Martin Sheen proud of uncle's IRA past

[IAN 2411]

Hollywood actor Martin Sheen has declared himself proud of his uncle's IRA past.

The star said he was also relieved to discover that his mother's brother, Michael Fieland, from Co Tipperary, had no part in the assassination of Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins.

Sheen found out about his close family links to Ireland's War of Independence while taking part in the US version of the hit genealogy television series Who Do You Think You Are?. The 71-year-old visited Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol and spent time in the cell where it is believed his uncle was incarcerated.

"I'm enormously proud of him," he said. "I would like to hope that if I had been here in Ireland at the time, I would have followed him. And I would have been as committed as he was."

Best known for his roles in Apocalypse Now, Wall Street and the television series West Wing, he described his uncle as an Irish volunteer. The actor said Fieland went on to fight against the Free State side, who supported the Anglo-Irish treaty, during the resulting Civil War in the early 1920s.

Sheen was concerned about what the TV researchers would turn up. "When I was in Ireland and discovering the involvement of my uncle in the Rising and the Civil War, because he took an opposing side to (Eamon) de Valera, I was afraid he might have been in on the plan to assassinate Mick Collins," he said.

"But as it turned out he was in prison when Mick Collins was assassinated and I was deeply relieved
.................................................. ..........................

Martin Sheen.......= Ramon Antonio Gerard Esteves....Call me paddy O’Esteves. I am proud to be associated with the terrorist organisation the IRA.

Barrack Obama.....=President of the USA......I am proud of my ancestral past in Africa and Ireland, so call me paddy O’bama. His uncle and grandfather I believe were in the Mau-Mau, a terrorist organisation that rebelled against the government. The Mau-Mau killed no end of innocent civilians by beheading them, women, children and babies. They dismembered mothers in front of the children before raping and killing the children, and Obama is proud of them. I might add that although the British killed most of the Mau-Mau, it was an elected Kenyan government that employed the British. There’s that terrorist word again.

To admit to something like that, just shows me how much the American privileged; love to be associated with terrorists. It must give them a buzz knowing they are sticking their finger up to the rest of the world. Sticking their finger up to just about anyone that is not, terrorist related. They love sticking their finger up to all those innocent people that were killed in horrendous ways for a terrorist ideal.

Who is next I wonder to admit they are proud to be assosiated with terrorists? Would either Sheen or Obama be spouting off their mouth’s if they were related to El-Quada?

Be well IAN 2411

PS

By the way paddy O’Esteves, just because he was in prison does not mean he had nothing to do with the assassination, you stupid asshole.

[denuseri]

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

[Thorne]

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

LOL! I was just going to say the same thing! Only about 15 hours too late.

[IAN 2411]

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.LOL! I was just going to say the same thing! Only about 15 hours too late.
I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”

Or other “Freedom Fighters” killed your mother, brother, sibling by blowing them to pieces while they peacefully shopped in Omagh. Are you changing the name so that you feel better? Or are you just burying your head in the sand like an Ostrich?

Be well IAN 2411

[lucy]

Or English troops killing your family, just because you happen to be Irish. Or, English settlers putting a price tag on your head, just because you're an aborigine living in Tasmania.

Look, Ian, the brits have fucked so many millions of people up their arse over the years, they shouldn't cry murder too loud when somebody shoots back.
I don't say it's right what the IRA did, but there are a lot of people could say the same about you when you say "I'm proud to be Brit."

[IAN 2411]

I
Or English troops killing your family, just because you happen to be Irish.
I am at a loss to understand that statement


Or, English settlers putting a price tag on your head, just because you're an aborigine living in Tasmania.
Look, Ian, the brits have fucked so many millions of people up their arse over the years, they shouldn't cry murder too loud when somebody shoots back.
I don't say it's right what the IRA did, but there are a lot of people could say the same about you when you say "I'm proud to be Brit."
There is a big difference when saying you’re proud to be American/English/Swiss/Any Country. To be related to a terrorist group and be proud? I would also like to point out if you haven’t been reading the papers, the IRA are still a terrorist group and are still active. They are over in foreign countries, and they are training Al Quada. They are training them to blow up anything that does not conform to their fanatical Muslim ideal. The IRA, only know how to kill and now there is an end to the violence in Province, they have decided to bring their war to the mainland. Teaching their disgusting trade of violence to people that don’t give a damn whether you are Brit, Swiss or American or any other European national. They can only see the infidel, and a person that will not bow down to Allah that has to be destroyed any, which-way.

I am proud to be a Brit, but I don’t have to be proud of the way things were done by the English a hundred or more years before I was born. I would like to point out as well that neither do I care because it stopped a long time before I was born. [The IRA, have not]

There is not a Kenyan that would hold his/her hand up and say they were proud to have ancestors fighting in the Mau-Mau.

I doubt either that you would find any Irish person say they were proud to be related to IRA scum, because the IRA were as wicked to their own, as much, if not more, than they were with the British soldier.

The difference is Barrack Obama and Martin Sheen, by saying such insulting things to Joe public, thinks it makes them look stronger than the small person they really are. They are with the privileged few that get where they are on the backs of others beliefs and money, and should show more respect.

However, lucy...I do understand what you are saying and your points are valid.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”
What I found amusing was the denuseri had the EXACT same thought that I had, to the exact words! While I can understand, sometimes, the need to kill to defend one's country/family, I don't find any kind of killing to be funny, regardless of who's doing it.

But the statement is nonetheless true, for the most part. Whether a group is termed Terrorist or Freedom Fighter can all-too-often depend on who's doing the naming. During WW2, the French Underground were considered patriots by the French, but criminals by the Germans. The American's who rebelled against England were, for the most part, considered criminals and even terrorists (though I doubt they used that term) by the British troops and the Loyalist civilians. Especially those "irregular" units that used guerrilla tactics, such as Francis Marion's group. Even those as nasty as the IRA and al-Qaeda are considered heroes by at least some of their own people.

For my part, when you start deliberately targeting civilians rather than military or infrastructure, you are crossing the line into terrorism. But even that line is blurred. Were the men who bombed German (or English) cities in WW2 acting as military units or as terrorists? When bombing factories, for example, there's little to question. But what about the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, for example? Where they actually aiming at military targets, or terrorizing civilians?

Again, it's all a question of who's doing the defining.

[IAN 2411]

Noun 1. terrorist - a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities

act of terrorism, terrorism, terrorist act- the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear

radical cell, terrorist cell - a cell of terrorists (usually 3 to 5 members); "to insure operational security the members of adjacent terrorist cells usually don't know each other or the identity of their leadership"

cyber-terrorist, cyberpunk, hacker - a programmer who breaks into computer systems in order to steal or change or destroy information as a form of cyber-terrorism

Jacobin - a member of the radical movement that instituted the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution

radical - a person who has radical ideas or opinions

sleeper - a spy or saboteur or terrorist planted in an enemy country who lives there as a law-abiding citizen until activated by a prearranged signal

suicide bomber - a terrorist who blows himself up in order to kill or injure other people



I had to check it out to answer your post Thorne.

But what about the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, for example? Where they actually aiming at military targets, or terrorizing civilians?

I don’t think there is any doubt in my mind that the allies can say what they like, but in the end they were atrocities. If the Germans had won the war and so too the Japanese, then again there is no doubt in my mind that the British and American high command would have been on trial for war crimes. However, we all know that the winners of wars will never admit guilt.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

I don’t think there is any doubt in my mind that the allies can say what they like, but in the end they were atrocities.
I agree. Atrocities by anybody's standards. Acts of terror in fact, designed to achieve a political as well as a military goal.


If the Germans had won the war and so too the Japanese, then again there is no doubt in my mind that the British and American high command would have been on trial for war crimes.
Which goes right along with denuseri's and my statement that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, or patriot.


However, we all know that the winners of wars will never admit guilt.
History tends to be written by the winners. A fact of life. If the German's had won, the London blitz would have been portrayed in a much better light, much as Dresden was. A sad necessity of combat.

[denuseri]

I find it strange that you find something so serious so amusing. I wonder if you would be saying the same remark if it were your mother being hacked to death in front of you by these “Freedom Fighters.”

Or other “Freedom Fighters” killed your mother, brother, sibling by blowing them to pieces while they peacefully shopped in Omagh. Are you changing the name so that you feel better? Or are you just burying your head in the sand like an Ostrich?

Be well IAN 2411

Oh I wasn't joking around hon...and I have no clue as to why you would think so or try to make this personnel. Although you may claim to not know ...I'm of mixed American and Lebanese /Jewish heritage and it's no secret I was born in Beirut in 1979 and have lost several family members from all three sides to the war I was born into.

Personally I could care less if the Sheen's are proud of whatever they wish to be proud of. I was simply pointing out that there are indeed two or more sides to the topic you presented and that from their "respective" perspectives their point of view concerning themselves and the actions of what they consider to be their enemies is, are, and has been, equally valid in their own eyes.

[ksst]

If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud...

says Arlo Guthrie, and ksst, who is a dirty hippy at heart, even though slightly too young for it.

[js207]

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

So what freedom do you think Mohamed Atta was fighting for on 9/11?

[Thorne]

So what freedom do you think Mohamed Atta was fighting for on 9/11?
Just off the top of my head, perhaps freedom from American involvement in Middle East affairs? Or maybe just the freedom to determine his own fate. Doesn't matter, though. I'm sure HE had what he believed were valid reasons for what he did. And I'm sure there are a lot of people in the Muslim world who regard him as a Freedom Fighter and not a terrorist. That's the point.

[js207]

And I'm sure there are a lot of people in the Muslim world who regard him as a Freedom Fighter and not a terrorist. That's the point.

A false dichotomy at best. Terrorism is committing the war crime of targeting civilians to get your way - whether that goal is "freedom" or anything else. The guys in Libya fighting against Gaddaffi's regime? Not terrorists: they were fighting Gaddaffi's military. If they'd hidden and fired missiles into or planted bombs in the middle of Tripoli then they'd have been terrorists - as well as rather less popular, of course, and less likely to be seen as fighting against oppression.

As for 'freedom to determine his own fate', Atta had that from the outset: born in Egypt, studied in Germany then trained in Afghanistan. He could have killed himself any time he wanted, but he wanted to deprive thousands of other people of that right - the very antithesis of a "freedom fighter". Ironically, of course, by bringing about the fall of the Taleban it could be argued he did indirectly bring some freedom to Afghanistan, but I somehow doubt that was his intent!

[Thorne]

Terrorism is committing the war crime of targeting civilians to get your way - whether that goal is "freedom" or anything else.
Like firebombing entire cities to "reduce the enemy's resistance"? It's a matter of perspective. If you're in one of the planes dropping the bombs, it's a cruel but necessary strategy. If you're in the city it's a terrorist act.


The guys in Libya fighting against Gaddaffi's regime? Not terrorists: they were fighting Gaddaffi's military.
I'm sure the soldiers thought they were terrorists, or rebels, or whatever other name they might put on them.


If they'd hidden and fired missiles into or planted bombs in the middle of Tripoli then they'd have been terrorists - as well as rather less popular, of course, and less likely to be seen as fighting against oppression.
Naturally, the people who were being bombed wouldn't particularly like them. But if they were doing those things in, say, Chad or Tunisia, the Libyan people would consider them Freedom Fighters.


As for 'freedom to determine his own fate', Atta had that from the outset: born in Egypt, studied in Germany then trained in Afghanistan. He could have killed himself any time he wanted, but he wanted to deprive thousands of other people of that right - the very antithesis of a "freedom fighter".
It makes me think of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and other royalty, who killed dozens, if not hundreds, of their loyal subjects to have servants in the afterlife. It's a case of being afraid to face death alone, so they have to bring as many people along with them as possible. I suppose they figure that they can get lost in the crowd and their god won't realize they've slipped into heaven, or wherever.

But regardless of Atta's motives or methods, I can pretty much guarantee that there are those who felt he was justified, and died to set his people free from the Great Satan.

[denuseri]

Or if they dressed up as native Americans and sneaked on board a British ship and dumped all the tea in the bay?

According to some:

There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. Political psychologist Jerrold Post has suggested that Atta and his fellow hijackers were just following orders from Al Qaeda leadership, "and whatever their destructive, charismatic leader, Osama bin Laden said was the right thing to do for the sake of the cause was what they would do." In turn, political scientist Robert Pape has claimed that Atta was motivated by his commitment to the political cause, that he was psychologically normal, and that he was “not readily characterized as depressed, not unable to enjoy life, not detached from friends and society.” [/URL] By contrast, criminal justice professor Adam Lankford has found evidence that Atta was clinically suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, hopelessness, and rage were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and murder-suicide. By this view, Atta’s political and religious beliefs affected the method of his suicide and his choice of target, but they were not the underlying causes of his behavior. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Atta#cite_note-107"] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Atta#cite_note-106)

Keep in mind none of the above actually examined the man face to face in so far as I know.

I am sure he felt perfectly justified in his own mind for his actions and did not in the slightest way paint himself as the bad guy any more than Hitler or Stalin painted themselves in such light...or for that matter George Washington or Boudicca or Spartacus or any other number of people who resort to violence to solve their problems etc etc.

[js207]

I'm sure the soldiers thought they were terrorists, or rebels, or whatever other name they might put on them.

Rebels, yes - they were rebelling against Gaddaffi's regime - and as that conflict went on, quite a few of his troops decided the rebels were actually the lesser evil - but "terrorist" is not just a label: it has an actual meaning. Maybe some of Gaddaffi's troops did believe that label fitted the rebels, just as some of the Taleban mistakenly believed the Northern Alliance were Christian rather than Muslim, but neither makes it true or changes the actual meaning of the word being misused.

The bombing of Dresden was legally questionable, in part because the relevant law had last been updated in 1907 when the nearest equivalent would have been firing rather inaccurate artillery pieces in that direction, though there was certainly no clear-cut prohibition. This was a factor in the subsequent Geneva Conventions. Terrorism, though? No: it was direct destruction of enemy assets, rather than a psychological ploy.


But regardless of Atta's motives or methods, I can pretty much guarantee that there are those who felt he was justified, and died to set his people free from the Great Satan.

No, not to set anyone free - just to hurt their enemy. Never mind freedom, it's about hurting someone you hate. We all know there were those in the Middle East who literally cheered the massacre, but "set his people free"? Pull the other one.

[Thorne]

but "terrorist" is not just a label: it has an actual meaning.
I agree. But one of the problems of civilization is trying to get people to agree on those meanings. While we in the West might view the act of flying planes into buildings to be terrorism, can we be sure that all other cultures see it the same way? My observations, cynical though they may be, shows that if they do it to us, it's terrorism, but if we do it to them, it's patriotism.

Maybe some of Gaddaffi's troops did believe that label fitted the rebels, just as some of the Taleban mistakenly believed the Northern Alliance were Christian rather than Muslim, but neither makes it true or changes the actual meaning of the word being misused.


No: it was direct destruction of enemy assets, rather than a psychological ploy.
It was the indiscriminate destruction of assets along with men, women and children, without consideration of who would be harmed. Industry or military assets were not the target. The entire city was the target. And there was a psychological component as well. It was believed by some that such destruction would provide the impetus for the German people to rise up against their government. Of course, it did just the opposite.


