To the people who say the troubles was not a war

Harryd225 · 28-11-2021 10:25PM #1

To the people who are still falling for the British propaganda line the troubles were just as if not more intense than the ''war'' of independence, the IRA were hitting right at the heart of the British establishment killing top politicians and members of the Royal family, it was routine for British politicians to check under their car with a mirror for car bombs everytime they went to drive their car.

There were at some years of the troubles 30,000 soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland making it the most militarised zone in the planet almost completely confined to the areas of the Catholic minority which makes the claim that soldiers were there to ''keep the peace'' irrelevant.

Also the British army took nearly twice as many casualties in northern Ireland in the 25 years up to the ceasefire than they lost in 20 years in Afghanistan.

Not to mention all the bombs that were taking out infrastructure regularly in England also in 1972 the IRA exploded 1800 bombs taking out infrastructure giving 30 minute warnings before the bomb went off, the war in Northern Ireland probably had the biggest impact on Britain by far since WW2.

Here is a typical day in 1972 northern Ireland I picked this because no one even died on this day.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DkK3Ff4ivkJA&ved=2ahUKEwjtsMeU_7v0AhVRTsAKHZp1BBAQwqsBegQIChAE&usg=AOvVaw0OOWHoQ0IonXdQeehON_d3

milehip · 29-11-2021 04:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058220224/to-the-people-who-say-the-troubles-was-not-a-war

Good man!

29-11-2021 04:06PM

What you described is terrorism, not war.

Chips Lovell · 29-11-2021 04:12PM

OK

Thelonious Monk · 29-11-2021 04:32PM

Who cares what it was? A horrible piece of history confined to the past which we've moved on from.

zom · 29-11-2021 04:49PM

"Who cares what it was? A horrible piece of history confined to the past which we've moved on from."

Agree - being in a war is nothing to be proud of either if you win or loose.

Trigger Happy · 29-11-2021 05:07PM

It was terrorism, not warfare and no amount of romanticising that period can erase the horror that happened. At a stretch you could argue that the British army employed urban warfare tactics but you need two sides to be fighting a war and only one was.

I remember been in Derry during riots on William st. It all went quiet at 6pm. Someone explained to me that they had all gone home for their tea. It would get lively again later in the evening. Some soldiers.

Harryd225 · 29-11-2021 06:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240721#Comment_118240721

Rubbish it was guerilla warfare, it was as much a war as the ''war'' of independence the IRA in the 70s were fighting a more ruthless battle than the IRA in the 20s.

29-11-2021 06:05PM

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are no different to Devalera or Collins.

One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist.

They labelled Mandela a terrorist.

29-11-2021 06:59PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240561#Comment_118240561

There's quite a few people (like the OP) who don't want to move on from it...

But yes, all this crap should be left behind. There's no value in endlessly bringing it up again, seeking justifications for a truly horrible period in our history.

BurgerFace · 29-11-2021 09:53PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240390#Comment_118240390

Wouldn't the Vietnam "War", the Iraq "War", the Afghan "War", the "War" of Algeria, the American "War" of Independence, the Russo-Afghan "War", etc not also fall into you terrorism definition?

BurgerFace · 29-11-2021 10:15PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240721#Comment_118240721

Who says you need two sides to have a "war". Did you mean two state armies? And what's your definition of "terrorism". Do you think that patriots in the American War of Independence never tortured and murdered locals or those who they suspected of collaboration with the English? And do you think that the English never killed innocents and spread the news that it was done by those with whom they were fighting in order to turn the civilian population against those?

Were the French and Polish resistance terrorists because they killed spies and informants?

There's no romanticising. It's a horrible business. But a stronger invading/occupying force may have the upper hand in terms of military equipment and power. Anyone who thinks of war as a gallant campaign between two equal sides is the fool who is romanticising things.

Dropping more bombs on Vietnam civilians than the entirety of what were dropped in World War 2 or butchering 20% of the Korean population deliberately is terrorism. It serves to terrorise a civilian population.

BurgerFace · 29-11-2021 10:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240721#Comment_118240721

And what if you were in Birmingham Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi when the Klan can just lynch people and the cops stand by or hand down a suspended sentence to a gang of beer soaked rednecks who rape a girl or torch a church or lynch some niggra? And the locals riot. Would you call them Sunday lunch soldiers too?

