Bloody Sunday!

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Where? Most of Ireland is Catholic. Which part of Ireland are you talking about? Northern Ireland is both Catholic and Protestant and part of the UK - is this where you mean? That part is not referred to as 'Ireland', it's Northern Ireland or Ulster. 'Ireland' refers to the Republic of Ireland. You do understand that Northern Ireland is separate from the Republic of Ireland? That's what the commotion is about. If you were to turn up in the Protestant part of Northern Ireland (which I assume you mean, because there really is no Protestant part of Ireland), claiming support for the IRA, do you realise that you might just go home in a box (or at least with a black eye)?

You are correct of course. Yorkshire is God's Own Country, tha knows.

This isn't exactly true - the Republic is far, far more secular. The Irish, in general, hate discussing anything to do with the IRA. The people in the Republic who haven't got anything to do with the IRA will be very pissed off at you mentioning the IRA will be very pissed off with you even mentioning the IRA and the people who helped the IRA either won't admit it or will bully and ridicule you. It's about the most offensive thing you can say to an Irish person, actually, mentioning the IRA on a first meeting. Most Irish people wanted nothing to do with the IRA, and most people in Northern Ireland don't support violence.



Northern Ireland is a vastly complex patchwork of different communities, with differing ideals, identities and loyalties, spread out all over the country. In general, the north and east of Northern Ireland is more likely to be more strongly Unionist, whereas the south and west are more likely to be Nationalist. In general, though.

It's far too complicated a subject to really talk about here and I don't know even 1% of Northern Ireland's history. I'm an outsider, same as you.



Nationalists, especially the extreme kinds, usually they call it "the north of Ireland" or something, or "the six counties" or "the occupied six counties".



Unionists and Loyalists often call Northern Ireland "Ulster" but it's inaccurate as there are nine counties in the Irish province of Ulster, Northern ireland comprising six of them, known jocularly as 'FATLAD'. Fermanagh, Antrim, Tyrone, Londonderry, Armagh, Down.



In the Republic it's often called that, yes, but not many people refer to the Republic as 'Ireland' in Northern Ireland, even though Ireland is the official name of the Republic - they're more likely to refer to it as "the Republic" or "down South", even when going over to County Donegal. The most northerly point in the island of Ireland is located in the Republic, not in Northern Ireland.



He probably does, but he's that difficult to understand and illiterate that I doubt he knows what he's on about.



Yes, indeed. It was about a campaign of murder and terror to force unionists into an all-Ireland state. Loyalists retaliated, beating, torturing and murdering innocent people to death in order to "defend the Union". Disgusting people on both sides.



Send him to The Fountain in Londonderry, the Shankill Road, Sandy Row or the Newtownards Road in Belfast!



A black eye would be the least of his troubles. At best, they would utterly humiliate him. A good outcome would be a very solid beating.

Put it this way, Northern Ireland is a very closed and tight-knit society. Outsiders are very soon sniffed out. English people and non-locals are generally treated with friendliness by the tourism industry and by others, but many locals display a suspicion. Northern Ireland is a very paranoid and wary place still outside the main tourist hotspots and metropolitan areas like south Belfast.

Last edited by Tequila on 10 Jun 2012, 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Better beer from o'er t'big 'ill.

Timothy Taylor would have summat to say about that.

Tequila, I was just trying to illustrate it a bit for Joker, in simple terms, to see if he could understand the flaw in his ideas. As you know, he has it round the wrong way. He says he intends going to the Protestant part of Ireland. I don't even know if he realises that he must be referring to Northern Ireland. He seems to expect to find people who support the IRA among the Protestants there (not the Catholics).

Joker, Are you trying to drive us round the bend, trying to explain this to you?

Sorry, miss. I understand now. It must be frustrating. I was trying to educate thon buck eejit as much as anything.

Neither a cease-fire nor a renunciation of violence has any meaning if the person ceasing their fire has no proverbial stick to back them up. A century of asking politely got the Irish nowhere, but when they asked politely after a few decades of violence, suddenly the other side was willing to talk.
I'm not saying that the tactics of the IRA were completely noble or that it's ok to kill random people with bombs in cafes, but I do understand the motivation and the perceived need behind the IRA.

Edit: just to make it perfectly clear, I DO NOT support violence now that there has been a political adjustment, and I DO NOT support the idiots calling themselves 'The Real IRA' or whatever it is.

Are you sure that's what you meant to write?

