The Wolfe Tones

Tony EH

Thanks for confirming my point Tony.

I'm not confirming anybody's points but my own.

Sean Russell and the IRA in general were indeed happy to make a pact with the devil whether by collaborating with Nazis or indulging in multiple atrocities against non-combatants.

This is incorrect. In the period in question, 39-40, most of the IRA men at the time wanting nothing to do with Germany. But there was ideological splits occurring within the organisation, with several members moving towards a more conservative position. There were even efforts made to join forces with Eoin O'Duffy. In fact there was much internal fighting going on about individuals reaching out to Germany for assistance, because the political views of a lot of people in the IRA and indeed DeValera's Fianna Fail would have been in opposition to a fascist regime like the Nazis.

The likes of Sean Russell, who's dealings with Germany lasted only a few months, decided on his own to contact the Germans. He was in the US looking for funding in 1939 and made the decision to contact Germany through an American, unbeknownst to anyone else in the IRA, except perhaps Joseph McGarrity. It was only later after Russell had made his way to Germany that IRA members back in Ireland got wind of his planned return via U-Boat.

But, as said, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" can make for strange bedfellows and it's certainly not unusual for one party to hold their nose when dealing with a less savoury element, so long as there was the potential of a favourable outcome. As also mentioned Churchill had no problem holding his nose and dealing with Stalin in order to achieve his aims.

As it stands, Russell's dealings with Germany came to nought as he was dead within three months of landing in Genoa. It's hard to know what Russell thought of the Germans, other than as a possible source of funding and weapons. But he was probably working off the mistaken idea that the Third Reich was a sort of continuation of Imperial Germany who sent aid to the Irish in the First World War and that that assistance could be relied upon again. But pre 1939, Russell gave little thought to Germany or the Germans. He believed that greater assistance would come from America.

In any case, by 1941, the IRA numbered less than a 1000 men and were increasingly looked upon as a waste of time and effort by the Germans, and after Germany invaded Russia any hopes the IRA may have had with regards to German assistance in any effective way were pretty much dead in the water...just like Sean Russell.

paddyisreal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121080170#Comment_121080170

Sinn Fein only starting running candidates in 1983, Bobby sands ran for the h block in 81 . SDLP were a middle class party and as soon as sinn Fein got their **** together they took the working class nationalist vote.the Brits behaved disgracefully around the world so I don't why you find it so hard to admit that they colluded with the loyalist paramilitaries. It's a fact

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079871#Comment_121079871

Yes they were

Ash.J.Williams

The dead Kennedys berated governor Jerry brown and then realised he was alright

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121080874#Comment_121080874

surly you will agree that the vast majority of people who were involved with the pira were also , and many continue to be ?

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081399#Comment_121081399

No and I've been clear on that. They bravely fought against a murder machine who were backed up by loyalists and the local police force. They knew they'd most likely would end up dead or in prison but fought for their communities anyway.

Yes, some awful things were done by the PIRA but as we've seen in this thread, the British side killed far more innocents while the PIRA mainly targeted active combatants.

JP Liz V1

Come on PUC get them

https://www.corkbeo.ie/culture/music-nightlife/wolfe-tones-legend-says-band-27655821

markodaly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081563#Comment_121081563

As you saw, the PIRA killed more civilians than the British Security forces.

These brave men you harp on about planted bombs in the middle of towns and murdered innocent women and children.

Do you stand by the bombings of Le Mons, Omagh, and Warrington?

paddyisreal

Was looking at a poll result from last year after the shaming of the Irish women's team where the only people who really took offense to "up the ra" were old aged Irish times readers. Young people see no harm in it and don't want a bunch of auld lads/wans dictating to them. I guess the moaners in here who take offense to everything are in that cohort

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/most-irish-people-do-not-believe-singing-up-the-ra-glorifies-ira-poll-finds/42104274.html

Annd9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121080765#Comment_121080765

You are forgetting about the RUC down the centre .....

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081594#Comment_121081594

Obviously you haven't bothered reading the material I provided for you. You can deny collusion if you want but in the real world that won't cut it. Loyalists and the security forces worked side by side during the war. Killing over 1,000 innocents.

