Protestants in PIRA or INLA

Malcolm600f wrote: »

Maybe do a bit of reading ..
http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-But-Unfinished-Song-Times/dp/1560258888

Talk about resurecting a zombie thread! Anyone who lived through the troubles knows how sectarian the pIRA / INLA ethnic cleansing campaign was. You just have to remember attacks like the Darkley church murders, Kingsnill, Le Mons, Enniskillen.

As noted on another thread, it was a continuation of what went on before.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0727/1224251382252.html

"In the House of Lords last night Lord Carson asked the Government whether two orphanages in the county of Galway had recently been looted and burned to the ground by Sinn Féiners, and whether the Admiralty sent ships, which brought to England the staff and 33 boys and 25 girls; what had become of these children, and how they were to be provided for in the future.

He said that this particular outrage was one of the very worst of the many hundreds that had been sent to him within the past two months. His information was that last month some Sinn Féiners called at the orphanage, and demanded deliverance of six boys, who were, in the language of Sinn Féin, to be “done in”. By a subterfuge they were got out of the country by the matron.

A few days later the Sinn Féiners went again to the orphanage, and asked for a particular boy, that he might be brought out and shot. They then went to the master, and told him to clear out. They then went to the diningroom, and asked for the boy in charge. The eldest boy stood up. The boys were paraded, and some who were working in the fields were rounded up. The master and the boys were taken away to different parts of the premises.

The matron showed great courage. She pleaded to the men to spare the lives of the boys, and asked for a guarantee for their safety. Surrounded by these fully armed barbarians she asked why this was being done, and the answer was – because the boys were being taught loyalty to England, and the orphanage had sent many of the boys into the great war. The whole place was then burnt to the ground, and 33 boys and 25 girls were left absolutely stranded. Fortunately the founder’s daughter was in England at the time, and through her interposition the Admiralty send a destroyer round to Galway to take away the staff and children.

He wanted to know what was to be the future of these children. Did the Government who had abandoned them hold themselves responsible for their future, or would they be treated like all the loyalists and Protestants in the south and west of Ireland – as outcasts. This was only one of many instances. Further, he wanted to know how long was this to go on. (Hear, hear.) Was there to be any limit to it at all? Did the Government really mean to stand by until the loyalists of Ireland had been blotted out – because that was what it was coming to . . .

The Earl of Crawford, for the Government, regretted that the statement contained in the question was correct. These orphanages contained 33 boys and 25 girls, with a staff, all Protestants. At the beginning of July the orphanage was attacked by the IRA and burned to the ground, and the house in which the girls were accommodated was similarly destroyed. The refugees were brought to London, and accommodation was found for them. The Irish Distress Committee was in constant communication with the treasurer of the orphanages, and it was hoped that arrangements would be made for the future accommodation and welfare of these children at an early date."

Sure there might have been the odd protestant in the IRA, just as there was the odd jew in the S.S.

By the way, BalcombeSt4, with a name like that I do not expect you to be neutral or fair minded. May I remind younger readers who may not remember, that the Balcombe Street Gang was a four-man Provisional IRA Active Service Unit (ASU)—Joe O'Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan, and Hugh Doherty—that carried out a 14-month bombing and gun campaign in London in 1974–1975, killing several people.. The group was captured in December 1975 following a six-day armed siege.

The previos poster, JimLynagh87, was presumably named after one of the pIRAs most notorious killers too.

Also, are you saying Protestants are traitors because they were Irish Republicans and not Ulster Loyalists?

Jews in the SS were despicable yes, but they joined to save their lives & families lives, no Protestant had to join the IRA or INLA out of fear of death, they joined because they believed in Irish Republicanism or mainly Republican Socialism, at least they believed in the ideas espoused by Irish Republicans over the years from Tone, Orr, Tandy, Emmet, Connolly, Larkin etc, and on the other hand you Catholic scumbags who joined the IRA purely for either sectarian or revengeful reasons and didn't care about Social Democratic Republicanism or Republican Socialism. During the Bodenstown commemoration of 1934 when the Belfast & in particular the Shankill Brigade also known as "Shankill James Connolly Socialists" of the Republican Congress were attacked by IRA idiot "traditionalists" which to me is the most devasting moment in Irish Republican history.