Still stihl waters 3 · 29-11-2021 10:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240390#Comment_118240390

Terrorism is what the colonist calls the upstarts who dare rebel against their ruling, all invaders think themselves superior to their conquests and while I disagree with many things the IRA did, to call them terrorists is too simple a term used most often by simpletons, there's a core group in Ireland who love to take the moral high ground and see themselves as intellectuals condemning the ignorant Catholic Irish in the North who should have known their place and did what they were told by Whitehall.

Innocent lives lost during the troubles is the only downside I see to what the IRA and other nationalist groups were trying to achieve which was at first defence of nationalist and Irish people in the North, the only regret I'd have if I was part of it all is that a hell of a lot more of the British army weren't blown to smithereens or lined up and shot like every other invader in every country in the world, send them home in bodybags and let their families mourn, rather them than some innocent child shot in the back on his way to training

corner of hells · 29-11-2021 10:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118241008#Comment_118241008

Did Mandela fight in the North ?

Harryd225 · 29-11-2021 10:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242147#Comment_118242147

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118241262#Comment_118241262

I don't understand why he is comparing rioters to soldiers

cnocbui · 29-11-2021 10:28PM

...

Harryd225 · 29-11-2021 10:30PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242164#Comment_118242164

No but he certainly thought a lot of Adams he made Adams guard of honour at his funeral.

corner of hells · 29-11-2021 10:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242194#Comment_118242194

Mandela acknowledged setting up a guerrilla group and committing acts of sabotage, Adams hasn't got the balls to admit being in the IRA because he knows whatever credibility he has got would soon evaporate.

Danzy · 29-11-2021 10:41PM

The IRA in the long war was very effective in targeting enemy forces. 70% of those it took out. Mistakes were made, things done that should not have been but in comparison to other conflicts or the IRA campaign in the black and tan war it was exceptional going.

Sunny Disposition · 29-11-2021 11:04PM

A terrible time, call it war or not, it doesn’t matter, it’s really beside the point.

Most definitely the British army were not a popular force among Catholics, no question. They comitted massacres and were rightly despised. The IRA did terrible things also, there can be no doubt about that either.

The reason I think what the IRA did was not acceptable was that most Catholics did not support it. That’s the truth. They were acting against the wishes of most of the people they claimed to represent. And that was wrong.

No question the State was rotten, conditions in Catholic areas were poor. Even today the North is a terribly dysfunctional place.

But the IRA actually made things worse. They hamstrung a strong peaceful movement that was emerging.

War or terrorism, quite irrelevant, terrible times and the only heroes are mostly unknown people who tried to make the place tolerable.

Signore Fancy Pants · 29-11-2021 11:19PM

Its not a "war" in any traditional sense. This is all just nuanced semantics, however the following acts are apt as definitions.

IRA members born and living in the 6 counties, using military style tactics against British troops/police would be classed as an insurgency.

IRA members born and living in the 26 counties, using military style tactics against British troops/police would be classed as guerilla warfare or an armed incursion.

IRA members from any location conducting indiscriminate attacks (IEDs, bombs etc) where civilians or non combatants are targets (or collateral), is classed as terrorism.

29-11-2021 11:29PM

It was only a war to people who support terrorism.

29-11-2021 11:34PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240997#Comment_118240997

Blowing up kids in a pub is not ruthless battle, they are a stain on our history, nothing to be proud of.

Harryd225 · 29-11-2021 11:49PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242342#Comment_118242342

''They hamstrung a peaceful movement that was emerging''

A movement that was regularly getting the **** kicked out of them by the army on their marches eventually culminating in 26 people being shot, two mowed down with army vehicles and hundreds violently assaulted on a civil rights march on bloody Sunday, people had gotten tired of prancing around the streets preaching non violence when violence was being regularly used against them.

''Most Catholics did not support it'' that's hard to know for sure as Sinn Féin didn't contest elections until the early 80s where support would have been substantially lower than it was in the early 70s, in the first general election Sinn Féin contested they got 105,000 votes and the SDLP got 130,000, they didn't have the majority support then but there was certainly plenty of wiggle room to get it.

Sinn Féin in 1918 would have had absolutely no chance of getting 47% of the vote if it wasn't for the violent action taken in 1916 which the vast majority of people didn't support.