No, not to set anyone free - just to hurt their enemy.
Which is the point of any war, is it not? Each individual action is designed not to win the war, but to hurt the enemy. It's the total accumulation of such actions which determine who wins or loses. Along with the enemy's ability, and determination, to absorb such hurt while causing as much hurt to you as possible.

[js207]

I agree. But one of the problems of civilization is trying to get people to agree on those meanings. While we in the West might view the act of flying planes into buildings to be terrorism, can we be sure that all other cultures see it the same way? My observations, cynical though they may be, shows that if they do it to us, it's terrorism, but if we do it to them, it's patriotism.

It's not about "civilisation", but a simple matter of linguistics: 'terrorism' is an English word used to describe a particular type of act, the instillation of terror. It isn't a moral judgement, it's a particular tactic. One most of us in the West, excluding Martin Sheen, consider wrong, but that's another issue. If you were to ask anyone in Al Qaeda and get a candid response, they would agree it is indeed terrorism, they are a terrorist group - they just believe their terrorism is morally right and that terror is an appropriate tactic for them to use.

(I did feel from the outset that 'war on terror' was a stupid name, analogous to 'war on pincer movements' or 'war on vertical envelopment' - though of course the more accurate 'war on Islamic extremists' would be politically problematic and 'war on Al Qaeda' raises the obvious but awkward question of 'so why are you fighting the Taleban then'.)


It was the indiscriminate destruction of assets along with men, women and children, without consideration of who would be harmed. Industry or military assets were not the target. The entire city was the target. And there was a psychological component as well. It was believed by some that such destruction would provide the impetus for the German people to rise up against their government. Of course, it did just the opposite.

I've italicised the key bit there: yes, 'the entire city' was targeted, and legally the city as a whole was a valid target. A target was prohibited only if completely free from military value.


Which is the point of any war, is it not? Each individual action is designed not to win the war, but to hurt the enemy. It's the total accumulation of such actions which determine who wins or loses. Along with the enemy's ability, and determination, to absorb such hurt while causing as much hurt to you as possible.

It's a bit more selective than that: not 'hurt the enemy' but 'hurt the enemy's military' - more recently, trying much harder to minimise damage to non-military aspects.

[Thorne]

It's not about "civilisation", but a simple matter of linguistics: 'terrorism' is an English word used to describe a particular type of act, the instillation of terror.
Linguistically speaking, you are right. An act of terror can be a legitimate military tactic. But I maintain that a terrorist is a label which may be applied differently by the perpetrators of the act and its victims.


yes, 'the entire city' was targeted, and legally the city as a whole was a valid target. A target was prohibited only if completely free from military value.
I imagine the citizens of Dresden would question the legality. As would the citizens of London, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What about Nanking, then? Would the atrocities performed there be considered a "legal" act? They were, after all, supporting the enemy.


It's a bit more selective than that: not 'hurt the enemy' but 'hurt the enemy's military'
Exactly! It's doubtful that the bombing of Dresden, for example, did anything to "hurt" the German military. They were already hurt badly, and the actual area of the city destroyed had little or no military significance. It can be argued that it was, indeed, an act of terror. And I will agree that the acts perpetrated on 9/11/01 were acts of terror as well, by anyone's definition. My only point is that those who committed the acts, whether in New York or Germany, were considered patriots by their own people.

[js207]

Linguistically speaking, you are right. An act of terror can be a legitimate military tactic. But I maintain that a terrorist is a label which may be applied differently by the perpetrators of the act and its victims.

It may be misused, yes - as is true of most words.


I imagine the citizens of Dresden would question the legality. As would the citizens of London, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What about Nanking, then? Would the atrocities performed there be considered a "legal" act? They were, after all, supporting the enemy.

Nanking, no, because civilians were targeted - which is and was a war crime. In a nutshell, if I shoot at you, a civilian, or drop a bomb aimed at your house, it's illegal; if I shoot at the enemy soldier next to you, or drop a bomb on the barracks next door to your house, that's fine, even if you die as a result.


Exactly! It's doubtful that the bombing of Dresden, for example, did anything to "hurt" the German military. They were already hurt badly, and the actual area of the city destroyed had little or no military significance. It can be argued that it was, indeed, an act of terror. And I will agree that the acts perpetrated on 9/11/01 were acts of terror as well, by anyone's definition. My only point is that those who committed the acts, whether in New York or Germany, were considered patriots by their own people.

Conflating "little or no military significance" misses the point, since the law protects only the latter situation. The general consensus seems to be that they had little military significance, which makes the attacks lawful. (In 1963, a Japanese judicial review disagreed, but the ruling rested in part on a piece of international law which had been drafted but never actually signed or accepted.)

You're getting caught in false dichotomies here, too. Most of the 9/11 hijackers, along with bin Laden himself, are arguably considered traitors not patriots, being Saudi nationals (at least until they revoked OBL's citizenship) - a country which was, at the time, partly defended by the US military from the hostile country next door - and of course whether their actions were considered patriotic or not by their own supporters, it doesn't stop them also being terrorism. McVeigh's antigovernment actions probably have a better claim to the "patriot" label from his supporters than Al Qaeda's, considering that group doesn't even have a home country or common nationality, but certainly qualify as terrorism, don't they?

[Thorne]

Nanking, no, because civilians were targeted - which is and was a war crime. In a nutshell, if I shoot at you, a civilian, or drop a bomb aimed at your house, it's illegal; if I shoot at the enemy soldier next to you, or drop a bomb on the barracks next door to your house, that's fine, even if you die as a result.
The problem is that the Allies did NOT bomb military targets, specifically. They bombed the entire city! Indiscriminately. They weren't aiming at the barracks next door, they were aiming at everything. Hospitals, churches, stores, homes, everything. Regardless of military significance.


whether their actions were considered patriotic or not by their own supporters, it doesn't stop them also being terrorism.
No, it does not. I'm not denying that fact at all. Only that there ARE supporters who consider them to be patriots. That's the point of the statement made by denuseri: "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter."

And I make the same claim about those who orchestrated the fire-bombings of German cities, or Japanese cities, or the indiscriminate bombings of English cities, or the atomic bombings of Japanese cities. To some, the men who performed these acts are considered heroes and patriots. to others they are no different than terrorists. It's all a matter of your point of view.

[js207]

The problem is that the Allies did NOT bomb military targets, specifically. They bombed the entire city! Indiscriminately. They weren't aiming at the barracks next door, they were aiming at everything. Hospitals, churches, stores, homes, everything. Regardless of military significance.

Yes, as I said, 'the entire city' was a legitimate target. If Bomber Command had gone "hey, let's send the whole combined RAF-USAF strike force against Fritz's Bratwursts, that asshole short-changed me in 1935" it would be against the rules - but "let's destroy Dresden" was not, even though it happened to include said sausage vendor.


No, it does not. I'm not denying that fact at all. Only that there ARE supporters who consider them to be patriots. That's the point of the statement made by denuseri: "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter."

Being a "patriot" in someone's mind doesn't stop you being a terrorist - nor does it make you a "freedom fighter". Yes, of course they have supporters, that doesn't stop them being contemptible. I find Sheen's position as disgusting as that of the Palestinians and other Middle Easterners who cheered the 9/11 attacks, don't you? The equivalency denseri implies is false: a 'freedom fighter' is not just terrorist you agree with. When you plant a car bomb in a row of shops, then phone in a bomb warning giving the wrong location so people get evacuated towards it to maximise casualties, that is not "freedom fighting" or a war, it's terrorism - whoever the civilians may be, whatever side you're on, whatever your aim.

In short: Denuseri's statement is wrong - terrorism and "freedom fighter" are not a question of which side you are on, but what that entity does. What Al Qaeda and the IRA do is terrorism, whether you support them or not; dumping tea in the sea in Boston and fighting off enemy troops is not.


And I make the same claim about those who orchestrated the fire-bombings of German cities, or Japanese cities, or the indiscriminate bombings of English cities, or the atomic bombings of Japanese cities. To some, the men who performed these acts are considered heroes and patriots. to others they are no different than terrorists. It's all a matter of your point of view.

No - there were and are rules, agreed to by both sides. The Blitz was not "terrorism" nor a war crime, but a war fought by uniformed troops bound by those laws.

[Thorne]

Yes, as I said, 'the entire city' was a legitimate target. If Bomber Command had gone "hey, let's send the whole combined RAF-USAF strike force against Fritz's Bratwursts, that asshole short-changed me in 1935" it would be against the rules - but "let's destroy Dresden" was not, even though it happened to include said sausage vendor.
I disagree, obviously. If they had said, "Let's bomb Ernst's Explosive Emporium" and it just so happened that Fritz's Bratwurst factory was right next door, then Fritz is out of luck, certainly. But targeting the center of the city and ignoring the rail yards and factories on the outskirts? That's terrorism.


I find Sheen's position as disgusting as that of the Palestinians and other Middle Easterners who cheered the 9/11 attacks, don't you?
Of course I do! But I also sympathize with the Irish desire to free themselves from British domination. If they had limited their attacks to only military and political targets, and avoided targeting civilians directly, they would be considered "freedom fighters" rather than terrorists. Right?


terrorism and "freedom fighter" are not a question of which side you are on, but what that entity does. What Al Qaeda and the IRA do is terrorism, whether you support them or not; dumping tea in the sea in Boston and fighting off enemy troops is not.
Again, linguistically you are correct. But in the minds and hearts of the people affected, you're wrong. Dumping tea into Boston harbor was economic terrorism, if you happened to own that tea, or were dependent upon the tax revenues that tea would have brought in. If you're benefiting from the freedom that the act helped to bring about, though, it was an act of patriotism.


No - there were and are rules, agreed to by both sides.
Not always. I don't believe the Japanese, for example, signed the Geneva Convention. Nor did the USSR.


The Blitz was not "terrorism" nor a war crime, but a war fought by uniformed troops bound by those laws.
It may not have been a war crime, but it was most certainly terrorism. It was intended to weaken civilian resolve for carrying on the war, to put political pressure on the British government. The target was not military or industrial sites, but civilians and their homes. What difference whether the bomber was wearing a uniform or a business suit? The intentions, and the effects, are the same.

[IAN 2411]

I will agree that the acts perpetrated on 9/11/01 were acts of terror as well, by anyone's definition.


I have to disagree, along with, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the above were atrocities. They were destruction causing the slaughter of innocent lives to make a point. The 9/11 conspirators terrorised no one, because the world was already alert to Al Qaedas methods of wanton destruction. The only people that can be terrorised are those that know something painfully bad is imminently going to take place involving them personally.

Please explain to me your reason in saying, that Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki was terrorism? It was calculated civilian slaughter of an unequalled nature. They was also three of the biggest atrocities in WW2.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

I have to disagree, along with, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the above were atrocities. They were destruction causing the slaughter of innocent lives to make a point.
Yes, they were atrocities. They were also acts of terrorism.


The 9/11 conspirators terrorised no one
No one? How many people are still afraid to fly? How many people get worked up by the very sight of a dark skinned man with a beard on a plane? If no one is terrified, why are so many people being inconvenienced by the TSA and Homeland Security?


The only people that can be terrorised are those that know something painfully bad is imminently going to take place involving them personally.
Or those who are afraid of something bad that might happen to them personally.


Please explain to me your reason in saying, that Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki was terrorism? It was calculated civilian slaughter of an unequalled nature. They was also three of the biggest atrocities in WW2.
They were all intended to get the surviving civilian populations to force their governments to end the war. In the case of Dresden, the area of the city which was bombed had virtually no military value, and so IMO had no military justification. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, on the other hand, were valid military targets, filled with war industry and military units. The fact that they also sufficed to bring the Japanese government to surrender, thereby potentially saving far more lives than they took, may provide some justification for them. That does not make them any less horrific, nor does it deny that they were ultimately acts of terrorism. Just that, as far as the Allied nations were concerned, they were "good" acts of terrorism.

[js207]

But targeting the center of the city and ignoring the rail yards and factories on the outskirts? That's terrorism.

It could conceivably have been a war crime, if the middle of the city contained no military assets: there's no requirement to go for the "best" or biggest target. Also bear in mind the original accounts were deliberately inflated for propaganda reasons, increasing the claimed death toll by almost an entire order of magnitude compared to subsequent German figures. It wasn't like modern guided missiles, which you can fly between buildings to reach a target - targeting was more "should we hit this city, or that one?" In Dresden's case, the target area was several miles wide!

Moreover, it seems the Germans were holding POWs in those rail yards, which may have made bombing them rather less appealing to the Allies.


Not always. I don't believe the Japanese, for example, signed the Geneva Convention. Nor did the USSR.

The four Geneva Conventions we know as 'the Geneva Convention' today was agreed in 1949, then ratified by Japan, the US, UK and USSR in 1953, 1955, 1957 and 1960 respectively. The laws of war in force during WWII were, as I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, older - including the First Geneva Convention of 1864, ratified by all those countries (except of course Russia wasn't the USSR in those days) back in the 19th century.


What difference whether the bomber was wearing a uniform or a business suit?

For one thing, it's the difference between war and war crime: wearing a uniform is a requirement of the laws of war. Remember all those movie scenes with captives being "shot as spies" if they're out of uniform?

[denuseri]

lol good gravy gertie, one little statement picked apart for no reason people...and everyone knows exactly what I meant by my statement

Who the good guys are and who the bad guys are all depends on which side if any you are on.

Now in the case of Mr Sheen I have no earthly idea how much or how little he knows about the actual facts concerning what his statements addressed, he may have been operating under completely false assumptions for all I know; its a moot point since it cant be determined outside of media public quotes taken perhaps out of context so shrugs.

I know in the USA considering how our country came into being that a certain degree of subjective interpretation is used in colloquial and unfortunately also in professional accounts of the history depending upon whose side one was on or with whom one's sympathies lay.

Also imho Americans in general (at least not those wholly sympathetic to England) due to our own country's past and social influence have a tendency to view the turbulent relationship of England and Ireland in favor of the Irish people as the underdog trying to do what we ourselves once did. Granted their methods are sometimes reprehensible. I know at lot of Americans hope that one day Ireland will be able to fully free themselves from their "English oppressors".

Ironic considering that Great Briton is our closest and best ally (not over the Irish issue obviously) but because of two world wars that affected all of us and the subsequent threats posed by the rise of Communism, Terrorism and perhaps not so far in the future: "China".

[IAN 2411]

Americans hope that one day Ireland will be able to fully free themselves from their "English oppressors".



If the Americans had read about Irelands history instead of sending millions of $ to help them kill the English soldier, the troubles in Northern Ireland would have been over a long time before they were. The Irish also sided with the Nazis’ during the war and that never helped either. The English were never the Oppressors they were invited to over lord Ireland, it was the IRA that made it an issue. The Irish Americans with their $ with blood on, are still a bad taste in the mouths of the British Soldier, but we have not yet stooped low enough to terrorise them.




Americans hope that one day Ireland will be able to fully free themselves from their "English oppressors".


