Bobby Sands R.I.P. 5th May 1981

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

lol no doubt they already do, the Brits should never have let him die a martyr.

Tbh not a martyr to everyone. One man of all the people that died over the years, who to the most part were innocent victims trying to live their lives. These poor people are forgotten to most people or unknown apart from their families and friends.

Ah good ole Ireland. Still firmly stuck in the past I see with the old 800 years nonsense

Just on one point:

R P McMurphy wrote: »

Just out of interest, if you were forced to live as a second class citizen, not afforded any protection by the state and watched your family come under attack and be burned out of your house would you continue to bend over

Answer would have to be YES as that's what's going on EVEN NOW

Many Irish people are now living as 2nd class citizens as their country is mismanaged to keep the politicians and their hangers-on in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to, and to ensure that the EU is kept happy.

Many are not afforded any protection by the State in economic terms - ask the self-employed who get nothing if/when work dries up, low to middle class earners who are carrying the can for the rest, or those who have lost their pensions so that the senior bondholders could be protected (as featured on Prime Time during the week).

Many people (particularly in rural areas or certain parts of our major cities) live in a situation where crime, drug abuse and apathy from the State is the norm and while they may not be burned out of their homes, if the banks have their way may of them will yet be forced out (as owners or tenants).

And yes, despite all this many Irish people still continue to back the failed policies of political parties (FF and FG) that are in the end so similar that they are 2 sides of the same coin and outright reject anything "different" that might offer a new approach - so yes in that they could be considered to be still bending over.

Interesting eh what "Irish freedom" has done for the country really. Can't blame "The Brits" for any of that.

To quote from Escape from LA - "The more things change the more they stay the same"

cameramonkey wrote: »

You said he was convicted of murder, I was just wondering who he had killed or are you now saying that you were wrong and he was not convinced of murder?

Deliberately bombing a location causing death ≠ murder? Semantics, surely? Besides, hardly relevant is it?

cameramonkey wrote: »

Did Sands run for election to be part of the government? Was that part of his election manifesto? Are you mistaking running to be an MP with the intention of forming a government?

There's two things meant by government. The executive bodies of the House of Commons and House of Lords, etc. are the 'government'. This is what Sands sought, and was successfully elected to. However, among MPs in the House of Commons there has to be a plurality or absolute majority for legislation to pass, so 'governments' are formed among the members, generally based on party political grounds. Sands would not have been part of that for several reasons which do not require elaboration.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Again Irish history is awash with republicans who during the wars against the British stood to be elected in Westminster. They like Sands had no intention of taking their seats but were using the elections to show that they had a mandate.

Collins, Dev, Cosgrave, Boland, O'Higgins, Brugha to name but a few all stood in Westminster elections having been republican volunteers or who were active volunteers when they sood.

A mandate to do what? To govern? :rolleyes:

You are mixing up different types of republicans there. The reason why they did not take their seats was not only symbolic, but due to the fact that they were in a political minority. Rather than be outvoted they would absent themselves.

Of course the main nationalist movements for some 40 years had gone along the lines of being a swing vote in Westminster; a slow but quite effective methodology. But when Sinn Fein 2 sought to supplant the IPP they could hardly stand on the same political platform. No: complete abstention from the political process was the order of the day; and the 1918 election was as much to keep the IPP from gaining seats as it was to show the strength of the new Republican party.

Different Sinn Fein parties have also engaged in elections to show that they have support, but would not consider actually taking their seats because the Parliament that they have been elected to was 'the enemy'. Sinn Fein 5 became a bit of a laughing stock in the Republic of Ireland with that particular stance; still viewing the Dail as an illegitimate body.

When I said 'it's odd' I was being ironic.

Sands and co were not political. They had no interest in voting on legislation. They were willing to engage in the UK elections as a means of attracting attention to their cause. But such an action belied the whole notion of their cause as a purely military one. Sands was demonstrably not a soldier and seeking, and achieving, election as an MP helps put paid to that notion.

It would be like an Algerian in the 1960s seeking election in France, and then refusing to take his seat because he didn't recognise the legitimacy of France's control over Algeria!

Collins, Dev, Cosgrave, Boland, O'Higgins, Brugha were all political. Politics superseded war, not the other way around. Tellingly, their first actions were to form an Irish Parliament of sorts, and soon claimed that the Irish Volunteers was the army of this independent parliament. Of course, Ireland was due to get it's own parliament in 1918 anyway due to the work of the IPP. The Dail formed by Dev and co. claimed that Home Rule would no longer be enough, and that this state would fight for absolute independence. When Dev was unhappy with the conclusion of this conflict which created the Irish Free State both himself, and the anti-treaty side, then decided to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Dail. After a civil war to decide the matter, several years later Fianna Fail accepted that it is easier (and more legitimate) to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. And so FF became the most powerful party since... abstentionism ftw. Woot.

