breaking: Gerry Adams Arrested in connection to McConville - MOD WARNING First Post

Shakespeare's Sister

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Anyone who holds those views is insane. Surely very few people are like that?

They're on this very forum!

ryan101 wrote: »

As if SF have any real time for Catholics, lol

But they were catholic, it was part of their identity. Even if many weren't religious, it was still the identity that differentiated them from unionists. So "lol" yourself. Actually read up as I said, rather than dismissing it and being like one of those people down here whom I was talking about, and whom Donkey Oaty said seems insane.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Shakespeare's Sister

Lastlight. wrote: »

That logic doesn't add up because the majority of Roman Catholics didn't murder or join any terrorist organisation.

Everyone who murdered anyone did it out of decisions they made. John Hume didn't join the PIRA and certainly didn't murder anyone.

The myth that the PIRA fought for civil rights has been debunked long ago, they certainly didn't care about murdering Roman Catholics.

I'm not talking about anyone joining an organisation, I'm talking about how they were treated on the basis of their heritage leading to them being defensive of their identity, hence my sympathy towards people being nationalist in Northern Ireland. I didn't say anything about them joining an organisation.

ryan101

Magaggie wrote: »

Proof that you are utterly clueless about Northern Ireland.
Next!

I was there when they ran away. I also watched them threaten, murder, and intimidate plenty of Catholics.

Donkey Oaty

Magaggie wrote: »

They're on this very forum!

Denying that there were civil rights injustices for Catholics in Northern Ireland, or denying that atrocities were committed by loyalists and the British Army? Some may not as clued up as you are on specifics, but come on - these things are a given for everyone.

Shakespeare's Sister

ryan101 wrote: »

I was there when they ran away. I also watched them threaten, murder, and intimidate plenty of Catholics.

Fair enough. Post actually edited.
I know they intimidated plenty of catholics, but I was talking about the fact that being catholic meant being treated like sh1t by the establishment in NI pre civil rights resulting in nationalism, which is a form of nationalism I can understand. Surely anyone would.

My name is URL

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

What did the BBC say exactly? Have the PPS thrown the case out? That's huge news if true.

Shakespeare's Sister

Karl Stein wrote: »

Indeed. What gets lost in all the chatter is the former day-to-day frustrations of being treated as a second class citizens. My Mother was recently telling us that my Grandparents were refused access to a local sewer pipe forcing them to get a septic tank system (they were not wealthy people).

They were the only family in the row of rural houses who weren't hooked in and yep, you've guessed, it they were the only Catholics too.

I won't even get into the realities on my Father's side..

Depressing.
But all the Troubles was the IRA. :rolleyes:

I'll never forget a little incident that I was privy to in September 1994 which summed up for me some people re NI down here: it was the day after the IRA ceasefire and I was walking into school. Two girls from the year below were walking in front of me and I could hear them talking about the shooting of a catholic man by loyalist paramilitaries around the same time. One of them said "Did you hear about the IRA shooting that poor man?" The other girl: "I know - so much for their 'ceasefire'!"
They actually thought violence in Northern Ireland = the IRA.

I know they were just kids, but that IS how ignorant many people down here were/are.

efb

My name is URL wrote: »

What did the BBC say exactly? Have the PPS thrown the case out? That's huge news if true.

There are no charges to be brought against Gerry Adams

Gatling

God forbid if Gerry suffers any sudden health issues in the next while ,


No reports of regarding not been charged yet ,thought it would take several weeks / months to make a decision

Lastlight.

Gatling wrote: »

God forbid if Gerry suffers any sudden health issues in the next while ,


No reports of regarding not been charged yet ,thought it would take several weeks / months to make a decision

People will be praying.

My name is URL

Lastlight. wrote: »

People will be praying.

For what?

Jawgap

efb wrote: »

No going to be charged -BBC NEWS

Where on BBC nothing I can see on their site or the PPS' website?

ryan101

Magaggie wrote: »

Fair enough. Posted actually edited.
I know they intimidated plenty of catholics, but I was talking about the fact that being catholic meant being treated like sh1t by the establishment in NI pre civil rights resulting in nationalism, which is a form of nationalism I can understand. Surely anyone would.

