WikiLeaks & Sinn Fein

KeithAFC

johnmcdnl wrote: »

sinn fein are a party in the republic too yano :rolleyes:

and I'm sure if I started a poll here we'd see it's more than just sinn fein that doesn't want an orange march through dublin city centre

We know. It will happen some day. The Ulster banner will go down O connell street.;)

dlofnep

KeithAFC wrote: »

We know. It will happen some day. The Ulster banner will go down O connell street.;)

So long as you're willing to allow us March through your neighbourhood with tricolours to commemorate the Easter Rising.

KeithAFC

dlofnep wrote: »

So long as you're willing to allow us March through your neighbourhood with tricolours to commemorate the Easter Rising.

How dare you 'prepares petrol bomb'. :eek:

Bottle_of_Smoke

Time this thread got disappeared I think. Surely it won't be long until wikileaks releases another cable about Sinn Fein which has been public knowledge for years

junder

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Christ lads, you would swear we ate the Protestants and Anglo-Irish the way you are talking.

Your traditions would be far safer in a UI than nationalist traditions were under Stormont.

Prove it

Wolfe Tone

junder wrote: »

Prove it

Ok, we will give the UI a trial run so

junder

I'd like to believe in you, but the voices of the dead speak too loudly

Some 1,800 dead and nothing to show for it. How do Sinn Feiners sleep at night, asks Eamon Keane

Sunday December 19 2010

'For the life of me I don't know how Irish people can vote or join a party where murderers and gunrunners sit with some people who are genuinely naive. How can you join them with a record like they have?" Dr Garret FitzGerald is talking to me on the day of Sinn Fein's poll surge.

I remind Garret that it is also the 28th anniversary of the murder of two young men -- garda recruit Gary Sheehan and Army private Patrick Kelly. They were killed by the IRA during the course of a search for kidnapped businessman Don Tidey.

Last week, leaked US embassy cables claimed that Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness knew in advance of the 2004 Northern Bank robbery. I wonder, do those who make up the 15 per cent support for Sinn Fein actually know what they will be voting for?

Which Sinn Fein is the real one? The Sinn Fein which to this day cannot clearly condemn the murders of either gardai or Army men who died in the course of duty? Is it the Sinn Fein which knew of a robbery that terrified bank staff to support the earnings of thugs? Or is it the world of Adams who still has questions to answer over the murder of mother-of-10 Jean McConville? Maybe it is the Adams who did put his neck on the line as a risk-taker. Or maybe it is the new world of the clean-cut, articulate Sinn Fein as embodied by Donegal TD Pearse Doherty.

Pearse is the new Mary Lou McDonald. Personable, sellable and articulate. Mary Lou was mooted to be the new head of the party at one stage. Pearse would do well to remember how Mary Lou's career stalled.

Pearse was never in the IRA. He will say that the separation of armalite and ballot box is complete. For Pearse, the civil engineer, the party is, according to his website, returning to the roots of James Connolly: "Over the last century the struggle of labour has been a distinct and integral strand within Irish republicanism. The defence and extension of workers' rights remains central to our project today." I almost believe him, falling into what Garret calls that "genuine naivety".

And then I see something else on his website and it gets me thinking. Pearse has an ode to emigration: ''My parents like many others emigrated in the Sixties because the government then had turned its back on them and turned its back on Ireland.''

Well Pearse, unlike your parents -- who decided when to go and come back -- what about the hundreds of youngsters who had no choice when the IRA bullied them out of their homes with death threats and ordered them to leave Northern Ireland? Many still live abroad, too terrified to come home.

I remember the SDLP's Brid Rodgers being jostled and spat at during the Northern elections by Sinn Fein goons. So tell me, Pearse, which Sinn Fein will I get if I vote for you? I know you have absolutely nothing to do with any of the above, so maybe you can help clear this up. You see, I worry about the thugs who wear Sinn Fein colours and make life a torment for some. If I want social justice, I'd prefer someone true like Mannix Flynn to be my advocate.

