Car bomb has exploded in Derry City Centre

Wheres Me Jumper? wrote: »

strange then that you're contributing to a thread with CAR BOMB & Derry in the title.

If that book you have recommended is the main source of your way to take part in this discussion then it surely isn't enough of background knowledge to have for it.

I have read enough other sources to know about the nature and the patterns of such criminal acts.

Aegir wrote: »

The IRA campaign took it from a place that was simply not an attractive place to invest in, to a place where companies that wanted to invest there became actual targets.

Eddy's post also ignores the fact that the economy of the North was heavily reliant on two major industries, ship building and textiles, both of which declined significantly for a number of reasons.

He also blames the high level of civil servant jobs as part of the problem, when they were actually created to be part of the solution. Most of the civil service jobs are decentralised ones, similar to the way the Irish government decentralised jobs. You also have the added bonus of those jobs being controlled from London, where a close eye could be kept on any sectarianism and even promote positive discrimination.

Yes, it is multi faceted and other than the above, i would agree with Eddy's points, but but the PIRA campaign has to take the biggest criticism for the stagnated economy. When Sunderland lost its mining, it was replaced with car builidng, but there is no way a car company would have built a plant in the North (De Lorean's vain efforts aside) because the plant would have been considered a justifiable economic target, or at least, their risk assessors would have made that assumption and would not have allowed the investment to be made.

Quite right. The heavy and the textile industry were once the backbone of the NI economy. As you pointed out, the decline of both industries was the way into general economical decline worsened by the Troubles.

In a previous post you've quoted passages from the IRA Green Book, which one can see as their 'bible'. Comparing that to the way the Old IRA of the years 1919 to 1922 operated there is a significant difference between them. As everyone who was studdying Irish Republicanism of the 20C knows, the 'targets' back then were singled out (not just by Collins' Squad but also by others on his watch). They targetted personal of the Administration, Police and Military, keeping economical damage as less as possible, but at that time the economic world was different, much different to places like Belfast.

When one watches interviews in documentaries by those who took part in all this at their times, the older ones were to improvise their way of fighting a Guerilla war, the 'younger ones' which many of them say that they have read the accounts of their Republican forebears like Tom Barry and Dan Breen, took their example for their 'new times', but they didn't bother to exclude economical damage and follow the examples of the past. That was with the reason that the Provos calculated that a wrecked economy in NI would bring the Unionists down. This didn't pay off and that because the subsidies from Westminster were still coming in.

What is plain to see in your quotation from the Green Book is that they didn't give much of a thought that by wrecking the economy of NI they'd to suffer with it and for the fact that the CNRs were always the most deprived at that time, it was probably good enough for the Provos to get new ones recruited for them. Plenty of occasions by Terror from the RUC, the BA and the Brits secret service brought many young men and some women to join them.

The GFA was the best NI ever got and it was the worst for the DUP which was and now is again to undermine it as they were always against it. The 'chuckle brother' Paisley sr. was more putting up with it by doing his own show. That is what I believe because he never managed to get the hatred towards the CNRs out of his party. But for the sake of politics and probably for the reason that the UK govts watched them more closer in the first decade than in recent years, made him to play by the book and share power with SF.

Every time when I saw the sour face of the late FM Robinson and the way he was playing his part in this power-shared NI govt which was also taking efforts to attract Investment into NI, it was always McGuinness who came across as the 'manager' the one who put more efforts into bringing NI Forward towards a stable economy. That is for his part something which stands in contrast to the usual stance of SF to work towards a UI in the first place and not to support the NI statelet. But the more pragmatic - like it or not - are to be found on the SF side. The regressive are within the DUP and the current leader of that Party is an example not just for herself but also for the legacy of Paisley sr.

SF has moved on, the DUP has returned to the old thinking by the hardliners taking over. It's quite the same as it happened with the UUP in the mid to late 1960s.

This 'Britishness' of those Unionists in NI who are Loyalists as well is very much distinctive to that of the people in GB. Only the far-right and other right-wing nationalists over there have much in common with Unionist Loyalists in NI. But it is this ideology which always holds them back to make progress for themselves.

There have always been dissos since the GFA and they always committed their crimes from time to time by planting bombs into cars or shoot someone. In such cases the Unionists and Loyalists were the first to condemn that very loud, SF didn't stand back in condemning them as they had to distance themselves from the dissos. I think that by now, one can take it from SF that their condemnation of such violence is genuine.

The bigger threat now is that the DUP with her hardliner Foster as leader of that party and her way to hold the UK PM to ransom in the HoC will bring more damage to the economy of NI than all the bombing campaigns of the past might have caused. That is because with a hard Brexit, the UK economy will probably also decline and more important to this is the SNP which is in govt in Scotland and now pressing even more for an IndyRef2 in order to get out of the Brexit trap by independence. That all means less Money for NI in subsidies and in the end of the day, the DUPpers have once again shoot themselves in the foot.

There is probably no evidence yet that this car bomb is politically related to the ongoing Brexit mess, but I would not exclude it at all cos the threat of a hard border between the Republic and NI isn't out of the world yet. This car bomb might or could also be read like a signal of 'they haven't gone away, you know'. A hint to the past for the future and that bleak Terror future prospect has to be extinct before it can spread.

Depending on the developments in regards of Brexit, the problem of NI will be put to a border poll and I can't say when this will happen but the more the chances of a no-deal hard Brexit increase, the more a border poll in NI will come along as well. A political solution on this would take off the steam from the dissos, but it might certainly anger the Loyalists on the Unionist side. It is now more than ever important for the electorate in NI and especially the Unionist community to vote for moderate parties and dismiss the DUP from any power in NI cos when it comes to a no-deal Brexit the DUP has her share in this. I hope that people will realise and remember that. They can't put the blame on the Republicans and Irish Nationalists anymore cos that mess is also of the DUPs own making.

There is little reportation in the UK media about NI, except there is something important that concerns the whole of the UK and Brexit in the first place. I think that the uncertainty and this silly back and forth of the UK govt has made many peopole in NI nervous and tensions seem to get worse again. The last time it led to erruptions was the 'Flegger Season' of 2012 to 2013 (the incident with removing the UJ from the Belfast CH in December 2012 which led to riots on the Unionists side).

Maybe the next time the DUP will face anger for the part she was playing in this Brexit mess and maybe then it might be from both sides, CNRs and PULs when the people are going to lose their jobs.

I don't know what will happen but it doesn't look good for NI at the moment. One can hope that a hard border won't be installed, but who says that the DUP wouldn't do that by blaming the Republicans once again for it. In such a Scenario, this car bomb might just be the start for a return to the dark decades of the Troubles. I hope it won't come to that, I really do.

Aegir wrote: »

What better excuse is there for a united Ireland, politicians fleecing the state would never happen down here :rolleyes:

Anybody who says that a UI will only bring merits is lying because such a process will cost money, kill jobs but also creates new ones.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Ulster is currently split. Not sure what the comparison with Meath is about. I know the talk from the Ulster-Scots can confuse the fact much of Ulster is in what's currently called the Republic of Ireland.

Would you say that there never grew some difference between the people who live in the one part that is in the Republic and the other that is NI?

Given the year of the Act of Ireland of 1920, next year it will be 100 years since and 98 years since partition took place due to the Anglo-Irish-Treaty.

It's all a long time and a couple of generation came and went during that time. I don't think that such a long time passes by without any effect on the people on both sides.