IRA- heroes or villains?

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I'm interested in peoples views on the IRA, particularly as we have many Americans here so i'd like to get an american perspective.

That depends entirely on faction and time period.

What Guppy said in essence, however I presume you mean the "Real IRA" who went around blowing stuff up.

Villains. Not the only villains (the British Army waves), but still villains.

I'll give some examples.

Current splinters calling themselves IRA - bad people, bad actions, bad intentions.

The IRA of the Troubles - Did some idiotic, unnecessary BS, but had good intentions.

The IRA of the Irish War of Independence? Heroes.

For example.

The conventional modern IRA, but perhaps with an emphasis of the circa: 1980's period; the H-block hunger strikers. Whatever your politics, or views on Irish Republicanism you have to give them credit.

Not many of their opponents, or for that matter partisan combatants believe so much in their cause they are prepared to starve to death for them.

I assume you would approve of SS Selbst stoerben abtielungen ( SS suicide squads).

ruveyn

Vermin. As were ALL other paramilitary organisations.

Villains. They're terrorists who use the past to justify and dredge up hate, and murder innocents, as well as police and soldiers who have no idea of impending danger. They're no different from the KKK in this country, or Al Qaeda in the Islamic world.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Depends on where you live.

They ran a very successful military campaign against the UK with a relatively small amount of civilian casualties considering where the battleground was held. Provisional IRA.

Should never have given up their arms though. Disarming is a defeat in a way. Keeping arms lets the opposition know you're always ready to go back (even though it's easy to acquire arms, it's the principle of the matter).

I'm sure these guys would be quite insulted.

Well, I suppose it's alright if you think that an organisation being responsible for thousands of avoidable deaths - murders - is "relatively small".

They're all scum. La Mon, Kingsmills, Abercorn, Teebane, Enniskillen, Darkley, Omagh, Claudy, Bloody Friday, Warrington, Birmingham... scum.

And for the Loyalist side: Dublin and Monaghan, McGuirk's Bar, Shankill Butchers and many, many sectarian butcherings and numerous bombings of innocent Catholics, the Glenanne gang, the loyalist involvement at Drumcree, Rising Sun and so on.

Scumbags all.

I agree. It was a very dirty business with Mafia style doling out of jobs, corruption, torture and murders at all levels on all sides. Even the British army wasn't always the peaceful peacemaker portrayed in the press. A very long time ago I had a girlfriend from the Catholic quarter of Northern Ireland and she told me how her brother (who was a political sympathiser of sin-fein but not a member of the IRA) was deliberately blown up in a bomb set by some British soldiers as revenge over one of their own being blown up by an IRA bomb. She had no reason to lie to me about this incident. It was a vicious and bloody business for everyone concerned on all sides.

I don't like the categories of "hero" and "villain". When you engage in terrorism, you will always attract villains to your cause, even if the cause is heroic. There is no way to engage in terrorism and come out with clean hands. I prefer the categories of "justifiable" and "unjustifiable". The IRA were "justifiable" for most of their existence.

Last edited by Declension on 07 Aug 2012, 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Pre-1998 it didn't really make much difference. SF was the political wing of the IRA.

If you believe that a band of undemocratic thugs murdering and bombing innocent people in pursuit of their goal - a "United Ireland" (ha!) - is "justifiable", then I would call your approach morally dubious.

The civil rights issue was basically sorted in the early 1970s. Any continued mistreatment of the Nationalist population is largely due to the PIRA's "war" against the British.

So you agree with me that the IRA were justifiable for most of their existence?