United Ireland first and Civil Rights second - wrong way round?

junder

Fratton Fred wrote: »

A good friend of mine left NI when her brother was beaten up twice in a month. The first time was by the usual unionist bullies that bullied all the Catholics in her area, the second time was when he refused to be drafted into the IRA as a gofer, they beat him up for being a traitor to his community because he didn't believe violence was the answer.

That's the point my friend decided the whole place wqas ****ed up and moved to London.

Funny thing is, she expected to be bullied and ridiculed in London for being an Irish Catholic, but she very soon changed her opinion of English people.

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

usual unionst bullies? sorry to burst any illusions here but the violence was not just one way, many protestant homes were burnt out to with those familys having to flee to liverpool.
Anyhoo back to the thread parhaps if the NICRA had campaigned for British Rights for British people and not just British Rights for catholic people then it could have forged cross comunity support. After all working class protestants had exactly the same rights as working class catholics and that includes voting rights. Councils that had catholics majortys (i know there were not many) gerrymanded to. It seems a chance to truly unite the poor of northern ireland those working protestants and catholics was sqandered in the name of a united ireland

Fratton Fred

She grew up in a mainly protestant area of Belfast and her and her brothers were bullied by the same bunch of bullies.

Oddly enough, one of the girls who bullied her apologised a few years back. I guess like most bullies, they use any form of "difference" to bully someone.

Andrea had nothing against unionists as such, only those ones that bullied her. She actually hated bar stool republicans from the south (especially Dubs) a lot more because she saw them as weekend trouible makers who would **** off home to Finglas after a day or two of **** stirring.

MarchDub

junder wrote: »

usual unionst bullies? sorry to burst any illusions here but the violence was not just one way, many protestant homes were burnt out to with those familys having to flee to liverpool.

In the early stages of the Civil Rights movement the violence was one way. This is one of the tragedies of the events of the time, that the violence was permitted to continue often with the support of the police. State official response was to ban the marches and not deal with the thugs who turned up to prevent the marches from proceeding.

Civil Rights marches were organized with the purpose of finding a peaceful way to protect against discrimination in housing and jobs. The marchers - mostly families - were met with violent gangs bend on breaking up the whole movement.

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

When I first wrote my post I had written that there was no response "except the usual gun boat diplomacy" but decided that maybe that was a bit too caustic a remark so I deleted it before posting. But essentially that is in essence was the response was - and showed little understanding of the situation on the ground in NI. Also, the reason given "to protect Catholics" was just clever talk. In reality there was horror throughout Ireland at the idea of a British Army presence in NI.

There was always an undertone of potential of violence in NI. I remember as a young kid being up there with my parents in the pre "troubles" days and accidentally getting entangled with an Orange parade. My parents immediately told us kids to not speak - southern accents - but my child's eye was able to read the anti-Catholic banners and the anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist badges being worn by the participants. This too was violence in another guise.

junder

MarchDub wrote: »

When I first wrote my post I had written that there was no response "except the usual gun boat diplomacy" but decided that maybe that was a bit too caustic a remark so I deleted it before posting. But essentially that is in essence was the response was - and showed little understanding of the situation on the ground in NI. Also, the reason given "to protect Catholics" was just clever talk. In reality there was horror throughout Ireland at the idea of a British Army presence in NI.

There was always an undertone of potential of violence in NI. I remember as a young kid being up there with my parents in the pre "troubles" days and accidentally getting entangled with an Orange parade. My parents immediately told us kids to not speak - southern accents - but my child's eye was able to read the anti-Catholic banners and the anti-Catholic, anti-Nationalist badges being worn by the participants. This too was violence in another guise.

the violence has never been only one way sectarian conflict has been going on long before partitition.

MarchDub

junder wrote: »

the violence has never been only one way sectarian conflict has been going on long before partitition.

My understanding of this discussion is that we are addressing the attempt to gain civil rights by public marches organised to redress grievances within the NI state.

Of course there was violence prior to partition - Ireland was originally conquered through violence. And Ulster in particular was re-settled through the use of violence.

Snickers Man

First off, two howlers that have to be addressed.

Fratton Fred: Martin McGuinness, commander in chief of the IRA's LONDONDERRY Brigade!!!! ROTFLMAO. Like that ever existed!

McArmalite: "The first operation carried out in England was 8 March 1973"

You're forgetting the Aldershot bomb planted in 1972 in retaliation for Bloody Sunday which killed a load of dinner ladies and a priest. Or does that not count because it was the Stickies, not the Provos? And can you really expect the people on the receiving end of such attacks to discern the difference between the People's Front of Judaea and the Judaean People's Front?


On to the basic question of whether the Civil Rights Movement should have persisted rather than succumbing to the violence of the IRA:

The early Civil Rights people were not republicans. It is true, most of them were from the catholic community but then that was the more disadvantaged one. Many of them were from the new breed of university-educated working class people who were from the first generation of people to benefit from universal free education up to and including university level made possible by post war welfare legislation.

They were also influenced by the prevailing international mood of the time. Socialism and street agitation was very much the zeitgeist of the 1960s. There were the anti war protests, black civil rights movement and campus riots in America, the Student revolt in Paris in 1968 and the Prague spring in Czechoslovakia in the same year.