Was much more a case of anti-Catholicism, but that was soon manipulated into nationalism by SF/IRA so they could gain control over the Catholic population instead, which they did so by intimidation. SF/IRA also hated Catholicism, make no mistake.

Da Shins Kelly

I don't see anything on the BBC website either. I would have thought the processing of the case with the PPS would take a few weeks?

My name is URL

Jawgap wrote: »

Where on BBC nothing I can see on their site or the PPS' website?

Mentioned in a tweet from a BBC journalist - https://twitter.com/williamcrawley/status/463372687088558080

efb

It was on the 6.30 news

Albertofrog

theKillerBite wrote: »

Did the British Army use proxy bombs, or plant bombs on shopping streets/pubs, or take civilians hostage, or boobytrap dead bodies...

No.
They shot dead civilians

Da Shins Kelly

Sounds like whatever "evidence" the PSNI did have was a crock of sh*t if it has been dropped almost immediately.

Such a farce.

twowheelsgood

Magaggie wrote: »

Nationalism in the context of Northern Ireland is what I mean specifically. I'm not nationalistic/patriotic myself, but I grew up in a place without conflict and a place where my community wasn't treated like dog-sh!t on shoes. I fully understand people being Northern nationalists under those circumstances, which unfortunately a lot of people down here are very ignorant of... and worse again, sneer at. Despite the fact they would have been treated like sh-t themselves had they lived up there.

I think you are making the same error of conflating that the nationalist community in NI did 40 years ago. The problem at the time was that their rights and opportunities were being trodden upon, often with brutal and lethal force. An appropriate response, one which permitted violence to be justly, if counterproductively, applied was to address those actual wrongs, as had been done in other places in the world, the plight of African-Americans in the US being a fairly similar one.

What actually happened is that their laudable civil rights quest came to be conflated with a political, nationalistic quest in the form of a united Ireland project. And the use of force by some within the nationalist community, which should only have been used for the defence of that community, was used as well to further this UI project, against the wishes (in terms of means) of the majority of Irish people even though they did subscribe to the end.

One lingering legacy of this is the hostility that persists for physical force republicans. And this IS the reason for the hostility, not that Southerners did not care what happened to Irish people North of the border (the arms crisis, the burning of the British embassy, the hunger strikes and many other things clearly dispel this myth) or any silly physco-babble about latent guilt or some such nonsense.

And the growing, and welcome, distaste for nationalism is not trendiness or people trying to be cool. Like religion, nationalism of all kinds is on the wane. This is undoubtedly a good thing. You need only take a cursory look at history to see that many of the great horrors of the past, including many committed in the construction of Britain’s empire (a fact missed by almost all republicans!) were done on the name of nationalism in one guise or another.

True, nationalism need not be malign but like religion it gives us nothing we cannot have in other ways. And when it is malign, well look at 1930’s Germany to see what nationalism (or the exploitation of it to be precise) can lead to.

We will be well shut of it when it is gone.

Courtesy Flush

Pre-troubles NI was basically an apartheid state with a Protestant ruling class. If you were a Catholic/Nationalist you were a second class citizen in every respect.
Why on earth would people not want to fight such a regime

end of the road

Karl Stein wrote: »

Indeed. What gets lost in all the chatter is the former day-to-day frustrations of being treated as a second class citizens. My Mother was recently telling us that my Grandparents were refused access to a local sewer pipe forcing them to get a septic tank system (they were not wealthy people).

They were the only family in the row of rural houses who weren't hooked in and yep, you've guessed, it they were the only Catholics too.

I won't even get into the realities on my Father's side..

even railway closures were decided on the basis of the religions of the communities they served and along them that were served by nearby stations

steddyeddy

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

Sounds like whatever "evidence" the PSNI did have was a crock of sh*t if it has been dropped almost immediately.

Such a farce.

Actually I think this has brought a lot of good publicity for Adams.

Lingua Franca

Gatling wrote: »

God forbid if Gerry suffers any sudden health issues in the next while ,

Lastlight. wrote: »

People will be praying.

My name is URL wrote: »

For what?

