level of disbelief in England about the civil rights violations, because the Catholics in the rest of the UK were not and are not discriminated against.

Not so fast- English history has been based on Whig history for over 200 years and has purposely left out the history of discrimination against English Catholicism. I do concede that all that is changing in British historiography and knowledge about the historic hidden lives of English Catholics is being revealed. But that takes us way off topic...

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I'm not too sure i would put too much belief in the US news coverage, they reported every murder of a nationalist in Ireland, but never reported any ITA attrocities.

I am referring back to the pre-IRA time of the early civil rights marches and the violence that they encountered. The demise of these early civil rights marches and why they failed was not properly reported on in the UK media whereas they were throughout the rest of the world. This led to much world sympathy for the nationalist point of view but complete ignorance of events by the British public. Being in England at the time felt like being in a parallel universe.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I have met a lot of Americans that never realised the IRA were a terrorist organisation.

And let's not get started on "state terrorism"...violence is violence and I hate it all.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

they also thought that Britain still controlled all of Ireland as well:D

Two years ago coming through Heathrow I met with a English airport official who apparently thought the same. Kept directing me to "domestic flights" for a flight to Dublin. "In your dreams" I told him.

Edited note - can't get that stupid grin off the topic line...fixed-btb

Fratton Fred

MarchDub wrote: »

Not so fast- English history has been based on Whig history for over 200 years and has purposely left out the history of discrimination against English Catholicism. I do concede that all that is changing in British historiography and knowledge about the historic hidden lives of English Catholics is being revealed. But that takes us way off topic...

the history is taught and is well known, but it is just that. we are talking 1970 here, not 1770.

MarchDub wrote: »

Two years ago coming through Heathrow I met with a English airport official who apparently thought the same. Kept directing me to "domestic flights" for a flight to Dublin. "In your dreams" I told him.

Irish flights do go from domestic departures though. it's more a convenience thing than it is an aspiration though

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

the history is taught and is well known, but it is just that. we are talking 1970 here, not 1770.

In 1970 the average British student had been fed on a diet of beneficial imperialism in the guise of the "mother of democracies". I know. I had to listen to it too. This frame of mind impacted on the reaction to events in NI. [But I do know that much of that has now changed in British universities.]

So to take this back to some of your original points. The situation with the British parliament and the British press during the years of the early civil rights movement in NI was an absolute disgrace. Little interest, sympathy or basic comprehension was given to those who turned out in huge numbers to protest against discrimination at all levels of life in NI. These early civil rights marches were family events with mothers and fathers walking with their children. The most horrific part was the violence against the marchers. Many people forget that the violence began on the loyalist/unionist side against was what originally planned on being peaceful demonstrations based on the MLKing style in the US. In my opinion the violence didn't have to happen. Central government failure was largely responsible for it when it did.

NI was part of the UK, the world was abuzz with the horrors of it all and Westminster just didn't want to know.

getz

the catholic v protestant problems did not start the IRA terrorist organised violence ,the IRA just used that as a excuse to get the backing of the catholic community,once in,they made sure that any peaceful outcome in the north couldent happen,even to the stage of useing violence against other catholics who dident think the same as them,where i live in england the northern irish ferry docks from larne,thousands of northern irish live in this area[fleetwood/blackpool/] two doors away from me i have a northern irish catholic living with her mother who is 89 years old,[the mother] was driven out of belfast by the boys,they told her her house was going to be burned to the ground,why ?because her crime was to take a cup of tea to a young british soldier who was manning a barrier to stop the loyalist terror squads from carrying out their hate filled acts,if all of you stopped for a minute to think ,you would realize that everthing isent as black and white as you seem to think it is,are the new kids on the block who seem to think they are fighting for a free ireland by killing catholic policemen your heroes as well ?

Fratton Fred

A good friend of mine left NI when her brother was beaten up twice in a month. The first time was by the usual unionist bullies that bullied all the Catholics in her area, the second time was when he refused to be drafted into the IRA as a gofer, they beat him up for being a traitor to his community because he didn't believe violence was the answer.

That's the point my friend decided the whole place wqas ****ed up and moved to London.

Funny thing is, she expected to be bullied and ridiculed in London for being an Irish Catholic, but she very soon changed her opinion of English people.

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

junder

Fratton Fred wrote: »

A good friend of mine left NI when her brother was beaten up twice in a month. The first time was by the usual unionist bullies that bullied all the Catholics in her area, the second time was when he refused to be drafted into the IRA as a gofer, they beat him up for being a traitor to his community because he didn't believe violence was the answer.

That's the point my friend decided the whole place wqas ****ed up and moved to London.

Funny thing is, she expected to be bullied and ridiculed in London for being an Irish Catholic, but she very soon changed her opinion of English people.

