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To the people who say the troubles was not a war

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,561 ✭✭✭Gerry T


    GB came and conquered. It threw people from the land and setup their own landlords. Even today the UK can't produce enough food to feed its people where Ireland could do that several times over for it's own people. To simply say the Irish couldn't afford the food would not recognise the fact it was GB that placed the Irish people in that position. In 1870 only 3% of Irish farmers owned the land they worked, the rest were tenants, Ireland has always been GB's food basket. The small pieces of land left for the Irish to grow food for themselves was so small it was only crops such as potatoes that could yield a meal for the family. It was a genocide, clear and simple.



  • Posts: 14,769 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    There are still people in Ireland who can only afford the cheapest foodstuffs available. Saying the UK caused blight and that it was genocide is just partisan bolllix.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,198 ✭✭✭✭Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager


    Andrew Marr absolutely nailed it a couple of years ago when he asked Gerry:

    "Mr Adams, why did you never join the IRA?"

    Not your ornery onager



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,561 ✭✭✭Gerry T


    I never said GB caused blight, they most likely were a contributing factor. Ireland did not have a food shortage, far from it, so hardly a famine. GB did escort the food out of Ireland and a million (approx) died. At the time we were British citizens, but obviously not as important as our English friends and Westminster. It's obviously a tender subject, so look at what GB did in India/Pakistan, again 1 million dead and 15million displaced, a GB folly.

    The empire was in charge and under their watch if you weren't English it didn't look good for you, certainly not in Ireland. Genocide clear and simple, it was planned, a decision was made, ship the food to the main land and let the Irish die.



  • Posts: 14,769 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,198 ✭✭✭✭Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager


    Not your ornery onager



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 468 ✭✭Shao Kahn


    From an international perspective, Britain has owned the 6 counties for how many centuries now? Compare this with how long they have claimed ownership over the Falkland Islands by comparison.

    Practically nobody is putting international pressure on them to give back those islands to Argentina. And they can theoretically go in as hard and heavy as they wish to protect their sovereignty. The fact they planted 1,000's of loyal Brits on the islands is a moot point, as they did this everywhere they conquered. The Argies would quite happily do the same if they ever managed to get them back. So the right to self-determination argument is a bit hollow really.

    In terms of land and sovereignty disputes, it's very much a case of what you have you hold. Possession is 9 tenths of the law. Whether we like it or not, the fact that Britain has had a presence on our island for such a very long time would be viewed internationally as proof of ownership to a large degree.

    You've said yourself, that much of the IRA were coming from the south. Britain and the US invaded Afghanistan because they were harboring terrorists within their borders. Who stopped them?

    I stand by my point. I think the Brits could have come in far more heavy handed against us at many points throughout our history. And that's not taking away or trying to diminish any of the bad things they did do. But we were somewhat lucky to be conquered and occupied by the Brits rather than some of the far worse regimes that have existed around the world throughout human history.

    Even if you look at the war of independence. At no point did the Brits commit the scale of forces that they were actually fully capable of. Even with heavy losses from WW1, Britain still had one of the largest standing armies in europe. Some of the best trained, with excellent equipment. If they wanted to, they could have easily crushed us with overwhelming military power in that war.

    But instead, they had a maximum of roughly 50,000 forces here at the height of that conflict. Less than half of these were fully professional British army forces. The rest were a rag-tag assortment of disorganized and unprofessional groups like the RIC, black & tans, Auxiliaries etc.

    If you think other large nations or regimes in history, would have taken the same hands off approach to quell an uprising or independence movement, you're seriously mistaken. (or just ignorant to world history)

    Even in modern times, if Ukraine tried the same approach as Ireland over Crimea, there's not a hope in hell that the Russians would send in a bunch of dad's army unprofessional drunks like the black and tans to sort it out. They would go in hard and heavy with massive military strength to flatten them.

    And Britain's approach back then was not a mistake either, it was an intentional strategy. They had very little desire to hold onto our island. We were lucky in that regard. Very lucky when viewed in the wider context of global history.

    I don't like that we were conquered and occupied by a foreign power for hundreds of years, just like you. And I am very proud that we gained our independence, just like most Irish people. But, I think too many people have a blinkered and ill-informed view of our history with the British. There's a lot of crap that gets passed off as historical fact when it comes to our conflicts with the old enemy. It sets off my bullsh!t detector, and I cannot help reacting to it sometimes. 

    "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives, and it puts itself into our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." (John Wayne)



  • Posts: 3,773 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Mandela was listed as a terrorist up until 2008 by the US.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,044 ✭✭✭Sunny Disposition


    The IRA gets a lot of fully deserved criticism.