The grand chaplain of the Orange Order tells a public rally he is sad that a new mural erected in tribute to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams is not a "memorial mural".

dxhound2005

My name is URL wrote: »

Mentioned in a tweet from a BBC journalist - https://twitter.com/williamcrawley/status/463372687088558080

Crawley says "the BBC understands". On BBC radio news it was "the BBC has learned". Meaning that someone in the prosecuting authorities has leaked something. Which could well be an illegal act in itself. Similar to what the papers here are doing inside GSOC.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

guinnessdrinker

Courtesy Flush wrote: »

Pre-troubles NI was basically an apartheid state with a Protestant ruling class. If you were a Catholic/Nationalist you were a second class citizen in every respect.
Why on earth would people not want to fight such a regime

Many in the Unionist ruling classes would have viewed the period between partition and pre-1960's NI as their Golden Age. The Nationalist/Catholic and working class Protestant populations knew their places. While British and Irish government policy on NI seemed to merely consist of appeasing Unionisit rule.

Wicklowrider

theKillerBite wrote: »

Did the British Army use proxy bombs, or plant bombs on shopping streets/pubs, or take civilians hostage, or boobytrap dead bodies...

You might want to Google Dublin Monaghan Bombing. Google miami showband massacre if you are genuinely interested in answering that.

May or may not have booby trapped bodies but they did do this kind of thing: http://www.war-talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=428

War is filthy business and there are NO shining Knights

My name is URL

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Crawley says "the BBC understands". On BBC radio news it was "the BBC has learned". Meaning that someone in the prosecuting authorities has leaked something. Which could well be an illegal act in itself. Similar to what the papers here are doing inside GSOC.

Maybe Crawley has a contact in the PPS? Not necessarily a leak... anyone can contact their press department seeking info. Wouldn't be unusual for a journalist to be in regular contact with such depts.

Da Shins Kelly

twowheelsgood wrote: »

I think you are making the same error of conflating that the nationalist community in NI did 40 years ago. The problem at the time was that their rights and opportunities were being trodden upon, often with brutal and lethal force. An appropriate response, one which permitted violence to be justly, if counterproductively, applied was to address those actual wrongs, as had been done in other places in the world, the plight of African-Americans in the US being a fairly similar one.

What actually happened is that their laudable civil rights quest came to be conflated with a political, nationalistic quest in the form of a united Ireland project. And the use of force by some within the nationalist community, which should only have been used for the defence of that community, was used as well to further this UI project, against the wishes (in terms of means) of the majority of Irish people even though they did subscribe to the end.

One lingering legacy of this is the hostility that persists for physical force republicans. And this IS the reason for the hostility, not that Southerners did not care what happened to Irish people North of the border (the arms crisis, the burning of the British embassy, the hunger strikes and many other things clearly dispel this myth) or any silly physco-babble about latent guilt or some such nonsense.

And the growing, and welcome, distaste for nationalism is not trendiness or people trying to be cool. Like religion, nationalism of all kinds is on the wane. This is undoubtedly a good thing. You need only take a cursory look at history to see that many of the great horrors of the past, including many committed in the construction of Britain’s empire (a fact missed by almost all republicans!) were done on the name of nationalism in one guise or another.

True, nationalism need not be malign but like religion it gives us nothing we cannot have in other ways. And when it is malign, well look at 1930’s Germany to see what nationalism (or the exploitation of it to be precise) can lead to.

We will be well shut of it when it is gone.

I don't know whether Southerners don't care about what happened north of the border (although I suspect a great many don't), but I certainly think plenty of people in the south don't truly understand what has happened in the north or why the emergence of the IRA was inevitable or why identity is so important to so many people.

Nationalism is an extension of cultural identity in the north, an identity that was consistently challenged and undermined for years. It's very easy for people born in the south in recent decades to say that nationalism or cultural identity or whatever don't matter, but we haven't grown up in a divided society where those things were massively important in binding communities and building morale. The fact is Southerners have not had to think about "who we are" in the way that many in the north have. We just are.

People always mention Nazi Germany in relation to the nationalism argument, but that's not the only brand of nationalism there is. That is nationalism in its extreme, but you can take any movement really and in its extreme it will be bad. We use the example of Nazism as a reason why nationalism is so wrong, but then the Palestinians or the East Timorese or even the Ukrainians now will get the stamp of approval despite the fact that their struggles are based on a sense of national pride.

I don't totally disagree with a lot of what you said, but I think it's a little bit deeper than simply "nationalism is bad and that's that".