Yes, without a doubt there were sectarian elements within in the IRA & to a lesser extent the INLA, most of the massacres or sectarian attacks committed by the IRA were during that 75 to 76 truce period, which the likes of Twomey, Cahill, Adams, Hughes & Bell were against from the beginning, Central Bar (3 civilians) Tullyvallen (5), Kingsmill (10), Walker's Bar (3), Stagg Inn (4), and the Mountainview Tavern (5) attacks were all carried out with the intention of killing as many Protestants as possible and except for the Central Bar attack which INLA members using the name People's Republican Army they were claimed by the Republican Action Force (along with another 2 deaths in a Moy bar), plus the PIRA's Belfast Brigade carried out the Bayardo Bar attack which killed another 4 civilians. These differ from La Mon & Enniskillen in that the intentions in those attacks were not to kill civilians, between January to early February 1978 had carried out 14 firebomb attacks on high priced hotels like La Mon without even an injury, and the Enniskillen unit was expelled. And, before you but words in my mouth of course that does not make it better or any more okay, if I hear four families were killed in a hotel at a wedding but that it was mistake, eh sorry, that's not going to make me feel better, but I would like to know the details of the motivations of the people, and discovering it was not a sectarian attack would not make feel any better but it would be a fact.

On the contrary I can't think of a single UVF, RHC, LVF or UVF attack that was not purely sectarian motivated, the closest thing I think is McGurks bar bombing, clearly sectarian but I don't think they expected to kill 15 people (which is why they didn't claim it for several years like the 34 killed in Dublin & Monaghan), the bomb wasn't huge & like the Droppin Well bomb it was to do with the placement of the bomb. Between 1966 to 1999 the LVF, UVF, UDA & RHC killed around 1,100 people, about 45 were active Volunteers of either the PIRA, OIRA, INLA or IPLO, and a good few of them were killed in with civilians in pub bombings. Regarding things like the UDA RomperRoom or Shankil Butcher throat slashing killings, I think it would make me feel worse knowing a cousin or uncle was butchered for no other reason than he was a Catholic.

Connolly predicted a "carnival of reaction" if Ireland was partitioned, I don't think he knew how right he was, a ultra-Catholic & extreme conservative state in the south, and a Protestant sectarian state in the north with the most repressive powers in Western Europe.

The PIRA's biggest achievement was the prorogation of Stormont, it may have happened at some point, but certainly not organically under a Tory government defending Bloody Sunday, and would have taken at least another decade if not longer, the NICRA was getting very little constitutional change or even minor legislative change if any, they got rid of the Business & University vote & achieved Universal suffrage, amazing.

And the RUC, UVF & British Army had already killed 33 people (3 IRA men & 1 ex-IRA man) until internment without trial, between 1969 to August 1971 the IRA had killed two RUC officers & 8 British soldiers, the conflict didn't really start until August 1971 when 24 people were shot dead over the weekend of 9 to 11 August, 19 civilians, 17 Catholics (11 from Ballymurphy) 2 Protestant civilians, 2 IRA, 2 Brits & 1 UDA, that's more than the entire people killed between 1966 to 8 August 1971. And after all that the British Army is still controlled by Stormont for another seven and half months in which time another 44 British soldiers are killed, 110 civilians, and 22 RUC, I'm not sure how many Loyalists or Republicans were killed, (but I know 90 PIRA were killed in 1972) until finally direct rule is brought in. By then the conflict just gets worse and worse, pogroms have happened, entire streets & estates wiped off the map, ethnic cleansing from areas of mainly Catholics & but also Protestants, children, brothers, mothers, sisters, wives & parents have been killed and massacred by the state & Loyalists forces and you think things like Kingsmill just happen? 🤔

They made sure ^ or tried their the best to keep these events in the poor, working-class Nationalist & Unionist ghettos, the greatest horror is if middle & upper class people had to witness this carnage.