Why did long-standing Sinn Fein Dublin community activists like Christy Griffin defect? Former councillor Killian Forde, in an internal Sinn Fein document, wrote of his party: "We are one election away from being totally irrelevant in Dublin and the South in general ... our response to the economic crisis was glacial. The bank guarantee happened in September, our economic policy was launched, way too late, in March or April."

Forde warned that the historical paramilitary culture of Sinn Fein had "now become the greatest hindrance to us developing as a dynamic, interesting, vibrant, creative party. There is little tolerance for dissenting opinions".

FitzGerald isn't convinced the party will form a government: ''Sinn Fein got a boost from Donegal. Fianna Fail will survive and come back eventually. Maybe a new generation will arrive. Maybe there will be a left-wing government, but not for 25 years.

"In fairness to Doherty he was not in the IRA, but when people are vulnerable they will be taken in by their soundbites.''

When police constable Stephen Carroll, 48, and soldiers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, were shot dead at Massereene army barracks in Antrim earlier this year, McGuinness said the dissident republicans responsible were "traitors to the island of Ireland". FitzGerald sees nothing but hypocrisy in this response: ''When they murdered people it was called patriotism; now when dissidents do it, McGuinness calls it treason.''

So Pearse, the articulate man from Donegal, could you articulate to me when a murder is not a murder? I'm sure the families of garda recruit Gary Sheehan and Army private Patrick Kelly, murdered by the former armed wing of your party 28 years ago, would like to know if their deaths were murder.

Someone might even ask some of the old Sinn Fein/IRA comrades like McGuinness whether they know who did it. No one has ever been convicted of those young boys' murders. They are almost forgotten this Christmas, except by their families. The next time you're writing your sorrowful tales about emigration, Pearse, spare a thought for the families who will never see their sons return because they were murdered by the IRA.

Maybe your justice spokesman, Aengus O Snodaigh, could give us the Sinn Fein position on intimidating State witnesses in a murder trial? Remember the slaughter of Detective Jerry McCabe? Remember the silence from Sinn Fein, the moral equivocating? Just what exactly does Sinn Fein stand for? I'd like to believe in you, but the voices of the dead speak too loudly.

Ultimately, we can perhaps only define Sinn Fein by what it has achieved. Gerry Adams will argue that there is a peace now, and that is true. FitzGerald probes deeper, though. If Sinn Fein/IRA killed in the name of a united Ireland, how close are they to that now? ''They created two major obstacles to a united Ireland. They have destroyed the Northern economy, impoverishing it to a point where it couldn't afford to join the South because of the loss of living standards.

"Equally we could not afford to subsidise them, so economic unity became impossible. In addition, we had to work closely with the British, and consequently relations between Ireland and England have greatly improved. You know, that is all they got for the 1,800 dead. How can they stand over that? How they can sleep at night? I don't know.''

Neither do I.


Sunday Independent

Wolfe Tone

Some of that logic there is the reasoning the dissidents use to keep on fighting.

Dub.

Christ the Sindo is some rag. I actually feel embarrassed for anybody who still believes a word they print.

Nehaxak

While we're going back through history here and quoting killings, maybe you might ask Garret if he'll apologise for members of his FG party murdering innocent Irish people during our own civil war - or is it only convenient enough for him and his to quote killings from the past that suit him and his own agenda.

Equally as he and his supporters supposedly cannot unstand how people vote for SF, I as a SF voter cannot understand how anyone would vote for FG as a party when their historical party sided with the crown and murdered their own people, something they have never even apologised for nor ever sought forgiveness for either.

Every single historical party in Ireland apart from the GP have blood on their hands, every one of them.

At least I as a SF voter am not a hypocritical liar. I know what they were involved with, I know how they've changed and I accept it all and still vote for them.

Saying that, I'm not as small minded to always hold past murders, killings and atrocities carried out in the name of FG, against their current candidates. In fact I'll probably cast a third pref for FG if anything just to make sure FF don't get back in.

Maybe if the PIRA were no longer a proscribed organisation (seeing as how they've ended the war and will never be coming back) then it might be an awful lot easier for some members of SF who were involved in the PIRA to then openly admit same. Until that happens though, it is legally impossible for them to do so, but most of you whining on about would already know that anyway.

