Bloody Sunday!

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What I'm trying to say is that it's a damn complicated issue and is far more complex than the black and white worldviews of the extremists.

so many pages of partly well-researched, partly just dull fuss about whos to blame for people killing each other.. i never had anything against nationalism (just because i dont understand it doesnt mean i see anything wrong with it) and the troubles are an interesting topic for a political debate (when one bothers to analyse the sequence of historical events and their impacts), but actually taking sides in a conflict like this is like choosing one murderer over the other and personally i cant think of a justification for an "opinion" like that.

You do know that the Protestants in NI are the Loyalists, and that the Republicans are Catholic? And most folk on both sides of the divide just want a quiet life.

Oh right. Never mind. I thought you were talking about the folk who live there.

My head hurts.

Joker, I'm really not getting you at all.

Let's forget about the rights and wrongs of paramilitaries for a minute. I think they're wrong, but this post is not about that.

We have sectarianism here in Scotland, brought about because of the situation in Northern Ireland - we have a lot of immigration from Ireland and Northern Ireland here. So, I'm really familiar with how the connection between religion and political belief works in NI. A Catholic would traditionally be on the side of the republicans (the ones the IRA are 'fighting' for). A Protestant here would traditionally support the loyalists (the ones the UVF are 'fighting' for). Of course there are exceptions, but for Protestants in America to support the cause of the IRA (or to have republican leanings), whilst Catholics do not support it, is back to front. Is your Irish ancestry Protestant or has your religion come from some other part of Europe? If your Irish ancestor was Protestant, that would more than likely mean that they came from Northern Ireland (not necessarily, but it's the most likely scenario) and, being Protestant, they probably had British, not Irish ancestry. Therefore, they would probably be loyalist, in opposition to the IRA's cause.

BTW I have ancestors from both sides, a great-grandfather who was a Protestant from Belfast, who came to Scotland and married my great-grandmother, who was Catholic, with Irish parents.