And so to do the British, but the IRA will never allow it, because the IRA will then be redundant.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

Yes, they were atrocities. They were also acts of terrorism.
They were acts of war carried out not for defensive purposes but a show of strength, [God help us]. I know the British were involved in all three of those atrocities that I mentioned, but they were no better than the atrocities and inhumane killing of the Jews. There was the shock and awe tactics in Iraq at the beginning, another example of an atrocity, because there was no justification to that either. Once again this was carried out by the same two countries that are now leading the fight against terrorism. What is good for the goose is obviously not good for the gander.


How many people are still afraid to fly? How many people get worked up by the very sight of a dark skinned man with a beard on a plane? If no one is terrified, why are so many people being inconvenienced by the TSA and Homeland Security?

Or those who are afraid of something bad that might happen to them personally.

How many people won't go outside their garden for a fear of something bad taking place? How many people are afraid to drive or be driven on the road in case they are in an accident? How many people are afraid of cruises because of the fear of drowning? There is no substance in that quote because it is a real minority and can be classed alongside others.




They were all intended to get the surviving civilian populations to force their governments to end the war. In the case of Dresden, the area of the city which was bombed had virtually no military value, and so IMO had no military justification. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, on the other hand, were valid military targets, filled with war industry and military units. The fact that they also sufficed to bring the Japanese government to surrender, thereby potentially saving far more lives than they took, may provide some justification for them. That does not make them any less horrific, nor does it deny that they were ultimately acts of terrorism. Just that, as far as the Allied nations were concerned, they were "good" acts of terrorism.
There is no such thing as a good act of terrorism. You are generalising terrorism to suit your argument, to make atrocities in any mans eyes look clean. If Nagasaki and Hiroshima, was holding, and/or were producing these weapons then why did the Americans not bomb the shipping? They had the ability to do so or they could not have dropped the bombs that they did...and why “two” if it was an act of terrorism? Surely one would have been enough?

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

They were acts of war carried out not for defensive purposes but a show of strength
Which is my point. They were for political purposes, more than military purposes.


How many people won't go outside their garden for a fear of something bad taking place? How many people are afraid to drive or be driven on the road in case they are in an accident? How many people are afraid of cruises because of the fear of drowning? There is no substance in that quote because it is a real minority and can be classed alongside others.
Except that those others you mention don't cause problems by going into a panic on a plane, causing fear among the other passengers, and sometimes having an innocent person thrown off the plane just because he resembles someones stereotypical image of an Arab. Those others also didn't create the hassles we now have to endure in airports. They may be a minority, but their fear is affecting everyone.


You are generalising terrorism to suit your argument
And you are using a very narrow definition of terrorism to suit yours.


to make atrocities in any mans eyes look clean.
Not at all! I don't downplay the horrible nature of these events. I'm only pointing out how some people view them.


If Nagasaki and Hiroshima, was holding, and/or were producing these weapons then why did the Americans not bomb the shipping?
They destroyed most of the Japanese shipping. The Japanese Empire was virtually gone. But the Japanese government refused to surrender. The only option other than the bombs was to invade the home islands, which would have caused hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of casualties both among the Japanese people and the American armed forces. I'm not saying they shouldn't have dropped those bombs. I think they did the right thing. I'm only saying that, in my broad, generalized view, their purpose was to terrorize the Japanese people and government as much as to destroy the military.


and why “two” if it was an act of terrorism? Surely one would have been enough?
If the Japanese government had shown any inclination towards surrender after the first, then one WOULD have been enough. They did not. Some within the Japanese High Command felt that it was only a fluke, a one-off that the US could not repeat. It was necessary to show them that we could do it again, the implication being that we could destroy all of their cities. Again, a terror weapon.

[denuseri]

If the Americans had read about Irelands history instead of sending millions of $ to help them kill the English soldier, the troubles in Northern Ireland would have been over a long time before they were. The Irish also sided with the Nazis’ during the war and that never helped either. The English were never the Oppressors they were invited to over lord Ireland, it was the IRA that made it an issue. The Irish Americans with their $ with blood on, are still a bad taste in the mouths of the British Soldier, but we have not yet stooped low enough to terrorise them.



And so to do the British, but the IRA will never allow it, because the IRA will then be redundant.

Be well IAN 2411

Sorry Ive studied the history rather extensively and I think you will need a far better argument to convince me that the English/Irish issue or for that matter any of England's many international (anything outside of England proper such as with the Scots and Welsh and French and America etc etc) foibles all occur so sophistically one sided.

And why do you think Ireland sided with England's enemies I wonder?

[MMI]

1. Irish history shows that, for most of the "800 years of English Oppression", it was one Irishman oppressing another. For most of that time, right up to the 19th century, Ireland had its own Parliament where Irish Lords made Irish laws for royal approval by the King of Ireland. It was due to the Earls, and the clan chiefs with whom they were often feuding, that the English King was invited into Ireland, and such peace as there ever was on that poor island was due more to English rule than to anything else. There were periods when English oppression was severe - Cromwell is a notable example - but at most other times, the violence was due to the inability of the Irish to live peacefully together, and English troops were forced to quell the not infrequent uprisings.

The majority of these uprisings happened because of the dire poverty most Irish people lived in while the Irish nobility and its merchant class kept fat cattle and the best wheat for export (to England and Europe) so that they could fill their own coffers at the expense of their countrymen.

The Irish, like the Americans, perpetuate the lies and deceptions that were used against the English right up to the present day, and they (the Irish) seek apologies from the English for what they did to themselves.

2. The Welsh have been closely united with England for hundreds of years, and Plaid Cymru is still a minority movement. There is no real hatred between the two countries, just a healthy rivalry. True, the Welsh have a keen desire to preserve their national language and heritage - looked down upon by English speakers until recently, but that is a good thing, and it does not demand that they cut their ties. Incidentally, English is spoken by more Welsh people than Welsh.

3. The Scots, too, are unlikely to become independent from England, and if they do, it will be by agreement between friends. Again, hatred of England is historical and largely unfounded - unless, like the Irish, you go back several centuries into history to justify your claim of unjust treatment.

The United Kingdom is exactly that - a union of two kingdoms, a principality and a province, and each has its place in that union just like any state in the USA. (The province is that part of Ireland which chose to remain British, after the establishment of the Irish Free State. It seems there are many Irish republicans who cannot countenance a British presence to the north, just like the American republic found it necessary to go to war against Canada after their independence.)

Most of the English/British possessions (save those where we had a peacekeeping role) sought independence by peaceful means and obtained it. The vast majority of those countries remained in the Commonwealth where they each have an equal voice on matters they deal with. A number still have the Queen as their head of state, and Britain is held in deep affection.

So, to sum up, England has committed many atrocities through its high handed arrogance and belief in its superiority over native peoples - that seems to be part of the Germanic DNA. I believe Britain is also guilty of genocide, where it successfully wiped out a whole race. We have ruled some places very badly.

But we have also ruled well, and the evidence of that is to be seen all round the globe. Some people, however, justify their own bad history by blaming it on us. The Irish were the authors of most of their own problems. They chose to become a third rate country rather than be part of the United Kingdom (an equal pert, remember). Zimbabwe shook off British shackles in order to murder white Zimbabweans and steal their property ... and that country is in financial ruins despite all its natural wealth. The 13 colonies were seized by a motley crew of smugglers, pirates, profiteers and other malcontents who sought to further their own interests rather than their compatriots and condemned them to years of war, to higher taxes and a national debt and called it "Liberty". There was no more freedom - in fact there was now less freedom - than they had under the British.

[IAN 2411]

Thank you MMI for putting the record streight.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

Sorry Ive studied the history rather extensively and I think you will need a far better argument to convince me that the English/Irish issue or for that matter any of England's many international (anything outside of England proper such as with the Scots and Welsh and French and America etc etc) foibles all occur so sophistically one sided.

And why do you think Ireland sided with England's enemies I wonder?


Take your blinkers off denu, and as for your question, you would have to ask them. [They were enemies of the world] If you have been reading the History of UK and Ireland extensively, then you would still be reading it now. You have also missed the main point of my argument that the British were not the opressors.

It is also a fact that if it was not for the American $ in later years, the IRA would not have been able to continue buying weapons and explosives. So as to kill not only the British soldier, but also their own race and creed along with the innocent people on the manland of England. It was an easy thing to omit while reading the history of ireland, because if it was written by the Irish it would not be printed. Neither did it help when Irish/American senitors pledged their alegience to the cause in Ireland, and were in a small way a great help to the gathering money to aid the IRA bomb making killing machine. Next time you talk to a British soldier of any rank, please do ask him/her where the IRA got 80% of their war chest? Then preach to me how bad the British were to the Irish. There were a lot of soldiers over in Northern Ireland questioning the Special Relationship while i was there, but perhaps that is only there when it is needed by the Americans.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

Obviously both of you respected fellow contributors (Ian and MMI) are completely sympathetically entwined on the English side of that paticular sticky wicket.

Human nature being the way it is I suspect that there are I am sure an equally large number of people who just as validly hold the opposite point of view and have all the facts to back it up just as you will both claim to have and from your respective perspectives do.

No amount of logic or information provided on my part will change that subjective view point.

Please also note that I didnt say what my own personal views on the issue in question were.

The only point I tried to make was that who is the good guy and who is the bad guy is determined by one's perspective...IE which side if any the observer is on.

So I think my "blinkers" will remain exactly "objectively" where they are.

[MMI]

I recited facts. Facts are not capable of interpretation, but only of acceptance or rejection. I admit I did not recite all of the facts, and there are many that can be trotted out to show England did not do all it should have to relieve the suffering of the Irish poor. But I reject completely (save for Cromwell and perhaps the Tudors - who had other considerations to take into account) that England oppressed Ireland. The Irish problems were caused by the Irish themselves and were brought about through their own indifference to the suffering they caused to their own people. I believe the Republic came into being out of the bad bile of people like de Valera, and for no better reason than spite. The Irish Free State would have been as free as Canada is now - that is, completely free, and the Irish were given that status at a time when the IRA were all but defeated. But freedom given freely isn't the same as freedom that people are forced to die for, is it? So the Irish leaders spurned it, and a civil war (not an Anglo/Irish war) resulted.

In your posts, you might not have stated your personal beliefs, but a clear sympathy for the Irish cause comes across - to me at least. You claim that Americans in general support the Irish cause because they see a similarity between Irish effort to gain freedom and the American Revolution: "the underdog trying to do what we ourselves once did," even if their acts of terrorism are "sometimes reprehensible". Now I don't try to hide the fact that I despise Irish terrorists, but even acknowledging that bias, I cannot conceive of an act of terrorism that is not reprehensible!

Is the comparison between America's fight for freedom and Ireland's fair? I think not. America fought for its liberty: the Irish were given it in 1921. Following the bloody civil war - worse than the Anglo/Irish War that preceded it - those that were left formed a republic, but instead of calling it a day, they then turned against Northern Ireland, where the majority of people there chose to remain British. It is the IRA's attempt to force Northern Ireland to join the Republic that brought about the troubles that have rumbled along, financed by crime, Libya, and American dollars, since the 1960's. In other words, what you call the fight for Irish freedom is really an attempt to colonise a part of Britain against the will of the people. Ireland is already free!

Ireland is now the oppressor, not England.

You also claim to have studied the history of the Anglo/Irish question, but, quite apart from not realising Ireland has already achieved its freedom, you seem to have swallowed the myth that Britain is riven with hatred between its constituent parts to support your suggestion that everyone has been mistreated by the English. I can only call that naive.

Lastly, you ask why Ireland has sided with England's enemies? How far back do you want me to go?

Let's ignore the vikings - they hardly seem relevant to the 21st century, even though we are discussing Irish history. England's traditional enemy is France. I do not recall any significant alliance between France and Ireland against England. In fact, Tudor England made sure that Ireland could not be used by the French as a back door into England.

England's next major foe was Spain. As Ireland has always been Catholic, it would be natural for the Irish to support the Spanish Armada. It didn't.

In World War II, Ireland was neutral. The Irish Government was anti-English, but it did not support Germany. Many Irish citizens joined the British Army to fight on our side, but when they went home, the Irish Government put their names on a "List" which was then widely circulated so that those named would not be able to work in any government job. This was known as the Starvation Order (see what I said above about the Irish being the source of their own problems).

So who are the enemies of England that Ireland has always sided with?

[denuseri]

What little is known of pre-Christian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity) Ireland comes from a few references in Roman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome) writings, Irish poetry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_poetry) and myth, and archaeology. While some possible Paleolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic) tools have been found in Ireland, none of the finds are convincing of Paleolithic inhabitants in Ireland. The earliest inhabitants of Ireland were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived sometime after 8000 BC when the climate had become more hospitable following the retreat of the polar icecaps - it's debated whether a land bridge would have existed at this time or if the first inhabitants would have crossed by boat. The people remained hunter-gatherers until about 4000BC when agriculture was introduced from the South West continent, leading to the establishment of a high Neolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic) culture, characterized by the appearance of pottery, polished stone tools, rectangular wooden houses and communal megalithic tombs. Some of these tombs are huge stone monuments like the Passage Tombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_Tombs) of Newgrange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange), Knowth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowth) and Dowth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowth), many of them astronomically aligned (most notably, Newgrange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange)). Four main types of megalithic tomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Megalithic_Tombs) have been identified: Portal Tombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen), Court Tombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_cairn), Passage Tombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_Tombs) and Wedge Tombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-shaped_gallery_grave). In Leinster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leinster) and Munster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster) individual adult males were buried in small stone structures, called cists, under earthen mounds and were accompanied by distinctive decorated pottery. This culture apparently prospered, and the island became more densely populated. Towards the end of the Neolithic new types of monuments developed, such as circular embanked enclosures and timber, stone and post and pit circles.

