RIP Martin McGuinness

LordSutch wrote: »

He led his life in two halves, and in the 2nd half of his life he wasn't involved in Terrorism nor the support of Terrorism, indeed in the 2nd half of his life he became a reformed person, a politician who turned his back on terrorism.

Well, when the British government and the Loyalist paramilitaries said they'd refrain from terrorism, it helped Martin life a far more peaceful life.

Noddyholder wrote: »

[QUOTE=Thomas__;102978697 NI and the Troubles was a domestic matter for the Brits in the first place, not that of the Republic of Ireland[/B], unless Ireland had taken on the UK and that way had certainly not led to what is now in NI.

Really ? For a poster who usually says knowledgeable posts, that above is a ridiculous statement.[/quote]

My remark was clearly aimed at the abilities the Republic of Ireland had and did not have to interfere in the Troubles of NI, still a part of the UK. Maybe this didn´t come across that clearly as my Intention was to point that out. The Republic of Ireland could use her influence on NI matters only via the diplomatic channels with the UK govts and later on in direct contacts with SF which represented the IRA in negotiations and McGuinness was such a Person sent on behalf of the IRA as representative of SF to engage in sectret negotiations with the Brits. I just like to remind you on the fact that for a Long time, the Irish govt avoided direct contacts with SF and preferred to talk to the SDLP representatives on matters concerning the situation in NI. In other words, the Republic of Ireland was a parttaker in NI matters by agreement from the UK govt because they realised that they cannot solve that Problem without bringing the Republic of Ireland into talks, but not by announcing activities like Jack Lynch was trying to take up in his speech on TV in August 1969, a speech that in some ways led to the arms trial on Charles J. Haughey. In the end, it all ended up with refugee camps along the inner-Irish border to give shelter for those who fled NI at the start of the troubles.

That is the angle from which my previous comment was written.

Skrynesaver

bubblypop wrote: »

Considering Norman tebbit and his wife were both injured in the Brighton bombing, I'd cut him some slack here.
Not sure i could ever forgive anyone involved in an organisation that did that to me.

Therein lies the problem he helped solve, if you can't forgive what I do in response to the unforgivable things done to me and mine, we take an eye for an eye till we're all blind

Skrynesaver wrote: »

Therein lies the problem he helped solve, if you can't forgive what I do in response to the unforgivable things done to me and mine, we take an eye for an eye till we're all blind

You can not forgive someone, while at the same time not enact revenge.

murpho999 wrote: »

So do you mean that Ireland should have sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969 and effectively declare war on the UK?

That would have gone well.

The republic, by inaction, allowed the vacuum to form. Into that vacuum stepped the IRA (and Lynch knew they would, so no hiding from the consequences) and the rest is history, a sad and tragic history.

If you can show me any state in the world that refused to take action because 'it might not go well', then I will show you a failed state and a useless one.
Sometimes, the only moral choice you have is to act and that is what McGuinness and the IRA did.

rustynutz wrote: »

Thomas__ wrote: »

What more could they have done than what they have done, eh? NI and the Troubles was a domestic matter for the Brits in the first place, not that of the Republic of Ireland, unless Ireland had taken on the UK and that way had certainly not led to what is now in NI.

Always sneering at former leading politicians from the Republic and dismissing that it was Mr Ahern who was Taoiseach when the GFA was worked out and signed. That sneering doesn´t make any sense to me, it is just the usual claptrap from the usual die-hard Shinners who always know better but never did anything better than those who were at the place when history was made. Surely, the signing of the GFA was a moment of history for the whole of the Island of Ireland.

The IRA took on the brits because the Irish government hadn't the balls to. Republicans in the North were abandoned by the Irish government, families being burned out of there homes, being treated as second class citizens, no employment. While I don't agree with terrorism or the killing of innocent people, the IRA was a necessary evil in NI at the time.

I´ve noticed such comments for many times, too many times and every time someone posted the like of that, he or she always omitted not only the consequences such an undertaking beared with it, but more to the Point, simply dismissing the ability of the Irish Defence Forces to take on a NATO Country with a professional army trained to go into combat. That is quite different from what the IDF is trained for and the tasks they got assigned to in serving as peace keeping forces by the UNO abroad. If the Irish Military had interfered in NI by crossing the border, it might all had ended in disaster.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The republic, by inaction, allowed the vacuum to form. Into that vacuum stepped the IRA (and Lynch knew they would, so no hiding from the consequences) and the rest is history, a sad and tragic history.

If you can show me any state in the world that refused to take action because 'it might not go well', then I will show you a failed state and a useless one.
Sometimes, the only moral choice you have is to act and that is what McGuinness and the IRA did.

"might not go well" in this case would have meant war between the UK and Ireland. That would have been the actions of a failed state.

Don't Chute!

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

I did read it from the beginning and it's very hard to see anything past the praise for McGuinness work in the Peace Process (which he absolutely deserves) and those determined to make his early years into something heroic.

