blanch152 wrote: » If you want a clear example of the lack of credibility of Sinn Fein as a democratic party, this is it:https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2020/0714/1153193-cowen-sinn-fein/ "Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sarah McInerney programme, Ms McDonald said that it is a question of public confidence as "we are in the extraordinary situation that a government is contradicting a garda report and a garda file" which is not a sustainable position." There is no doubt that Cowen has questions to answer, and let's hope he does answer them, but I laughed out loud when I read this report. How can anyone take Mary-Lou seriously when she says this? There is a PSNI report on file which says that the IRA still control Sinn Fein but Michelle O'Neill and Mary-Lou deny this and contradict it. So while she is complaining about Cowen in the above terms, the exact same scenario has been playing out up North for the last few years!!! Hypocrisy of the highest order from Sinn Fein as usual!! P.S. Will a partitionist be along shortly to tell me it is different in the North?
Deleted User wrote: » Whole thing is a joke..... like fair play to all who have bought into the conspiracy (seems v.popular among boards users,and we all need mad sh1t to believe in,it seems!),but anyone who step away from the paint fumes for a min dont buy the ira army council meeting up to decide policy on social housing and solving healthcare issues..... Simply deosnt stand upto scrutiny
jm08 wrote: » Yet, a West Belfast catholic girls' school is No. 2 in the A-Level League table in Northern Ireland. (Just for the record, 9 of the top 10 are catholic schools). Education is a good way out of poverty and improving people's lives.https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/revealed-a-level-league-table-for-northern-ireland-catholic-schools-dominate-top-positions-37935503.html
jm08 wrote: » When are you going to stop peddling this lie? I corrected you on it yesterday and linked what the report actually said.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Would you agree that dropping bombs from 10,000 feet is subhuman? I agree with you here, war and conflict by it's very nature brings people to do subhuman things from the beginning of time. Nobody is trying to sanitise that. But people end wars and conflict too and have done since the start of time as our forbears did before us here on this very island. There is no excusing it or justifying but it happens and will happen again. You have been asked to evidence some of the generalisations you have made but keep diverting away to sanctimonious lecturing. We can but guess why. And it isn't hard to come up with answers as to why.
blanch152 wrote: » https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/what-evidence-is-there-that-the-ira-still-controls-sinn-f%C3%A9in-1.4182679 "That day The Irish Times had reported the PSNI still believes the IRA Provisional Army Council oversees both the IRA and Sinn Féin. Harris was asked if the Garda agreed with this view and replied that it did. Although many questioned the timing of his views, they do not differ from those expressed by senior individual gardaí in recent years." I stand with Drew Harris on this.
There is one overarching conclusion reached by every report published in the last 15 years – the IRA’s military campaign is a thing of the past and is highly unlikely to return.
Truthvader wrote: » Actually the Sinn Fein social housing and healthcare policies sound exactly like they were dreamt up in a cattle shed by Slab and the lads. They might have got O'Broin to help spell the big words later. Apparently the Sinn Fein fanbase regard him as an "intellectual" because he went to Secondary School
Truthvader wrote: » No Francie even if you find someone else who dropped a bomb from 10,000 on someone it still doesn't make alright. Crime and thuggery is not war.
As to evidence do you really want a list of every dead farmer, teenage boy, pub, shop and dancehall bombed? And in answer to the usual loons who think anyone not down with the "good republican" narrative is in MI5 or an Orangeman, I view the Shankill Butchers, Loyalists gangs and Para's etc in precisely the same light. They don't get much attention here as they don't have people like yourself justifying, glorying and promoting them. Nor have they assembled a collection of greedy, venal charlatans and dimwitted morons to front a political party looking for my vote actively promoting the same sick lies and justifications as yourself
blanch152 wrote: » I wouldn't be making any kind of a case about the Northern Ireland education system. This is a Ministry that Sinn Fein have held from 1999 to 2016. As an example of their failures in government, you couldn't have picked a better one.https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/john-fitzgerald-north-s-poor-education-system-a-recipe-for-failure-1.3871711 "This outdated selective system of secondary education has resulted in Northern Ireland having the lowest human capital of any UK region. It has a high proportion of early school leavers, and the proportion of thirtysomethings with a degree, at 35 per cent, is twenty percentage points lower than in Scotland or Ireland."https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/10/19/a-reflection-on-the-education-system-in-northern-ireland/ "Segregation by religion is a form of ‘tribalism’, an attempt at maintaining the purity of any group, keeping it apart from the ‘other’. This has disconcerting nuances and echoes of racism and eugenics, and is reflected in the small numbers of exogamous or ‘mixed’ marriages and partnerships."https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/14/is-the-curriculum-dividing-northern-irelands-schools-along-troubles-lines This is a really good article explaining the effect of segregated schools on maintaining division. Institutionalised segregation in education in Northern Ireland is now on a par with the situations that prevailed in South Africa and the southern States of the US, albeit on sectarian rather than racist grounds. Performing well in such a context is not a compliment.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Nobody said, that it was 'alright'. I have said it was all wrong. The distinction between what you see as justifiable 'war' and 'Crime and thuggery' is moot. It depends on if you are on the giving or receiving end. A significant part of the community on this island saw the actions of the BA as crime and thuggery at various times in recent history. No, not evidence of the tragic deaths during the conflict...anyone can 'select' victims. They do it here all the time. What I want 'evidence of' is this huge problem you keep reverting to, of IRA men controlling estates and 'tribal empires'. Give us the data you have to show this is the problem you claim it is. What I know of it is that these are very localised problems occurring in a small number of areas. Areas that are still suffering the consequences of a divisive partition.