The Bronze Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age) properly began once copper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper) was alloyed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy) with tin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin) to produce true bronze artifacts; this took place around 2000 BC, when some Ballybeg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballybeg) flat axes (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flat_axe&action=edit&redlink=1) and associated metalwork was produced. The period preceding this, in which Lough Ravel (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lough_Ravel&action=edit&redlink=1) and most Ballybeg axes were produced, is known as the Copper Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Age) or Chalcolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic), and commenced about 2500 BC. This period also saw the production of elaborate gold and bronze ornaments, weapons and tools. There was a movement away from the construction of communal megalithic tombs to the burial of the dead in small stone cists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cists) or simple pits, which could be situated in cemeteries or in circular earth or stone built burial mounds known respectively as barrows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrows) and cairns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn). As the period progressed inhumation burial gave way to cremation and by the Middle Bronze Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age) cremations were often placed beneath large burial urns.
The Iron Age in Ireland began about 600 BC. The period between the start of the Iron Age and the historic period (AD 431) saw the gradual infiltration of small groups of Celtic speaking people into Ireland, with items of the continental Celtic La Tene style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Tene_style) being found in at least the northern part of the island by about 300 BC. The result of a gradual blending of Celtic and indigenous cultures would result in the emergence of Gaelic culture by the fifth century. It is also during the fifth century that the main over-kingdoms of In Tuisceart, Airgialla, Ulaid, Mide, Laigin, Mumhain, Cóiced Ol nEchmacht began to emerge (see Kingdoms of ancient Ireland). Within these kingdoms a rich culture flourished. The society of these kingdoms was dominated by an upper class consisting of aristocratic warriors and learned people, which possibly included Druids.
Linguists realized from the 17th century onwards that the language spoken by these people, the Goidelic languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_languages), was a branch of the Celtic languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages). This is usually explained as a result of invasions by Celts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt) from the continent. However, other research has postulated that the culture developed gradually and continuously, and that the introduction of Celtic language and elements of Celtic culture may have been a result of cultural exchange with Celtic groups in South West continental Europe from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
The hypothesis that the native Late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed Celtic influences has since been supported by some recent genetic research.
The Romans referred to Ireland as Hibernia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernia). Ptolemy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy) in AD 100 records Ireland's geography and tribes. Ireland was never formally a part of the Roman Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire) but Roman influence was often projected well beyond formal borders. Tacitus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus) writes that an exiled Irish prince was with Agricola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnaeus_Julius_Agricola) in Britain and would return to seize power in Ireland. Juvenal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_of_Juvenal) tells us that Roman "arms had been taken beyond the shores of Ireland". In recent years, some experts have hypothesized that Roman-sponsored Gaelic forces (or perhaps even Roman regulars) mounted some kind of invasion around 100, but the exact relationship between Rome and the dynasties and peoples of Hibernia remains unclear.
Irish confederations (the Scoti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti)) attacked and some settled in Britain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain) during the Great Conspiracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Conspiracy) of 367. In particular, the Dál Riata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1l_Riata) settled in western Scotland and the Western Isles.
The middle centuries of the first millennium AD marked great changes in Ireland.
Niall Noigiallach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Noigiallach) (died c.450/455) laid the basis for the Uí Néill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C3%AD_N%C3%A9ill) dynasty's hegemony over much of western, northern and central Ireland. Politically, the former emphasis on tribal affiliation had been replaced by the 700s by that of patrilineal and dynastic background. Many formerly powerful kingdoms and peoples disappeared. Irish pirates struck all over the coast of western Britain in the same way that the Vikings would later attack Ireland. Some of these founded entirely new kingdoms in Pictland and, to a lesser degree, in parts of Wales. The Attacotti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacotti) of south Leinster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leinster) may even have served in the Roman military in the mid-to-late 300s.
Perhaps it was some of the latter returning home as rich mercenaries, merchants, or slaves stolen from Britain or Gaul, that first brought the Christian faith to Ireland. Some early sources claim that there were missionaries active in southern Ireland long before St. Patrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Patrick). Whatever the route, and there were probably many, this new faith was to have the most profound effect on the Irish.
Tradition maintains that in AD 432, St. Patrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick) arrived on the island and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity). On the other hand, according to Prosper of Aquitaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_of_Aquitaine), a contemporary chronicler, Palladius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladius) was sent to Ireland by the Pope in 431 as "first Bishop to the Irish believing in Christ", which demonstrates that there were already Christians living in Ireland. Palladius seems to have worked purely as Bishop to Irish Christians in the Leinster and Meath kingdoms, while Patrick — who may have arrived as late as 461 — worked first and foremost as a missionary to the Pagan Irish, converting in the more remote kingdoms located in Ulster and Connacht.
Patrick is traditionally credited with preserving the tribal and social patterns of the Irish, codifying their laws and changing only those that conflicted with Christian practices. He is also credited with introducing the Roman alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_alphabet), which enabled Irish monks to preserve parts of the extensive Celtic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt) oral literature. The historicity of these claims remains the subject of debate and there is no direct evidence linking Patrick with any of these accomplishments. The myth of Patrick, as scholars refer to it, was developed in the centuries after his death.
The Druid tradition collapsed, first in the face of the spread of the new faith, and ultimately in the aftermath of famine and plagues due to the extreme weather events of 535-536 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535-536). Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished shortly thereafter. Missionaries from Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-Scottish_mission) to England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England) and Continental Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe) spread news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations came to Irish monasteries. The excellence and isolation of these monasteries helped preserve Latin learning during the Early Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages). The period of Insular art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_art), mainly in the fields of illuminated manuscripts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminated_manuscript), metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells), the Ardagh Chalice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardagh_Chalice), and the many carved stone crosses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_cross) that dot the island. Insular style was to be a crucial ingredient in the formation of the Romanesque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_art) and Gothic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_art) styles throughout Western Europe. Sites dating to this period include clochans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clochan), ringforts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringfort) and promontory forts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promontory_fort).
Francis John Byrne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_John_Byrne) describes the effect of the epedemics which occurred mid-way through this era:
The plagues of the 660's and the 680's had a traumatic effect on Irish society. The golden age of the saints was over, together with the generation of kings who could fire a saga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga)-writer's imagination. The literary tradition looks back to the reign of the sons of Aed Slaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aed_Slaine) (Diarmait and Blathmac, who died in 665 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/665)) as to the end of an era. Antiquaries, brehons, genealogiests and hagiographers, felt the need to collect ancient traditions before they were totally forgotten. Many were in fact swallowed by oblivion; when we examine the writing of Tirechan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirechan) we encounter obscure references to tribes which are quite unknown to the later genealogical tradition. The laws describe a tribal society that was obsolescent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolescent), and the meaning and use of the word moccu (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moccu&action=edit&redlink=1) dies out with archaic Old Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Irish) at the beginning of the new century. ("Tribes and Tribalism in Early Ireland", Eiru 22, 1971, p. 153)
The first English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England) involvement in Ireland took place in this period. In 684 AD an English expeditionary force sent by Northumbrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumbrian) King Ecgfrith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecgfrith_of_Northumbria) invaded Ireland in the summer of that year. The English forces managed to seize a number of captives and booty, but they apparently did not stay in Ireland for long. The next English involvement in Ireland would take place a little less than half a millennium later in 1169 AD when the Normans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans) invaded the country.
The first recorded Viking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking) raid in Irish history occurred in 795 when Vikings from Norway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway) looted the island. Early Viking raids were generally small in scale and quick. These early raids interrupted the golden age of Christian Irish culture starting the beginning of two hundred years of intermittent warfare, with waves of Viking raiders plundering monasteries and towns throughout Ireland. Most of the early raiders came from the fjords of western Norway.
The Vikings were expert sailors, who traveled in longships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longship), and by the early 840s, had begun to establish settlements along the Irish coasts and to spend the winter months there. Vikings founded settlements in several places; most famously in Dublin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin). Written accounts from this time (early to mid 840s) show that the Vikings were moving further inland to attack (often using rivers) and then retreating to their coastal headquarters.
In 852, the Vikings landed in Dublin Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Bay) and established a fortress. After several generations a group of mixed Irish and Norse ethnic background arose, the Gall-Gaels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse%E2%80%93Gaels), '(Gall being the Old Irish word for foreign).
However, the Vikings never achieved total domination of Ireland, often fighting for and against various Irish kings. The Battle of Clontarf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Clontarf) in 1014 marked the beginning of the decline of Viking power in Ireland. However the towns that the Vikings had founded continued to flourish and trade became an important part of the Irish economy
By the 12th century, Ireland was divided politically into a shifting hierarchy of petty kingdoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_kingdom) and over-kingdoms. Power was exercised by the heads of a few regional dynasties vying against each other for supremacy over the whole island. One of these men, King Diarmait Mac Murchada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarmait_Mac_Murchada) of Leinster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leinster) was forcibly exiled by the new High King, Ruaidri mac Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruaidri_mac_Tairrdelbach_Ua_Conchobair) of the Western kingdom of Connacht. Fleeing to Aquitaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitaine), Diarmait obtained permission from Henry II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England) to recruit Norman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans) knights to regain his kingdom. The first Norman knight landed in Ireland in 1167, followed by the main forces of Normans, Welsh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales) and Flemings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders). Several counties were restored to the control of Diarmait, who named his son-in-law, the Norman Richard de Clare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_de_Clare,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke), known as Strongbow, heir to his kingdom. This caused consternation to King Henry II of England, who feared the establishment of a rival Norman state in Ireland. Accordingly, he resolved to establish his authority.
With the authority of the papal bull Laudabiliter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudabiliter) from Adrian IV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_IV), Henry landed with a large fleet at Waterford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford) in 1171, becoming the first King of England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_England) to set foot on Irish soil. Henry awarded his Irish territories to his younger son John with the title Dominus Hiberniae ("Lord of Ireland"). When John unexpectedly succeeded his brother as King John (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_England), the "Lordship of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordship_of_Ireland)" fell directly under the English Crown.
Initially the Normans controlled the entire east coast, from Waterford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford) up to eastern Ulster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster) and penetrated far west in the country. The counties were ruled by many smaller kings. The first Lord of Ireland was King John, who visited Ireland in 1185 and 1210 and helped consolidate the Norman controlled areas, while at the same time ensuring that the many Irish kings swore fealty to him.
Throughout the thirteenth century the policy of the English Kings was to weaken the power of the Norman Lords in Ireland. For example King John encouraged Hugh de Lacy to destabilize and then overthrow the Lord of Ulster, before creating him to the Earl of Ulster. The Hiberno-Norman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-Norman) community suffered from a series of invasions that ceased the spread of their settlement and power. Politics and events in Gaelic Ireland served to draw the settlers deeper into the orbit of the Irish.
By 1261 the weakening of the Normans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans) had become manifest when Fineen MacCarthy defeated a Norman army at the Battle of Callann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Callann). The war continued between the different lords and earls for about 100 years and the wars caused a great deal of destruction, especially around Dublin. In this chaotic situation, local Irish lords won back large amounts of land that their families had lost since the conquest and held them after the war was over.
The Black Death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death) arrived in Ireland in 1348. Because most of the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland lived in towns and villages, the plague hit them far harder than it did the native Irish, who lived in more dispersed rural settlements. After it had passed, Gaelic Irish language and customs came to dominate the country again. The English-controlled territory shrunk back to a fortified area around Dublin (the Pale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale)), and had little real authority outside (beyond the Pale).
By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared. England's attentions were diverted by the Wars of the Roses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses). The Lordship of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordship_of_Ireland) lay in the hands of the powerful Fitzgerald Earl of Kildare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Kildare), who dominated the country by means of military force and alliances with lords and clans around Ireland. Around the country, local Gaelic and Gaelicised lords expanded their powers at the expense of the English government in Dublin but the power of the Dublin government was seriously curtailed by the introduction of Poynings' Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynings%27_Law) in 1494. According to this act the Irish parliament was essentially put under the control of the Westminster parliament.
From 1536, Henry VIII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England) decided to conquer Ireland and bring it under crown control. The Fitzgerald dynasty of Kildare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Kildare), who had become the effective rulers of Ireland in the 15th century, had become very unreliable allies of the Tudor monarchs. They had invited Burgundian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundians) troops into Dublin to crown the Yorkist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkist) pretender, Lambert Simnel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert_Simnel) as King of England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_England) in 1487. Again in 1536, Silken Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silken_Thomas) Fitzgerald went into open rebellion against the crown. Having put down this rebellion, Henry VIII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England) resolved to bring Ireland under English government control so the island would not become a base for future rebellions or foreign invasions of England. In 1541, Henry upgraded Ireland from a lordship to a full Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ireland). Henry was proclaimed King of Ireland at a meeting of the Irish Parliament that year. This was the first meeting of the Irish Parliament to be attended by the Gaelic Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Ireland) chieftains as well as the Hiberno-Norman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-Norman) aristocracy. With the institutions of government in place, the next step was to extend the control of the English Kingdom of Ireland over all of its claimed territory. This took nearly a century, with various English administrations in the process either negotiating or fighting with the independent Irish and Old English lords. The Spanish Armada in Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada_in_Ireland) suffered heavy losses during an extraordinary season of storms in the autumn of 1588. Among the survivors was Captain Francisco de Cuellar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Cuellar), who gave a remarkable account of his experiences on the run in Ireland.
The re-conquest was completed during the reigns of Elizabeth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England) and James I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_I_of_England), after several extremely brutal conflicts. (See the Desmond Rebellions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Rebellions) (1569–1573 and 1579–1583 and the Nine Years War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years_War_%28Ireland%29) 1594–1603, for details). After this point, the English authorities in Dublin established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralized government to the entire island, and successfully disarmed the native lordships. However, the English were not successful in converting the Catholic Irish to the Protestant religion and the brutal methods used by crown authority (including resorting to martial law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law)) to bring the country under English control heightened resentment of English rule.
From the mid-16th and into the early 17th century, crown governments carried out a policy of land confiscation and colonisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonisation) known as Plantations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland). Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists to the provinces of Munster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster), Ulster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster) and the counties of Laois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laois) and Offaly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offaly) (see also Plantations of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland)). These Protestant settlers replaced the Irish Catholic landowners who were removed from their lands. These settlers would form the ruling class of future British appointed administrations in Ireland. A series of Penal Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws) were introduced to encourage conversion to the established (Anglican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican)) Church of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Ireland). The principal victims of these laws were Catholics, Baptists and Presbyterians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterians).
The 17th century was perhaps the bloodiest in Ireland's history. Two periods of war (1641–53 and 1689–91) caused huge loss of life. The ultimate dispossession of most of the Irish Catholic landowning class was engineered; recusants were subordinated under the Penal Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_%28Ireland%29).
In the mid-17th century, Ireland was convulsed by eleven years of warfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Confederate_Wars), beginning with the Rebellion of 1641 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1641), when Irish Catholics rebelled against the domination of English and Protestant settlers. The Catholic gentry briefly ruled the country as Confederate Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Ireland) (1642–1649) against the background of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Three_Kingdoms) until Oliver Cromwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell) reconquered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Ireland) Ireland in 1649–1653 on behalf of the English Commonwealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Commonwealth). Cromwell's conquest was the most brutal phase of the war. By its close, up to a third of Ireland's pre-war population was dead or in exile. As retribution for the rebellion of 1641, the better quality remaining lands owned by Irish Catholics were confiscated and given to British settlers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_Plantation) commenced. Several hundred remaining native landowners were transplanted to Connacht (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connacht).
Ireland became the main battleground after the Glorious Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution) of 1688, when the Catholic James II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England) left London and the English Parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Parliament_%281689%29) replaced him with William of Orange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England). The wealthier Irish Catholics backed James to try to reverse the Penal Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_%28Ireland%29) and land confiscations, whereas Protestants supported William and Mary in this 'Glorious Revolution' to preserve their property in the country. James and William fought for the Kingdom of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ireland) in the Williamite War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamite_war_in_Ireland), most famously at the Battle of the Boyne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne) in 1690, where James' outnumbered forces were defeated.
Jacobite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism) resistance in Ireland was finally ended after the Battle of Aughrim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim) in July 1691. The Penal Laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_%28Ireland%29) that had been relaxed somewhat after the Restoration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_%281660%29) were reinforced more thoroughly after this war, as the infant Anglo-Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish) Ascendancy novo elite wanted to ensure that the Irish Roman Catholics would not be in a position to repeat their rebellions.
Subsequent Irish antagonism towards England was aggravated by the economic situation of Ireland in the 18th century. Some absentee landlords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absentee_landlord) managed some of their estates inefficiently, and food tended to be produced for export rather than for domestic consumption. Two very cold winters towards the end of the Little Ice Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age) led directly to a famine between 1740 and 1741 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_%281740%E2%80%931741%29), which killed about 400,000 people and caused over 150,000 of the Irish to emigrate. In addition, Irish exports were reduced by the Navigation Acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Acts) from the 1660s, which placed tariffs on Irish products entering England, but exempted English goods from tariffs on entering Ireland. Despite this most of the 18th century was relatively peaceful in comparison with the preceding two hundred years, and the population doubled to over four million.
By the late 18th century, many of the Anglo-Irish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish) ruling class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruling_class) had come to see Ireland as their native country. A Parliamentary faction led by Henry Grattan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Grattan) agitated for a more favourable trading relationship with Great Britain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain) and for greater legislative independence for the Parliament of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Ireland). However, reform in Ireland stalled over the more radical proposals toward enfranchising Irish Catholics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Emancipation). This was partially enabled in 1793, but Catholics could not yet enter parliament or become government officials. Some were attracted to the more militant example of the French Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution) of 1789.
Presbyterians and Dissenters too faced persecution on a lesser scale, and in 1791 a group of dissident Protestant individuals, where all but two were Presbyterians, held the first meeting of what would become the Society of the United Irishmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_United_Irishmen). Originally they sought to reform the Irish Parliament which was controlled by those belonging to the state church; seek Catholic Emancipation; and help remove religion from politics. When their ideals seemed unattainable they became more determined to use force to overthrow British rule and found a non-sectarian republic. Their activity culminated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798), which was bloodily suppressed. Largely in response to this rebellion, Irish self-government was abolished altogether by the Act of Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Union_1800) in 1801.
In 1800, following the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798), the British and the Irish parliaments enacted the Acts of Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1800). The merger created a new political entity called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland) with effect from January 1, 1801. Part of the agreement forming the basis of union was that the Test Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Act) would be repealed to remove any remaining discrimination against Roman Catholics, Presbyterians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_Ireland), Baptists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists) and other dissenter religions in the newly United Kingdom. However, King George III (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_the_United_Kingdom) invoking the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Settlement_1701) controversially and adamantly blocked attempts by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger). Pitt resigned in protest, but his successor Henry Addington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Addington) and his new cabinet failed to legislate any repeal or change to the Test Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Act).
In 1823, an enterprising Catholic lawyer, Daniel O'Connell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_O%27Connell), known in Ireland as 'The Liberator' began an ultimately successful Irish campaign to achieve emancipation, and be seated in the parliament. This culminated in O'Connell's successful election in the Clare by-election, which revived the parliamentary efforts at reform. The Catholic Relief Act 1829 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Relief_Act_1829) was eventually approved by the U.K. parliament under the leadership of Prime Minister, the Dublin born Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington). This indefatigable Anglo-Irish statesman, a former Chief Secretary for Ireland, and hero of the Napoleonic Wars successfully guided the legislation through both houses of parliament. He then persuaded the King, George IV, to concede in signing the bill into law in 1829 under threat of resignation. The continuing obligation of Roman Catholics to fund the established Church of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Ireland), however, led to the sporadic skirmishes of the Tithe War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_War) of 1831–38. The church was disestablished by the Gladstone government in 1867. The continuing enactment of parliamentary reform during the ensuing administrations further extended the initially limited franchise. Daniel O'Connell M.P. later led the Repeal Association (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeal_Association) in an unsuccessful campaign to undo the Act of Union 1800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Union_1800).