The protestants are the reason that Northern Ireland exists as a separate province to begin with. The "Loyalists" are the protestants who wish to remain british citizen in the United Kingdom. The IRA arose out of discontent over partition and its support was overwhelmingly drawn from Roman Catholic communities.

Check the religious affiliations of Gerry Adams and Iain Paisley sometime.

I thought you were merely a romantic before...

Last edited by visagrunt on 11 Jun 2012, 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why is it acceptable for Tequila to call Joker an idiot?
eejit=idiot, Joker. You're being insulted.

Because in the context of both the thread and the forum, it's pretty mild - especially as the "eejit" form is jokey, meant light-heartedly and is about as offensive as calling someone "daft".

Got it. It's okay to call people "eejit".

People know now that Sinn Féin won't go back to violence. Their main job now is keeping their hardcore republican electorate onside - in quite a few republican communities they're considered to have accepted British rule and all the rest of it. Sinn Féin signed the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which recognises Northern Ireland's place in the United Kingdom and enshrines the principle by consent motion.

To put it another way: the IRA lost. More than a few republicans are furious with SF - they didn't murder/die/go to prison for IRA grandees to sit in a British assembly, getting very rich off the British taxpayer thank you very much. Some of these ex-PIRA members are now in dissident republican organisations like CIRA, RIRA and ONH.

What the hell is the difference between what the "good" IRA were murdering and butchering for 1969-1998 and the "bad" IRAs are murdering and butchering for now? They both have precisely the same aims; the RIRA et al just receive far, far less support. They've already murdered two Catholic police officers and planted quite a few bombs already. And then there was the mass-murder by car-bomb at Omagh - an orgy of murder that left 29 people slain and more than 200 injured.

These people are fanatics. The only thing that's changed is that most republicans realised that there was no future in violence and headed down the peaceful route and they were coming under increasing pressure by loyalists to the mass murder campaigns, mainly of innocent members of the Catholic community that they were carrying out, as well as the discussions being held by the British and Irish Government. The Troubles stopped largely because the paramilitary organisations were sick of the bloodshed and the pain.



What on Earth are you talking about? You clearly know very little about Irish and Northern Irish history if you think sectarian conflict started in 1969. There has been sectarian strife, violence and terrorist campaigns in Ireland - North and South - on and off for hundreds of years. There was even an IRA terrorist campaign along the border in the early 1950s, though that held little support.

You need to take a good look at Irish history. The road to the independence of the Republic is mired in both British and Irish blood.

And for your information, Protestants were very much discriminated against at the start of the IFS - revenge attacks were carried out by IRA members on the property and homes of ex-Unionists. The Protestant population of the IFS stood at 10% at independence; it is now only 2%.



Being a census collector or a teenager with the mental age of an eight year old (they kidnapped him and his twin brother from a special needs school, tortured him, let his twin go and shot him in the head) or a random member of the public enjoying a meal in a hotel restaurant or a vehicle carrying Protestants on their way to (or from) work or a relative of a police officer or a retired police officer - of either religion - or a Royal Navy reservist or a Protestant going to church or an English person enjoying a few pints in their local pub or a child enjoying a trip out to Warrington or...

...do you get my point now?



Does that mean you endorse what the IRA did? Shameful.

They were and are psychopaths that unite under a particular flag as a matter of convenience. The only way they will ever be a United Ireland is by consent. The SDLP understood this, although unfortunately nationalists would rather vote for the former political wing of a terrorist organisation instead. With the exception of the small PUP, Unionists never elected the political wing of terrorist organisations in significant numbers.

Last edited by Tequila on 11 Jun 2012, 6:26 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I don't think he knows what he meant to write.



This is true. They imported arms to fight the British Government with if they tried to force Home Rule on them on an all-island basis. The British tried to keep both sides happy as best they could - so Northern Ireland was born.



No, 'loyalists' are almost always Protestants who are prepared and willing to use violence to maintain the status quo or those that defend the record of loyalist paramilitary organisations. Not all loyalists are Unionists however, as there has been an Independent Ulster streak within 'loyalism'. Nasty people though.

Unionists are those people who actively seek to keep Northern Ireland in the UK, although they are almost always constitutional about it.

Some people are pro-Union (or at least pro-status quo) without being unionists.



This is correct.



For many unionists monstrous sectarian bigots like Paisley were a big part of the problem.

And the IRA did nothing to defend these people and retaliate against ethnic cleansing by Ulster scots?


Sometimes I think those Ulster Prods should be deported to Croatia and let the Croats "take care of them......

Quite so, Tequila. My analysis was not nearly as nuanced as the political situation merited.