Yeah, killing 3,000 people in an hour is the same as killing 9 civilians & 6 soldiers in 14 months. That unit was sent to London in August 1974, just 3 months after the bloodiest month of the conflict May 1974, the British killed 2, the IRA killed 7 & Loyalists (mainly the UVF & RHC but also the UDA) killed 51 people the majority in Dublin & Monaghan, before that just three IRA operations ended in death in England and one of them was having a heart attack at the time a bomb went off, you don't think those memories had anything to do with the hardening towards the British, in 1973 60 bombs approximately went of in England mainly London & the west Midlands. You relate well to dangerous Loyalists who give speeches, how about Sam Smyth telling the press "we are at war with the Free State, now we are laughing at them" two or three days after Dublin/Monaghan? No? It was all just useless IRA campaigns from a decade ago?

Skipped over the small children getting their limbs blown off nicely there, I guess it only counts if the IRA do it. And you call me biased? 😂

The memory of the border campaign what a joke, it was over before it started, 6 of the 8 IRA were dead by 58. And 1969 to 1998 war was totally different to the 1920-22, 42-44 & 56-62 border campaigns as the IRA did not have the support of the working-classes like they did from the Falls Curfew onwards, to varying degrees of support at different stages. You don't think the Divis riots & Paisley demanding the flag of their closest country be removed from a window, or the UVF's 66 campaign, Burntollet Bridge, Loyalist bombs in Dublin, Donegal, Monaghan & Louth, those memories those count because it wasn't Fenian Bastards causing right?

530+ bombs, if they were trying to murder civilians they would have killed 500 civilians in England, I believe around 65 were killed with around 50 military & political personal, Loyalists planted less than 50 bombs in the south and killed 51 civilians.

After 9/11 the IRA had been on ceasefire for over 4 years and had started to decommission, and former IRA Volunteers meet a lot with two war criminals, who killed killed around 600,000 Iraqis and drove Iraq into Iran's sphere of influence.

No, there's a total moral difference, the Irish Nationalist working class lived in a state that acted as a tyranny (a British diplomats words not mine), none of those people killed on 9/11 had a thing to do with the US & Israeli crimes committed in the Middle East. The IRA primarily targeted military personal or people who legislated for the occupation of that military. Things go wrong in war, during the US Christmas bombing of Hanoi in 1972 they bombed Bach Mai, hospital killing 28 people & destroying the largest medical facility in North Vietnam, I do believe that was a genuine accident (unlike the SS-IDF's bombing of all Gaza hospitals) that's very different to the My Lai Massacre, were old men, women, children & babies were murdered by US marines with M-16s & M60s. Do you see the difference?

I said I liked to debate historical (& political) issues with people, but when they just keep repeating themselves over & over I find it tedious and boring, if this is the way all debates I had went what a bloody, endlessly unfolding tedium life would then become, as I enjoy debating fellow republicans & socialists as well on internal matters. But for example, another person, inadequately sophisticated or merely ignorant, merely let's they're emotions get the better of them. My mothers family lived in Strabane from 1968 to 1979, three people they knew were killed, Eamon McDevitt the deaf man shot in the back by your heroes, and the two oldest of the IRA Strabane martyrs in 1985, my uncle used to play football with them when they were 14/15, they were shot unarmed by the SAS, my uncle was never a part of the Republican movement, either, wing, yet the RUC ripped my grandmothers house to pieces on two occasions before they left for Bray in 1979. I also have second cousins who live in Crossmaglen, it was the furthest thing away from a lawless bandit country when I first visited them just after the 1994 ceasefires for a week. But I'm a Republican Socialist because I believe in Republican Socialism, another example I'm also an atheist, but I'm not an atheist because of the horrors religious bigotry has visited on the this country, or the horrors perpetrated by Catholic Church on the innocent in this country for 70 odd years, how their influences, like Archbishop McQuaid had which led to backwards conservative, but I'm an atheist because I don't believe in God, and find non-existence of a God or God's to be more logical than the doctrines of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism etc.