You forgot to tell us about your views on the murdering thugs in the British armed forces by the way? Can we take it that you are supportive of them? Maybe that's why you are so anti Irish freedom fighters. They sent about 1,000 of your heroes home in body bags during the most recent war.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081563#Comment_121081563

an awful lot of dead children and other innocent victims would tend to disagree not to mention the ongoing and persistent involvement in criminality even up to today

sf/ira policy of re writing history to portray them as some sort of hero underdogs should be resisted at all possible opportunity's. I mean they continue to create victims on a regular basis even today

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081700#Comment_121081700

As I said, some awful things were done by the PIRA but compared with who they were fighting, they fought the cleaner war. They stuck with active combatants for the most part. This is a fact. All wars are horrible and this one was no different. Without the PIRA, there would have been widespread ethnic cleansing in the North. We should always be grateful to them for ending that. They are heroes, just like all previous Republican movements.

JP Liz V1

Tom Dunne doesn't get it

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-41221462.html

paddyisreal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082528#Comment_121082528

If fairness the music is shite but they obviously hit a chord with the younger crowd. I think it might be called identity they are craving and a lot of the older posters in here don't get it.. as I said a bunch of over 60s reading the Irish times disgusted with the youth of today. Tut tut

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079011#Comment_121079011

I didn't mention PIRA atrocities or paedophilia cover up for the same reason I didn't mention British atrocities or paedophilia cover up or loyalist paramilitary atrocities or paedophilia cover up, because they are not relevant to my point. Which is that young Irish people born after the troubles effectively ended share none of the experience or attitudes of those who were alive and old enough to be aware then. Whether the latter group happen to hate all violence and paedaphelia, or are selective about which group they hate more is again irrelevant to the former group.

Your second point about Trump and far right is simply gibberish and not worth engaging with. The vast vast majority of young Irish people lean left in their attitudes, railing against the current FG/FG government is hardly far right FFS.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081753#Comment_121081753

cleaner war ? what a blindly false and willfully untrue thing to say

heros who came up with proxy bombs, ethnic cleansing areas around the boarder, taxing drug dealers smuggling and dumping toxic waste all over, bombing childrens hospitals protecting rapists and peados , i mean they are still hiding the bodies of innocents they killed just to extend the pain of the family's, targeting the family's of their "enemy's" inspite of your BS claim

some of your heros are mid to high level drug dealers in lenister and munster right now ,they are were and always will be scum and we would be better off as a nation without them , Cowards bullies and psychopaths for the most part and still without the moral strength to own up to the crimes the evaded justice for in the past.

just fat old cowards hiding in backroom of bars trying to poison the young and dumb with the same bile you are pushing here

they should be treated like the dirt they are not feted as anything else

sweat jesus , anyone with even a passing familiarity with the actual evens will do as i am now going to do a write you off as a pira propagandist in the vein of gobbles and chemical ali

Ash.J.Williams

There is not one positive thing about the provisional

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082751#Comment_121082751

Yes, they fought the cleaner war. No amount of propaganda can dispute the facts. The independent CAIN website has all the data. You can throw your toys out of the pram all you want. The PIRA targeted active combatants for the most part, killing over 1,000. The British side targeted civilians for the most part, killing over 1,000.

They were fighting against absolute psychopaths who just wanted to kill Catholics, any taig will do was their motto. They didn't want equal rights for Nationalists but some went further, they didn't want Nationalists to exist in the 6 counties. We have to be thankful that the PIRA didn't allow it to happen. And the South will forever be ashamed for standing idly by as Nationalists were treated like dirt.

geospatial

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081594#Comment_121081594

I doubt you'd find a single Irish Republican who supported the armed struggle who would "stand over" the Le Mon, Warrington, Omagh or any bombing that took civilian lives. The PIRA always phoned in warnings before bombings, and yes civilians were still killed or injured whether because of screw ups by PIRA members or screw ups by the security forces. Bad **** happens in all wars on all sides. If the PIRA goal was to kill civilians then they would hardly send warnings in advance would they? What warning did the civilians in Dresden or more recently in Baghdad get?

Why are you so reluctant to condemn the atrocities of British murderers? Genocide all over the world doesn't bother you? Concentration camps in Africa doesn't bother you? 1.5 million locked up and tortured in Kenya doesn't bother you? Tens of millions of dead Indians doesn't bother you?

But young people singing a song bothers you. Sums up the priorities of the Irish who stood idly by while their fellow citizens were being murdered 50 miles north of them.

I use to be very active on Boards 10+ years ago. I remember at that time there was only one fella, lovely fella but literally the only one, who was a vocal supporter of SF. Mussolini then Wolfe Tone he was called i believe.

And good on him, he would enter debate after debate justifying PIRA and SF but as i said, no support, everyone disagrees with him.

If I'm honest, most of us thought he was a touch odd as to the rest of us, everything that those lads were responsible for was disgusting. We could empathise with their motivation, but never condone the killing. I suppose it was only over a decade previously that proddies were getting pulled off buses for execution and randomers getting scraped off the side of buildings following a bomb. And it was close enough to Muslim terrorist attacks like 11/7 for us to see the parallels.