The second of Ireland's "Great Famines", An Gorta Mór struck the country severely in the period 1845–1849, with potato blight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_blight), exacerbated by the political and laissez-faire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) economic factors of the time leading to mass starvation and emigration. (See Great Irish Famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Famine).) The impact of emigration in Ireland was severe; the population dropped from over 8 million before the Famine to 4.4 million in 1911. Gaelic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language) or Irish, once the spoken language of the entire island, declined in use sharply in the nineteenth century as a result of the Famine and the creation of the National School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_school_%28Ireland%29) education system, as well as hostility to the language from leading Irish politicians of the time; it was largely replaced by English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language).
Outside mainstream nationalism, a series of violent rebellions by Irish republicans took place in 1803, under Robert Emmet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Emmet); in 1848 a rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Irelander_Rebellion_of_1848) by the Young Irelanders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Irelanders), most prominent among them, Thomas Francis Meagher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Francis_Meagher); and in 1867, another insurrection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_Rising) by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Brotherhood). All failed, but physical force nationalism remained an undercurrent in the nineteenth century.
The late 19th century also witnessed major land reform, spearheaded by the Land League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League) under Michael Davitt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Davitt) demanding what became known as the 3 Fs; Fair rent, free sale, fixity of tenure. From 1870 and as a result of the Land War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_War) agitations and subsequent Plan of Campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_of_Campaign) of the 1880s, various U.K. governments introduced a series of Irish Land Acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Land_Acts). - William O'Brien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O%27Brien) played a leading role in the 1902 Land Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Conference) to pave the way for the most advanced social legislation in Ireland since the Union, the Wyndham Land Purchase Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Land_Acts#Wyndham_Land_.28Purchase.29_Act_19 03) of 1903. This Act set the conditions for the breakup of large estates and gradually devolved to rural landholders and tenants ownership of the lands. It effectively ended the era of the absentee landlord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absentee_landlord), finally resolving the Irish Land Question
In the 1870s the issue of Irish self-government again became a major focus of debate under Charles Stewart Parnell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stewart_Parnell), founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Parliamentary_Party). Prime minister William Ewart Gladstone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone) made two unsuccessful attempts to pass Home Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Home_Rule_Movement) in 1886 and 1893. Parnell's leadership ended when he was implicated in a controversial divorce scandal. It was revealed that he had been living in family relationship with Katherine O'Shea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Parnell), the long separated wife of a fellow Irish MP, with whom he was the father of three children.
After the introduction of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_%28Ireland%29_Act_1898) which broke the power of the landlord dominated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Ascendancy) "Grand Juries", passing for the first time democratic control of local affairs into the hands of the people through elected Local County Councils, the debate over full Home Rule led to tensions between Irish nationalists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_nationalist) and Irish unionists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unionists_%28Ireland%29) (those who favored maintenance of the union). Most of the island was predominantly nationalist, Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church) and agrarian. The northeast, however, was predominantly unionist, Protestant and industrialized. Unionists feared a loss of political power and economic wealth in a predominantly rural, nationalist, Catholic home-rule state. Nationalists believed that they would remain economically and politically second class citizens without self-government. Out of this division, two opposing sectarian movements evolved, the Protestant Orange Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order) and the Catholic Ancient Order of Hibernians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Order_of_Hibernians).
Home Rule became certain when in 1910 the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) under John Redmond (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Redmond) held the balance of power in the Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_House_of_Commons) and the third Home Rule Bill was introduced in 1912. Unionist resistance was immediate with the formation of the Ulster Volunteers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Volunteers). In turn the Irish Volunteers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Volunteers) were established to oppose them and enforce the introduction of self-government.
In September 1914, just as the First World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I) broke out, the UK Parliament finally passed the Third Home Rule Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Rule_Act_1914) to establish self-government for Ireland, but was suspended for the duration of the war. In order to ensure the implementation of Home Rule after the war, nationalist leaders and the IPP under Redmond supported with Ireland's participation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_and_World_War_I) the British and Allied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_I) war effort under the Triple Entente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Entente) against the expansion of Central Powers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Powers). The core of the Irish Volunteers were against this decision, but the majority left to form the National Volunteers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Volunteers) who enlisted in Irish regiments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_military_diaspora#.27Irish.27_named_units_of _the_British_Army) of the New British Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchener%27s_Army), the 10th (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_%28Irish%29_Division) and 16th (Irish) Divisions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_%28Irish%29_Division), their Northern counterparts in the 36th (Ulster) Division (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_%28Ulster%29_Division). Before the war ended, Britain made two concerted efforts to implement Home Rule, one in May 1916 and again with the Irish Convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Convention) during 1917–1918, but the Irish sides (Nationalist, Unionist) were unable to agree terms for the temporary or permanent exclusion of Ulster from its provisions.
The period from 1916–1921 was marked by political violence and upheaval, ending in the partition of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Ireland) and independence for 26 of its 32 counties. A failed militant attempt was made to gain separate independence for Ireland with the 1916 Easter Rising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising), an insurrection in Dublin. Though support for the insurgents was small, the violence used in its suppression led to a swing in support of the rebels. In addition, the unprecedented threat of Irishmen being conscripted to the British Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army) in 1918 (for service on the Western Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Front_%28World_War_I%29) as a result of the German Spring Offensive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Offensive)) accelerated this change. (See: Conscription Crisis of 1918 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1918)). In the December 1918 elections (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_%28UK%29_general_election,_1918) Sinn Féin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinn_F%C3%A9in), the party of the rebels, won a majority of three-quarters of all seats in Ireland, twenty-seven MPs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament) of which assembled in Dublin on 21 January 1919, to form a thirty-two county Irish Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republic) parliament, the first Dáil Éireann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_D%C3%A1il) unilaterally declaring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_%28Ireland%29) sovereignty over the entire island.
Unwilling to negotiate any understanding with Britain short of complete independence, the Irish Republican Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army) — the army of the newly declared Irish Republic — waged a guerilla war (the Irish War of Independence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence)) from 1919 to 1921. In the course of the fighting and amid much acrimony, the Fourth Government of Ireland Act 1920 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Ireland_Act_1920) implemented Home Rule while separating the island into what the British government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_the_United_Kingdom)'s Act termed "Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland)" and "Southern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ireland)". In July 1921, the Irish and British governments agreed a truce that halted the war. In December 1921, representatives of both governments signed an Anglo-Irish Treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish_Treaty). The Irish delegation was led by Arthur Griffith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Griffith) and Michael Collins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Collins_%28Irish_leader%29). This abolished the Irish Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republic) and created the Irish Free State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State), a self-governing Dominion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion) of the Commonwealth of Nations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations) in the manner of Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada) and Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia). Under the Treaty, Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland) could opt out of the Free State and stay within the United Kingdom: it promptly did so. In 1922, both parliaments ratified the Treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_D%C3%A1il#The_Treaty), formalizing independence for the twenty-six county Irish Free State (which went on to re-name itself Ireland in 1937 and declare itself a republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland_Act) in 1949); while the six county Northern Ireland, gaining Home Rule for itself, remained part of the United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom). For most of the next 75 years, each territory was strongly aligned to either Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church) or Protestant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant) ideologies, although this was more marked in the six counties of Northern Ireland.
The treaty to sever the Union divided the republican movement into anti-Treaty (who wanted to fight on until an Irish Republic was achieved) and pro-Treaty supporters (who accepted the Free State as a first step towards full independence and unity). Between 1922 and 1923 both sides fought the bloody Irish Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Civil_War). The new Irish Free State government defeated the anti-Treaty remnant of the Irish Republican Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army), imposing multiple executions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executions_during_the_Irish_Civil_War). This division among nationalists still colors Irish politics today, specifically between the two leading Irish political parties, Fianna Fáil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna_F%C3%A1il) and Fine Gael (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Gael).
The new Irish Free State (1922–37) existed against the backdrop of the growth of dictatorships in mainland Europe and a major world economic downturn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_depression) in 1929. In contrast with many contemporary European states it remained a democracy. Testament to this came when the losing faction in the Irish civil war, Éamon de Valera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89amon_de_Valera)'s Fianna Fáil, was able to take power peacefully by winning the 1932 general election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_general_election,_1932). Nevertheless, up until the mid 1930s, considerable parts of Irish society saw the Free State through the prism of the civil war, as a repressive, British imposed state. It was only the peaceful change of government in 1932 that signaled the final acceptance of the Free State on their part. In contrast to many other states in the period, the Free State remained financially solvent as a result of low government expenditure, despite the Economic War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish_Trade_War) with Britain. However, unemployment and emigration were high. The population declined to a low of 2.7 million recorded in the 1961 census.
The Roman Catholic Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church) had a powerful influence over the Irish state for much of its history. The clergy's influence meant that the Irish state had very conservative social policies, forbidding, for example, divorce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce), contraception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception), abortion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion), pornography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography) as well as encouraging the censoring and banning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland) of many books and films. In addition the Church largely controlled the State's hospitals, schools and remained the largest provider of many other social services.
With the partition of Ireland in 1922, 92.6% of the Free State's population were Catholic while 7.4% were Protestant. By the 1960s, the Protestant population had fallen by half. Although emigration was high among all the population, due to a lack of economic opportunity, the rate of Protestant emigration was disproportionate in this period. Many Protestants left the country in the early 1920s, either because they felt unwelcome in a predominantly Catholic and nationalist state, because they were afraid due to the burning of Protestant homes (particularly of the old landed class) by republicans during the civil war, because they regarded themselves as British and did not wish to live in an independent Irish state, or because of the economic disruption caused by the recent violence. The Catholic Church had also issued a decree, known as Ne Temere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Temere), whereby the children of marriages between Catholics and Protestants had to be brought up as Catholics. From 1945, the emigration rate of Protestants fell and they became less likely to emigrate than Catholics - indicating their integration into the life of the Irish State.
In 1937, a new Constitution of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ireland) re-established the state as Ireland (or Éire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire) in Irish). The state remained neutral throughout World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) (see Irish neutrality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_neutrality)) and this saved it from much of the horrors of the war, although tens of thousands volunteered to serve in the British forces. Ireland was also hit badly by rationing of food, and coal in particular (peat production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B3rd_na_M%C3%B3na) became a priority during this time). Though nominally neutral, recent studies have suggested a far greater level of involvement by the South with the Allies than was realized, with D Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Day)'s date set on the basis of secret weather information on Atlantic storms supplied by Ireland. For more detail on 1939–45, see main article The Emergency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_%28Ireland%29).
In 1949 the state was formally declared a republic and it left the British Commonwealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations).
In the 1960s, Ireland underwent a major economic change under reforming Taoiseach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach) (prime minister) Seán Lemass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Lemass) and Secretary of the Department of Finance T.K. Whitaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.K._Whitaker), who produced a series of economic plans. Free second-level education was introduced by Donogh O'Malley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donogh_O%27Malley) as Minister for Education in 1968. From the early 1960s, Ireland sought admission to the European Economic Community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community) but, because 90% of exports were to the United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) market, it did not do so until the UK did, in 1973.
Global economic problems in the 1970s, augmented by a set of misjudged economic policies followed by governments, including that of Taoiseach Jack Lynch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lynch), caused the Irish economy to stagnate. The Troubles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles) in Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland) discouraged foreign investment. Devaluation was enabled when the Irish Pound, or Punt, was established in as a truly separate currency in 1979, breaking the link with the UK's sterling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sterling). However, economic reforms in the late 1980s, helped by investment from the European Community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Community), led to the emergence of one of the world's highest economic growth rates, with mass immigration (particularly of people from Asia and Eastern Europe) as a feature of the late 1990s. This period came to be known as the Celtic Tiger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Tiger) and was focused on as a model for economic development in the former Eastern Bloc states, which entered the European Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) in the early 2000s. Property values had risen by a factor of between four and ten between 1993 and 2006, in part fuelling the boom.
Irish society also adopted relatively liberal social policies during this period. Divorce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce) was legalized, homosexuality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality) decriminalized, while abortion in limited cases was allowed by the Irish Supreme Court in the X Case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Case) legal judgment. Major scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, both sexual and financial, coincided with a widespread decline in religious practice, with weekly attendance at Roman Catholic Mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_%28liturgy%29) halving in twenty years. A series of tribunals set up from the 1990s have investigated alleged malpractices by politicians, the Catholic clergy, judges, hospitals and the Gardaí (police).
The 1920 Government of Ireland Bill enabled the reformation of the Northern Ireland counties which consisted of six Northeastern counties of Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Antrim, Down and Armagh. From 1921 to 1972, Northern Ireland was governed by a Unionist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Unionist_Party) government, based at Stormont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormont,_Belfast) in east Belfast. Unionist leader and first Prime Minister, James Craig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Craig,_1st_Viscount_Craigavon), declared that it would be "a Protestant State for a Protestant People". Craig's main goal was to form and preserve Protestant authority in the new state which was above all an effort to secure a unionist majority. In 1926, the majority of the populations in the province were Presbyterian and Anglican therefore solidifying Craig's Protestant political power. The Ulster Unionist Party thereafter formed every government until 1972. Discrimination against the minority nationalist community in jobs and housing, and their total exclusion from political power due to the majoritarian electoral system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majoritarian_system), led to the emergence of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_Civil_Rights_Association) in the late 1960s, inspired by Martin Luther King's civil rights movement in the United States of America. The military forces of the Northern Protestants and Northern Catholics (IRA) turned to brutal acts of violence to establish power. As time went on it became clear that these two rival states would bring about a civil war. After the Second World War, keeping the cohesion within Stormont seemed impossible; increased economic pressures, solidified Catholic unity, and British involvement ultimately led to Stormont's collapse. As the civil rights movement in the United States gained worldwide acknowledgement, Catholics rallied together to achieve a similar socio-political recognition. This resulted in the formation of various organizations such as the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967 and the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ)in 1964. Non-violent protest became an increasingly important factor in mobilizing Catholic sympathies and opinion and thus more effective in generating support than actively violent groups such as the IRA. However, these non-violent protests posed a problem to Northern Ireland's prime minister Terrance O'Neil (1963) because it hampered his efforts in persuading Catholics in Northern Ireland that they too, like their Protestant counterparts, belong within the United Kingdom. Despite O'Neil's reforming efforts there was growing discontent amongst both Catholics and Unionists. In October 1968, a peaceful civil rights march held in Derry turned violent as police brutally beat protesters. The outbreak was televised by international media, and as a result the march was highly publicized which further confirmed the socio-political turmoil in Ireland. A violent counter-reaction from conservative unionists led to civil disorder, notably the Battle of the Bogside (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bogside) and the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_riots_of_August_1969). To restore order, British troops were deployed to the streets of Northern Ireland at this time.
The violent outbreaks in the late 60's encouraged and helped strengthen military groups such as the IRA. The IRA believed themselves to be the protectors of the working class Catholics who were vulnerable to police and civilian brutality. During the late sixties and early seventies recruitment into the IRA organization dramatically increased as street and civilian violence worsened. The interjection from the British troops proved to be insufficient to quell the violence and thus solidified the IRA's growing military importance. On January 30, 1972 the worst tensions came to a head with the events of Bloody Sunday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29). Paratroops opened fire on anti-internment protesters in Derry which killed 13 unarmed civilians. Bloody Friday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Friday), Bloody Sunday, and other violent acts in the early 1970s came to be known as the Troubles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles). The Stormont parliament was prorogued (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_session#Prorogation) in 1972 and abolished in 1973. Paramilitary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary) private armies such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army), resulted from a split within the IRA, the Official IRA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Liberation_Army) fought against the Ulster Defense Regiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Defence_Regiment) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Volunteer_Force_%281966%29). Moreover, the British army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_army) and the (largely Protestant) Royal Ulster Constabulary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ulster_Constabulary) (RUC) also took part in the chaos that resulted in the deaths of well over three thousand men, women and children, civilians and military. Most of the violence took place in Northern Ireland, but some also spread to England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England) and across the Irish border.
For the next 27½ years, with the exception of five months in 1974, Northern Ireland was under "direct rule" with a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_Northern_Ireland) in the British Cabinet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_%28government%29) responsible for the departments of the Northern Ireland government. Direct Rule was designed to be a temporary solution until Northern Ireland was capable of governing itself once again. Principal acts were passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom) in the same way as for much of the rest of the UK, but many smaller measures were dealt with by Order in Council (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_in_Council) with minimal parliamentary scrutiny. Attempts were made to establish a power-sharing executive, representing both the nationalist and unionist communities, by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_Constitution_Act_1973) of 1973 and the Sunningdale Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunningdale_Agreement) in December 1973. Both acts however did little for creating cohesion between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Constitution Act of 1973 formalized the UK government's affirmation of reunification of Ireland by consent only; therefore ultimately delegating the authoritative power of the border question from Stormont to the people of Northern Ireland (and the Republic of Ireland). Conversely, the Sunningdale Agreement included a "provision of a Council of Ireland which held the right to execute executive and harmonizing functions". Most significantly, the Sunningdale Agreement brought together political leaders from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the UK to deliberate for the first time since 1925. The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and Jim Prior's 1982 assembly were also temporarily implemented however all failed to either reach consensus or operate in the longer term.
During the 1970s British policy concentrated on defeating the Provisional Irish Republican Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army) (IRA) by military means including the policy of Ulsterisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulsterisation) (requiring the RUC and British Army reserve Ulster Defence Regiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Defence_Regiment) to be at the forefront of combating the IRA). Although IRA violence decreased it was obvious that no military victory was on hand in either the short or medium terms. Even Catholics that generally rejected the IRA were unwilling to offer support to a state that seemed to remain mired in sectarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarian) discrimination, and the Unionists plainly were not interested in Catholic participation in running the state in any case. In the 1980s the IRA attempted to secure a decisive military victory based on massive arms shipments from Libya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya). When this failed senior republican figures began to look to broaden the struggle from purely military means. In time this began a move towards military cessation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TUAS). In 1986 the British and Irish governments signed the Anglo Irish Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo_Irish_Agreement) signaling a formal partnership in seeking a political solution. The Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) recognized the Irish government's right to be consulted and heard as well as guaranteed equality of treatment and recognition of the Irish and British identities of the two communities. The agreement also stated that the two governments must implement cross-border cooperation. Socially and economically Northern Ireland suffered the worst levels of unemployment in the UK and although high levels of public spending ensured a slow modernization of public services and moves towards equality, progress was slow in the 1970s and 1980s, only in the 1990s when progress towards peace became tangible, did the economic situation brighten. By then, too, the demographics of Northern Ireland had undergone significant change, and more than 40% of the population was Catholic.
More recently, the Belfast Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_Agreement) ("Good Friday Agreement") of 10 April 1998 brought - on 2 December 1999 - a degree of power sharing to Northern Ireland, giving both unionists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unionists_%28Ireland%29) and nationalists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism) control of limited areas of government. However, both the power-sharing Executive and the elected Assembly were suspended between January and May 2000, and from October 2002 until April 2007, following breakdowns in trust between the political parties involving outstanding issues, including "decommissioning" of paramilitary weapons, policing reform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland) and the removal of British army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_army) bases. In new elections in 2003, the moderate Ulster Unionist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Unionist_Party) and (nationalist) Social Democrat and Labour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrat_and_Labour_Party) parties lost their dominant positions to the more hard-line Democratic Unionist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Unionist_Party) and (nationalist) Sinn Féin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinn_F%C3%A9in) parties. On 28 July 2005, the Provisional IRA announced the end of its armed campaign and on 25 September 2005 international weapons inspectors supervised the full disarmament of the PIRA. Eventually, devolution was restored in April 2007.
Ireland's economy has evolved greatly, becoming more diverse and sophisticated than ever before by integrating itself into the global economy. By the beginning of the 1990s Ireland had transformed itself into a modern industrial economy and generated substantial national income that benefited the entire nation. Although dependence on agriculture still remained high, Ireland's industrial economy produced sophisticated goods that rivaled international competition. Ireland's international economic boom of the 1990s led to its being called the "Celtic Tiger."
The Catholic Church, which once exercised an enormous amount of power, found its influence on socio-political issues in Ireland much reduced. Irish bishops were no longer able to advise and influence the public on how to exercise their political rights. Modern Ireland's detachment of the Church from ordinary life can be explained by the increasing disinterest in Church doctrine by younger generations and the questionable morality of the Church's representatives. A highly publicized case was that of Eamonn Casey, the Bishop of Galway, who resigned abruptly in 1992 after it was revealed that he had had an affair with an American woman and had fathered a child. Further controversies and scandals arose concerning pedophile and child-abusing priests. As a result, many in the Irish public began to question the credibility and effectiveness of the Catholic Church.

