To all the Anti-Nationalists here....

Winty

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

So we should be ashamed of our past and forget the sacrifice made by those men so we could be free?.

What men? Wolfe Tone or the cowards than killed 12 in Enniskillen.
Surely they are not the same

Het-Field

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

I was talking of the men of 1916 there.(and women!)

Forgetting about the civilian deaths in Jacobs of course !

Wolfe Tone

Winty wrote: »

What men? Wolfe Tone or the cowards than killed 12 in Enniskillen.
Surely they are not the same

See my post directly above yours.

Wolfe Tone

Het-Field wrote: »

Forgetting about the civilian deaths in Jacobs of course !

Unfortunately civilians always suffer in times of war.

danbohan

Winty wrote: »

What men? Wolfe Tone or the cowards than killed 12 in Enniskillen.
Surely they are not the same

never knew you were a wolfe tone fan winty , perhaps we shall see you in bodentown next year ??

KeithAFC

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Unfortunately civilians always suffer in times of war.

If it was a real war, you would of lost. RAF in the skies and good night.

Het-Field

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Unfortunately civilians always suffer in times of war.

I suppose its ok to justify it when sitting behind the safety of your monitor and keyboard.

Wolfe Tone

KeithAFC wrote: »

If it was a real war, you would of lost. RAF in the skies and good night.

I expected nothing more from you Keith.

Het-Field wrote: »

I suppose its ok to justify it when sitting behind the safety of your monitor and keyboard.

Ditto to condemn it?

danbohan

KeithAFC wrote: »

If it was a real war, you would of lost. RAF in the skies and good night.

raf are in the skies in afghanstian , have taliban lost ?

Het-Field

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

I expected nothing more from you Keith.


Ditto to condemn it?

Wrong and ridiculous.

Winty

danbohan wrote: »

never knew you were a wolfe tone fan winty , perhaps we shall see you in bodentown next year ??

Wolfe Tone rightly deserves to be remembered as a contributor to Ireland , its the bombers of towns like Enniskillen and Omagh that do not deserve the steam of my pi**

Wolfe Tone

Het-Field wrote: »

Wrong and ridiculous.

How so?

KeithAFC

danbohan wrote: »

raf are in the skies in afghanstian , have taliban lost ?

I don't think the IRA are the Taliban and most of the IRA lived in houses or 'safe houses'. The Taliban live under rocks. And im sure it would be much easier to roam around Northern Ireland in tanks and planes than it would be in Afganistan that not even Alexander the Great could rule.

danbohan

KeithAFC wrote: »

I don't think the IRA are the Taliban and most of the IRA lived in houses or 'safe houses'. The Taliban live under rocks. And im sure it would be much easier to roam around Northern Ireland in tanks and planes than it would be in Afganistan that not even Alexander the Great could rule.

missing the point keith , when a people are fighting for their liberty and civil rights you cannot obtain a military victory , believe me the british tried every availble military option including shoot to kill and assassinations and still failed

KeithAFC

danbohan wrote: »

missing the point keith , when a people are fighting for their liberty and civil rights you cannot obtain a military victory , believe me the british tried every availble military option including shoot to kill and assassinations and still failed

I agree with that but just saying, its a bit of a different situation than the Taliban.

OhNoYouDidn't

KeithAFC wrote: »

I agree with that but just saying, its a bit of a different situation than the Taliban.

Its the same in the sense that the Brits effectively lost both conflicts and were caught out in some very nasty behaviour.

KeithAFC

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Its the same in the sense that the Brits effectively lost both conflicts and were caught out in some very nasty behaviour.

The British didn't lose at all in the Troubles.

Wolfe Tone

KeithAFC wrote: »

The British didn't lose at all in the Troubles.

Didnt win did they?

KeithAFC

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Didnt win did they?

No. Well Northern Ireland is still in the Union, so...

But no one won.

Wolfe Tone

KeithAFC wrote: »

No. Well Northern Ireland is still in the Union, so...

But no one won.

Anyways its peoples lives not some competition.

