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

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Comments

  • #212
    pablomakaveli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,752 ✭✭✭pablomakaveli


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    Bollocks. This conclusion can only be drawn by someone who completely refuses to consider the statistics. Trying to claim 'both sides' were equally as bad only exposes your own bias.

    Loyalist death squads MO was to kill civilians. Of the hundreds of people Loyalists killed only 4% were republicans. Yes 4%. 85% were civilians and primarily innocent Catholics or Protestants mistaken for Catholics.

    Of the PIRA's killings ~70% were state forces.

    Btw the Army you're a member of have a pretty shameful record of murdering civilians in the north too with 50% of their killings being civilians.

    Even experts in the BA would pour scorn on your appraisal.

    Again you seem to be implying that statistically the Republicans weren't as bad as the loyalists as if that somehow makes them more "good" than the loyalists.

    Im saying that statistics on who killed who doesn't change the fact that both loyalists and republicans were in the wrong and that neither were "good".


  • #213
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    pablomakaveli wrote: »
    Again you seem to be implying that statistically the Republicans weren't as bad as the loyalists as if that somehow makes them more "good" than the loyalists.

    They were far more discerning when it came to who they targeted.
    Im saying that statistics on who killed who doesn't change the fact that both loyalists and republicans were in the wrong and that neither were "good".

    As were the BA, UDR, B-Specials and RUC.

    I agree, though, that are no 'good guys' in a conflict like that.


  • #214
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    A news report from an American point of view.

    In it we see the shameful way in which the RUC manhandled the family and the undertakers taking the corpse of vol Francis Hughes back to his family home to be waked. Knocking his elderly father to the ground, and forcibly removing the undertaker from the hearse.

    The undertaker I knew personally (he's now deceased) did not have any (none obvious anyway) political beliefs.

    This shameful event set the tone for the lyrics in the song 'Hughes lives on forever' it was a common saying at the time, that the British feared him in death as much as when he was alive.

    They feared you then, they fear you yet for, Hughes lives on forever.



  • #215
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,076 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    SamHall wrote: »
    A news report from an American point of view.

    In it we see the shameful way in which the RUC manhandled the family and the undertakers taking the corpse of vol Francis Hughes back to his family home to be waked. Knocking his elderly father to the ground, and forcibly removing the undertaker from the hearse.

    This shameful event set the tone for the lyrics in the song 'Hughes lives on forever' it was a common saying at the time, that the British feared him in death as much as when he was alive.

    They feared you then, they fear you yet for, Hughes lives on forever.

    From Wiki: Francis Hughes
    Francis Hughes was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Hughes was the most wanted man in Northern Ireland until his arrest following a shoot-out with the Special Air Service in which an SAS soldier was killed. Hughes initially joined the Official Irish Republican Army, but left after the organisation declared a ceasefire in May 1972. Hughes then joined an Independent Republican Unit along with Dominic McGlinchey and Ian Milne, before the three decided to join the Provisional IRA in 1973. Hughes, Milne and McGlinchey took part in scores of IRA operations, including daylight attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stations, bombings, and attacks on off-duty members of the RUC and UDR.

    Best place for hom was behind bars.


  • #216
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    LordSutch wrote: »
    From Wiki: Francis Hughes
    Francis Hughes was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Hughes was the most wanted man in Northern Ireland
    until his arrest following a shoot-out with the Special Air Service in which an SAS soldier was killed. Hughes initially joined the Official Irish Republican Army, but left after the organisation declared a ceasefire in May 1972. Hughes then joined an Independent Republican Unit along with Dominic McGlinchey and Ian Milne, before the three decided to join the Provisional IRA in 1973. Hughes, Milne and McGlinchey took part in scores of IRA operations, including daylight attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stations, bombings, and attacks on off-duty members of the RUC and UDR.

    This is not news to me.

    One of the most dedicated and fearless men this country ever seen. Francis Hughes wrote a military uniform in action, with a badge sewn on to his arm with the word "Eire" written on it.

    There was a war raging in the north, does it surprise you to learn he was involved in active service against the British forces?


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  • #217
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,076 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    He was the enemy.

    He was the enemy of the British forces, he was the enemy of the Irish forces, he was a terorist.


  • #218
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    LordSutch wrote: »
    He was the enemy.

    One man's enemy is another man's comrade.

    That's how wars tend to go.


  • #219
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,076 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    Of course calling "The Troubles" a war clears him of terrorism I guess!

    Clever - However, to me hughes and all the other Provo's will be forever Terrorists.


