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Liam Cosgrave RIP

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    #62
    James Brown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,015 ✭✭✭✭James Brown


    So Cosgrave was a politician who held views that were popular at the time. Maybe a populist, maybe not. But we can't write off today's politicians as populist because they aren't stalwart conservative catholics either.
    I would suggest he was a man of his time, which is not necessarily a redeeming trait, depends on your politics and view of the time.
    His overseeing a time when bully boy tactics, illegal beatings and the dismissing of civil liberties was carried out by representatives of the state against it's own citizens makes him very far from admirable in my book.


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    #63
    blanch152
    Registered Users Posts: 27,223 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Obviously, one of the characteristics of democracy is that it tends to incentivise and reward (and therefore promote) populism. Whether that's a desireable or an undesireable feature depends on whether you're a populist yourself, I guess.

    But it's certainly a feature, and this has long been recognised. One of the reasons for having a parliamentary democracy, in which the executive is accountable not directly to the people but to a parliament of professional politicians, or for having a strict separation of powers, in including a strong role for an unelected supreme court, or a difficult-to-amend Constitution with strongly entrenched rights and limits on the power of the state, is precisely to provide a check to unrestrained populism.

    As to whether Cosgrave, or any particular politician, is a "populist", I don't think it's enough to show that he adopted political positions which were popular. As noted, all politicians do that to some extent in a democracy. Plus, the fact that a politician adopted a position which was popular isn't enough, in itself, to show that he adopted it because it was popular, which I think is what "populist" implies. I think to justify labelling a politician as a populist, you have to point to a pattern of him abandoning positions which prove to be unpopular, and becoming an enthusiastic proponent of the opposing positions. To label his stance on a particular matter a populist stance, I think you need some reason to think that he had adopted it, against his better judgment, because it was popular.

    You could fairly clearly make that argument in relation to May and Brexit, for example. But Cosgrave and contraception? I think he genuinely was a socially conservative Catholic on matters of sexual morality from his earliest youth to his dying day. I might not agree with his stance, but I don't think he adopted it on the basis of a cynical assessment of its popularity at the time.

    Excellent definition of populism.

    You could also extend the definition to include where politicians wilfully and gleefully change position and jump on bandwagons rather than where they are dragged kicking and screaming to the popular position.


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    #64
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Matt Barrett wrote: »
    His overseeing a time when bully boy tactics, illegal beatings and the dismissing of civil liberties was carried out by representatives of the state against it's own citizens makes him very far from admirable in my book.

    That will just be ignored in any assessment of him. But the fact that it is undeniable that this is what he did cannot be hidden behind semantics about political definitions.


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    #65
    James Brown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,015 ✭✭✭✭James Brown


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    That will just be ignored in any assessment of him. But the fact that it is undeniable that this is what he did cannot be hidden behind semantics about political definitions.

    As regards the definition of populism, I agree with it. But we could say any politician just happens to believe what is coincidentally the popular politics of the day. We can't dismiss all present day politicians as populist just because their view isn't necessarily conservative catholic.
    We can say Cosgrave was of the time and that time bowed to a religion, welcomed beatings, abductions and the like by the state against it's own people.


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    #66
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 13,712 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    kk.man wrote: »
    I lived in 70s Ireland it was not a revolutionary decade. Mass attendance was at an all time high
    Seriously??

    I wasn't alive during the 1970s, but it's entirely clear that it was a time of massive upheaval on this island and yes, revolutionary.

    The British Embassy was burned down, and the memories of this are to be witnessed to this day, if you ever try to visit the Embassy on business!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAuiFeVpUSs


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    #67
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    He had no problems with 'rights' when he stood over the Heavy Gang and that underpins the man. He 'imposed'
    No nobody paid any attention to him on the contraception issue, but was that his intention? Looking at his career, I doubt it. He tried to regress. He failed


    Why do you think they felt it necessary to get heavy Francie?
    Was it because people were being abducted tortured shot and thrown on the side of the road? Or maybe because bombs were being assembled( one of the best of these bombmakers is currently sitting in the dail) to blow civilians to smithereens?


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    #68
    tomwaterford
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    Why do you think they felt it necessary to get heavy Francie?
    Was it because people were being abducted tortured shot and thrown on the side of the road? Or maybe because bombs were being assembled( one of the best of these bombmakers is currently sitting in the dail) to blow civilians to smithereens?