You, from what you've told me or led me to believe have no personal link to the war, it seems to be your sheer bigoted pleasure that brings you to your conclusions. I, on the other hand try to figure out why people do what do, I despise the UVF, UDA & LVF, but I don't view them as mindless killers either, I try to figure why they have certain habits, beliefs or inclinations, or why they take certain turns of events.

My point is everything is not black & white. If the IRA are like the Taliban your Lord Carson is like Bin Landen. I hope that's not difficult for you to understand.

73 to 97, they ended their entire campaign in July 1997. I know those numbers are wrong because I'm looking at several sources telling me 120 were killed in England, and 2,134 were injured. I mean if you just thought about it for a minute (something you dislike to do as everything is black & white to you) it would be obviously impossible for 10,000 plus to have been injured in England, the two bombings which the most injuries were the 1973 Old Bailey bombing (243) & the 1996 Manchester bombing (220) so 470 from 2 bombs, around 10 IRA bombs caused between 90 to 120 injuries, the third, fourth & fifth worst was the Birmingham, Dockland & Baltic Exchange bombings, and then around 20 causing between 40 to 70 injuries, like Guildford, Hilton Hotel, Bishopsgate, Hyde & Regents park etc, so there couldn't possibly be over 10,000 injured. 😂 If you're going to virtue signal at least stop getting your info from the latest Loyalist Volunteer Force pamphlets.

Again a huge difference between 9/11 and the England campaign the overall campaign, theg PIRA out of the the RUC, British Army, UVF, UFF, LVF, IPLO, RHC & OIRA is the only belligerent force that killed more fellow combatants (59%) than civilians (29% including 17 Loyalist & Tory politicians), the CLMC (UVF, UFF & RHC) plus LVF killed between 950 to 1,000 people almost 90% civilians, over 1,200 Catholic civilians were killed.

The IRA detonated over 1,300 bombs, grenades & mines in 1972, any theories as to why they gave warnings for around 1,150 of those bombs? They did plant over, 15,000 bombs between February 1970 & July 1997, they could have easily tripled the civilian deaths on 9/11 with those bombs if that was their goal, but it wasn't even some of their harshest critics concede that point, but Mr. Prig refuses to get off the moral high ground and into reality. It must have really pained you when Sinn Fein won the popular vote in the last two general elections.

A "Prig" is not short for "prick" if that's what your thinking, it's a person who acts in a self-righteously moralistic manner and doesn't bother to try to see the other side. And you accused me of supporting people who you believe would carry out 9/11 (I don't why there's 0 evidence as I've presented) , and you're the one who's morally outraged (again)? You were quoting Edward Carson, so you were getting some information from Ulster Volunteer Force sources at the very least, and yes, you have skipped over all the points I brought up about Loyalism, and that be a driving force for many IRA recruits.

but, you're right, no minds are going to be changed here so no point going back & forth repeating ourselves.

Please indulge me and answer my questions in bold.

There is a moral difference, the IRA, Brits & Loyalists were already at war. 9/11 were the first deaths of a war (on the country), you've shown you wont shrink from exaggerating claims, 2,134, is 8,000 difference from 10,000 plus, 125 and 175 is a difference of 50, and 6 of those 125 were PIRA vols who blew themselves and 2 others who died on Hunger strike, so 108 were killed by the PIRA and 9 by the OIRA & INLA. The London ASU came to London in August 74, the Loyalists (possibly with the help of some undercover British force but certainly with the help of individual UDR, RUC & RUC SPG) had killed 34 civilians in one day, the London ASU killed 16 less than that in the space of 17 months, they carried out 40 bomb & 6 gun attacks, clearly if they were morally like the 9/11 people, they would have killed at least 46 people why didn't they if their morally the same as the 9/11 hijackers?, the largest bomb they planted was 150 lb car bomb, outside Selfridges on Oxford Street, there was 1 hour warning given and there were no deaths or serious injuries, 9 people were injured just 3 needing hospital treatment. Do you seriously believe the 9/11 hijackers would have gave a warning, this was a week before Christmas at 9pm? The estimates of those killed without a warning would have been between 20 to 30.