    Bit it shouldn’t be forgotten that the British side was quite despicable too. Here’s a case of its agents murdering Catholic children in 1994.

    https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/12/01/news/family-of-murdered-teenager-to-sue-psni-mod-and-secretary-of-state-2523257/?fbclid=IwAR3zVPamF2ZECPetQS1THX_VLdBJRqnwlpztlh8NWr4Nw9te_DXwXUrzNZw

    Again, strong criticism of the IRA is fully justified, but is important not to just leave it at that. Loyalists/UK agents deliberately killing children at play on the basis of their religious background is unforgivable. IMO it’s not that disimilar to Islamic extremism.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Harryd225


    I think I get what your saying but I don't really understand the point you're trying to make, so we should be grateful about how the Brits treated us because they could have decided to treat us even worse? Is that the point here?

    Should the Brits be grateful to the IRA because they could have killed far more soldiers and politicians if it wasn't for them trying to minimise civilian casualties? Should they be grateful to the IRA for not deciding to wipe out thousands of English civilians which they could have easily done if they wanted? Because that's the exact point you are making from the opposite side of the spectrum.

    Your posts are quite bizarre, do you also think victims of domestic abuse should be grateful to their abuser because it could have been far worse if they wanted it to be?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,627 ✭✭✭El Tarangu


    I don't understand your need to indulge in whataboutery, in this instance; I haven't really seen anyone on boards (or IRL) saying that either the Brits of the loyalist paramilitaries were a great bunch of lads. Whereas people say that in relation to the PIRA and their atrocities all the time.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,555 ✭✭✭✭AckwelFoley


    Unsurprised there's still a good few die-hard thick savages that support terrorism and the murder of other people


    Republican terrorist scum have butchered more of their own people than any prod has. Funny thing about these child molesting diesel washing vermon is that they couldn't care less about Ireland. Their own pockets is all they care about.


    And let this not be description specific to the Republican terrorist, the Loyalists are absolutely no better.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Harryd225


    Who are their ''own people'' that you are referring to? The Ira killed about 600 civilians (which includes a vast array of people not exactly innocent) and about 1,100 soldiers and police.

    Loyalists killed about 1,000 people so what are you even on about can you elaborate? Or are you just another baffoon spouting complete nonsense on a subject you know absolutely nothing about.

    Only cared about their own pockets? Get a grip and stop reiterating crap from the mouth of Ryan Tubridy from the late late show <mod snip>

    Post edited by Ten of Swords on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,555 ✭✭✭✭AckwelFoley


    You're appearing to be so ignorant it's laughable.

    But of course you're not ignorant. You know well. You couldn't be as stupid as you're appearing to be

    Disgusting and vile how you would remark that victims of terrorism were "not exactly innocent"


    How the likes of you and your ilk can with a straight grubby face support how so countless many were made "dissappear" countless men women and children and then believe in your perverted rational that's its OK or part of some "war" never ceases to amaze me.


    Now Jog off

    Post edited by AckwelFoley on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,439 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    The 600 is actually closer to 650 , I've a neighbour murdered by the IRA and a friend whose sister was murdered, neither with any connection to security forces or anything to do with terrorism .

    Tell us about the Australian tourists or maybe the victims in Warrington.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,044 ✭✭✭Sunny Disposition


    Unfortunately what is disparagingly called 'whataboutery' is necessary to have any understanding.

    Actually many people think the British army are fantastic, that's just reality. Men who served in the North are seen as heroic in the UK, there is very strong, almost overwhelming support for murders they committed not being investigated or prosecuted. I don't know how you missed that.


    There was very strong support for loyalists in certain areas too, although there's no question they were less popular than the Provos were in theirs. There are reasons why people supported the loyalist paramilitaries as well, of course.


    In my experience the best people in Belfast in the 70s, when i was there, stayed away from the paramilitaries. A lot of the very soundest tried to help young people avoid them.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,993 ✭✭✭Patrick2010




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,915 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    The IRA killed more Catholics than the British Army, the UVF, the UDA or the UFF.

    The IRA were not Freedom Fighters protecting the rights of Catholics.

    They were scumbags, psychopaths and criminals.

    They achieved absolutely nothing other than prolonging the conflict.

    Thankfully in the end they were riddled with informants and were left with no option but to surrender.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Harryd225


    I didn't claim that the victims were not innocent I claimed that not all of the civilians listed as being killed by the IRA were innocent people with no part in the conflict, many were politicians, judges, prison guards any innocent civilians killed by members of the IRA was despicable, the IRA were responsible for about 25% of civilian deaths during the troubles.

    You will find hardly anyone who supported SF/IRA during the troubles who would support the killing of any innocent people, the main point being in supporting the IRA is believing that the Irish people had the right to resist and fight against British rule.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,555 ✭✭✭✭AckwelFoley


    Right thinking people don't see prison guards , politicians (as unpalatable as many are) etc as a legitimate target.

    People absolutely have the right to resist British rule and they still do to this day. But that doesn't mean you're given a mandate to plant a bomb in a street in Enniskillen or Omagh or a pub in England.

    Terrorism is not democracy


    I abhor the actions of the British, and their history in Ireland is checkered at Best. . But I like the overwhelming majority of Irish people don't support the actions of militant Irish republicanism.