    Your essentially trying to justify state/police brutality??


    Look at the shambles and mess the gaurds are now,aided by generations of being a law onto themselves....you reap what you sow


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    #69
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    Why do you think they felt it necessary to get heavy Francie?
    Was it because people were being abducted tortured shot and thrown on the side of the road? Or maybe because bombs were being assembled( one of the best of these bombmakers is currently sitting in the dail) to blow civilians to smithereens?

    The actions of the Heavy Gang were indiscriminate, they didn't care about rights or who was guilty.

    I am happy enough that you accept that Cosgrove was instrumental in unleashing this on his citizens. At least you are not in denial about the Gang's existence.

    I am also happy to see those who go on about kangaroo courts etc squirm on this significant event in the history of the conflict. All it succeeded in doing was enflame and push more people into the frontline and entrench opinions.


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    #70
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    tomwaterford wrote: »
    Your essentially trying to justify state/police brutality??


    Look at the shambles and mess the gaurds are now,aided by generations of being a law onto themselves....you reap what you sow

    No, I'm essentially asking a question. Do you want to answer it?


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    #71
    tomwaterford
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    No, I'm essentially asking a question. Do you want to answer it?

    Well then I don't think it was necessary??

    How deos it justify it?


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    #72
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    tomwaterford wrote: »
    Well then I don't think it was necessary??

    How deos it justify it?

    So how would you have policed these guys Tom? Say someone like Dessie O'Hare who's speciality was killing old age pensioners along the border.


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    #73
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    So how would you have policed these guys Tom? Say someone like Dessie O'Hare who's speciality was killing old age pensioners along the border.

    Dessie O'Hare wasn't caught because they terrorised ordinary innocent citizens.


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    #74
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,103 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    So how would you have policed these guys Tom? Say someone like Dessie O'Hare who's speciality was killing old age pensioners along the border.
    Well, not by beating the living snot out of suspects in order to get them to confess. This is wrong in principle, and also counterproductive in practice. (Do I have to point out that the Sallins Mail Train Robbery is still unsolved? And, following the taking of a similar approach to law enforcement in the UK, that the Birmingham pub bombers remain unconvicted?)

    The political leadership which allowed things like the Heavy Gang to go on was absolutely wrong and should be condemned. I wouldn't describe it as "populist", though, since the policy was a clandestine one, which has always been denied (SFAIK, to this day).


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    #75
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    Dessie O'Hare wasn't caught because they terrorised ordinary innocent citizens.

    What about Dominic 'mad dog' McGlinchey Francie? What would you have done there, send him out a summons?
    They were dealing with criminal psycopaths who were feathering their own nests and pretending to be republicans.


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    #76
    tomwaterford
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    So how would you have policed these guys Tom? Say someone like Dessie O'Hare who's speciality was killing old age pensioners along the border.

    By gathering evidence like a normal policeforce?



    In no world is police/state brutality ok?

    The minute you walk away and trample over anyones civil liberties and openly support thia,you do it for all imo



    Look around today,2 generations of gaurds being a law onto themselves and the contempt they show the state and dail committees

    ....this is the conclusion of the policies initiated by this,


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    #77
    tomwaterford
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    What about Dominic 'mad dog' McGlinchey Francie? What would you have done there, send him out a summons?
    They were dealing with criminal psycopaths who were feathering their own nests and pretending to be republicans.

    What would you have done?


    If there afraid and can't the job correctly and legally....perhaps they shouldn't have been gaurds??


    As an aside...i know a detective based in waterford who recently enough took retirement as he said the way things are going here,he'd end up shooting someone


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    #78
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,103 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    What about Dominic 'mad dog' McGlinchey Francie? What would you have done there, send him out a summons?
    They were dealing with criminal psycopaths who were feathering their own nests and pretending to be republicans.
    Are you suggesting that McGlinchey was the subject of Heavy Gang techniques? Because, no, SFAIK he wasn't. I'm not sure why you are raising him in this context.


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    #79
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    What about Dominic 'mad dog' McGlinchey Francie? What would you have done there, send him out a summons?
    They were dealing with criminal psycopaths who were feathering their own nests and pretending to be republicans.

