Is it just me or have SF vanished?

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Thank you for your points above and for the advice to “read the interview properly”

Something which was difficult to do because the interview was in fact a television interview on Today Tonight, but of course you knew that and didn’t just “read” the short excerpts from the interview and then suggest I hadn’t “read” it properly.

Your first point is inaccurate.

What the good priest actually said when asked about policing was:

Brian Farrell: Outside of the political crime area does the catholic community make use of the RUC?

Fr. Denis Faul: oh yes they certainly make use of them outside the political crime area and they are probably quite an efficient police force in regard to traffic offences, burglaries, non political robberies, children, drugs and so on Certainty they go to them immediately.

Nowhere in the interview does Fr. Faul mention a call for “all republican prisoners” to be released.

He says

“These people (the provos) hold the catholic community in terror.

And again later:

“They hold the catholic community in absolute terror”



Asked if the PIRA were comparable to the mafia he says:

“Very much a mafia situation indeed, in addition to the murders that’s going on you have robbery, blackmail and extortion...,,,,hijacking of cars, the taking over of houses.

And we know Faul had a bitter falling out with SF. His 'individual' opinion is no more reliable than yours or mine.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

You keep telling yourself that Francie.

Only the opinions of Sinn Fein fans matter.

No, the opinions of everyone are there to be validated and scrutinised.

Like you Faul had a motivation to indulge a trope. A trope he most certainly wasn't pushing when he was not at loggerheads with SF leaders.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

That would be fair comment until we see all views other than the Sinn Fein narrative being dismissed as “partisan”, from renowned journalists and historians to the Independent Monitoring Commission.
When it suits of course.

It's not a SF narrative...never heard them talking about it actually.

It is comment from somebody who lives in one of these 'communities' tired of lazy generalisations and politicians looking for votes by branding them as 'lawless' and 'in fear'.
It is largely bull****.

jm08 wrote: »

Well, I have listened to it and I still don't think you have listened to the whole interview (which was in 1984 - after the hunger strikes and before the collapse of the Anglo-Irish Agreement).


Fr Faul's point was that mothers were coming to him and asking him to do something because their children were being enticed into the PIRA because the RUC/Security forces were intimidating them and holding them up. He said that the British Government needed to actually support nationalists and provide neutral security and safety. He said he had made 1500 representations to the RUC and nothing was done about any of his complaints. He said that anyone up to the age of 25 should be released from prison because they were unlikely to offend again.



When Fr Faul gave that interview, there must have been some hope of a compromise with the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Unionists rejected it so that hope was crushed for nationalists.





That might have been the first thing he said, but he did say that nationalists were being picked up, intimidated and held for hours by the security forces. If the British Gov. sorted that out, his solution might have worked. But it didn't.





Yes, he said the PIRA threatened them if they thought to report them to the RUC/Security forces.


The message I got from that interview was:
1. Catholics had no one to turn to for safety, so they were stuck with the PIRA.

2. Fr Faul thought that if the British Gov. listened to what he was advising them to do (such as release prisoners etc), young men & women would not be enticed into the PIRA.
3. Obviously, with the collapse of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the catholics were left on their own again.

Did you hear him calling for the “release of all republican prisoners” as stated in your earlier post?

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

There are bodies all over West Cork that were buried there by the 'good old' IRA when they were shooting and killing the antecedents of the RUC/UDR and people who colluded/informed.

There was an older Unionist woman who lived near Macroom whose body was even dug up and moved to prevent it from being retrieved by loved-ones after the war of Independence was over.

But they were the good IRA and the PIRA were bad IRA.

Same people back then thought it was OK to bury bodies as the same people nowadays that think it's OK to bury bodies.

I like to class myself as a person who doesn't think its OK.

What about you?

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I think it's an awful thing to do - killing people is bad enough without denying their loved-ones a funeral.

Do you agree PIRA are an awful organisation?

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Did you hear him calling for the “release of all republican prisoners” as stated in your earlier post?

What he said was to ''begin releases from the prisons'' as a solution. (The second was to do something about the judiciary).


Brian Farrell then interjected and said that ''obviously, the British authorities see all Provos as the same kind of people and they would be afraid of letting some out.''


Fr Faul then went onto say that there would be no harm releasing anyone who was picked up at 16 or 17 years of age and were serving life sentences because they acted as look-outs and probably did not know what was going on. He advocated that both loyalist and republican prisoners & women should be released. He said members of the ''Official Group'' should be released and that there are many prisoners in Long Kesh who have totally turned away from violence, that there are prisoners in Long Kesh where the means of how they were put there are questionable in terms of blackmail, torture, chicacory and roguery in the interrogation centres and the courts. He said that if a lot of these prisoners were released you would find that a lot of the support for the Provos would stop. He goes onto say that there are about 50,000 people who are relatives and friends of these prisoners who are the mainstay of Provo support and are the ones who are marching, etc.



