Bloody Sunday!

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Good question. Ireland wouldn't be using the Euro, for one thing. Catholicism definitely wouldn't be the national religion. People would probably still be trying to shake off English rule - they struggled for 800 years, so I doubt a few more decades would make a difference there. My own ancestors probably wouldn't have emigrated in the 1920s. The IRA (assuming it existed but failed to gain independence) wouldn't have fractured, and might well be a much stronger organization today.

It would make a good topic for one of those "what if" alternate-history novels.

Pretty much this ^^^

I think the problem that some of us have is that the IRA of 1972 were not the idealistic freedom fighters of your romantic notions.

History might vindicate the IRB and its success the IRA for their involvement in the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence. But the actions of the IRA and its many factions during the period from 1968 or 1969 onwards are in a far different category.

Since the 1921 split between the regulars and the irregulars, not one of the groups claiming the title IRA has had clean hands. The 1922-1969 body recognized neither the Irish Republic nor the Province, and they were certainly not representative of the sentiments of the Irish people. Their political flirtations extended to anyone who could have an interest in attacks on Britain, including the Axis powers during World War II (despite Ireland's neutrality) and the Soviets in the 1960's.

The provos split in 1969, leaving the "official" IRA (OIRA), and increasingly irrelevant rump of marxists. It was the provos whose actions stepped up after 1969, (and after Bloody Sunday) and they most certainly were, "the terrorists that they are today."

If you are talking about the IRA that acted in the period from 1916-1921, I will acknowledge that the case might be made for supporting their actions. But no such case can be made for those who acted in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday.

Um they way they acted in the aftermath was justifed. Because the britis killed innocent irishmen in cold blood for protesting in a peacful manner. But afterwards they stopped supporting the IRA when it became about nonsense and just attacking britan.

Are you suggesting that revenge killing is justifiable?

I will willingly admit that prosecution of those responsible for the killings was not possible at the time, and probably isn't even possible now. But I'm not seeing that where "an eye for an eye" was ever justification for killing others, whether they had blood on their hands or not.

If this is truly what you believe, then you do the cause of Irish reunification an enormous disservice.

No I am saying how the Irish responded after the Bloody Sunday killings was justifed.

To what specific response are you referring?

If you are talking about a political response, and public outrage, you will find no argument here.

But this started with your statement that,



For one thing, the provos were by not means near extinction. They had been active during the three years from their split, under the slogan "Victory 1972" (later amended to "Victory 1974"). They were sufficiently active that the British refer to 1970-1972 as, "the insurgency period." Far from reorganizing themselves in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, they swept in opportunistically, using the British violence as a pretext to step up their violence, making 1972 the deadliest year in The Troubles.

All of that is true but the english and britsh only have themselfs to blame for the IRA being created in the first place.

As we are doing a massive rewriting of history in this thread and amusingly, the mods seem to think championing murderers is a ok on this site I would just like to point out that on the 30th of January 1972 brave soldiers of the parachute regiment were attacked and shot at by terrorists and they responded with justifiable force.

I fully support the actions of the parachute regiment and only regret that they didn't kill more terrorists that day.

It is worth noting that the British Army is still in Northern Ireland but nobody is dying. People stopped dying when the terrorist IRA abandoned it's campaign of violence against the people of Northern Ireland. The British Army still have all their guns and yet people aren't being shot, they still have all their explosives and yet people aren't being blown up, so who exactly are the murderers in Northern Ireland, the IRA who murder innocent women and children in cold blood or the military, deployed to try and stop them?

I most certainly do not think it's OK to champion murderers, I think I've made that pretty clear in my posts. But, this is PPR and this is a discussion. You're making a very good argument against the OP and you would not have had the opportunity to do so, had this thread remained locked.

Precisely. The Loyalists and the British Army stopped when the IRA did. There is now a kind of peace in Northern Ireland, although there are still attacks by 'dissident' scum in Londonderry.

Unfortunately, the Republican community continues to commemorate murderers and terrorists up until this very day, and SF (full of ex-Provos) is the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland.

Last edited by Tequila on 08 Jun 2012, 6:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

Indeed - it's basically saying that because we disagree with what has happened, we will go out and murder pensioners.

Vile, vile people all round.

You really should make up your mind, DC, but in any case I would strongly advise you to stop insinuating that the moderation team is championing murderers on the basis that we allow a discussion to continue in PPR, because that's sailing very close to being a personal attack.

Earlier you were expecting us to make a moral judgement on this thread yet normally, you would be one of the first to complain if we had.
Earlier still you said this: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4667611.html#4667611

Last time I checked "freedom of speech and thought" consisted of allowing the expression of things generally held to be good and wholesome - and a stack more that isn't - so maybe that's something you could do with learning.
If it's Ok for "Westerners" to complain about Islam then it's equally Ok for "an Irishman" to romanticise the IRA - however misguided or distasteful either might appear to others.

This thread is permitted by the rules but perhaps a further explanation will help give you a better understanding of how it works out in PPR:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4674270.html#4674270

That is a blanket statement that is untrue in my experience