[MMI]

Thank-you, den. I think this survey of Irish history confirms the assertions I have made that the Irish have always been the cause of their own problems (with a couple of exceptions in 16th/17th centuries) and it fell to Britain to keep the different factions apart.

[IAN 2411]

With all this history behind Ireland and the troubles, it still surprises me that the only piece of history that is ever remembered is the time between, 1969–74? During that time and while I was in the province a boat was boarded by HM Customs, suspecting drugs. However on board was $4 million worth of America’s most sophisticated weapons with almost the same in paper cash. Surely this was not sent by the same Country that is strongly denouncing terrorism since the 9/11 atrocity.

One of the weapons that were on board was an American Sniper rifle that was not even available to the American Special forces at that time. It just makes a person wonder from just how high up in America did the blood money and weapons get sent from? This I know to be true as we in the Special Forces were shown pictures of the weapons aboard the boat along with the $. There was also a picture of the snipers rifle set up on the deck of the boat along with American anti personal rocket launchers. It doesn’t bear thinking about really, but I am also a great believer in that you will only reap what you sow, or in 21st century terms, what goes around comes around.

As I slide down the banister of life, Northern Ireland and the IRA funded by the American $, will always remain a splinter in my ass.

One other thing the IRA, were not freedom fighters, they were “Terrorist scum.” Freedom fighters stop once they have achieved what they fought for. So you are wrong denu...terrorists are not freedom fighters by another name.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

Blinks...illegally obtained weapons maybe.

I seriously doubt the USA's government approved sending any weapons.

Its not my fault that some people prefer to not be objective when it comes to this topic.

Perspective is everything.

One persons freedom fighter is indeed another's terrorist. Thats just basic logic 101.

[IAN 2411]

Blinks...illegally obtained weapons maybe.

Yea right...now who is naive?


I seriously doubt the USA's government approved sending any weapons.



This is a quote from the Daily Mail reporter Peter Hitchens, and although it is not my paper he has answered your question, denu.
.....................................

It was the US that compelled this country to surrender to the terrorist murderers of the IRA.
It was President Bill Clinton who laundered the grisly and sinister Godfather Gerry Adams, giving him a visa and allowing him to spread his soapy propaganda and raise funds across the United States. President George W. Bush, Mister Anti-Terrorism himself, that actually altered his schedule to fit in Mister Adams (who was too busy to make the original time) for a jolly St Patrick’s Day chinwag in the White House.

So put that in your Guinness and drink it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If it’s terror you’re against, you know where to look for its supporters and sponsors.

...................

That is as good as giving the IRA weapons, the American people might have been be blind or naive....but the British people and Securty Services were not.

WE have Paddy O'Bama now.

Be well IAN 2411

[js207]

Perspective is everything.

One persons freedom fighter is indeed another's terrorist. Thats just basic logic 101.

We've been through this already: freedom fighter and terrorist are quite distinct. One is a goal, the other a tactic or strategy. Some people may be both, others are clearly only one or the other: Timothy McVeigh might arguably be both from some perspectives, but Gandhi? Clearly no terrorist - objectively, he did not employ violence or terror - but recognised widely as a freedom fighter since he fought for freedom. Your confusion of the two is not 'logic 101', but a failure thereof.

[MMI]

Blinks...illegally obtained weapons maybe.

I seriously doubt the USA's government approved sending any weapons.


I agree. The USA would never indulge in anything like secretly undermining a foreign power's government, would it? Besides, there was never any reason to try to undermine the British government.

By the way, has anyone ever noticed how important it is for Presidential candidates in America to win the Irish Vote when campaigning for a place in the White House, and how many have or claim to have Irish ancestry (even when this cannot be demonstrated). True, some of them seem to have come from Ulster (the part of Ireland loyal to Britain), but they seem not to make so much of that aspect of their ancestry, for obvious resons.

Count them since the Troubles began in the mid sixties ... call Nixon the first of them at that time to claim Irish heritage ...

Scary huh?

Now, you all know I'm the last person on this site to make unsubstantiated statements or cast aspersions, but wouldn't you all agree now that one person's terrorist can look so much like another country's President?

[denuseri]

lol touche MMI

Its all a matter of perspective.

I do find it puzzling however that Brittan would tolerate known government involvement by the USA on the side of the IRA etc considering we are allies of Brittan.

I would love to see any actual data supporting such claims.

[MMI]

What could we do? If we complained, it'd be denied: the Underworld is responsible, not the President! Besides, if we forced US to really choose between Britain and Ireland, which one would they go for?

Like all good conspiracy theories, it is unprovable, but there are enough signs to give it credibility.

[js207]

I do find it puzzling however that Brittan would tolerate known government involvement by the USA on the side of the IRA etc considering we are allies of Brittan.


Do you see a realistic alternative? Bomb Boston? Respond in kind, by bankrolling or arming Al Qaeda?

For the most part, it wasn't so much a case of the federal government supporting the IRA directly, but excessive tolerance of the groups who did so - letting Gerry Adams into the US when his terrorist links should have precluded entry, letting his allies fundraise. Ironic, too, that support for the IRA was one of the very few areas where the Gaddafi regime and the US were on the same side!

(On the other hand, if a resurrected Hitler and Roosevelt both came to the UK for a reunion, it would be Hitler who got the friendly treatment and fast channel at immigration...)

[IAN 2411]

Real IRA Vows To Continue Its Deadly Attacks

By David Blevins, Ireland correspondent | Sky News – 1 hour 3 minutes ago

The Real IRA has vowed to continue its attacks on members of the British security forces.

A masked man issued the threat during an Easter Rising commemoration in Derry.

The Real IRA is a renegade faction which emerged following a split in the mainstream Provisional IRA (PIRA).

PIRA's alleged quartermaster general, Michael McKevitt, walked out when Sinn Fein joined the peace process.

McKevitt is serving a jail sentence for terrorist offences south of the Irish border.

He is the husband of Bernadette Sands McKevitt, sister of infamous hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Up to two dozen others defected with him, taking with them both weaponry and experience.

The newly formed Real IRA soon replaced the Continuity IRA as the home for dissidents.

Initially, they had access to small amounts of material that had previously been under their control: Semtex explosive, Uzi submachine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, handguns, detonators and timing devices.

In 1999, they supplemented their arsenal by importing military explosives and rocket launchers from Croatia.

Further attempts to purchase and smuggle weaponry in Eastern Europe were foiled by security agencies.

The Real IRA comprises semi-autonomous cells, not unlike those operated by al Qaeda.