    My family members and people all over this locality were not criminal psychopaths. Yet their houses were arbitrarily raided, some of them were beaten, intimidated and abused.
    Amnesty International released a report on these guys but by ignoring any requests for an inquiry and by depending on the convenient blind eye of a large amount of the hypocritical high moral grounders successive governments were able to sweep it all under a carpet.

    It is, imo not coincidental that a FG government was in government when it was decided to politically police the water protests. They have a continuing track record here. And are responsible for the shambles our security forces are in.


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    #80
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    My family members and people all over this locality were not criminal psychopaths. Yet their houses were arbitrarily raided, some of them were beaten, intimidated and abused.
    Amnesty International released a report on these guys but by ignoring any requests for an inquiry and by depending on the convenient blind eye of a large amount of the hypocritical high moral grounders successive governments were able to sweep it all under a carpet.

    It is, imo not coincidental that a FG government was in government when it was decided to politically police the water protests. They have a continuing track record here. And are responsible for the shambles our security forces are in.


    What locality are you talking about?


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    #81
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    What locality are you talking about?

    Monaghan/Cavan. But I know of people in Donegal, Leitrim and Dublin who received similar attention.


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    #82
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    My family members and people all over this locality were not criminal psychopaths. Yet their houses were arbitrarily raided, some of them were beaten, intimidated and abused.

    That's weird. When they were searching out criminal psycopaths they just randomly picked your family members houses to raid.


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    #83
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    That's weird. When they were searching out criminal psycopaths they just randomly picked your family members houses to raid.

    Do you know anything of what the Heavy Gang got up to?

    That is what they did to 'police' the situation. Randomly intimidate anyone they thought had republican sympathy and even those who didn't. If they knew somebody that was often enough.
    The tactics they used when they actually brought somebody in for questioning disgusted ordinary members of the force too.

    Mon, Dec 31, 2007, 00:00


    A 1977 Amnesty International report alleging ill-treatment of prisoners by gardaí made "disturbing reading", according to a memo by one of taoiseach Jack Lynch's senior officials. Amnesty sought an "impartial investigation" into their report, which looked at 28 cases of allegations of maltreatment while in police custody that were backed up medical and other evidence.
    Having read the report, Mr Lynch's private secretary F Murray said it would "undoubtedly be of considerable embarrassment to the government if the Amnesty report were published at this stage without an inquiry into the complaints elaborated on". He said the government might wish to consider either a formal or informal inquiry into the 28 cases.
    Amnesty's secretary general Martin Ennals, in a letter to the taoiseach, said Amnesty was concerned about the "consistency of the allegations" made to its delegates and the "detailed reference to many individual cases".
    The report said that over a period of 18 months the same police officers had been mentioned as being "involved in maltreatment of suspects in reports made at different times in different parts of the country".
    Amnesty was told by several lawyers that some members of the "ordinary Garda force" had been concerned about the interrogation methods employed by detectives who travelled from Dublin to question suspects.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/lynch-urged-to-act-on-amnesty-report-into-garda-heavy-gang-1.995288
    If it all has a familiar ring to recent events that is because it is familiar. A force routinely used politically by government.


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    #84
    blanch152
    Registered Users Posts: 27,223 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    Do you know anything of what the Heavy Gang got up to?

    That is what they did to 'police' the situation. Randomly intimidate anyone they thought had republican sympathy and even those who didn't. If they knew somebody that was often enough.
    The tactics they used when they actually brought somebody in for questioning disgusted ordinary members of the force too.




    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/lynch-urged-to-act-on-amnesty-report-into-garda-heavy-gang-1.995288
    If it all has a familiar ring to recent events that is because it is familiar. A force routinely used politically by government.
    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    My family members and people all over this locality were not criminal psychopaths. Yet their houses were arbitrarily raided, some of them were beaten, intimidated and abused.
    Amnesty International released a report on these guys but by ignoring any requests for an inquiry and by depending on the convenient blind eye of a large amount of the hypocritical high moral grounders successive governments were able to sweep it all under a carpet.

    It is, imo not coincidental that a FG government was in government when it was decided to politically police the water protests. They have a continuing track record here. And are responsible for the shambles our security forces are in.
    realdanbreen wrote: »
    That's weird. When they were searching out criminal psycopaths they just randomly picked your family members houses to raid.