KeithAFC

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Anyways its peoples lives not some competition.

Yes. The GFA was huge to take the country away from those days.

Het-Field

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

How so?

1.I am not seeking to justify the murder of loved ones, who expressed a difference of opinion to a group of insurgents who decided that they would take away human life, and lay waste to Dublin City Centre, having been involved in gun-running from Germany to get the enterprise off the ground.

2.Let me ask you a question. What is your opinion on the following people.

-Timothy McVeigh
-Michael Stone
-Mad Dog Adair
-Irv Rubin
-Bill Cottrell

Are they heroes ?

T runner

oscarBravo wrote: »

You're sticking to your guns, then: civil rights could never, ever, under any circumstances, ever have been achieved except through a campaign of terrorism.

Fair enough. If that's what you believe, that's what you believe. And the current dissidents believe the same thing, forty years later.

But this time, it's different.

An examination of Ulster history is relevant here.

The pattern of Catholics seeking more rights and been brutally knocked down has been a recurring pattern since the establishment ot the two main ethnic groups in Ulster after Plantation. This happenned when Catholics bought looms in Armagh to profit from the weaving industry. Peep o day boys (orange order) were formed, catholic homes were destroyed, looms broken or stolen and pgroms followed. Also in the Industries of Belfast in teh late 19th century when catholics tried to get more skilled labouring jobs.
Anti catholic/anti popery fervour followed by Looting and pogroms, catholics put back in place.

After the largely non-sectarian movements of the late 60's were so brutally oppressed and the familiar pogroms began the IRA re-emerged except this time teher were better armed tahn the defenders of yore.

I would say that an armed defence of Catholics was necessary in the early years. It should have ended well before 1975. Both Sinn Feijn and the DUP were not willing to call it a day at that point and so we had Sunningdale part 2 recently. It is certain both sides had complicity in the events that followed.

When you examine the popularity of Sinn Fein in Working class areas you see the support is something more than that as for a fringe terrorist group. To dismiss Sinn Fein as murderers is rather simplistic.

NI was not an ordinary state either. Its borders were drawn along sectarian lines. There was a huge chasm between the two ethnic groups who had a guaranteed majority as a result of the positioning of the border. Giving guaranteed power to a side with fundamentalist anti-catholic tendencies gave huge doubt as to the reasons for establishing that state in the first place. An almost apartheid regime disguised as a "democracy" meant that people could validly question the moral legitimacy of that state.

Another vicious round of the ancient sectarian war was inevitable but it did end differently: the catholics are a more powerful group than thet were in teh agrarian fights of centuries ago. The lenght of this outcome meant taht both sides were forced to accept Sunningdale: but this time they were in power.

Hopefully the middle ground will take ober and we can move to a united Ireland or happy status quo.

The ancient sectarian issue wont go away by itself. it needs to be recognised and removed from the state.

Otherwise you will have a very sorry but dangerous Protestant minority alone against the Irish, British and teh "irish" majority in the North. At that stage it will be definately time to put our differences aside.

efb

I march for equal/civil rights now, I'd march then. J Hume a big hero of mine. Im not an anti nationalist tho

T runner

KeithAFC wrote: »

The British didn't lose at all in the Troubles.

I agree. War did not suceed in ousting British rule. The GFA negotiations were to decide the form British rule would now take.

Also articles 2 and 3 were removed which weakened the case for a United Ireland from a sovereign claim to merely an "aspiration".

Rebelheart

Het-Field wrote: »

Oh my God. You cannot be more the 15-18 years old with crazy opinions and statements like this. At Warrenpoint Civilians were killed thanks to the original act by the Provos.

Nice twist. Translation: the British state forces murdered one innocent man and wounded another while fighting the native Irish forces of resistance in British-occupied Ireland. The British were inept and unprofessional to the extent that they took that civilian's life. The IRA was, quite frankly, more professional.

Narrow Water was a militarily superb attack by the Irish Republican Army. The tactics used are still studied on guerrilla warfare courses across the world. No impartial person would deny this.