Truthvader wrote: » Great! so you're off to the Guards to report all that rampant crime in your area so. No IRA men to worry about. "Divisive partition" didn't murder anyone
jm08 wrote: » Bearing in mind that 9 out of the 10 top rated schools are catholic ethos schools, is it any wonder catholics don't want to send their children to state schools which underperform. The real problem seems to be the underachievement of young protestant working class men - a possible explanation is that in the past they would have followed their fathers, grandfathers into the H&W etc. and not have to worry about needing an education to get a job, whereas catholics knew that the only way out of poverty was through education. It can be best summed up with how loyalist prisoners came out of the Maze with tats, with republican prisoners coming out with law degrees.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Although partitionists and Unionists (actually to a lesser degree than partitionists) try desperately to do is portray a situation were the IRA had no support. The fact of the matter is that they did.
markodaly wrote: » The New IRA who murdered Lyra Mckee have some support. The IRA guys who planted the Omagh bomb had some support. The Provo's had some support. However, none of them had a mandate or the support of the majority of the nationalist community. Its a fact. Get over it.
Truthvader wrote: » Poor Francie, so invested in the false Sinn Fein narrative and determined to justify anything. I can only repeat random murder is not "defending" anyone, attacking innocent people is not OK. You don't seem to know this and have swallowed the big ball of **** whole so that in your head if something bad happens to you it is justifiable to murder or injure any passing man woman or child. Its just not Francie and if you don't get this no-one can help you
FrancieBrady wrote: » Name me a group that sought and got a mandate before commencing subversive activity against what they seen as an oppressive state. Anywhere in the world will do.
markodaly wrote: » You could look closer to home. The IRA of 1918-1921. See the election of 1918 as reference. But, yea. Whatabout away.
markodaly wrote: » I have asked this about 20 times, but how did the PIRA defend its community by killing 12-year-old Tim Parry, and 3-year-old Toddler, Johnathan Ball who was in Warrington shopping for a Mother's Day card. Anyone?
FrancieBrady wrote: » Out come the selective, emotive victims again. You know as well as anybody that the intention was not to kill two boys.
Truthvader wrote: » "The BA was sent in by a Labour government to protect Catholic areas" Well thanks for that Francie. Finally we agree on something. Also agree on the attacks by Protestants on the Civil Rights marches and the history of beatings and burnings. And the failure of the Unionist State to protect Catholics and the general ****tiness of everything Where we disagree is that you are taken in by the lie that the Provos protected anyone or provided anything but misery. It would have been fully understandable if the Provos had protected catholic areas but even if they wanted to they did not have the weapons at the beginning. Truth is that Gerry and every other closet sociopath took the opportunity to indulge their most base instincts in pursuit of power. Regardless of how unfair the state was it does not justify one murder of an unarmed man or one bomb in a random pub. As above the defence of an area under attack would have been acceptable but all the Provos managed was to gain control of their own little tribal empires after a miserable thirty years devoted to random thuggery
markodaly wrote: » Then why was there a bomb left to go off in a crowded English town on a Saturday afternoon, busy with shoppers? But I see you didn't answer my question. How did the murder of those 2 boys 'defend' Nationalists in the North....??
FrancieBrady wrote: » This isn't rocket science really Mark. The goal was to force a British withdrawal because the British protection of the sectarian state was what was causing the problems for nationalists. A terror campaign in England was seen as the way to do that. Defence turned into attack...it isn't exactly unique in that regard. You can think of that as right or wrong, who cares at this stage. The goal of those who REALLY signed up to the GFA is to make sure it never happens again. You can accept that without ever supporting any of the sides who turned to violence...and they all did.
maccored wrote: » how would you know if they did or not markodaly?
Adam9213 wrote: » You can bring up civilian deaths from any side in any conflict and say what you said "how did they defend their communities killing these people" and use that to discredit them, I can bring up the Ballymurphy massacre where 11 innocent men and women were killed one of them died of a heart attack from a mock execution by soldiers, or I could bring up the Springhill massacre where 5 people were killed including 13 year old Margaret Gargan. The IRA were exploding hundreds of bombs on economic targets every year almost all of which were without casualties. This one went horribly wrong and two innocent people were tragically killed. A piece on BBC North West's Inside Out programme in September 2013 speculated that the bombing may have been the work of a "rogue" IRA unit, which was supported by the IRA but operated independently and who used operatives who were from England to avoid suspicion.The programme also examined a possible link between the attack and British leftist political group Red Action, though nothing was ever proven.
Interested Observer wrote: » What do you think you're achieving bringing those up exactly? Do you think you'll find a single person here who will try justify or handwave those incidents, as you're trying to do for the IRA murdering kids?
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wd.vanillicon.com/v2/dd23f423fe14831a2a84d9f17c825ecc.svg)