The civil rights protest marches in Northern Ireland were influenced by the same mood of youthful working class well educated anger at the status quo and with the attendant optimism that it could be changed. One of the first political casualties of the Civil Rights movement was the old Nationalist party. The Catholic working class deserted it in droves as it proved unable to match its demand of united Ireland first to the demands of people on the ground for a simple improvement in their situation.

Within a few years, majority Catholic support went to the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Where are the words Nationalism or Irish in that? As one of the early agitators of the time, Eamon McCann a socialist Trotskyite with no love of the church of middle class nationalist pieties put it: "If we were agreed on one thing it was that partition was irrelevant. We were seeking change WITHIN the boundaries of the existing state"

Other people too viewed the problems through a socialist prism. Bernadette Devlin (now McAliskey) in her memoirs published while she was still in her 20s and a Westminster MP said of Ian Paisley that he was an evil man but misunderstood his motivations. "He does not hate Catholics as he appears to," she said. "What he really hates are socialists."

I don't think that penetrating analysis has stood the test of time.

As regards bringing the problems of the north to the attention of the British people: the establishment just didn't want to know. One Labour backbench MP, Paul Rose from Manchester, was chairman of a group called the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster. He found that any attempts to raise Northern Irish issues in Westminster would be stymied by his being told that there was a parliament in Stormont that could deal with everything.

The simple truth is that once agitation started to occur, the reaction of the police and the Unionist community, suspicious of any attempts to undermine the status quo was to brand the civil rights movement as disloyal republican rebels who had to be put down using the same methods as had always appeared to work before.

The struggle quickly sundered along traditional sectarian lines, allowing the extremists and paramilitaries on both sides to present themselves as the protectors of their own communities.

MarchDub

Snickers Man wrote: »

As regards bringing the problems of the north to the attention of the British people: the establishment just didn't want to know. One Labour backbench MP, Paul Rose from Manchester, was chairman of a group called the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster. He found that any attempts to raise Northern Irish issues in Westminster would be stymied by his being told that there was a parliament in Stormont that could deal with everything.

Even prior to Rose's time the British Labour Party also had a history of trying to bring attention to the NI problems. In the late 1940s a group was formed within Labour called "Friends of Ireland" who tried to at least bring attention to the discrimination practices of Stormont rule. Their efforts went nowhere.

Fratton Fred

Snickers Man wrote: »

First off, two howlers that have to be addressed.

Fratton Fred: Martin McGuinness, commander in chief of the IRA's LONDONDERRY Brigade!!!! ROTFLMAO. Like that ever existed!
.

That is no howler, LONDONderry is twinned with the Malvinas I believe.

I also believe the first civilians killed in England were some workers on a fag break in Coventry, 1939.

brianthebard

off topic posts deleted. Last chance for this thread.

meathstevie

Fred, why do you think people should have protested in London while it was the Belfast parliament and government they had their issues with ?

Happy Monday

McArmalite wrote: »

The brit public didn't care what ' their boys ' got up to in Ireland, not until our boys started killing their boys and went over there stiffing the brits in Birminhgham, Guildford etc. Reap as you sow

It was those bombings that ensured that the North today remains in the hands of the English - sterling, Union Jack, NHS and Queen and Country.

You should hang your head in shame for the comments above.

Happy Monday

meathstevie wrote: »

Fred, why do you think people should have protested in London while it was the Belfast parliament and government they had their issues with ?

Because the Belfast parliament was ultimately answerable to the British government based in Whitehall in London. Northern Ireland was then and remains part of the UK.

KingKiller

getz wrote: »

two doors away from me i have a northern irish catholic living with her mother who is 89 years old,[the mother] was driven out of belfast by the boys,they told her her house was going to be burned to the ground,why ?because her crime was to take a cup of tea to a young british soldier

Fratton Fred wrote: »

A good friend of mine left NI when her brother was beaten up twice in a month. The first time was by the usual unionist bullies that bullied all the Catholics in her area, the second time was when he refused to be drafted into the IRA as a gofer, they beat him up for being a traitor to his community because he didn't believe violence was the answer.

That's the point my friend decided the whole place wqas ****ed up and moved to London.

Funny thing is, she expected to be bullied and ridiculed in London for being an Irish Catholic, but she very soon changed her opinion of English people.

Am I not right in thinking that the British Army was forst sent in to protect the nationalists? Doesn't sound to me like no action was taken.

What a bunch of silly fairytales. The lovely British army helping old ladies across the road etc As the McArmalite fella says, sure the Brits just love themselves and spouting fairytales about their greatness.

What gets posted on here as adult discussion is laughable.

KingKiller

Fratton Fred wrote: »

She grew up in a mainly protestant area of Belfast and her and her brothers were bullied by the same bunch of bullies.

Oddly enough, one of the girls who bullied her apologised a few years back. I guess like most bullies, they use any form of "difference" to bully someone.

Andrea had nothing against unionists as such, only those ones that bullied her. She actually hated bar stool republicans from the south (especially Dubs) a lot more because she saw them as weekend trouible makers who would **** off home to Finglas after a day or two of **** stirring.

When it came to bullying, the British army could teach anyone a few lessons.

junder

KingKiller wrote: »

What a bunch of silly fairytales. The lovely British army helping old ladies across the road etc As the McArmalite fella says, sure the Brits just love themselves and spouting fairytales about their greatness.

What gets posted on here as adult discussion is laughable.

was Jean McConville a fairy tale

brianthebard

I gave it all the chances I could. Thread locked.