What would become of Sinn Fein in a United Ireland?

Shane-1

Ye certainly have left common sense out of it

Good man Joey the Lips, sound arguaments in the face of the usual senseless accusations thrown the way of the replican movement. I take it as quite the compliment sometimes that the best other parties can do is throw this nonsense around the place.

pow wow

O'Coonassa wrote: »

But they've put huge amounts of time and money into trying to expand their base south of the border. If their bread and butter stuff was really that popular then people would have gone for it already I think.

It's a chicken and egg question though; they won't become more popular until they're more influential. Being on the fringe (and having a certain preoccupation with NI) means they'll never really be of interest to the average Irish voter...until perhaps this hypothetical 32 county state comes into being.

K-9

The McCartney case is a perfect example. Witnesses knew exactly what would have happened them if they cooperated with the PSNI.

SF Members were at the bar and there was allegations a SF Member may have been part of the murder. Witnesses were intimidated making it extremely difficult to get convictions.

SDLP and UUP members do not use these type of tactics.

To say "how many SF members have been convicted?" misses the above point and double standards.

ilkhanid

You would want to be completely blind if you imagine that this could have happened in a pub full of supporters of any other political party...apart from the PUP, I suppose.
Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, UUP...I don't think so.

Shane-1

ye really must actually read up on that murder, ye are holding on to the initial media reports

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

ye really must actually read up on that murder, ye are holding on to the initial media reports

So go on, educate us.

ilkhanid

I am? So did it turn out that everybody in the pub wasn't in the toilet after all when everything happened?

Shane-1

Nope, they were out having a fag

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Nope, they were out having a fag

So come on, oh so wise one.

What's the SF version truth?

Shane-1

Ya ya, very clever.

That altercation was based on McCartneys actions to one of the mens wife, he was sexually suggestive to a degree that one of the men took issue with. It was not some Sinn Fein/ IRA action, if any of the people involved were supporters/ members of Sinn Fein or indeed the IRA twas purely coincidental. A political party cannot be held responsible for the actions of some of its supporters. Indeed I am sure if you carried out a pole around the prisions of our country you might find that there are murderers/ rapists/ robbers etc who may support other political parties, such as believe it or not Fianna Fail, Fine Gael etc.

And if there was a 'cover up' as you say, this is'nt all that unusual after many crimes. Sometimes people do not wish to draw trouble on themselves by getting involved. There have been crimes down here where I am from where bucketloads of witnesses have developed selective amnesia, and the perpetrators of those crimes were not Sinn Fein/ IRA members, supporters etc.

How dya like dem apples?

(better than them orange's anyway)

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Ya ya, very clever.

That altercation was based on McCartneys actions to one of the mens wife, he was sexually suggestive to a degree that one of the men took issue with.

Fair enough.

Shane-1 wrote:

It was not some Sinn Fein/ IRA action, if any of the people involved were supporters/ members of Sinn Fein or indeed the IRA twas purely coincidental.

I accept that.

Shane-1 wrote:

A political party cannot be held responsible for the actions of some of its supporters.

Indeed.

Shane-1 wrote:

And if there was a 'cover up' as you say, this is'nt all that unusual after many crimes. Sometimes people do not wish to draw trouble on themselves by getting involved. There have been crimes down here where I am from where bucketloads of witnesses have developed selective amnesia, and the perpetrators of those crimes were not Sinn Fein/ IRA members, supporters etc.

How dya like dem apples?

Indeed.

The difference is witnesses to crime can generally feel free to report these crimes to the Gardai etc., with obvious exceptions like drug deal murders.

Indeed, the cover up and intimidation was very similar to drug crime murders. The same intimidation methods were used.

ilkhanid

That altercation was based on McCartneys actions to one of the mens wife, he was sexually suggestive to a degree that one of the men took issue with."

In another pub be would have been thrown out or beaten (if this is true...a moot point, as this stinks of ex-post facto justification). He was brutally murdered.
The point is that the action in covering up the crime showed a climate of intimidation and fear characteristic of Republican and nationalist ethnic solidarity. To say that member of criminal gangs could be members of , say,Fine Gael is beside the point. the fact is the people in that pub were overwhelmingly Sinn Feiners. If it was any other pub, in any other part of Ireland at least some members of the public would have felt able to speak up. Anyway, what does that say about the Republican movement, that members of it can decide to murder people with impunity and then be confident that silence will be enforced? What it showed is that IRA men believe-rightly-that they can act like petty tyrants in local communities with a sanction of violence -or worse-over anybody that even looks crooked at them. If the murderers were not members of "the movement", in that place and time, they simply would not have had the clout and the authority to order silence under threat and arrange the very efficient and professional clean-up.The political affiliations and connections of the murderers were not incidental to what happened, they were intrinsic to it. The whole thing-and apologists for SF/IRA would go apoplectic at the comparison-is reminiscent of the loyalist murder of Margaret Wright. If the killers were not IRA members then when Gerry adams-finally-condemned it, many would have agreed to come forward. Only one group of people can button lips like that.

