Martin McGuinness commander of Óglaigh na hÉireann

gatecrash wrote: »

No, I can't.

Fair enough.

The fact is that there were many times throughout that conflict when people who normally ignored atrocities on all sides were compelled to take a closer look for one reason or another. Then, suddenly realising that innocent people were being killed cried out for an immediate end.

Usually after big publicity events.

I can recall after enniskillen the same, also after the post-milltown 'b.a. corporals being dragged out of their cars' killings. People who were normally switched off to the conlict, confronted with media images again cryed out for an end to the conflict. This didn't happen so much after the milltown mourners had been bombed and shot a few days before however as that recieved less media play at the time.

All those efforts floundered. When the queens horses were blown to bits - the same level of outrage and condemnation resulted and achieved . . . .nothing whatsoever.

Republicans were not the only party to the conflict. ALL sides committed atrocities. Loyalists largely commited purely sectarian killings, on and off the books, with state collusion and independently.

People were also outraged at those events too and likewise all the protests and condemnation achieved nothing.

Protests against the british army after bloody sunday or this shooting or that one also achieved nothing. Widespread CND Style 'Troops out' movements in the UK also achieved nothing.

So saying this conflict came to an end as a result of 'people power forcing the IRA to announce ceasefire & disarmament' is totally simplistic and overly convenient to me.

You can look back and string any series of events into a sequence and then say there is a direct causal link from this one to that one resulting in whatever -it doesn't make it correct. It's just wishful thinking that suits your own political viewpoint.

gatecrash wrote: »

You are obviously a staunch republican, I am obviously not. I cannot condone what ANY of the republican terrorist groups did in the period from 1969. In some cases the targets would have been seen as a 'legitimate' target, that doesn't make it right though.

But killing someone because of their religion? Blowing a little boy up as a political statement? That's just plain wrong!
The

The main sectarian killings were from Loyalist side of the fence. Republican mythology has always had protestant heroes, and there is an emphasis on anti-sectarianism, unlike the loyalist mythology which did not have catholic heroes. Don't forget the Orange Order were widely seen as anti-catholic. In fact one of their members was just a few months ago reprimanded for simply attending a catholic funeral.

Republicans had security services, UDR, British army, RUC etc as visible targets, the loyalists did not have visible targets. They did not have the intelligence on their own to know who was and who was not involved and for a large part loyalists used sectarian terror and targetted random catholics north and south. Many of whom were not just killed but gruesomely tortured first. Obviously this evolved into collusion and information being passed from the security services which then led to targetting of SF members and republicans but this was not always the case.

FYI - you referred to me as a 'staunch republican', far as I can see staunch republicans do not support Martin McGuinness. In fact there was a recent article which hinted ata whole host of things McGuinness is suspected of. E.g. that the Special branch had been involved in lifting SF ard fheis attendees who were against the adams/mcguinness 'doves', also alleged that McGuinness may have been involved in collusion with the british army to have hardline republicans who stood in the way of the peace process killed. So my point is that staunch republicans would not necessarily be pro-McGuinness, many probably view him as a traitor and would like to see him killed.

the_syco wrote: »

would pop down to ireland to rob the post offices, kill Gardai and anyone who got in their way.

It might be a useful exercise to take the numbers of Gardai killed by the IRA throughout the troubles and compare that to the numbers of catholics killed and maimed by the british army, RUC/UDR & loyalist paramilitaries. You could also do the same with the numbers of innocent protestants killed.

Each is monumental in scale to the families involved however the point is that there is a context and scale to all of this. Focusing solely or disproportionately on one vicitm or one set of victims to the detriment of the vastly superior numbers of other victims is not a constructive approach. I think it can lead to a kind of one dimensional view of the entire situation.