Is it just me or have SF vanished?

Sf sure do not like tricky questions so as per usual they bully and harass their way out of them.

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

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"This outdated selective system of secondary education has resulted in Northern Ireland having the lowest human capital of any UK region.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: »

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The underlying sectarian nature of this post shouldn't surprise me but when it comes to education, it sometimes seems that such labelling is acceptable.

"Boys are lazy, girls work hard"
"Caucasians have a higher IQ"
"Loyalists got tats, republicans law degrees"

Lazy explanations for discriminatory arrangements. Non-denominational multi-sex schools are the only fair way forward.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Out come the selective, emotive victims again.
You know as well as anybody that the intention was not to kill two boys.

Two boys died tragically though that didn't have to, like all the other victims, including 18 children killed by BA forces as the conflict ramped up.

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

I've posted this numerous times and you've ignored it and still cite your claim that they "never" defended anyone.

The battle of St Matthews one of the most popular ones because it was when the PIRA had even started attacking tand before there was a guerilla war, it was their first major action.

As the situation worsened, Catholic residents feared that the gathering crowds of loyalists would attempt to invade the Short Strand and burn them from their homes. Local IRA members retrieved weapons from arms dumps. A young resident, Jim Gibney, recalled: "I saw neighbours, people I knew, coming down the street carrying rifles. I was just dumbstruck by this experience. I'd never seen such a thing before".

British soldiers eventually arrived in armoured vehicles and cordoned off the roads around the Short Strand, which denied the IRA "any hope of reinforcement".
A small group of IRA members and members of the Citizens' Defence Committee took up positions in the church grounds and in adjoining streets. The IRA members were armed with M1 carbines successfully preventing the incursion of loyalist mobs and militants.

This action brought a great deal of support for armed conflict on one hand you had the peaceful SDLP who after the shooting began, Stormont MP Paddy Kennedy went with Short Strand residents to the local RUC base cried and demanded protection for their homes which never came, and on the other hand you had the IRA who risked their lives some of whom were killed trying to protect the local people, ask the families who were shaking and scared in their homes do they think the IRA men who died were terrorists I doubt they'll say they were.

https://en.m.wikipedia...le_of_St_Matthew%27s

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....??

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.

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.

The bombs are never meant to kill people but of course planting hundreds of bombs on economic targets every year is inevitably at some point going to result in casualties at some point or another.

maccored wrote: »

how would you know if they did or not markodaly?

Well they all had some kind of support but the Provos were the only ones who had real support.

Also no one supported the Omagh bomb, no one in the real IRA supported it and no one in the general public supported it, it was an incompetent accident.

The dissident republican campaign at that stage had some low level support but after the Omagh bomb it only had support similar to the support of the New IRA today.

The Omagh bomb effectively ended the dissident republican campaign.

Aranza Sour Gunshot 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?

What I'm saying is bringing up those things has no point at all, the person who posted about Warrington used that as proof that the IRA were bad which doesn't make any sense.

I wasn't excusing the killing at all he was asking what did they achieve by it so I told him it was and accident and they didn't achieve anything at all except for a stark drop in IRA support both locally and internationally and more people calling for end to the campaign.