It has neither the command structure nor the discipline of the Provision IRA, but should not be underestimated.

A year after it came into existence, it carried out Northern Ireland's worst terrorist atrocity when 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed in the Omagh bombing.

Three years ago, the group claimed the murders of two British soldiers in County Antrim .

Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, and Mark Quinsey, 23, were shot dead outside Massereene Army Barracks.

Constable Ronan Kerr , 25, a Catholic member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was their most recent victim.

Their booby trap bomb detonated when he opened his car door in Omagh.

Despite threats, the Real IRA failed to disrupt the Queen's historic visit to Ireland, but the terror group has no intention of abandoning violence and embracing peace any time soon.
..................................................
I said it in one of my earlier posts, The IRA are not freedom fighters they are filth, scum, nothing more than terrorists. They are just sick killers of innocents and cannot get the sickness out of their blood. If every soldier pulled out of the Province the IRA would still find an excuse to use their disgusting trade.

I wonder now if Martin Sheen is still proud of uncle's IRA past??? He must be as sick as they are.

Be well IAN 2411

[leo9]

This is a quote from the Daily Mail reporter Peter HitchensI was thinking of coming in on this, but if you've sunk to quoting Hitchens as a source this is not a serious debate.

[IAN 2411]

I was thinking of coming in on this, but if you've sunk to quoting Hitchens as a source this is not a serious debate.
Six Arrests After Real IRA Vows More Killing

By David Blevins, Ireland correspondent | Sky News – Mon, Apr 9, 2012

Six Arrests After Real IRA Vows More Killing

Six men have been arrested after the Real IRA threatened to kill more policemen and soldiers.

They were detained after a masked spokesman for the group made the threat at an Easter
Rising commemoration in Derry.

Police are now questioning them in Antrim

The Real IRA is a renegade faction which emerged following a split in the mainstream Provisional IRA (PIRA).

PIRA's alleged quartermaster general, Michael McKevitt, walked out when Sinn Fein joined the peace process.

McKevitt is serving a jail sentence for terrorist offences south of the Irish border.

He is the husband of Bernadette Sands McKevitt, sister of infamous hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Up to two dozen others defected with him, taking with them both weaponry and experience.

The newly formed Real IRA soon replaced the Continuity IRA as the home for dissidents.

Initially, they had access to small amounts of material that had previously been under their control: Semtex explosive, Uzi submachine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, handguns, detonators and timing devices.

In 1999, they supplemented their arsenal by importing military explosives and rocket launchers from Croatia.

Further attempts to purchase and smuggle weaponry in Eastern Europe were foiled by security agencies.

The Real IRA comprises semi-autonomous cells, not unlike those operated by al Qaeda.

It has neither the command structure nor the discipline of the Provisional IRA, but should not be underestimated.

A year after it came into existence, it carried out Northern Ireland's worst terrorist atrocity when 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed in the Omagh bombing.

Three years ago, the group claimed the murders of two British soldiers in County Antrim.

Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, and Mark Quinsey, 23, were shot dead outside Massereene Army Barracks.

Constable Ronan Kerr , 25, a Catholic member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was their most recent victim.

Their booby trap bomb detonated when he opened his car door in Omagh.

Despite threats, the Real IRA failed to disrupt the Queen's historic visit to Ireland, but the terror group has no intention of abandoning violence and embracing peace any time soon.
.................................................. ....................

Just for you Leo9

This guy talks perfect English. This was my thread Leo9, I don’t know where you get off judging what is or what is not a serious thread. If you feel that way, then stay out of the thread and don’t make sarcastic remarks. Don’t ever try flaming me and making out that I am some sort of fool and below your standards.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

When are people going to realise that these thugs and mercenary are not Freedom Fighters for any religious sect or country. They kill indiscriminately their own people in the south of Ireland with mafia type operations. They are now bringing their forced death to the North once more, and why you might ask? They have nothing to do; they are obsolete like old dinosaurs. The IRA fought for unification of the two halves and I am in no doubt when agreement arises they might get it. However, all the time the majority of Northern Ireland want to be part of mainland Britain it will never take place. The IRA, don’t want peace in any form, they want control, and they want peace under their twisted terms.

It shows their mentality by killing a lowly constable [Constable Ronan Kerr, 25,] that has no bearing on what the British forces do in Northern Ireland. To make a statement of their terrorist intent to the whole of Ireland, the poor guy was Catholic and an easy target. They are now killing the very people they indoctrinated with hate of the British, whom also paid their money in protection money into the IRA coffers.

The peace agreement is to them a retirement notice, and they will never retire because they want to be the saviours of Ireland. They killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins in the Omaha Bombing, showing the world their worth. The IRA’s twisted minds show us all that until they are dead and off of this world, then their killing spree will never end. They have the front to say that they are the Real IRA, but to be sure you get your facts straight I would go as far as to say they are the Europeans version of al Qaeda. The IRA or Real IRA they call themselves now is not fighting for Unification of Ireland or the Irish Catholics in the North. They are fighting for their own survival and are nothing more than thugs with big guns.

People like Martin Sheen in their glorification of these terrorists only fuel their narcissist need. When are the American Irish going to learn, that there is not now and never was any honour in being part of a thug organisation that kills for the sake of satisfying their own twisted minds. I wonder if these Irish Americans would be so keen to mouth off in the press of their IRA conections, if it was found that the IRA helped train the al Qaeda that organised 9/11. Don’t for one minute that I am talking foolish, because the IRA were out in the Middle East a long time before the peace process or the start of the Afghanistan War.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

In other words, the "Continuity IRA" consists exclusively of bigoted diehards who refuse to recognise reality, and psychopathic criminals intent on smuggling arms, dealing drugs, and running brothels in between bank robberies and private score settling.

[thir]

Thank-you, den. I think this survey of Irish history confirms the assertions I have made that the Irish have always been the cause of their own problems (with a couple of exceptions in 16th/17th centuries) and it fell to Britain to keep the different factions apart.

LOL Then you need glasses :-)))

[thir]

We've been through this already: freedom fighter and terrorist are quite distinct. One is a goal, the other a tactic or strategy. Some people may be both, others are clearly only one or the other: Timothy McVeigh might arguably be both from some perspectives, but Gandhi? Clearly no terrorist - objectively, he did not employ violence or terror - but recognised widely as a freedom fighter since he fought for freedom. Your confusion of the two is not 'logic 101', but a failure thereof.

I cannot for the life of me see how you distinguish between the two. Can you define a terrorist by atrocities done? Because armies do the same.

Examples of armies:
The Blittz of London could not be justified with strategic targets alone.
The bombing of Dresden - after the nazis were beaten, was pure revenge - understandable, but wrong.
The atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasagi were done to terrorize a surrender earlier than it would have come - some say Japan was already ready to surrender, at least after Hiroshima.
In Iraq, the destruction of Faluja was specifically called 'operation Shock and Awe' in recognition of the fact that the operation was not just to take it out as a stronghold, but to terrorize the country into surrender.

It would seem that if small, non-soldier gruops commit atrocities without a specific military target but to terrify, then they are terrorists, but if an army does it, it is ok.

Where are the rules? And who sets them??

[leo9]

This guy talks perfect English. This was my thread Leo9, I don’t know where you get off judging what is or what is not a serious thread. If you feel that way, then stay out of the thread and don’t make sarcastic remarks. Don’t ever try flaming me and making out that I am some sort of fool and below your standards.


I apologise, Hitchens gets under my skin like fibreglass, but I should not have reacted that way. I certainly would never suggest that he doesn't write clear English, or that he is any kind of fool: he has made a lucrative career out of being the voice of the bigot in the saloon bar, and as a pro pornographer I'm in no position to criticise the way anyone writes for money. My opinion of those who take his column seriously is my own and I will keep it to myself hereafter.

I hadn't realised threads were private property, but since this one is yours, may I please have permission to enter?

[leo9]

Blinks...illegally obtained weapons maybe.

I seriously doubt the USA's government approved sending any weapons.
Considering that the Kennedys were extremely proud of their Irish Catholic roots, like many others at the highest levels of US politics, I don't know why it's so hard to believe. Personalities aside, remember Iran/Contra? US Government operation to supply arms to South American terrorists? Because they were terrorists the US approved of?


Its not my fault that some people prefer to not be objective when it comes to this topic. <wry smile> How true.


Perspective is everything. No, perspective is a distortion. Persective makes a wedge out of a rectangle. That's why engineers and architects work from plans not perspective drawings.

[leo9]

Thank-you, den. I think this survey of Irish history confirms the assertions I have made that the Irish have always been the cause of their own problems (with a couple of exceptions in 16th/17th centuries) and it fell to Britain to keep the different factions apart.Amazing. I often wondered exactly what the term "invincible ignorance" meant, and now I have a perfect example. Anyone who can read a fifteen-hundred-year catalogue of invasions and oppressions and conclude that it was all the victim's fault is totally impervious to facts.

To mention only one example, did you miss the point that the reason there are "different factions" in Northern Ireland is because we put them there?

(I'm reminded of the character who declared in all seriousness that the Troubles could be solved if the Irish Catholics would only "go back where they came from.")

[leo9]

In other words, the "Continuity IRA" consists exclusively of bigoted diehards who refuse to recognise reality, and psychopathic criminals intent on smuggling arms, dealing drugs, and running brothels in between bank robberies and private score settling.Part of it is undoubtedly that the IRA had a lucrative criminal network in their heyday, and some people are bound to be reluctant to lose all that lovely money. But random assassinations don't further that: as any mobster could tell you, the last thing you want to do is cause needless trouble and draw the attention of the law.

A fanatic is defined as one who redoubles his efforts when his cause is lost, and this is a horribly clear example. Ireland probably will be reunited one day simply as a casual piece of administrative convenience, when the population is sufficiently integrated that nobody cares, and the factions of the Troubles are as much of a historical curiosity as Lancastrians versus Yorkists in England. But it won't be reunited under Catholic Sharia because that is passing away in the Republic, and the irridentist ex-IRAs, like militant Islamists in the Middle East, are fighting for something that no longer exists.

[leo9]

We've been through this already: freedom fighter and terrorist are quite distinct. One is a goal, the other a tactic or strategy. Some people may be both, others are clearly only one or the other: Timothy McVeigh might arguably be both from some perspectives, but Gandhi? Clearly no terrorist - objectively, he did not employ violence or terror - but recognised widely as a freedom fighter since he fought for freedom. Your confusion of the two is not 'logic 101', but a failure thereof.
An old scientific principle says, "instead of asking what it is, just ask 'what does it do?'" It's a lot clearer if we speak of methods.

Terror tactics are defined as those that are aimed at undermining morale and causing (as the old WWII officialese had it) "alarm and despondency," rather than causing strategic damage. Blowing up the Pentagon, if Al-Quaeda had achieved it, would have been a plausible military tactic: blowing up the WTC was a terror tactic.

Terrorists, as commonly defined, are guerillas that use terror tactics. The Talliban in Afghanistan, for the most part, seem to focus on military targets; a roadside bomb against an army vehicle is not a "terrorist" weapon, just a shot in a guerilla war. (Almost identical devices were used by the Resistance in WWII Europe.)

When national governments use terror tactics, it's usually not admitted as such. When the British Army responded to Ghandi's protests by shooting down a square full of peaceful demonstrators (for what the commanding officer later admitted was the "moral effect," i.e. the terror value,) they argued for months that it had been a riot action. When Israel indiscriminately shelled Gaza, focussing on hospitals, power plants and the like, they still maintain the fiction that they were targetting "terrorists." "Operation Shock and Awe" in Iraq was remarkable for being explicitly named as a terror tactic, but since (like Israel in Gaza) they also used banned weapons such as white phosphorus, they clearly felt they had a free pass to break every rule.

[js207]

"they also used banned weapons such as white phosphorus,"

White phosphorous isn't actually banned - there are restrictions on how and where you use it, as indeed there are for bullets and grenades. Incidentally, the US only signed that Protocol in 2009; for the vast majority of fighting in Iraq, only Protocols I and II were in force, I, prohibiting fragments which are X-ray transparent while II relates to land mines and other booby-trap devices. III, from 2009 onwards for the US, bars their use as incendiary devices against civilian targets, as well as against combatants in close proximity to civilians, but specifically does not restrict their use for illumination or smoke production purposes, which is how the US troops were using them in Iraq anyway.

There wasn't an "Operation Shock and Awe", either - the document titled Shock and Awe was from 1996, expanding upon a phrase dating right back to Sun Tzu; the actual implementation in Iraq was a rapid decapitation attack, intended to minimise both civilian and military deaths and very successful in that respect. You acknowledge the Pentagon would be a legitimate military target in a war, why not accept that Hussein's equivalent compounds and bunkers - which were the targets in those "shock and awe" opening air strikes - were just as legitimate, rather than "terrorism"?

[leo9]

When the British Army responded to Ghandi's protests by shooting down a square full of peaceful demonstrators (for what the commanding officer later admitted was the "moral effect," i.e. the terror value,) they argued for months that it had been a riot action.And incidentaly, though Churchill had the decency to condemn the Amritsar massacre, he was responsible for the aerial bombing of villages in Afghanistan. Just one of the reasons the Afghans didn't bless us as liberators...

[leo9]

"they also used banned weapons such as white phosphorus,"

White phosphorous isn't actually banned - there are restrictions on how and where you use it, as indeed there are for bullets and grenades. Incidentally, the US only signed that Protocol in 2009Well, that make it OK, if you don't recognise the law then you're not breaking it. Same as the US won't sign up to the International Criminal Court.
III, from 2009 onwards for the US, bars their use as incendiary devices against civilian targets, as well as against combatants in close proximity to civilians, but specifically does not restrict their use for illumination or smoke production purposes, which is how the US troops were using them in Iraq anyway.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-fog-of-war-white-phosphorus-fallujah-and-some-burning-questions-515345.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111600374.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30372

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/iraq/1364-no-arab-spring-for-the-child-victims-of-us-chemical-weapons-in-fallujah

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/244726-Depleted-Uranium-White-Phosphorous-and-The-Deformed-Children-of-Fallujah-Know-nothing-See-nothing-Say-nothing-

http://ipsnews.net/text/news.asp?idnews=42762


There wasn't an "Operation Shock and Awe", either - the document titled Shock and Awe was from 1996, expanding upon a phrase dating right back to Sun Tzu; It was persistently referred to as such in the news coverage at the time, but I'm quite ready to believe that this was a misnomer. It's actually more probable than that the military would have been so honest about their aims.
the actual implementation in Iraq was a rapid decapitation attack, The city was basically levelled. "Decapitation" doesn't involve blowing someone's entire body to shreds.
intended to minimise both civilian and military deaths and very successful in that respect. You presumably have casualty figures to back this up which contradict the known ones?
You acknowledge the Pentagon would be a legitimate military target in a war, why not accept that Hussein's equivalent compounds and bunkers - which were the targets in those "shock and awe" opening air strikes - were just as legitimate, rather than "terrorism"?There's a very clear point at which "collateral damage" becomes intentional targetting of civilians. Taking out the Pentagon would be a military tactic. Firebombing all of Arlington in the process would be terror tactics.