    I think realdanbreen is over the top and very unfair, but there were only 28 allegations in the Amnesty International Report. Assuming half of them - 14 - are true, it does seem like a remarkable coincidence that between "My family members and people all over this locality" as well as "people in Donegal, Leitrim and Dublin who received similar attention" that you appear to know virtually all of them.


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    #85
    tomwaterford
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    blanch152 wrote: »
    I think realdanbreen is over the top and very unfair, but there were only 28 allegations in the Amnesty International Report. Assuming half of them - 14 - are true, it does seem like a remarkable coincidence that between "My family members and people all over this locality" as well as "people in Donegal, Leitrim and Dublin who received similar attention" that you appear to know virtually all of them.

    What's the point in reporting gaurd misconduct??

    Gaurds investigating themselves....your word vs theirs and the way there known to shut up shop and a culture of secrecy within the organisation.....why bother


    They used regularly beat the shte outta people attending easter commerations and smaller local commerations with decades across munster,connacht and south leinster...from what I know



    The first in dependant body to investigate them...they bugged them....as someone with rake of relatives I stand by the assertion they are thugs in uniform


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    #86
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    One good progressive thing about Ireland is that an Amnesty Report could not be swept under the carpet in our current political climate. Gone are the days when FG or FF can get away with using the Gardai to carry out their political wishes. More power to those in the Dail who continually call them to account or go meekly to jail.


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    #87
    realdanbreen
    Registered Users Posts: 8,142 ✭✭✭realdanbreen


    The bottom line is that many brave decent republicans who cared about this country and I know loads of them, were bullied and threatened by criminal thugs like O'Hare and McGlinchey and the various 'nutting squads' operating around the place. Apart from feathering their own nests these thugs were also informers. It is no wonder that that bullying characteristic is still present today and not being addressed.


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    #88
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    realdanbreen wrote: »
    The bottom line is that many brave decent republicans who cared about this country and I know loads of them, were bullied and threatened by criminal thugs like O'Hare and McGlinchey and the various 'nutting squads' operating around the place. Apart from feathering their own nests these thugs were also informers. It is no wonder that that bullying characteristic is still present today and not being addressed.

    Can I ask why you are trying to shift the attention to the activities of O'Hare and McGlinchey?

    We are discussing the activities of the Heavy Gang and Liam Cosgrave's involvement in that.


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    #89
    Red_Wake
    Registered Users Posts: 1,571 ✭✭✭Red_Wake


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    realdanbreen wrote: »
    The bottom line is that many brave decent republicans who cared about this country and I know loads of them, were bullied and threatened by criminal thugs like O'Hare and McGlinchey and the various 'nutting squads' operating around the place. Apart from feathering their own nests these thugs were also informers. It is no wonder that that bullying characteristic is still present today and not being addressed.

    Can I ask why you are trying to shift the attention to the activities of O'Hare and McGlinchey?

    We are discussing the activities of the Heavy Gang and Liam Cosgrave's involvement in that.
    Because their activities give context to the causes of the Heavy Gang, and why they took any action they did.

    Of course, one doesn't expect you to recognise that, similiar to how the abuses of NI gave rise to the PIRA, the actions of the PIRA could give birth to more problems.


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    #90
    FrancieBrady
    Registered Users Posts: 67,030 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Red_Wake wrote: »
    Because their activities give context to the causes of the Heavy Gang, and why they took any action they did.

    Of course, one doesn't expect you to recognise that, similiar to how the abuses of NI gave rise to the PIRA, the actions of the PIRA could give birth to more problems.

    Let's drill down into this.
    You think it is ok for the state or ruling party to unleash what was essentially an uncontrolled cohort of thugs to police the state?


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    #91
    Red_Wake
    Registered Users Posts: 1,571 ✭✭✭Red_Wake


    FrancieBrady wrote: »
    Red_Wake wrote: »
    Because their activities give context to the causes of the Heavy Gang, and why they took any action they did.

    Of course, one doesn't expect you to recognise that, similiar to how the abuses of NI gave rise to the PIRA, the actions of the PIRA could give birth to more problems.

    Let's drill down into this.
    You think it is ok for the state or ruling party to unleash what was essentially an uncontrolled cohort of thugs to police the state?
    No, but I understand it was a response to a crisis.

    I don't approve, but I recognise it was in response to a more vicious set of thugs being unleashed by an unelected group of  bloodthirsty criminals. This bunch, you have no problem with I notice.

    Hierarchy of legitimised violence?


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