Sinn Fein were not taking parts in elections in 1974, so it's no surprise they had 0 TDs & MPs is it?

And until the late 90s they were basically a one issue party. The first elections they took part in they got 3 people elected getting a combined total of 73,000 votes, 30,400 going to Sands. In 1983 Adams beat out Gerry Fitt & Joe Henderson by nearly 6,000 votes, both Fitt & Henderson got 10,000+ each, since 1970 W Belfast seemed like a sure SDLP seat, everything was done to block the rise of Sinn Fein after that, starting with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, & then the censorship laws, censorship laws against Sinn Fein had been in place since 1971 in the Free State, so it's no surprise when they those very democratic laws were relaxed Sinn Fein's votes started going up in the south. And the the 74-75 London IRA ASU were welcomed as conquering heroes at the 1998 Sinn Ard fheis. So that whole election story you spun out is a moot point.

Official Sinn Féin contested 10 seats in the 1973 General Election. Read their Ard Fheis report. There was little or no support for violent Republicanism in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. In the 1940 DeValera executed some IRA men in Irish jail, without controversy. In the 1970s there were no Sinn Fein MPs.

As regards the innocent people extremists killed by pub explosions, explosions in shopping centres ( think Jonathan Ball age 3 and Tim Parry age 12 etc) in England, and compare it to the innocents killed in the 9/11 plane explosions, it is obvious they were the same, just different scale.

Quite a rant. Lets take the first victim you mention, Patrick Rooney. Yes, that was very sad, but you forget to mention there was serious and heavy rioting going on outside the door of his home. I do not believe his killing was deliberate, but I condemn whoever killed him. I do not think it was premeditated; more likely an accident in the heat of a riot, petrol bombs etc. You also forget to mention there was a formal apology from the police and a significant compensation settlement.

I do not think there EVER was a financial settlement from the pIRA for anyone your heroes BalcomeSt4 murdered, or for the little kids killed in Warrington? Even though some may say a lot of money was raised from Noraid, America, bank robberies, racketeering, post office robberies here (ask the Gardai), kidnappings, diesel laundering?

There were atrocities on all sides; you glorifying and identifying terrorists on one side, by naming yourself BalcomeSt4, would sicken most decent people. Anyone who sets out to kill outside the law, or to destroy buildings and property and hence the economy, is a terrorist.

n.b. I never said the pIRA or IRA had no support. The paramilitaries on both sides, who I equally condemn, had some support. Get your facts right.

You say "the IRA did brutally interrogated people but were careful not employ techniques that would kill them"? Tell that to the families of those interrogated by the IRA, like that of Jean McConville. Her family were told she ran off with a British soldier, and the large family of little kids were left to fend for themselves. Decades later her body was uncovered by coastal erosion in Co. Louth and showed evidence of torture.

You also forget the pIRA killed more Catholics than the British Army and RUC combined did. That despite the sectarianism of Republican paramilitaries, whose aim was to get "the Brits" out. And they classified unionists/ prods as Brits. Look at pure sectarian atrocities, like the murder of Edgar Graham. Other Republican atrocities like Kingsmill ( carried out by pIRA under a cover name), the Darkley Church murders .etc.. Even on the day of the Enniskillen bomb, the pIRA planned to detonate a much larger bomb -4 times bigger than Enniskillen - to murder a gathering of little protestant kids, Girls brigade , elsewhere in Co. Fermanagh at Tullyhommon.

The IRA’s intention was to wipe out a generation of Protestant border children; they tried to fire the device but it failed to go off due to accidental damage to the command wire by a farmers tractor.

As it was, 190 of the 210 people killed in Co. Fermanagh during the troubles were murdered by Republicans.

Yet you call yourself after a Republican terrorist unit. No different morally to someone calling themselves after a Shankhill butcher or 9/11 plane hi-jacker.