    You can't murder people and call it a war. You can't murder your neighbours because you think he's a tout. You don't have that right.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,439 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    Well worth researching the judges murdered , a couple murdered attending church or bringing their kids to school.


    McBirney2



    https://irishpeaceprocess.blog/

    The IRA also murdered Resident Magistrate Martin McBirney, a Protestant, at his home in front of his family.

    data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyBoZWlnaHQ9JzMzNScgd2lkdGg9JzcyMCcgeG1sbnM9J2h0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDAvc3ZnJyB2ZXJzaW9uPScxLjEnLz4= There was an error displaying this embed.



    User: "McBirney2"



    Judge Martin McBirney murdered at home in his kitchen by the IRA

    He was standing in the back kitchen of his home when an IRA killer burst in and shot him dead.


    Martin McBirney was a prominent member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party.

    McBirney had married a Catholic and, while a barrister, had acted for the defence in civil rights’ cases and had represented socialist activist Eamon McCann.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,627 ✭✭✭El Tarangu




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,538 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    this is all a myth i am afraid, a myth created by people bitter at the fact that the provos forced britain to the table, and would have and could have continued the conflict for years longer if they needed to.

    while there were some informers within the IRA, other paramilitaries and i wouldn't be surprised if it was to turn out that there were some within the british army and security forces as well, realistically it is untrue that the provos were riddled with informers.

    it was britain itself which prolonged the conflict by burying it's head in the sand and refusing to implement northern irish reform decades earlier, in fact had they done so early enough there would have been no conflict at all.

    in short, you lost, get over it.

    I'm very highly educated. I know words, i have the best words, nobody has better words then me.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,827 ✭✭✭cms88


    Seeing as you keep telling everyone they don't know what they[re talking about, who don't you tell us what that actually is?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 595 ✭✭✭rdwight


    "fully supporting IRA activities"


    Perhaps you should check the ESRI report on the poll Harry. The relevant table on Attitudes to IRA activities shows:

    "Slightly supportive" 12.6%

    "Moderately supportive" 5.3%

    "Strongly supportive" 2.8%

    These add up to 20.7%, presumably the 21% you claim were fully supportive of IRA activities.

    https://www.esri.ie/system/files/media/file-uploads/2012-07/GRS97.pdf


    In 1979 local elections Provisional SF got 1.6% of the vote overall and about 5% in areas they contested.



  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 13,735 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Sigh....another deluded armchair republican rant thread. It sounds like something the Provos would have printed as part of their “manifesto” in a backroom off the Falls Road, circa 1972.

    Fact is the Troubles brought endless misery, chaos and economic decline to Northern Ireland. There was never a majority Catholic support for the IRA, certainly not after atrocities like Bloody Friday, the LaMon hotel bombing, Enniskillen etc. My family are from Belfast (and from a Nationalist background) and we, like so many others, moved South in the 1970s as the terrorism in the province (from both sides) was tearing the place apart. My parents did not want my sisters and I growing up in an environment of sectarian hatred, terrorism, bombs and bullets.

    It is people like you OP, and others here on Boards (you know who you are) who are utterly ignorant to the realities of a very dark period in our history, completely unwilling to concede that the campaign of violence failed in its original intent and would love nothing more than to reignite the chaos and the violence.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Harryd225


    The poll shows that nearly half the people in the Republic of Ireland were not against the IRA, about 45 percent of people ranged from strongly supportive to being neutral on the IRA, showing about 21% of people having support for the IRA and a further 21% being neutral, meaning they were basically half and half about supporting them or not supporting them.

    Only 17% of people strongly opposed to the IRA with 25% of people only being slightly opposed, that's in stark contrast to your claim that the ''vast majority'' of people in the Republic ''despised'' the IRA.

    Sinn Fein barely contested any seats in that 1979 election and barely put any effort into running the campaign, support for the IRA could hardly be equated to votes Sinn Féin got in the Republic as people are voting on a completely different basis.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 559 ✭✭✭BurgerFace


    Adams was shot numerous times, imprisoned and tortured. Whatever you may think of the man's politics he doesn't really fit the dictionary definition of a coward. Adams knows what he was responsible for, he doesn't have to justify or condemn it. Trying to make him do so is simply a shabby attempt at browbeating. People say "DO YOU CONDEMN THE VIOLENCE YOU INFLICTED?" They don't give too figs whether or not he condemns anything. They are just playing games with catch 22 situations and "gotcha" questions. If he says "no" they can label him as a bastard. IF he says "yes" they can say "Ah!! we castrated the bastard!"

    He knows full well the game.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 559 ✭✭✭BurgerFace


    It was the Unionist / Protestant majority who scuppered and hamstrung the Civil Rights movement with the support and approval of the British Government. The B-Specials were beating peaceful protesters off the streets long before the Troubles erupted. The British only started taking the issue seriously when someone picked up a gun. They have historical form for such things.

    "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

    - John F. Kennedy.



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