Haven't you heard Audrey? The members simply will not countenance any criticism of the cult. It's not how they do things in Murder Inc.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The republic, by inaction, allowed the vacuum to form. Into that vacuum stepped the IRA (and Lynch knew they would, so no hiding from the consequences) and the rest is history, a sad and tragic history.

If you can show me any state in the world that refused to take action because 'it might not go well', then I will show you a failed state and a useless one.
Sometimes, the only moral choice you have is to act and that is what McGuinness and the IRA did.

Exactly - We, in the Republic, turned our backs on our northern brethren after partition and left them to the baying loyalist mobs and their B-Special enforcers ... Not to mind the rotten political system and every day discrimination.. It's shameful what we did and then you get clowns who grew up in comfort and safety spitting on the likes of McGuinness because they've been educated through Montrose and the middle-class broadsheet conservative spin. You really couldn't make it up.

[Deleted User]

Alf Stewart. wrote: »

The weren't policemen, they were SAS members, part of an elite military unit, who have done, and continue to do similar, and worse acts of atrocities as the Provos ever have, to this very day.

They died in active service, caught carrying out a covert operation.

Get it straight please.

I don't think it matters really does it?
The video of this attack remains one of the most horrific i have ever seen. I don't believe anyone could watch it without being seriously emotionally disturbed.

PhuckHugh wrote: »

Exactly - We, in the Republic, turned our backs on our northern brethren after partition and left them to the baying loyalist mobs and their B-Special enforcers ... Not to mind the rotten political system and every day discrimination.. It's shameful what we did and then you get clowns who grew up in comfort and safety spitting on the likes of McGuinness because they've been educated through Montrose and the middle-class broadsheet conservative spin. You really couldn't make it up.

I don't remember stopping you from picking up your pitchfork and heading north to face the British army.

murpho999

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The republic, by inaction, allowed the vacuum to form. Into that vacuum stepped the IRA (and Lynch knew they would, so no hiding from the consequences) and the rest is history, a sad and tragic history.

If you can show me any state in the world that refused to take action because 'it might not go well', then I will show you a failed state and a useless one.
Sometimes, the only moral choice you have is to act and that is what McGuinness and the IRA did.

The Republic had no jurisdiction over the North and therefore could only apply diplomatic political pressure. Which they did.

You cannot seriously be suggesting that we should have sent troops in and therefore gone to war?

FrancieBrady wrote: »

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

So he wasn't both a terrorist in his youth and a peacemaker in his later years?

And you do the lazy thing again.
McGuinness seen himself as a soldier and a leader of his people. His soldiering is inseparable from what he did in his later life.

I prefer to have the decency to wait until the body of this man is buried, let some time pass until the consideration and judgement of his legacy might commence.

I´d assume that there might be some documents, still locked up as confidencial classyfied which might give some aspects to his whole political life and which have yet to be disclosed. It is still too early by now.

AudreyHepburn

I think I'm going to bow out of this conversation now, it's just going around in circles and it's seems there is just no reasoning with some posters.

I apologize for any problems or insults my comments might have caused, I clearly annoyed some posters and that was never my intention.

I won't apologize for nor change my opinions on Martin McGuinness but I am sorry for riling people up.

RIP Martin.

munstermagic11 wrote: »

I don't remember stopping you from picking up your pitchfork and heading north to face the British army.

I'm talking about the 20s - 60s and the conditions that led to the conflict .. and well you know it.

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

What's your definition of a terrorist? You seem to be pushing hard to get this label attached to him.

Were Padraig Pearse and Michael Collins etc also terrorists?

Some-one who uses violence to cause terror in a effort to make people capitulate to their demands is how I define a terrorist.

I suppose in a sense Pearse, Collins et al were to some extend but the IRA/IRB of their days bears no relation to the modern one of McGuinness imo.

They are the very grassroots of modern Irish Republicanism, carried by SF to this very day. You can´t separate them from one another, it´d be like Labour abandoning their grassroots in order to gain votes and SF is never going to do that. Younger generations, most those who grew up in the Republic of Ireland might have a more different view on that, but lesser so those who have some recollections of the troubles from the CNR community. But SF is not always appearing in the same ways and cloak in the Republic like they do in NI.

PhuckHugh wrote: »

munstermagic11 wrote: »

I don't remember stopping you from picking up your pitchfork and heading north to face the British army.

I'm talking about the 20s - 60s and the conditions that led to the conflict .. and well you know it.

Some author wrote that it all started in the year 1169 AD, the very year that created "the Irish Problem".

PhuckHugh wrote: »

I'm talking about the 20s - 60s and the conditions that led to the conflict .. and well you know it.

Well then it's not 'We, in the Republic'.
As for what 'they' did in the 20s - 60s, it's very easy to judge them now and throw a few spits of your own at them. Are you saying they should have gone to war or an alternative method?