30-11-2021 12:08AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242168#Comment_118242168

Ahh well, I don't understand why you linked my quote to that posters... I quoted an entirely different poster in expressing my opinion.. so, linking the two quotes makes no sense (since those other posters said entirely different things). You do realise that other quote was added long after mine, and didn't reference me at all?

It's utterly bizarre that you would quote me and that other poster, and then, state what you did. Weird.

gormdubhgorm · 30-11-2021 12:23AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058220224/to-the-people-who-say-the-troubles-was-not-a-war

I think it is more Republican propaganda you have fallen for rather than others falling for British propaganda.

The provo IRA did not recognise either state on the island of Ireland. NI or the ROI. Gardai - RUC - and civilians were targeted. The provisional IRA had no mandate. They had no support in the ROI and their main support was a diehard cohort from NI - who viewed it as fighting an occupation. But the provisional IRA was not an 'army' representing a state with a mandate behind it. Nor had it international public opinion recognising it as such. There were many in the provisional IRA who were opportunists who were bank robbers, drug dealers and did not recognise the rule of law in either the ROI and NI.

The keepers of the provisional IRA's flame is now the New IRA who in their minds the troubles never ended. Similar to RAAD, the Continuity IRA etc. There have been so many incarnations of these different IRA's. I expect the next ones to be 'I can't believe it's not the IRA', or 'The new and improved IRA'.

A war is one that exists between nations with mandates from the people to engage in the conflict. The troubles was not a 'war' by any proper definition. As it did not have popular support only among a minority. And worse still it never gained any great support either.

Harryd225 · 30-11-2021 12:26AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242491#Comment_118242491

Like the old IRA killing a pregnant woman because she was the wife of a District inspector Cecil Blake in Gort, Co Galway.

Or the over 100 people ''disappeared'' by the old IRA many of whom innocent protestants.

Let me ask you do you support these animals?

Manic Moran · 30-11-2021 12:41AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118240997#Comment_118240997

The difference between the two is that in general during the War of Independence the Republicans tended to target British representation and the people who worked for them. Army, RIC barracks, court-houses, informers (the Cairo Gang, for example), customs building, Income Tax offices. Things directly related to the 'occupation', if that's what you want to call it.

During the Troubles, the Republicans seemed to be quite happy targeting supermarkets and shopping streets if they felt that the more 'legitimate' targets were too much trouble that day. I remain to be convinced that the 22 bombs planted by the PIRA on 21 July 1972 alone had anything like a valid target for a guerilla war, if one looks at the list. Brookvale Hotel. Ulster Bank. Botanic Ave Railway Station. Queen Elizabeth Bridge. A housing estate. A bar. A garage. York St Railway station. A schoolbus. The M2 Bridge at Bellvue. A railway footbridge. Ulsterbus Depot. Shops on Cavehill road. Railway line near Lisburn road. Stewarts town Road. Northern Ireland Carriers depot, Smithfield bus depot. Albert street. Crumlin Road. A seed merchant. Sydenham flyover. Salisbury Ave.

PIRA called it an 'act of war'. Quatsch, as the Germans say. Not one target in there even close to being argued for, the only military affected were two soldiers killed who happened to be outside the Ulsterbus depot when that bomb went off. Even that tiny legitimcacy cannot said for the others, catholic and protestant, killed that day.

That's your difference between a guerilla war and terrorism. Whatever the merits of why the PIRA may have originally come into existance in the late 1960s, they lost their credibility shortly thereafter.

Harryd225 · 30-11-2021 12:54AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242732#Comment_118242732

Never have I read such rubbish, Gardai were targeted? Can you then explain to me why then only about 7 were killed in 30 years when they were walking around completely untrained and completely unarmed while the heavily armed RUC who never travelled anywhere without protection from the British army had over 300 killed? There were a tiny few occasions where IRA men went against IRA rules and opened fire on Gardai who were in pursuit of them.

Also the New IRA are not the keepers of the flame of the provos, the keepers of the flame is Sinn Féin the political wing of the IRA which is now the most popular party both north and south of the border.

The majority of IRA support was not ''a diehard cohort from NI'' in the biggest poll on IRA support in the Republic of Ireland taken during the troubles by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 1979 it showed 21% of people in the Republic of Ireland fully supporting IRA activities.

https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/polls.htm#79

And far more than 21% would have had sympathy.

Harryd225 · 30-11-2021 12:56AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118242722#Comment_118242722

The UDA was a legal organisation up until 1992.

To the people who say the troubles was not a war

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