Nehaxak

KeithAFC wrote: »

Nice bigotry.:pac:

How so ? Please explain.
Would you find it strange therefor if I also stated I was once a Protestant (albeit lapsed and now agnostic)?
You've tore this whole thread off topic, so dont be surprised if your own Leprechauns are knocked off their white horse.

Lockstep

KeithAFC wrote: »

Nice bigotry.:pac:

Lay off the bigotry accusations.

KeithAFC

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Lay off the bigotry accusations.

I think you should check so many other posts which have accused me of being a bigot and yet as far as im aware, no warning.

KeithAFC

Nehaxak wrote: »

How so ? Please explain.
Would you find it strange therefor if I also stated I was once a Protestant (albeit lapsed and now agnostic)?
You've tore this whole thread off topic, so dont be surprised if your own Leprechauns are knocked off their white horse.

Because it was a load of messed up nonsense, filled full of stereotypes and wasn't that nice.

dlofnep

KeithAFC wrote: »

I think you should check so many other posts which have accused me of being a bigot and yet as far as im aware, no warning.

Report them and I'm sure he'll get to them. It's not feasible for him to read through 45 pages of banter tbh.

KeithAFC

dlofnep wrote: »

Report them and I'm sure he'll get to them. It's not feasible for him to read through 45 pages of banter tbh.

Fair enough. I just don't like doing that, feel weak.. lol. Gotta stand your ground.

OhNoYouDidn't

junder wrote: »

Prove it

Prove what? Compare and contrast how southern Protestants got on since independece and northern Catholics.

We have had Protestant Presidents, Army Chiefs of Staffs, Supreme Court judges and indirectly through Trinity a number of Senate seats reserved for them. And I'm sure there are many more examples, but people's religion is not commented on. The Protestant and Anglo Irish community have prospered and report no isses of sectarianism from the state.

You had a 40 year war stemming from failing to give Catholics basic human rights.

This isn't even up for debate.

Iwasfrozen

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Prove what? Compare and contrast how southern Protestants got on since independece and northern Catholics.

We have had Protestant Presidents, Army Chiefs of Staffs, Supreme Court judges and indirectly through Trinity a number of Senate seats reserved for them. And I'm sure there are many more examples, but people's religion is not commented on. The Protestant and Anglo Irish community have prospered and report no isses of sectarianism from the state.

You had a 40 year war stemming from failing to give Catholics basic human rights.

This isn't even up for debate.

First off the situation in the north isn't sectarian. It is largely stemmed from sectarian conflicts but it is not based wholly on sectarian issues.

Now that we've got that out of the way I'll adress the issues you raised. The protestant percentage of the population in the south was only ten percent at the time of division and has fallen since. Compared to the much larger thirty five percent minority of catholics in the north. Which has grown steadily.

Secondly protestants both north and south were/are generally better off then their catholic neighbours and as any political scientist can tell you it is the poorer classes that tend to be the most rebellious.

Thirdly protestants in the south have always been a minority. Seperated from other protestants in the north and England they never developed a distinct cultural identity like northern protestants. Ironically most of the northern prodestent identity steams from catholic attempts to wipe them out but let's forget that. Therefore they were more likely to identify with De Valera and other nationalist leaders in the early days of the Irish republic.

For all this and more it is stupid to say that nationalists are "nicer" then unionists because prodestents in the south were treated better then catholics in the north. We saw in the easter rising and during the troubles that nationalists have no qualms about killing innocent people to advance their agenda.

As a side note I'm really not sure what the mistreatment of catholics even has to do with a United Ireland. These concerns could be adressed by reform within Northern Ireland. It isn't an agruement for unification.

[/rant]

Poccington

I love how the Sindo article completely fails to mention the role the Brits and Loyalists played in the Troubles.


I'd be the last person to try defend the IRA but they weren't the only factor in the Troubles.

Wolfe Tone

Secondly protestants both north and south were/are generally better then their catholic neighbours

Paisley would be proud :P

Iwasfrozen

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Paisley would be proud :P

lol, I'll fix my post.

dlofnep

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Now that we've got that out of the way I'll adress the issues you raised. First off the protestant percentage of the population in the south was only ten percent at the time of division compared and has fallen since.