futurehope

ilkhanid wrote: »

That altercation was based on McCartneys actions to one of the mens wife, he was sexually suggestive to a degree that one of the men took issue with."

In another pub be would have been thrown out or beaten (if this is true...a moot point, as this stinks of ex-post facto justification). He was brutally murdered.
The point is that the action in covering up the crime showed a climate of intimidation and fear characteristic of Republican and nationalist ethnic solidarity. To say that member of criminal gangs could be members of , say,Fine Gael is beside the point. the fact is the people in that pub were overwhelmingly Sinn Feiners. If it was any other pub, in any other part of Ireland at least some members of the public would have felt able to speak up. Anyway, what does that say about the Republican movement, that members of it can decide to murder people with impunity and then be confident that silence will be enforced. What it showed is that IRA men believe-rightly-that they can act like petty tyrants in local communities with a sanction of violence -or worse-over anybody that even looks crooked at them. If the murderers were not members of "the movement", in that place and time, they simply would not have had the clout and the authority to order silence under threat and arrange the very efficient and professional clean-up. If the killers were not IRA members then when Gerry adams-finally-condemned it, many would have agreed to come forward. Only one group of people can button lips like that.

Absolutely correct. SF/IRA created a state within a state and for decades jack booted all over The Catholic working class. Personally I doubt they've changed. The people in The Republic would be insane to trust these reptiles.

:mad:

Shane-1

Ah come on now, there is countless crimes each and every day across this country that people will not come forward to speak about. There have been several occasions down here where Im from where crimes have been witnessed by several people who will refuse point blank to come forward about it. It can be dangerous to testify about certain crimes. What about gangland murders? No one will come forward about them, does that mean that Sinn Fein is involved in all of them?

How about this; I have a partner and a young child. If I were down the pub tonight and a fight broke out, and a group of men savagely beat the daylights out of a guy till he was dead, I think for fear for my family I would be keeping pretty quiet myself. Im not proud of that, but thats the reality. Doesnt matter what political party they may support or anything like that, Im keeping my mouth shut. They get out of jail in a few years after my testimony sends them down, Im quite certain they are coming knocking on my door! Im sure that may be the rational behind many people not wishing to come forward.

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Ah come on now, there is countless crimes each and every day across this country that people will not come forward to speak about. There have been several occasions down here where Im from where crimes have been witnessed by several people who will refuse point blank to come forward about it. It can be dangerous to testify about certain crimes. What about gangland murders? No one will come forward about them, does that mean that Sinn Fein is involved in all of them?

I already dealt with this point. The McCartney case is actually very, very similar to gangland murders, the cover up, the intimidation, the fear of the murderers..............

Bad and all as FF are, the closest comparison is Willie "Hitman" O'Dea!

Shane-1 wrote:

How about this; I have a partner and a young child. If I were down the pub tonight and a fight broke out, and a group of men savagely beat the daylights out of a guy till he was dead, I think for fear for my family I would be keeping pretty quiet myself. Im not proud of that, but thats the reality. Doesnt matter what political party they may support or anything like that, Im keeping my mouth shut. They get out of jail in a few years after my testimony sends them down, Im quite certain they are coming knocking on my door! Im sure that may be the rational behind many people not wishing to come forward.

Exactly. SF not encouraging people coming forward doesn't help either.

Anyway, when posters here ask "how many SF members were convicted?", it's a very important point. When people are actively discouraged from supporting police investigations it makes it difficult to get members convicted!

Come on, it's slightly different from normal political parties.

Shane-1

Well thats all well and good only that the Sinn Fein leadership did in fact encourage people to come forward with whatever information they had. Gerry Adams stopped short of telling people to go to the police (due to police mistrust amongst the nationalist community) but he did say to pass on any and all information to the McCartney family or to a solicitor.

Realistically they couldnt do much more than that, and were only forced to do that as people would not give up on the idea of a Sinn Fein cover up.