Chuck Stone wrote: »

There is no monolithic republican orthodoxy. There was one thing that stopped the BA, unionist militias and their degenerate proxies from going on their murderous rampages in Catholic neighbourhoods - guns in the hands of Republicans who were willing to use them.

... according to the republican orthodoxy.

cameramonkey wrote: »

where did he bomb and who was murdered?

It was claimed that he was guilty in some form for the 1971 Balmoral Furniture Company bombing which killed four civilians. The evidence for such a conviction seems somewhat flimsy though.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Have you a link to a UK government site that says there are two things meant by the UK government. You seem to be confusing parliament and government.

See oscarbravo above.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Do you have a link for that statement. I think the reasons SF did not take up their seats was because they believed that the UK had no sovereignty over Ireland.That has been stated over and over again by republicans but if you can show a link to your stated reason I would be interested.

It's hardly relevant whether or not they believed that the UK had no sovereignty over Ireland. Was that the reason they didn't take their seats in the Dail and Stormont too? I thought it was meant to be the Oath of Allegiance that was the sticking point, not sovereignty. :rolleyes:

Sorry for the sarcasm but it really isn't relevant. The point isn't about their cause, but their means. Some of the SFs have felt that abstenstionism was likely to be their most successful course of action. Ideology is mainly justification.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Really, that's interesting, how many years in the previous 40 did Irish nationalist parties hold the balance of power?

Three times; three governments; three Home Rule Bills.

Not to mention their presence generating various legislation such as the Local Government of Ireland Act (1898), etc.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Have you a link to this SF aim. By gaining seats in an election of course you deny your rivals seats. Are you saying that anyone in 1918 actually thought the IIP would gain seats? Everyone knew they were in for a hiding.

How would they gain seats when up to that point they had all but one nationalist seat in the country. :pac:

The IPP's ballot was still very high, with some 220,000 votes. But by reducing the IPP to merely 6 seats it could be pretty much guaranteed that it would have little influence in the coming political crises.

cameramonkey wrote: »

I believe SF ran in 1918 to show that they were the new boys in town.

Sinn Fein 2 ran in 1918 in order to set up an independent parliament and throw the country into direct conflict with Whitehall.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Do you really believe that? His aim was to get political status but you say he was not political. Your posting are beginning to defy logic,history and sense.

His aim was for himself, and his fellow prisoners, to be incarcerated as soldiers, not as criminals. That was their argument. That was what the dirty protest and blanket protest were also in relation to.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Wrong again, their first serious action was to partake in the 1916 rising which of course was a military uprising against the UK with no democratic mandate. You seem to be trying to defy history again here but it keeps on catching you out. Your grasp of historical fact seems tenuous but you have outdone yourself with this latest posts.

Didn't realise that DeV was standing for office around the time of 1916. Could have sworn that his entry into politics came a bit later.

The only person that you mentioned who was in the political sphere during the 1916 Rising was W.T. Cosgrave, and he never got a chance to be an abstentionist (in relation to Westminster) as he was elected to the Dublin City Council. But Griffith's policy was not really a belligerent one; it went along the lines of just setting up your own shop (dual-monarchy style) - with inherent de facto power, and de jure legitimacy through election. Sinn Fein 2 kept the 'setting up your own shop' aspect, threw out dual monarchy, and added guns to the mix. Machiavelli's sentiments about armed prophets, eh? But abstentionism was not a means to seek reform in this case, but a consequence of abandonment of a political sphere. Quite different tbh.

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Yes. I can google definitions too.

Now google 'monolithic' too and consider what I wrote again.

Googled it, is this what you meant? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith

I thought you meant something that was indivisible though. But google says otherwise.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No silly random name, don't you know the Republican cause has been unified from Wolfe Tone to Adams? It's easy as long as you brand people who disagree with you as not Republican.

Of course! The continuity movement, after all. Sinn Fein has been a single party since 1905, apparently!

Chuck Stone wrote: »

*sigh*

Psst, I know.

Chuck Stone wrote: »

There is no single, rigid, uniform Republicanism just as there is no single, rigid, uniform, Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Christianity, Islam etc.

Yep all of which have orthodoxies. You're the only one who mentioned the m word.

I would love if most of the people posting here had to give their ages it would be most illuminating. They obviously didnt have to live through the killings of the 80s or were just babies and really had no consciousness of it.

It would be it interesting.


**** off PIRA and other secterian groups on either side