Noddyholder

Kyle Paisley, son of the late first minister, Ian Paisley

"My father and Martin McGuinness did a great deal of good together. A man cannot be defined by what he is in the present only or past only. He is defined by all that he is, both past and present. We can't forget Martin's IRA past, but he did do a lot right, too.

"Our relationship did draw criticism and you have to understand where victims are coming from. However, in order for proper progress you have got to push ahead and be brave. Martin and my father were called the 'Chuckle Brothers'. My dad just got on with business.

"Their relationship in office was good and it was good outside office. They stayed in touch. He was genuinely sorry for us when we lost our dad."

That be my opinion & now I out of here.

elefant

Surely it's disingenuous to try and argue that Martin McGuinness was not a terrorist. He was a leader in a terrorist organisation.

What am I missing here?

Jawgap

elefant wrote: »

Surely it's disingenuous to try and argue that Martin McGuinness was not a terrorist. He was a leader in a terrorist organisation.

What am I missing here?

His halo

Elaina Uninterested Barmaid wrote: »

Well then it's not 'We, in the Republic'.
As for what 'they' did in the 20s - 60s, it's very easy to judge them now and throw a few spits of your own at them. Are you saying they should have gone to war or an alternative method?

We completely turned our back on the nationalist in the north and let them at the mercy of an establishment and almost terrorist state that despised them. You then have clowns coming in here calling nationalists who stood up for their community scumbags and the likes... I merely pointed out that's it's rich spitting on these people when growing up in the comfort of the south... War, i'm not so sure about, but we needed to do more to protect our own and we didn't... Our conservative media and state broadcaster did little to help matters either.

The Assistinator

Thomas__ wrote: »

What more could they have done than what they have done, eh? NI and the Troubles was a domestic matter for the Brits in the first place, not that of the Republic of Ireland, unless Ireland had taken on the UK and that way had certainly not led to what is now in NI.

Always sneering at former leading politicians from the Republic and dismissing that it was Mr Ahern who was Taoiseach when the GFA was worked out and signed. That sneering doesn´t make any sense to me, it is just the usual claptrap from the usual die-hard Shinners who always know better but never did anything better than those who were at the place when history was made. Surely, the signing of the GFA was a moment of history for the whole of the Island of Ireland.

Without Ahern the good Friday agreement was still possible without Martin onside it was not.
I expect nothing else than ahern to accept credit for the gfa, more claptrap from the die hard Fianna Fáil supporters.
Just to add what did the previous governments do to help the plight of there citizens up north.

elefant wrote: »

What am I missing here?

A Maggie Thatcher wig?

elefant

FrancieBrady wrote: »

A Maggie Thatcher wig?

I'd genuinely like to hear.

You don't think he was a terrorist. Why not?

And I'm not saying this in an effort to tarnish the man's legacy. I think history will remember him in a positive light for the important work on peace he did in politics in his later life.

munstermagic11 wrote: »

"might not go well" in this case would have meant war between the UK and Ireland. That would have been the actions of a failed state.

Why?
The state was formed because men like McGuinness and women went to 'war' with the British.

Charlie Flanagan this morning was funny, like some here, in his compartmentalising.
He was making the trite point that McGuinness stopped being a 'militant republican' and became a politician like him', of course ignoring the blatant fact that Charlie was able to become a non militant politician precisely because his forebears did the 'militant' work.

The hypocrisy and craw thumping today is actually hilarious.

Noddyholder

elefant wrote: »

Surely it's disingenuous to try and argue that Martin McGuinness was not a terrorist. He was a leader in a terrorist organisation.

What am I missing here?

Your missing, in how do you define terrorism , Nelson Mandela was a terrorist ? in the eyes of the US & Brit government's up till 2008.

The stern gang, which fought against the British in Palestine before Israel was created. They were terrorist's ?

The boar war etc etc

And lets not forget our own Michael Collins etc etc

And then you have Syria, which every side supporting other government's terrorist's .

It boils down to which side your on...

elefant wrote: »

I'd genuinely like to hear.

You don't think he was a terrorist. Why not?

And I'm not saying this in an effort to tarnish the man's legacy. I think history will remember him in a positive light for the important work on peace he did in politics in his later life.

McGuinness was in conflict/war with those he believed were terrorising his community. And they were in 'fact' doing everything that the IRA and SF claimed they were over the years, from taking a side in the conflict to engaging in covert terror acts.
On this day of his death that is no longer happening, and his community have parity of esteem and equality.

Call him what you want, who really cares. :rolleyes:

steddyeddy

elefant wrote: »

Surely it's disingenuous to try and argue that Martin McGuinness was not a terrorist. He was a leader in a terrorist organisation.

What am I missing here?

Of course he was. As was Nelson Mandela. Terrorist as a word does not characterise the sum worth of either person.