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Well thats all well and good only that the Sinn Fein leadership did in fact encourage people to come forward with whatever information they had. Gerry Adams stopped short of telling people to go to the police (due to police mistrust amongst the nationalist community) but he did say to pass on any and all information to the McCartney family or to a solicitor.

Realistically they couldnt do much more than that, and were only forced to do that as people would not give up on the idea of a Sinn Fein cover up.

Under intense pressure Shane-1 and that's the point. That was a major sea change in SF policy and eventually led to SF on the police board. The IRA offer of helping out didn't go down too well either!

McDowell wouldn't be a politican I'd hugely respect or agree with, but he was right on putting pressure on SF over the Northern Bank robbery, McCartney etc.

Shane-1

K-9 wrote: »

Under intense pressure Shane-1 and that's the point. That was a major sea change in SF policy and eventually led to SF on the police board. The IRA offer of helping out didn't go down too well either!

McDowell wouldn't be a politican I'd hugely respect or agree with, but he was right on putting pressure on SF over the Northern Bank robbery, McCartney etc.

Well I would imagine Sinn Fein are tired of having to come forward and make statements regarding every crime that a couple of their supporters may have had involvement in or that the media or police find it convenient to attach them to. They are a political party that are trying to detach themselves from the old view of them as being hand in hand with terrorism and crime, having to make statements regarding their position or involvement in every unsolved crime in Ireland does not help.

The IRA offer of help was unusual, but what were they to do? (not excusing them in any way) They are hardly to advise the people to go to a police force that they do not trust/ acknowledge. I suppose for the sake of this debate here I would even tend to ignore comments about the IRA, I dont know much about the IRA. Id like to draw a distinction between Sinn Fein and the IRA, I can talk about Sinn Fein but not about the IRA. I will leave your IRA comments unanswered until we get someone on here with IRA knowledge, they can explain that then!!

ilkhanid

"There have been several occasions down here where Im from where crimes have been witnessed by several people who will refuse point blank to come forward about it. It can be dangerous to testify about certain crimes."

Murders by avowed drug dealers and gangsters. This was done by "volunteers", member of the Republican Movement,in their minds "the Good guys", a cut above-they fancy-people like the Shankill Butchers, and who yet arrogated to themselves the power of life and death over anybody in their locality. The point is:this wasn't done by some maverick, out-of-control members, disowned by everybody. As the difficulty the incident caused Gerry Adams showed,and as the Paul Quinn killing and several other incidents show, this kind of thing used to happen all the time. This tells us something about the kind of people in PIRA and about the way their local power and authority and their use of violence corrupted them and brutalized them.

Shane-1

ilkhanid wrote: »

"There have been several occasions down here where Im from where crimes have been witnessed by several people who will refuse point blank to come forward about it. It can be dangerous to testify about certain crimes."

Murders by avowed drug dealers and gangsters. This was done by "volunteers", member of the Republican Movement,in their minds "the Good guys", a cut above-they fancy-people like the Shankill Butchers, and who yet arrogate to themselves the power of life and death over anybody in their locality.

Im not for one second excusing what happened to Robert McCartney, every time a young person loses their life it is a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. And the end that that man got wasnt fitting to the devil. And yes, two of the men were IRA 'volunteers', but this does not make the crime a nationalist crime. It was not an IRA operation, nor was it connected to Sinn Fein. The two volunteers were effectively disowned by the IRA soon after, they threatened to shoot them! A whole political movement cannot be sullied by the actions of a couple of its supporters.

I do not try and explain or excuse an action like this, I simply state that all republicans should not be tarred with the same brush. That means that murders like this should not become immediatey associated with Sinn Fein.

ilkhanid

See my post above. "a couple of its supporters." More than a couple. Not an isolated incident. I am not tarring all members of Sinn Fein. But the fact remains:they rose on a tide of violence that they had to struggle to control. They came from a movement that saw violence as a way of life, that did'nt see what was so terribly wrong about killing people that pissed you off, that believed they had a god-given right to decide who lived and died. All power corrupts and in their little areas, these men had immense power.
Is it any wonder that people don't trust them and that they believe they have an equivocal attitude to the law? The way many in the Republic see it, this incident-and others like Paul Quinn and the Northern Bank-showed either 1. Gerry and the Sinn Fein leadership did'nt think the the odd murder and robbery was such a big deal and that the lads had to be allowed their head the odd time to keep them sweet or 2.They couldn't control-or could only control with difficulty- a section of the hard men in the movement. I hope it was the latter.