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

usual unionst bullies? sorry to burst any illusions here but the violence was not just one way, many protestant homes were burnt out to with those familys having to flee to liverpool.
Anyhoo back to the thread parhaps if the NICRA had campaigned for British Rights for British people and not just British Rights for catholic people then it could have forged cross comunity support. After all working class protestants had exactly the same rights as working class catholics and that includes voting rights. Councils that had catholics majortys (i know there were not many) gerrymanded to. It seems a chance to truly unite the poor of northern ireland those working protestants and catholics was sqandered in the name of a united ireland

Fratton Fred

She grew up in a mainly protestant area of Belfast and her and her brothers were bullied by the same bunch of bullies.

Oddly enough, one of the girls who bullied her apologised a few years back. I guess like most bullies, they use any form of "difference" to bully someone.

Andrea had nothing against unionists as such, only those ones that bullied her. She actually hated bar stool republicans from the south (especially Dubs) a lot more because she saw them as weekend trouible makers who would **** off home to Finglas after a day or two of **** stirring.

MarchDub

junder wrote: »

usual unionst bullies? sorry to burst any illusions here but the violence was not just one way, many protestant homes were burnt out to with those familys having to flee to liverpool.

In the early stages of the Civil Rights movement the violence was one way. This is one of the tragedies of the events of the time, that the violence was permitted to continue often with the support of the police. State official response was to ban the marches and not deal with the thugs who turned up to prevent the marches from proceeding.

Civil Rights marches were organized with the purpose of finding a peaceful way to protect against discrimination in housing and jobs. The marchers - mostly families - were met with violent gangs bend on breaking up the whole movement.

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

When I first wrote my post I had written that there was no response "except the usual gun boat diplomacy" but decided that maybe that was a bit too caustic a remark so I deleted it before posting. But essentially that is in essence was the response was - and showed little understanding of the situation on the ground in NI. Also, the reason given "to protect Catholics" was just clever talk. In reality there was horror throughout Ireland at the idea of a British Army presence in NI.

There was always an undertone of potential of violence in NI. I remember as a young kid being up there with my parents in the pre "troubles" days and accidentally getting entangled with an Orange parade. My parents immediately told us kids to not speak - southern accents - but my child's eye was able to read the anti-Catholic banners and the anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist badges being worn by the participants. This too was violence in another guise.

junder

MarchDub wrote: »

When I first wrote my post I had written that there was no response "except the usual gun boat diplomacy" but decided that maybe that was a bit too caustic a remark so I deleted it before posting. But essentially that is in essence was the response was - and showed little understanding of the situation on the ground in NI. Also, the reason given "to protect Catholics" was just clever talk. In reality there was horror throughout Ireland at the idea of a British Army presence in NI.

There was always an undertone of potential of violence in NI. I remember as a young kid being up there with my parents in the pre "troubles" days and accidentally getting entangled with an Orange parade. My parents immediately told us kids to not speak - southern accents - but my child's eye was able to read the anti-Catholic banners and the anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist badges being worn by the participants. This too was violence in another guise.

the violence has never been only one way sectarian conflict has been going on long before partitition.

MarchDub

junder wrote: »

the violence has never been only one way sectarian conflict has been going on long before partitition.

My understanding of this discussion is that we are addressing the attempt to gain civil rights by public marches organised to redress grievances within the NI state.

Of course there was violence prior to partition - Ireland was originally conquered through violence. And Ulster in particular was re-settled through the use of violence.

Snickers Man

First off, two howlers that have to be addressed.

Fratton Fred: Martin McGuinness, commander in chief of the IRA's LONDONDERRY Brigade!!!! ROTFLMAO. Like that ever existed!

McArmalite: "The first operation carried out in England was 8 March 1973"

You're forgetting the Aldershot bomb planted in 1972 in retaliation for Bloody Sunday which killed a load of dinner ladies and a priest. Or does that not count because it was the Stickies, not the Provos? And can you really expect the people on the receiving end of such attacks to discern the difference between the People's Front of Judaea and the Judaean People's Front?


On to the basic question of whether the Civil Rights Movement should have persisted rather than succumbing to the violence of the IRA:

The early Civil Rights people were not republicans. It is true, most of them were from the catholic community but then that was the more disadvantaged one. Many of them were from the new breed of university-educated working class people who were from the first generation of people to benefit from universal free education up to and including university level made possible by post war welfare legislation.

They were also influenced by the prevailing international mood of the time. Socialism and street agitation was very much the zeitgeist of the 1960s. There were the anti war protests, black civil rights movement and campus riots in America, the Student revolt in Paris in 1968 and the Prague spring in Czechoslovakia in the same year.

The civil rights protest marches in Northern Ireland were influenced by the same mood of youthful working class well educated anger at the status quo and with the attendant optimism that it could be changed. One of the first political casualties of the Civil Rights movement was the old Nationalist party. The Catholic working class deserted it in droves as it proved unable to match its demand of united Ireland first to the demands of people on the ground for a simple improvement in their situation.

