To the people who say the troubles was not a war

Exactly, many of the people commenting on this thread are delusional and have a strong sense of hatred to the IRA in comparison to other armed groups/armies like the old IRA or US forces who they could use the exact same and far worse reasons for hating so much, they have this attitude due to propaganda campaigns in Irish media designed to hurt Sinn Féins support.

I could guarantee most of these hardcore anti IRA people are avid readers of the independent which is known to be by far the most strongly against Sinn Féin and has been forced to apologise to Sinn Féin on numerous occasions.

They are the same thing, Sinn Féin was the political wing of the IRA, Sinn Féin is all that's left of the IRA which is now the most popular party both sides of the border which was the exact IRA strategy to take over the world of politics as the means of achieving their aims.

Ah come on, for my láí Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest.

You are completely and utterly delusional, you would justify the killing of a hundred civilians just to take out one vietnamese soldier and you consider that OK.

The amount of ammunition fired per soldier was 26 times greater in Vietnam than during World War II. By the end of the conflict, America had unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs on Vietnam.

Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air and strafed by helicopter gunships before ground troops went in on search-and-destroy missions.

The phrase "kill anything that moves" became an order on the lips of some American commanders whose troops carried out massacres across their area of operations.

While the US suffered more than 58,000 dead in the war, an estimated two million Vietnamese civilians were killed, another 5.3 million injured and about 11 million, by US government figures, became refugees in their own country.

Today, if people remember anything about American atrocities in Vietnam, they recall the March 1968 My Lai massacre in which more than 500 civilians were killed over the course of four hours, during which US troops even took time out to eat lunch.

Far bloodier operations, like one codenamed Speedy Express, should be remembered as well, but thanks to cover-ups at the highest levels of the US military, few are.

Who is the real monster here? Me for supporting the IRA or you for supporting this? This is from the BBC, mainstream media is rarely allowed to talk about this sort of stuff until 50 years later after the war ends when no one cares anymore.

Oh come on, if you asked people would they be in favour of stopping the deaths of millions of children in Africa who starve to death every year I'm sure most people would say yes, if you asked them would they be in favour of it if it meant them paying more taxes the answer might change significantly.

If a referendum was held on unification and we got into an actual debate and real talk about it then without a doubt most people would be in favour of it.

Ask any question with the phrase ''if it meant paying more taxes'' answers will change significantly.

The reason Northern Ireland costs so much is because it is effectively it's own country that would change significantly under unification, take any random 6 counties in the Republic of Ireland and make them a country within the UK and the same thing would happen.

The quote that people in the South could ''care less'' about Northern Ireland is a fairly recent trend only emerging in the last 15 or 20 years but still does not hold up to the opinions of the majority who think all of Ireland is important.

Me personally could care less about Roscommon or Longford, I think awful Offaly might be the absolute worst place to visit in Ireland, very flat and boring with little of interest and lets be honest, not the nicest of folk.

Indeed a place that any sensible tourist would always avoid but that's just my opinion like you have yours on 6 counties of Ireland but all 32 counties are a part of Ireland and should be treated as such.