So, to sum up, he did advocate for most if not all prisoners to be released. The issue was that the British Goverment needed to do their bit by improving the justice system for nationalists.


The section that he talks about this starts about 5 mins in.



https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/1004/1081089-father-denis-faul/


The rules of engagement with the PIRA by the nationalist community was that they showed no mercy to informers or spies. If they stuck to those rules, they were ok with them. Of course this meant that the British Security Forces tried to use various means to force such information out of the nationalist community.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

The PIRA no longer exist. As for the PIRA, I wouldn't blame young people who joined them to fight back, I'd blame them for what they did as individuals while they were in the IRA alright.

Out of interest, if you had been living in the Bogside or West Belfast in 1969, 1970, 1971 and watched your people being murdered by the RUC/British Army what would you have done?

They should have stayed in their beds, because it was all for nothing.

Bonniedog wrote: »

They should have stayed in their beds, because it was all for nothing.

You could probably say that about anyone who got involved.

Bonniedog wrote: »

Especially when your side surrendered and did not achieve its objectives, would you not agree?

They only had one mission. To bomb and murder to supposedly “unite”and get da England out of da Ireland as the wee patty’s day sign said.

They failed miserably as anyone with an iota of intelligence could have told them. But they wouldn’t listen. Their depraved actions have guaranteed there will never be a “United ireland”

But sure at least they made a few pounds washing diesel. Like the good wee republicans they are.

Sf don't do irony, do they? As long as everyone agrees with them it is fine but if someone does not, they... have the gall to start on about trolling.

Superfoods wrote: »

Bulls**t. That's the new rosy version that Sinn Fein and a few of you on here want to tell us. Oh they only went after informers, apart from that they provided a friendly neighbourhood service

People got beating for any sort of stepping out of line.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/paramilitaries-step-up-violence-of-punishment-attacks-1.285012

At around 7 p.m. a gang of men forced their way into a house in Brewster Court and attacked a 19-year-old youth. They smashed his leg in several places with an iron bar and also struck him with considerable force on the arms and body. The youth suffered severe chest injuries and one of his lungs collapsed. His recovery will take a long time and he is likely to be permanently handicapped.

Police and medical sources say the paramilitaries are well aware that the type of injury inflicted by weapons such as metal bars, pickaxes, hammers and clubs - sometimes studded with nails - are significantly worse than injuries caused by hand guns.

That's the level of scumbag the PIRA......anyone defending that needs to really look at themselves. All of course protected by your local friendly Sinn Fein politician. Yes "Up da Ra" Sinn Fein "Up da RA"

Who is defending it?

All you guys want to do, typically, is try to contextualise it in an environment where only the IRA were operational.

Simply wrong and wholly hypocritical.

It is time for all of you to face up to the fact that a bitter intractable, vicious (on all sides) conflict/war was allowed to break out because the responsible governments failed their people.

ALL of the violence was obscene and unjustified.

Superfoods wrote: »

Bulls**t. That's the new rosy version that Sinn Fein and a few of you on here want to tell us. Oh they only went after informers, apart from that they provided a friendly neighbourhood service

People got beating for any sort of stepping out of line.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/paramilitaries-step-up-violence-of-punishment-attacks-1.285012

At around 7 p.m. a gang of men forced their way into a house in Brewster Court and attacked a 19-year-old youth. They smashed his leg in several places with an iron bar and also struck him with considerable force on the arms and body. The youth suffered severe chest injuries and one of his lungs collapsed. His recovery will take a long time and he is likely to be permanently handicapped.

Police and medical sources say the paramilitaries are well aware that the type of injury inflicted by weapons such as metal bars, pickaxes, hammers and clubs - sometimes studded with nails - are significantly worse than injuries caused by hand guns.

That's the level of scumbag the PIRA......anyone defending that needs to really look at themselves. All of course protected by your local friendly Sinn Fein politician. Yes "Up da Ra" Sinn Fein "Up da RA"

If you had actually bothered to read that article you might have noticed that:
1) the PIRA were not mentioned once and

2) they say it is dissident republicans.


I asked you before, but you didn't answer. Do you understand that there are dissident republicans who may have been in the PIRA in the past but do not support the Peace Process?


From that article, the republicans seem to be keeping law and order but the loyalists are drug dealers and criminals and seem to be a much larger problem.

https://twitter.com/oconnellhugh/status/1294938686933655553?s=21

Sinn Féin activists have been repeatedly warned not to send offensive or harassing material to people online in guidelines issued by party headquarters.

The party has also warned members and supporters not to discuss internal party matters online and not to repost material from people "who are politically opposed to us".

A "casual, naive or irresponsible approach" to social media like Facebook and Twitter can "cause problems for the party", the guidelines state.

Time to call off the dogs of war from around here.