Het-Field wrote: »

It was counterproductive as the likes of Thatcher decided that this was one attack too many and the Irish became more and more unpopular in a British Context.

Newsflash: Irish people become unpopular in Britain because Irish people in Ireland resist British colonial rule in Ireland with the same weapon upon which British rule rests: violence. How dare those Paddies use violence to achieve a political aim! Only us Brits can do that! The hypocrisy of it all beats the band.

Het-Field wrote: »

In fact, Im aamzed that somebody can be so flippant about 20 lives lost.

I'm amazed that somebody can expect that British troops who come to Ireland to enforce the rule of a foreign state should somehow not suffer for what they are doing. And I'm sure you'd have just as much sympathy for a poster who is "flippant" about, say, the British revenge attack in Loughgall (where the British state's forces also murdered a civilian)?

gurramok

Het-Field wrote: »

1.I am not seeking to justify the murder of loved ones, who expressed a difference of opinion to a group of insurgents who decided that they would take away human life, and lay waste to Dublin City Centre, having been involved in gun-running from Germany to get the enterprise off the ground.

2.Let me ask you a question. What is your opinion on the following people.

-Timothy McVeigh
-Michael Stone
-Mad Dog Adair
-Irv Rubin
-Bill Cottrell

Are they heroes ?

1 - A certain gunboat lay waste to Dublin City Centre.

2 - First 3 are intentional killers of innocent civilians. Who are the last two?

T runner

Het-Field wrote: »

.I am not seeking to justify the murder of loved ones, who expressed a difference of opinion to a group of insurgents who decided that they would take away human life, and lay waste to Dublin City Centre, having been involved in gun-running from Germany to get the enterprise off the ground.

The subsequent elections proved that the majority of the irish population supported this uprising. The enemy was the British army which was a foreign army occupying Ireland, again a fact ratified by the Irish people.

The Irish people set up the dail and this parliament was the one they chose to obey. They had a choice between 2 regimes and they made it : quite clearly. The only authority that remained with the British regime was by force of their army. Inspite of this overwhelming evidence that their game was up they decided to show the world that they were willing to ignore and supress the democratic will of the Irish people proving that force of arms was necessary to remove them.

The fact that the British demonstrated clearly that force of arms was necessary to remove them shows what we all know: that Ireland was only ever held ultimately by force of arms. Being a colony of Britain or part of the Ok was never the democratic will of the Irish people.
Independence came very rapidly after they had a say in their own affairs.

Denerick

1918 was as much about the conscription crisis as it was about the Rising. Even at that the Republicans didn't even win a plurality of the national vote.

gurramok

Denerick wrote: »

1918 was as much about the conscription crisis as it was about the Rising. Even at that the Republicans didn't even win a plurality of the national vote.

Define plurality? They won the majority of the 26 county vote.

Denerick

gurramok wrote: »

Define plurality? They won the majority of the 26 county vote.

They were interested in a 32 county Republic.

gurramok

Denerick wrote: »

They were interested in a 32 county Republic.

Yes and they didn't get it yet, so?

You said they didn't win a plurality of the vote. The electorate of the 26 counties within the borders supported them at the time.

Denerick

gurramok wrote: »

Yes and they didn't get it yet, so?

You said they didn't win a plurality of the vote. The electorate of the 26 counties within the borders supported them at the time.

They wanted a 32 county Republic. They did not win a plurality of the 32 counties. What exactly can you not understand about that?

Not a partitionist, are you?

gurramok

No, i not a partitionist.

They won a plurality of the vote of the Irish Free State to seek a 32 county Ireland but we only won 26 counties back. Also they got a sizeable portion of the Nationalist vote in NI. The mandate was there for the War of Independence.

Denerick

gurramok wrote: »

No, i not a partitionist.

They won a plurality of the vote of the Irish Free State to seek a 32 county Ireland but we only won 26 counties back. Also they got a sizeable portion of the Nationalist vote in NI. The mandate was there for the War of Independence.