So, what has changed? My own guess is that <40s want change so badly due to the housing crisis that SF understandably seem like the only alternative. And as part of this it is easier on the conscience to find a way to justify everything they did rather than pretend it didn't happen . Part of this includes celebrating such stupid songs.

The fact that they are completely counterproductive to reunification doesn't matter because that's not their motivation; houses is.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082826#Comment_121082826

its like a chatgpt program , blindly going in circles ignoring every point and recycling the same failed arguments .

the very definition of a shinnerbot

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082911#Comment_121082911

Your post is basically saying you have no argument against the facts presented so you'll throw out a few buzz words instead. You're free to post how you want but it's so transparent. It's the same with the media campaign, people have access to the facts now. Young people know the truth. Collusion used to be called a myth, now it's an undisputed fact. Some try to claim that the PIRA started the war, the facts tell a different story. The independent CAIN website gives us all the facts and figures. That the British side predominantly targeted civilians is another undisputed fact. Again, stomp your feet all you want, the pro British slant on our history has had its day.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082709#Comment_121082709

Of course they're relevant to the point. The Catholic Church never recovered from the paedophilia scandals and other scandals and are mostly despised by young people and many older people too.

If you claim to despise the Catholic Church because of these scandals, but support the rehabilitation of the Provos - who did the exact same thing - protected paedophiles and rapists - and worse - actually murdered civilians including Catholic civilians by the truckload - is hypocrisy of the most laughable kind.

You either have principle or you don't.

The difference is there are many very decent priests who are great people in it for the right reasons who fully accept that the Catholic Church as an institution behaved abominably. This is not the case in Sinn Fein. You cannot be a member of Sinn Fein and believe that the 27 year murder campaign was the wrong way. It is a prerequisite for membership to admire the murder gang that was the Provos. You could fully subscribe to every single thing in Sinn Fein's policy programme, but if you believe that John Hume and the SDLP were the ones walking the better path, you're out. That's a cult.

Of course you say my point "is not worth engaging with". That's the default response to everything from Shinners. If Bertie Ahern says something, dismiss him outright, because bank accounts blah blah blah. Aoife Moore has a new book out and from the extracts it's highly embarrassing for Sinn Fein. A year or two back Sinn Fein supporters were eulogising her because Eoghan Harris was setting up fake accounts to troll her. Now she's on the Sinn Fein blacklist.

Shinners - particularly in the south and particularly online - simply don't do good faith debate. They shout and they mock and heckle and they pile on. These are the tactics of cults. That's exactly what Trump supporters do. Trump's support is a cult, and so is Sinn Fein's. Deep down, those in the cult know they are defending the indefensible. That's why the tactics I mention are necessary.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083128#Comment_121083128

no its saying that regardless of multiple posters making the same clear valid and sensible arguments you have been programmed to shout down anyone who dares to contradict you . there is a name for people to impose their nasty political beliefs on others and refuse to allow dissenting opinions.

still it really exposes your level of indoctrination that you can try to push the lie that a group terrorists who invented proxy bombs can be called brave heroic men 🤮🤮🤮

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083154#Comment_121083154

Again, you refuse to engage with any points raised. You are free to counteract them if you want. The British side did kill over 1,000 civilians. The PIRA did kill over 1,000 combatants.

Not long before the war, Britain did starve millions to death. They did lock up millions in Kenya and rape women with glass bottles. They did team up with loyalists to kill innocent Nationalists. This is all true, none of it is made up.

The PIRA were fighting against absolute psychopaths, with very little support from anywhere else. That is extremely brave.

mikethecop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083219#Comment_121083219

is it really too complex a concept to understand that both sided can be bad , . but for instance heros dont send people to carry bombs by threaten their family with rape and murder ? that is w hat dirty cowards do can you agree ?

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083219#Comment_121083219

OK Ratko O'Mladic.

paddyisreal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083139#Comment_121083139

Jaysus you spout some amount of shite.. let me guess your about mid 60s and an Irish times reader ? According to your mad theory all sinn Fein supporters are paedophile supporters - about 33 percent of the country, you really need to grow up. Not everything is as black as white as you think.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083483#Comment_121083483

Every Sinn Fein supporter on this thread has been silent about the reality of the cover up of the paedophilia and rape within Sinn Fein/PIRA. That's effective support for those who committed those crimes and covered it up.

I'm in my 40s and read a wide range of sources including the Irish Times. Your post contains nothing but insults which is a demonstration of a lack of having any argument.