  • #220
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    LordSutch wrote: »
    Of course calling "The Troubles" a war clears him of terrorism I guess!

    Clever - However, to me hughes and all the other Provo's will be forever Terrorists.

    You're entitled to that opinion.

    I don't share it, neither did the British govt when political status was given to the prisoners.


  • #221
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    keithob wrote: »
    Lord sutch he was by no means a terrorist.

    He was a soldier.
    As was Gusty Spence a soldier.
    As was Timothy McVeigh, and Mohamed Atta, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Brave soldiers all.
    Educate yourself sutch before you come on talking bull.
    Yes: everyone who disagrees with you is stupid. How humble of you.


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  • #222
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    As was Timothy McVeigh, and Mohamed Atta, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Brave soldiers all. Yes: everyone who disagrees with you is stupid. How humble of you.

    Don't forget Connolly, Pearse, Collins etc.


    I don't know your particular political persuasion Oscar bravo, but it's safe to say if you voted for any of the two main parties, their grassroots both spawned from 'soldiers' actions.

    Even the current labour party evolved from a political wing of the official IRA.

    Facts that are constantly glossed over on these threads.


  • #223
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    keithob wrote: »
    You cannot compare sands to Mc Veigh etc. nor can you compare one war with another.
    Of course not. How... uneducated of me.
    Irish History dont lie.... Catholics where oppressed people up North and had every right to take up arms.
    This is, of course, a statement of objective and unquestioned fact, and wouldn't in any way fall into the category of "opinion" at all, at all.


  • #224
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    SamHall wrote: »
    Don't forget Connolly, Pearse, Collins etc.
    I haven't forgotten them. They have a lot to answer for.


  • #225
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    I haven't forgotten them. They have a lot to answer for.

    If you're ashamed of the actions of the people responsible for founding the state, that's your decision.

    Assuming you're Irish, have you ever considered renouncing your citizenship?


  • #226
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    SamHall wrote: »
    If you're ashamed of the actions of the people responsible for founding the state, that's your decision.
    That's generous of you.
    Assuming you're Irish, have you ever considered renouncing your citizenship?
    I don't consider the celebration of bloodshed a pre-requisite of Irishness.


  • #227
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    That's generous of you.

    Thank you. I try to be open minded as much as possible and look at other people's point of view, not just my own.
    oscarBravo wrote: »
    I don't consider the celebration of bloodshed a pre-requisite of Irishness.

    Nor do I. Unfortunate as it is (for both sides) the state was founded on the back of an armed revolution and an uprising that resulted in blood being shed by both sides.


  • #228
    gallag
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,354 ✭✭✭gallag


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    No they got intelligence from them as well as weapons and despite this they still could only manage to kill 4 Republicans for every hundred people they killed; that's little but sectarian bloodlust.



    Wrong. Loyalists killed more civilians.

    Still playing with words and twisting figures chuck, the IRA were every bit as callus and cold blooded as the loyalists you so despise, they did indeed kill more civilians than any other group, this is fact. Even if you want to put the totals together the Republicans killed roughly the same amount as the loyalists, you seem to think that loyalists were the worst because they had a sectarian blood lust, mabey one day you will realise that the IRA were equal in this regard.

    you see chuck they were all the same, be it shooting a poor man randomly on the falls or bombing people getting some chips on the shankill, shooting up Catholic men enjoying a pint after work or a bus load of protestant men on their way to work.


  • #229
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    SamHall wrote: »
    Nor do I. Unfortunate as it is (for both sides) the state was founded on the back of an armed revolution and an uprising that resulted in blood being shed by both sides.
    If it's unfortunate that the state was founded in that manner, why do you suggest that I should consider renouncing my citizenship for refusing to celebrate the fact that the state was founded in that manner?


  • #230
    michael999999
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,771 ✭✭✭michael999999


    Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »
    a few years ago a monument to him and the others was put up in Tralee, close to the junction of the Listowel road and the road that passes the main ITT gate, it was quiet a prominent location and a busy spot.
    However try have now bypassed that road and the monument now sits at the end of an obscure cul de sac, no loss if you ask me

    No its not.

    Its more prominent now than ever.


  • #231
    Fr Tod Umptious
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,195 ✭✭✭✭Fr Tod Umptious


    michael999999 wrote: »
    No its not.

    Its more prominent now than ever.

    explain how ?

    Pedestrians and traffic no longer pass it, it's now at a cul de sac and is barely visible from either road.


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  • #232
    michael999999
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,771 ✭✭✭michael999999


    Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »
    explain how ?

    Pedestrians and traffic no longer pass it, it's now at a cul de sac and is barely visible from either road.