Thats a strange way of looking at it. If the 'free hats' party is running on a mandate to distribute free hats to everyone in 'wantsfreehatsland' and they only get 46% of the vote, does this mean that the 'free hats party' won?

Het-Field

gurramok wrote: »

1 - A certain gunboat lay waste to Dublin City Centre.

2 - First 3 are intentional killers of innocent civilians. Who are the last two?

You know well why Dublin City Centre was laid waste to. Causation is key.

2.Michael Stone wished to take out Adams and McGuinness as a member of a violent and murderous Unionist gang of thugs. There were civilian casualties in the cemetary that day. By the logic of some posters this was going to happen as he was fighting a political cause by violent means. Stone was not, by the logic of other posters, a murderer. He was fighting for a cause. The reason you dont want to validate that is because he wasnt fighting YOUR cause. If he is an intentional killer, then so are those at Warrenpoint.

Tim McVeigh didnt intend to take out civilians. However, he openly admitted that it was likely to happen, and it was "collateral damage". McVeigh was crazy individualist patriot, who took the libertarian political cause WAY too far.

Mad Dog Adair. I though all and sundry would know what he was. He was the Loyalist equivalent of some of Republicanism's more hardcore elements. Attempts to distinguish him from extremist Republicans on grounds other then religion and sectarianism are stupid in the expreme.

Just to clarify, Rubin was an extreme orthodox Jew, who headed the Terrorist "Jewish Defence League", while Cottrill was part of the Animal Liberation Front. However, i will go into further detail about these guys after you accept that the likes of Stone and McVeigh's motives were the same as those who committed Warrenpoint, the shooting of Mountbatten etc.

Rebelheart

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Does that make Ireland unique? Probably not. This kind of oppression is widespread in the annals of the world's history, particularly in places like Africa. That doesn't mean such oppression is justified, of course; it clearly isn't. But I don't see why people are so keen to paint Ireland as some kind of unique sob-story, its people battling against an oppression seen nowhere else; the small child alone being bullied by all the rest.

You have just invented a load of strawmen about "oppression" blah blah blah. Nonetheless, you appear to be implying that the necessary conditions did not exist - in moral, political and democratic terms - for the Irish people to assert their independence from British occupation via violence, the very same weapon upon which British rule in Ireland has rested. How do you manage to implicitly support the right of the British state to assert their rule here through violence but deny the right of the Irish people to assert their independence via the same tactic?

This is the key question.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

In reality ones opinion of the War and/or the British is not a function of ones opinion of the Rising; hence, ones opinion of the War is irrelevant in a discussion of the merits, or otherwise, the Easter Rising.

This is ahistorical nonsense. The Easter Rising was intimately connected with what was happening in WW I, and as is shown here there is a strong correlation between those who have a favourable impression of the "civilising influence" of the British in Ireland and the people who oppose Irish people using violence to challenge the British colonial state in Ireland. As you said yourself: those who used violence to advance British imperialism = good; those who used violence to achieve Irish freedom from British imperialism = bad. Extraordinarily hypocritical stuff.

Rebelheart

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

you have blatantly ignored the path of peaceful and constitutional change that was available to Irish nationalists at the time of the Rising; a path that was already being traversed, to some success, by others.

In fact, I directly addressed that "path". Again: where, pray tell, was this "success"? Following the Parliament Act in 1911 and the Third Home Rule Bill 1912 constitutional politics reached its zenith by virtue of the refusal of the Tories and unionists to accept the wishes of the majority within that constitutional political path, the mutiny of the British Army's officers in the Curragh in 1914 asserting that they would not enforce the wishes of the British parliament (you forgot that?), the importation of arms and the threat of civil war from unionists if they did not get their way. This threat was, crucially, supported financially and politically by the Tory party and numerous wealthy and powerful British people.

This is precisely part of the context which framed plans for the Easter Rising. That you are dressing up the Rising's leaders as uniquely anti-democratic (whatever that actually meant at that stage is unclear) in this context is dishonest to the history of the period. No professional historian would discuss an event without contextualizing it. No seasoned reader of history would expect to read a history without a context.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The unionist threat did exist, but was dealt with by partitioning the country, thus implementing a solution that would in some way reconcile the wishes of the opposing factions of the island.