Within a few years, majority Catholic support went to the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Where are the words Nationalism or Irish in that? As one of the early agitators of the time, Eamon McCann a socialist Trotskyite with no love of the church of middle class nationalist pieties put it: "If we were agreed on one thing it was that partition was irrelevant. We were seeking change WITHIN the boundaries of the existing state"

Other people too viewed the problems through a socialist prism. Bernadette Devlin (now McAliskey) in her memoirs published while she was still in her 20s and a Westminster MP said of Ian Paisley that he was an evil man but misunderstood his motivations. "He does not hate Catholics as he appears to," she said. "What he really hates are socialists."

I don't think that penetrating analysis has stood the test of time.

As regards bringing the problems of the north to the attention of the British people: the establishment just didn't want to know. One Labour backbench MP, Paul Rose from Manchester, was chairman of a group called the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster. He found that any attempts to raise Northern Irish issues in Westminster would be stymied by his being told that there was a parliament in Stormont that could deal with everything.

The simple truth is that once agitation started to occur, the reaction of the police and the Unionist community, suspicious of any attempts to undermine the status quo was to brand the civil rights movement as disloyal republican rebels who had to be put down using the same methods as had always appeared to work before.

The struggle quickly sundered along traditional sectarian lines, allowing the extremists and paramilitaries on both sides to present themselves as the protectors of their own communities.

MarchDub

Snickers Man wrote: »

As regards bringing the problems of the north to the attention of the British people: the establishment just didn't want to know. One Labour backbench MP, Paul Rose from Manchester, was chairman of a group called the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster. He found that any attempts to raise Northern Irish issues in Westminster would be stymied by his being told that there was a parliament in Stormont that could deal with everything.

Even prior to Rose's time the British Labour Party also had a history of trying to bring attention to the NI problems. In the late 1940s a group was formed within Labour called "Friends of Ireland" who tried to at least bring attention to the discrimination practices of Stormont rule. Their efforts went nowhere.

Fratton Fred

Snickers Man wrote: »

First off, two howlers that have to be addressed.

Fratton Fred: Martin McGuinness, commander in chief of the IRA's LONDONDERRY Brigade!!!! ROTFLMAO. Like that ever existed!
.

That is no howler, LONDONderry is twinned with the Malvinas I believe.

I also believe the first civilians killed in England were some workers on a fag break in Coventry, 1939.

brianthebard

off topic posts deleted. Last chance for this thread.

meathstevie

Fred, why do you think people should have protested in London while it was the Belfast parliament and government they had their issues with ?

Happy Monday

McArmalite wrote: »

The brit public didn't care what ' their boys ' got up to in Ireland, not until our boys started killing their boys and went over there stiffing the brits in Birminhgham, Guildford etc. Reap as you sow

It was those bombings that ensured that the North today remains in the hands of the English - sterling, Union Jack, NHS and Queen and Country.

You should hang your head in shame for the comments above.

Happy Monday

meathstevie wrote: »

Fred, why do you think people should have protested in London while it was the Belfast parliament and government they had their issues with ?

Because the Belfast parliament was ultimately answerable to the British government based in Whitehall in London. Northern Ireland was then and remains part of the UK.

KingKiller

getz wrote: »

two doors away from me i have a northern irish catholic living with her mother who is 89 years old,[the mother] was driven out of belfast by the boys,they told her her house was going to be burned to the ground,why ?because her crime was to take a cup of tea to a young british soldier

Fratton Fred wrote: »

A good friend of mine left NI when her brother was beaten up twice in a month. The first time was by the usual unionist bullies that bullied all the Catholics in her area, the second time was when he refused to be drafted into the IRA as a gofer, they beat him up for being a traitor to his community because he didn't believe violence was the answer.

That's the point my friend decided the whole place wqas ****ed up and moved to London.

Funny thing is, she expected to be bullied and ridiculed in London for being an Irish Catholic, but she very soon changed her opinion of English people.

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

What a bunch of silly fairytales. The lovely British army helping old ladies across the road etc As the McArmalite fella says, sure the Brits just love themselves and spouting fairytales about their greatness.

What gets posted on here as adult discussion is laughable.

KingKiller

Fratton Fred wrote: »

She grew up in a mainly protestant area of Belfast and her and her brothers were bullied by the same bunch of bullies.

Oddly enough, one of the girls who bullied her apologised a few years back. I guess like most bullies, they use any form of "difference" to bully someone.

Andrea had nothing against unionists as such, only those ones that bullied her. She actually hated bar stool republicans from the south (especially Dubs) a lot more because she saw them as weekend trouible makers who would **** off home to Finglas after a day or two of **** stirring.

When it came to bullying, the British army could teach anyone a few lessons.

junder

KingKiller wrote: »

What a bunch of silly fairytales. The lovely British army helping old ladies across the road etc As the McArmalite fella says, sure the Brits just love themselves and spouting fairytales about their greatness.

What gets posted on here as adult discussion is laughable.

was Jean McConville a fairy tale

brianthebard

I gave it all the chances I could. Thread locked.