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Well I would imagine Sinn Fein are tired of having to come forward and make statements regarding every crime that a couple of their supporters may have had involvement in or that the media or police find it convenient to attach them to. They are a political party that are trying to detach themselves from the old view of them as being hand in hand with terrorism and crime, having to make statements regarding their position or involvement in every unsolved crime in Ireland does not help.

The IRA offer of help was unusual, but what were they to do? (not excusing them in any way) They are hardly to advise the people to go to a police force that they do not trust/ acknowledge. I suppose for the sake of this debate here I would even tend to ignore comments about the IRA, I dont know much about the IRA. Id like to draw a distinction between Sinn Fein and the IRA, I can talk about Sinn Fein but not about the IRA. I will leave your IRA comments unanswered until we get someone on here with IRA knowledge, they can explain that then!!

I accept they have moved on, however it's very recent.

So when somebody asks "how many SF members were convicted?" it's a very recent and up to date fact that SF actively discouraged people from going to the PSNI.

Basically to put it succintly, they were not a normal political party.

Shane-1

K-9 wrote: »

I accept they have moved on, however it's very recent.

So when somebody asks "how many SF members were convicted?" it's a very recent and up to date fact that SF actively discouraged people from going to the PSNI.

Basically to put it succintly, they were not a normal political party.

I would fully accept your point there, they were not a normal party. But there had been a long held suspicion of the police force amongst nationalists in the north. I guess Rome wasnt built in a day and it would take time for trust to develop. Thankfully things seem to be moving in the right directions now, apart from minor blips here and there (interspersed with the odd major blip). While the peace process required Sinn Fein to develop and mature as a political party, I think now many opponents to the party must develop and mature as well. I hate it at election time when opponents of the party ignore their politics and issues and instead start trudging through the set list of accusations that are repeatedly peddled out - Northern Bank, Robert McCartney etc.

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

I would fully accept your point there, they were not a normal party. But there had been a long held suspicion of the police force amongst nationalists in the north. I guess Rome wasnt built in a day and it would take time for trust to develop. Thankfully things seem to be moving in the right directions now, apart from minor blips here and there (interspersed with the odd major blip). While the peace process required Sinn Fein to develop and mature as a political party, I think now many opponents to the party must develop and mature as well. I hate it at election time when opponents of the party ignore their politics and issues and instead start trudging through the set list of accusations that are repeatedly peddled out - Northern Bank, Robert McCartney etc.

Look, I 'll be the first to point to RUC prejudice, discrimination and conspiracies.

The PSNI has changed. It has 27% and rising Catholic membership, from 8% 7 years ago.

NI is changing. Maybe at far too quick a rate for some?

Co-ed education is rising, not through new schools, but because existing schools are choosing to go that way. That is the way forward.

Shane-1

K-9 wrote: »

Look, I 'll be the first to point to RUC prejudice, discrimination and conspiracies.

The PSNI has changed. It has 27% and rising Catholic membership, from 8% 7 years ago.

NI is changing. Maybe at far too quick a rate for some?

Co-ed education is rising, not through new schools, but because existing schools are choosing to go that way. That is the way forward.

Sure, all these developments are positive developments. The north has come on in leaps and bounds in terms of integration and giving the catholic community a voice and protection. People in Sinn Fein would obviously view this as positive. (even if those over in RSF seem concerned by all this!)

But Sinn Fein represent many of these catholics, they are their voice in politics, so I feel it is wrong to associate their party with crime and murder at every possible occasion. I support Sinn Fein and I can assure you that I wouldnt support crime, be it a bank robbery or the murder of a man in cold blood. Yet, because opponents of the party continually associate the party and its supporters with these crimes, it does then reflect back onto the supporters. Thats not a positive situation for integration.

K-9

Shane-1 wrote: »

Sure, all these developments are positive developments. The north has come on in leaps and bounds in terms of integration and giving the catholic community a voice and protection. People in Sinn Fein would obviously view this as positive. (even if those over in RSF seem concerned by all this!)

But Sinn Fein represent many of these catholics, they are their voice in politics, so I feel it is wrong to associate their party with crime and murder at every possible occasion. I support Sinn Fein and I can assure you that I wouldnt support crime, be it a bank robbery or the murder of a man in cold blood. Yet, because opponents of the party continually associate the party and its supporters with these crimes, it does then reflect back onto the supporters. Thats not a positive situation for integration.

That isn't why those cases were brought up.