Actually, as is very, very clear, the partition of Ireland was decided almost entirely by unionists, with no nationalist input. Furthermore, partition was not - as you may be implying - motivated primarily by some "democratic" consideration but rather by the simple one of incorporating as much land as possible under the new northern state without undermining unionist voting dominance. It's for this reason that the majority nationalist counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh were included in the new northern state. Where was the self-determination for those people? Partition could have been considerably more democratic, if that was ever the primary aim of partition. I think you're creating a false dichotomy here between some anti-democratic republican insurrectionists in Easter Week who supposedly overthrew some democratic nirvana. This was never the context, as much as it might suit the Ruth Dudley Edwards/Robin Bury/Reform Movement types to propagate it.

Rebelheart

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That point is irrelevant. What matters is that they did believe they were fighting for Ireland. They were noble Irish men at heart

Now here you are romanticising people in a most irrational manner. You have made a generalisation about these people that they were "noble Irish men" and therefore placed all those people who joined for financial self-interest, adventure and much else into a "noble" category. This is just abject nonsense. What about the many Irish-born people who were shot by the British Army for desertion - were they, too, "noble Irish men"? And where is your evidence that they were all there to "fight for Ireland"? Like so many of the poppy brigade you are willing to honour British nationalist heroes and deride Irish nationalist heroes. Why?

Rebelheart

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That point is irrelevant. What matters is that they did believe they were fighting for Ireland. They were noble Irish men at heart, for and they have been ignored and abandoned by the independent Ireland in lieu of some unrepresentative men who blew up Dublin City Centre.

I take it that your claim on the other thread that you opposed those who engaged in violence in WW I as much as you opposed those who engaged in violence in Easter Week has just been exposed for the dishonesty it is?

At any rate, why should people who fought for the British Empire, and its racist, sectarian and anti-democratic credentials, be honoured by Irish people who don't support British imperialism? There was nothing noble about an Irish person fighting for the most powerful empire in the world, particularly when it continued to occupy Ireland. What, pray tell, do you find noble about it?

In sharp contrast to the commemoration of people who died defending British imperialism, the vast majority of Irish people are proud that most of Ireland is now free from British rule. Therefore it makes eminent sense for them to honour those men and women who fought for the genuinely noble aim of Irish freedom.

Those who fought with the British Empire in WW I backed the wrong horse. They were misled by warmongerers such as John Redmond. They were, at best, foolish, naive sacrificial lambs and, at worst, mercenaries who joined the British Army to financially better themselves. Why you have dressed them all up into a neat "noble" group can only be accounted for by your personal views, not a rational analysis of historical facts.

Het-Field

Rebelheart wrote: »

Now here you are romanticising people in a most irrational manner. You have made a generalisation about these people that they were "noble Irish men" and therefore placed all those people who joined for financial self-interest, adventure and much else into a "noble" category. This is just abject nonsense. What about the many Irish-born people who were shot by the British Army for desertion - were they, too, "noble Irish men"? And where is your evidence that they were all there to "fight for Ireland"? Like so many of the poppy brigade you are willing to honour British nationalist heroes and deride Irish nationalist heroes. Why?

Problem is, too many people elevate crazy and murderous rebels (Im talking about decades after 1916) to the position of "heroes". Are the "Freedom Fighters" of Hamas heroes ?

Rebelheart

Het-Field wrote: »

Problem is, too many people elevate crazy and murderous rebels (Im talking about decades after 1916) to the position of "heroes". Are the "Freedom Fighters" of Hamas heroes ?

And what about all those murderers who are "elevated to the position of 'heroes'" by the British state, British media and the entire poppy campaign which only honours those who died for the British side and for, as they like to claim, "freedom"?

If that's not nationalist tribalism I don't know what is.