So has catholicism, and indeed religion overall.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Secondly protestants both north and south were/are generally better then their catholic neighbours and as any political scientist can tell you it is the poorer classes that tend to be the most rebellious.

Better, or better off? Freudian slip aye?

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Ironically most of the northern prodestent identity steams from catholic attempts to wipe them out but let's forget that.

No it doesn't. What an asinine statement. It is derived from centuries of a two-tier society, going all the way back to the penal laws and plantations. You lack even the most basic grasp at understanding the main propellant for the social divide that exists - and it certainly isn't because catholics tried to "wipe them out.

KeithAFC

We have had Protestant Presidents, Army Chiefs of Staffs, Supreme Court judges and indirectly through Trinity a number of Senate seats reserved for them. And I'm sure there are many more examples, but people's religion is not commented on. The Protestant and Anglo Irish community have prospered and report no isses of sectarianism from the state.

Most of them live Northern Ireland.

In 1991, the population of the Republic of Ireland was approximately 3% Protestant, but the figure was over 10% in 1891, indicating a fall of 70% in the relative Protestant population over the past century.

Still not improved that much from 1991 either.

Iwasfrozen

dlofnep wrote: »

So has catholicism, and indeed religion overall.

The number of people identifying as catholics has increased.

dlofnep wrote: »

Better, or better off? Freudian slip aye?

Yeah yeah.

dlofnep wrote: »

No it doesn't. What an asinine statement. It is derived from centuries of a two-tier society, going all the way back to the penal laws and plantations. You lack even the most basic grasp at understanding the main propellant for the social divide that exists - and it certainly isn't because catholics tried to "wipe them out.

Of course it is. What do you think would have happened to them if King James had have won? It would have been the penal laws in reverse. Unionists fought for their right to exist and won. I'd say that's something to celebrate. Certainly more so then the feast day of a man who converted the country to christendom.

KeithAFC

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The number of people identifying as catholics has increased.


Yeah yeah.


Of course it is. What do you think would have happened to them if King James had have won? It would have been the penal laws in reverse. Unionists fought for their right to exist and won. I'd say that's something to celebrate. Certainly more so then the feast day of a man who converted the country to christendom.

The 13 apprentice boys is a great story about this. All of them are legends.

junder

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Prove what? Compare and contrast how southern Protestants got on since independece and northern Catholics.

We have had Protestant Presidents, Army Chiefs of Staffs, Supreme Court judges and indirectly through Trinity a number of Senate seats reserved for them. And I'm sure there are many more examples, but people's religion is not commented on. The Protestant and Anglo Irish community have prospered and report no isses of sectarianism from the state.

You had a 40 year war stemming from failing to give Catholics basic human rights.

This isn't even up for debate.

Were any of these Protestants elected or promoted to such lofty posistions orange men? The day the Dublin orange lodge can parade unmolested through thier own city you can get back to me about how tolerant of the unionist culture (that is unionist not Protestant culture)

maxxie

junder wrote: »

Were any of these Protestants elected or promoted to such lofty posistions orange men? The day the Dublin orange lodge can parade unmolested through thier own city you can get back to me about how tolerant of the unionist culture (that is unionist not Protestant culture)

Its like being tolerant of the Nazi party or kkk.

The sooner the oo dies off the better! They dont belong in a modern Ireland, backward bigots have never contributed to achieving peace on this island. Quite the opposite!

Iwasfrozen

maxxie wrote: »

Its like being tolerant of the Nazi party or kkk.

The sooner the oo dies off the better! They dont belong in a modern Ireland, backward bigots have never contributed to achieving peace on this island. Quite the opposite!

And may I just say your post exudes open mindedness.

Wolfe Tone

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

And may I just say your post exudes open mindedness.

Yeah I agree, lets bring back the Nazis and have the KKK here

maxxie

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

And may I just say your post exudes open mindedness.

I am open minded but it is clear the oo are not!

How open minded are yourself and the rest of the northern contingent here?

Each of these threads are tit for tat with no compromise!