    No it is clearly visible from the main road and the bypass. Have you even seen it?


  • #233
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,076 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    keithob wrote: »
    Catholics where oppressed people up North and had every right to take up arms.

    The IRA had no bloody right to take up arms and do what they did.

    Bus bombings, Car bombs, Knee cappings, Bank robberies, and murders of all kinds, and all in the name of the Irish people!!!

    They had no right, no right whatsoever, and no mandate from the Irish people . . .


  • #234
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    LordSutch wrote: »
    The IRA had no bloody right to take up arms and do what they did.

    Bus bombings, Car bombs, Knee cappings, Bank robberies, and murders of all kinds, and all in the name of the Irish people!!!

    They had no right, no right whatsoever, and no mandate from the Irish people . . .

    What mandate did the English have when they invaded Ireland, enslaved its citizens for centuries, even deeming it 'illegal' to speak in the people's native tongue?

    What mandate did they have when they outlawed Catholicism?

    Not sure if trolling at this stage..........


  • #235
    Banjo String
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    If it's unfortunate that the state was founded in that manner,

    Unfortunate yes, of the Irish peoples own doing? No

    oscarBravo wrote: »
    why do you suggest that I should consider renouncing my citizenship for refusing to celebrate the fact that the state was founded in that manner?

    I withdraw that comment, it was made in response to your claim that Collins, Pearse, Connolly etc 'had a lot to answer for'

    It's important to remember who the grassroots leaders and founders of our political parties were however, and to remember they too were considered' rebel soldiers' by the English at some point.


  • #236
    bobbysands81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭bobbysands81


    LordSutch wrote: »
    The IRA had no bloody right to take up arms and do what they did.

    Bus bombings, Car bombs, Knee cappings, Bank robberies, and murders of all kinds, and all in the name of the Irish people!!!

    They had no right, no right whatsoever, and no mandate from the Irish people . . .

    People always have a right to resist and fight back against foreign invaders.


  • #237
    bobbysands81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭bobbysands81


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    If it's unfortunate that the state was founded in that manner, why do you suggest that I should consider renouncing my citizenship for refusing to celebrate the fact that the state was founded in that manner?

    The State was founded in that manner because democracy failed it.

    Fighting back against a foreign oppressive invader didn't start any war in this country. You're blaming the symptom instead of the disease.

    'Britain has no right to be in Ireland, never had any right to be in Ireland and never can have any right to be in Ireland'... and therein lies the cause of conflict on this island and that's where your ire should be channelled.


  • #238
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    bobbysands81 wrote: »
    The State was founded in that manner because democracy failed it.
    Yes, that's the republican orthodoxy. An alternative perspective is that democracy was still in the process of working towards a peaceful outcome, and that a handful of warmongers decided to start a fight instead of waiting for that outcome.

    The sad irony is that the warmongers managed to achieve what was, in effect, home rule after six years of unnecessary violence, and then promptly started another war immediately afterwards. The republic that the leaders of 1916 demanded didn't materialise until 1948, and when it did, there wasn't a shot fired.

    I'll sit back now and wait to be told how naive and ignorant I am, because everyone knows for an incontrovertible fact that it was a physical impossibility for Ireland to achieve independence without bloodshed.


  • #239
    LordSutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,076 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    bobbysands81 wrote: »
    People always have a right to resist and fight back against foreign invaders.

    Foreign invaders? I guess you and I will never agree about that^


  • #240
    bobbysands81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭bobbysands81


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Yes, that's the republican orthodoxy. An alternative perspective is that democracy was still in the process of working towards a peaceful outcome, and that a handful of warmongers decided to start a fight instead of waiting for that outcome.

    The sad irony is that the warmongers managed to achieve what was, in effect, home rule after six years of unnecessary violence, and then promptly started another war immediately afterwards. The republic that the leaders of 1916 demanded didn't materialise until 1948, and when it did, there wasn't a shot fired.

    I'll sit back now and wait to be told how naive and ignorant I am, because everyone knows for an incontrovertible fact that it was a physical impossibility for Ireland to achieve independence without bloodshed.

    The 'warmongers' were the people that invaded this country and oppressed, starved and murdered it's inhabitants, not the people who had the awful cheek to dare fight back against them.

    Once again you're blaming the symptom and not the disease.


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  • #241
    bobbysands81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭bobbysands81


    LordSutch wrote: »
    Foreign invaders? I guess you and I will never agree about that^

    2 questions:

    1. Were the invaders from Ireland?

    2. Did the invaders invade?


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