You don't have to go as far as Hamas to find glorification of murder and "freedom fighters". The elephant in the room when it comes to glorification of murder under the guise of fighting for "freedom" will be coming up again when the poppy thing gets going. It's incessant, with people who refuse to wear poppys being bullied into it and having their career threatened in what Jon Snow described as "poppy fascism".

Het-Field

Rebelheart wrote: »

And what about all those murderers who are "elevated to the position of 'heroes'" by the British state, British media and the entire poppy campaign which only honours those who died for the British side and for, as they like to claim, "freedom"?

If that's not nationalist tribalism I don't know what is.

You don't have to go as far as Hamas to find glorification of murder and "freedom fighters". The elephant in the room when it comes to glorification of murder under the guise of fighting for "freedom" will be coming up again when the poppy thing gets going. It's incessant, with people who refuse to wear poppys being bullied into it and having their career threatened in what Jon Snow described as "poppy fascism".

Look, im not going to justify the poppy campaign. It is tokenistic. Many men were physically destroyed, maimed, and damaged in wars which Britain need not have got into. I dont like it, and I wouldnt wear a poppy. I think as long as people remember the suffering that man ordinary men and women went through that should be enough.

However, you know exactly what type of person I am talking about. It is the type of person, who only months ago, shot dead three innocent civilians in an attempt to re-ignite the old fires of biggotary and hatred. Im talking about those who took out ordinary men and women in an attempt to prove a point. Much like Tim McVeigh, these people proved to be collateral damage. However, those who killed them disgust me, and I will die before I call them heroes.

T runner

Denerick wrote: »

1918 was as much about the conscription crisis as it was about the Rising. Even at that the Republicans didn't even win a plurality of the national vote.

Sinn Fein won 73 out of 105 seats. Is that not a plurality of the national vote?

Irish unionists won 22, irish parliamentary only 6.

Fratton Fred

Rebelheart wrote: »

Nice twist. Translation: the British state forces murdered one innocent man and wounded another while fighting the native Irish forces of resistance in British-occupied Ireland. The British were inept and unprofessional to the extent that they took that civilian's life. The IRA was, quite frankly, more professional.

Narrow Water was a militarily superb attack by the Irish Republican Army. The tactics used are still studied on guerrilla warfare courses across the world. No impartial person would deny this.




Newsflash: Irish people become unpopular in Britain because Irish people in Ireland resist British colonial rule in Ireland with the same weapon upon which British rule rests: violence. How dare those Paddies use violence to achieve a political aim! Only us Brits can do that! The hypocrisy of it all beats the band.



I'm amazed that somebody can expect that British troops who come to Ireland to enforce the rule of a foreign state should somehow not suffer for what they are doing. And I'm sure you'd have just as much sympathy for a poster who is "flippant" about, say, the British revenge attack in Loughgall (where the British state's forces also murdered a civilian)?

You post that load of rubbish and then wonder why people laugh at nationalists.

I have to admit it, the Republican movement in this country is a superb example of spin.

Denerick

T runner wrote: »

Sinn Fein won 73 out of 105 seats. Is that not a plurality of the national vote?

Irish unionists won 22, irish parliamentary only 6.

Thats the first past the post system. It is not proportional or representative of the national vote.

For example Labour could win 49% of the vote in every constituency in Britain and the Tories could win 51% of the vote, yet every single national MP would be a Tory and there would be no Labour MPs represented. Does this mean the Tories won 100% of the national vote or 51%?

Denerick

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I have to admit it, the Republican movement in this country is a superb example of spin.

And dishonesty.

MysticalRain

Wow. I've never seen a thread on boards.ie before where so many people here condoned terrorism.

Long Term Louth

MysticalRain wrote: »

Wow. I've never seen a thread on boards.ie before where so many people here condoned terrorism.

Agree and in other posts if you use a bad word you are banned

Rebelheart

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You post that load of rubbish and then wonder why people laugh at nationalists.

Actually, I've never wondered why people laugh at nationalists: with your emotionally-retarded poppy campaigns, glorification of "our boys", tabloids of the "Gotcha!" variety and incessant support for wars beyond Britain, there's no wonder about why people laugh at you all.