[leo9]

And incidentaly, though Churchill had the decency to condemn the Amritsar massacre, he was responsible for the aerial bombing of villages in Afghanistan.

Just to be perfectly clear, I've been asked to note that this was under the British Raj, not the current Afghan war!

[Thorne]

Where are the rules? And who sets them??
As in most cases, the rules are set by the bully with the biggest fist, and they change according to his whims.

The Israeli's attacking an Iranian nuclear site is an act of self-defense. The Iranians attacking an Israeli nuclear site would be an act of terrorism. See the difference?

[IAN 2411]

Northern Ireland Car Bombs 'Targeted Police'Sky News – Sat, Apr 28, 2012

Two potentially lethal car bombs found in Northern Ireland were aimed at killing police officers, a unionist minister has claimed.

The explosive devices were discovered after security alerts were triggered in a town near the Irish border and in Belfast.

Ulster Unionist Danny Kennedy, who is also a minister in the Stormont government, said the device found near the border town of Newry was believed to be part of a plot to kill police.

Mr Kennedy said the dissidents were "dangerous and dedicated terrorists, who are determined to cause serious harm, injury and death to members of the security forces regardless of the consequences to local communities".

The Stormont minister said he was very concerned at the increasing number of attacks planned and executed by republican dissidents around Newry.The bomb, containing 600lbs of homemade explosives, was found in an abandoned white Citroen Berlingo van in the Fathom Line area on Thursday evening.

Army bomb experts confirmed the bomb was a "viable device" and successfully disarmed it.

District Commander Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson said: "This was a very significant device. If this had exploded it would have caused devastation."

He said police could only "speculate" about a possible target for the huge bomb at this time.

"What there is no doubt about is that it was completely reckless to have this device anywhere near human life," he said.

The second bomb was found under a parked car in the Ballygomartin Road in north Belfast, causing the evacuation of homes in the area.

Chief Inspector Ian Campbell said: "Those responsible for this have shown callous disregard for members of the public.

"The operation resulted in the evacuation of up to 80 people, including families with young children and elderly residents, for several hours.

"The finger of suspicion points towards dissident republican terrorists and I appeal to anyone with information to come forward to police."

The explosives find came after another arms cache containing guns and ammunition was discovered by police in Belfast on Friday.

.................................................. .................................................. ..........

If you note, the prefix IRA is not used because the IRA are a spent force. The IRA is as extinct as the Dodo, and it is that the IRA hate about the Good Friday Agreement. They hate the peace it has brought to the province. There are no people waving the tricolour out the windows and rioting, there is no need. The IRA has no cause so they cannot be the freedom fighter they once were. Now, the IRA members are now no more, or less than filthy, murdering, cowardly terrorists. The Northern Ireland Government and police now refer to them as dissidents.

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution.

Sounds about right

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Invincible ignorance? Hmmm.

Even the most fervent Fenian complains only of 800 years' oppression - before then, it was Ireland that invaded and oppressed Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland; the invasions from England/Britain were fewer in number than you appear to suppose, and the oppressions were more by the factions within Ireland against each other than by England/Britain against Ireland - the clans against each other and against the Earls and other landowners, the clan leaders and the Earls against the English, the Catholics against the Protestants, the Jacobites against the Hanoverians, the landowners against the subsistence farmers ...

For example, while the poor Irish were starving to death, unable to grow even a few potatoes, the wealthy Irish landowners grew high quality wheat and grazed cattle on luscious grass, and they exported their produce to England, Europe and America rather than relieve their fellow Irishmen's suffering. Meanwhile, the Irish Earls prevented the English Parliament from doing anything about it.

Virtually every "uprising" had fellow Irishmen as their targets and victims. The Irish Civil War, for example, was a bloodier affair than the Anglo-Irish War that preceded it. "Popular" uprisings that had to be quelled by British forces can be portrayed as English oppression - and they are - but in reality, they were mostly peacekeeping efforts. Consider the British troops sent into Belfast in 1969 as neutral forces to subdue sectarian rioting. Within weeks of welcoming them, the Irish nationalists turned against them and the IRA began a campaign of terror and murder against them. At the same time, the Irish Republic's government drew up plans for a military intervention in Ulster, and gave open support to the nationalist side.

Irishman against Irishman, and both blaming the English for their inability to coexist.

After WWII, the Irish government adopted a policy of preventing Irishmen who had fought in the British Army from holding any position in a state-run enterprise or in local authorities. This came to be known as the Starvation Order. Apparently it is still in force and some ex-British soldiers are still afraid to admit their involvement.

Irishman against Irishman, again. Incidentally, I am not aware that the Starvation Order extended to those who fought on the German side!

Those are the facts, unless you can demonstrate otherwise. They are not all of the facts, as I have already pointed out, but they are significant and are generally overlooked these days. I have highlighted them because it is high time that the anti-British view that the world holds when it comes to Irish politics needs to be overturned and the record set straight. The Irish nationalists do not have the monopoly on truth in this particular issue - in fact, they are masters at distorting it.

Invincible ignorance, to my mind, is deliberately ignoring the facts when they are presented.

[denuseri]

One needs to also keep in mind that the idea of anthropological thinking along the lines of cultural and ethnic nationalism and nation state status didn't come into being again until the middle to late 19th century (prior to that the only thing close for most Europeans was the power of the Romans).

The very same thing where a particular lord held his people in less than perfect conditions occurred pretty much uniformly throughout the known world to one extent or another and greed often played the biggest part when it often crossed the so called territorial boundaries. It was quite common for one lord to attack another on a local level if he saw any advantage too it. Irish Lords would like anyone else during the time periods predating nationalism's rise be inclined to raid their closest neighbors as well as make incursions into the nearer islands. Just as it was common for the Irish and Welsh and Scots to raid the Saxons (the later had themselves invaded from Europe) who were all in turn invaded by the Danes, etc etc.

All of which doesn't change a thing about how one groups bad guy can be another's good guy etc.

One nationalized state's cultural perceptions and preconceptions concerning any particular group (as evidenced not only by very one sided takes on history by some of the participants in this thread but also by the relationship between Arab and Jew or Irish and English etc) can take much longer than one human lifespan to change if at all.

But to think that the British Empire (or its English forebears like the Normans and Saxons etc) went blithely tromping around peacefully (while they invaded all these different peoples lands) making everyone's lives they touched the better and should instead of resisting be thanking them for it imho is almost tantamount to saying that the Jews should thank the Nazis for the Holocaust (yes I am perhaps killing the thread by including the Nazis lol) or that the American Indians should be thanking Columbus, the Colonists and all their decedents who followed.

This still doesn't mean that intelligent people shouldn't be able to see the other sides point of view as seemingly valid at least in their respected perspectives imho.

For instance...do I think the Arab people did wrong by my mother's people when they basically started a war and all but kicked us out of Lebanon where our ancestors had lived pretty much since before the Roman's destroyed the Temple of Solomon?

Why yes I do see them as in the wrong.

But I also understand that they will see it quite differently.

[thir]

As in most cases, the rules are set by the bully with the biggest fist, and they change according to his whims.

The Israeli's attacking an Iranian nuclear site is an act of self-defense. The Iranians attacking an Israeli nuclear site would be an act of terrorism. See the difference?

No.

I can't tell if you are ironic, or I just do not get it - ehm..

[thir]

All of which doesn't change a thing about how one groups bad guy can be another's good guy etc.


That is pretty much it. There is no valid defintion of terrorism.

[Thorne]

No.

I can't tell if you are ironic, or I just do not get it - ehm..
I was being ironic, yes. I just haven't been able to find the Irony font.

[MMI]

One needs to also keep in mind that the idea of anthropological thinking along the lines of cultural and ethnic nationalism and nation state status didn't come into being again until the middle to late 19th century (prior to that the only thing close for most Europeans was the power of the Romans).

...



Let me see if I understand you correctly: it was OK for the Hibernians to raid the tribes in Caledonia, Valentia, Maxima Caesariensis, Britannia Secunda and those of south-western Britannia, because that was the norm for the time, but not for Britain to build an empire in later periods, even though that, too was the norm - I refer you to Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Austria, Spain and Portugal, for example. Do I see a double standard here?

The trouble with discussing Ireland is that it ALWAYS involves centuries of history that, in any other country, would long ago have been forgiven and forgotten, but, as I have suggested, the Irish need someone to blame for their own flawed character - and who better than England? Speak to any Irish patriot and he will claim that Ireland has been under the yoke of England for 800 years. That's his starting point, and there's not one good thing that England has done for that country ever since. To hear him, you'd think the English had nothing better to do than make the lives of Irishmen miserable.

Well, we had two empires to build and three world wars to win. We had to industrialise the world and we had to ensure free trade during the Pax Britannica.

What makes it worse is that so many of the claims are untrue, and many more are gross exaggerations.

For most of history, Britain's only interest in Ireland was to ensure that it would not be used by its enemies as a staging post for an invasion from the west. Its military adventures there were simply to expel French, Spanish or Jacobite forces that sought to use Ireland for that very purpose, or to put down violent uprisings by Irish rebels of one sort or another. Apart from that, Britain was happy to let the bogtrotters, as they called them, live out their miserable existence as they liked. There was nothing else in Ireland that interested them one little bit.

As I have said before, and no-one has yet refuted it, the trouble with the Irish is that they cannot get along with each other. It is they who oppressed their fellow countrymen, and rose up against each other: North v South, Catholic v Protestant, landowners v subsistence farmers ... and so on right up to the modern day.

So let's forget history and look at the position today. The IRA is now spent; all that remains is its political arm. It has been replaced by a smaller group, the Continuity IRA (and a small number of similar groupings) who continue to deal out death to other Irishmen. In reply, the UVF have carried out their own revenge attacks on Catholics (in between murdering other loyalists as part of an internal feud!) Do we still see one Irishman oppressing another? I think we do. Where are the British? I'll leave that open ...

Someone said I should get glasses after I suggested your previous summary of Irish history showed the Irish problems were created by Irishmen and not the British. To see the Irish as oppressed by the English in this day and age would require a very heavy rose-tint on the lenses. Even looking at the whole timeline, to believe that England has done nothing but harm to that country would be spectacular self-delusion.

Finally, my wife is an Irish Catholic. During the last half of the 20th Century, as she saw what the IRA and UVF were doing to each other, and, more importantly, to other innocent men women and children in Belfast, Londonderry and elsewhere, she and her family admitted to being ashamed to be Irish. I am descended from an orange Glaswegian who objected to my marriage for sectarian reasons, and I admit to being ashamed of what the Loyalists have done. Who could glory in what has happened there? Apart from Martin Sheen, perhaps.

[IAN 2411]

Nicely put MMI

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

Let me see if I understand you correctly: it was OK for the Hibernians to raid the tribes in Caledonia, Valentia, Maxima Caesariensis, Britannia Secunda and those of south-western Britannia, because that was the norm for the time, but not for Britain to build an empire in later periods, even though that, too was the norm - I refer you to Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Austria, Spain and Portugal, for example. Do I see a double standard here?

No. I didnt mention anything about any of it being ok. At least not from my modern perspective....I am sure the successful aggressors in each case perfectly justified their own actions in their own eyes however.

The trouble with discussing Ireland is that it ALWAYS involves centuries of history that, in any other country, would long ago have been forgiven and forgotten, but, as I have suggested, the Irish need someone to blame for their own flawed character - and who better than England?

That basically goes both ways...your saying in a way if you look at it the right way that the Irish "needed" all the strife of being dominated by England to become worth something to anyone and hence should basically thank you for it?

Speak to any Irish patriot and he will claim that Ireland has been under the yoke of England for 800 years. That's his starting point, and there's not one good thing that England has done for that country ever since. To hear him, you'd think the English had nothing better to do than make the lives of Irishmen miserable.

As I said perspective in these instances is everything.

The Irish modern day "nationalist" is going to say that very thing. His perspective is that of someone who has been filled with many generations of nationalism at work. Even if his ancestors only said "Dam Lord Fitzgerald he and his Normans to hell he and Lord O'Brien that traitor are bastards and will rue the day they invaded my lands. I will get the fyrd of the Earl of Northampton to attack Fritzgerald forces in Wales before they depart and then I can deal with O' Brien myself""

Obviously, historically they were looking at such conflicts much more locally in nature.

All I did was point out that both you and Ian appear to be biased on the side of the conquerors by much the same fashion...nationalist dogma having been propagated upon you your whole life perhaps.

Well, we had two empires to build and three world wars to win. We had to industrialise the world and we had to ensure free trade during the Pax Britannica.

Just like the Romans had to ironically instill Pax Romana huh? Nice guys they were hey? (depending upon one's perspective of course wink wink)

What makes it worse is that so many of the claims are untrue, and many more are gross exaggerations.

On both sides I am sure.

For most of history, Britain's only interest in Ireland was to ensure that it would not be used by its enemies as a staging post for an invasion from the west. Its military adventures there were simply to expel French, Spanish or Jacobite forces that sought to use Ireland for that very purpose, or to put down violent uprisings by Irish rebels of one sort or another. Apart from that, Britain was happy to let the bogtrotters, as they called them, live out their miserable existence as they liked. There was nothing else in Ireland that interested them one little bit.

That is certifiably "one" perspective...though you of all people should admit not necessarily the only one or the most truthful necessarily. lots of exploitation was involved on both sides I am almost positive. Just as war mongering Zionists infiltrated my place of birth and gave fuel to the anti-Jew fire burning in many an Arab heart.

As I have said before, and no-one has yet refuted it, the trouble with the Irish is that they cannot get along with each other. It is they who oppressed their fellow countrymen, and rose up against each other: North v South, Catholic v Protestant, landowners v subsistence farmers ... and so on right up to the modern day.

So...your saying that made it perfectly ok for the Big BG to intercede huh? <much like it must then be ok for the Americans to intercede in the middle east or any where else ?

So let's forget history and look at the position today.

Yes because arguments concerning the history of the situation wont help you when you have a historian to argue with. lol (keep in mind if I were on my knees before I couldn't talk back with your manhood in my mouth winks)

The IRA is now spent; all that remains is its political arm. It has been replaced by a smaller group, the Continuity IRA (and a small number of similar groupings) who continue to deal out death to other Irishmen. In reply, the UVF have carried out their own revenge attacks on Catholics (in between murdering other loyalists as part of an internal feud!) Do we still see one Irishman oppressing another? I think we do. Where are the British? I'll leave that open ...

Continuing to do what they have done? Hold Dominion in one way or another...which imho isn't anything terrible compared to what their ancestors have done, which is mainly protecting their own security (though sometimes not any more nicely than their American allies do in other areas etc). I do agree that the resistance if futile (in both cases...England's and America's...neither side has any real apparent hope of victory with either of their respected adversaries IRA cant win, Al-quiada cant win, and vice versa) IE both should give peace a chance and stop the fighting period!

Someone said I should get glasses after I suggested your previous summary of Irish history showed the Irish problems were created by Irishmen and not the British. To see the Irish as oppressed by the English in this day and age would require a very heavy rose-tint on the lenses. Even looking at the whole timeline, to believe that England has done nothing but harm to that country would be spectacular self-delusion.

Oh I agree...yet you have managed to continue prior to that statement make it sound as if Engalnd is the good guy and Ireland was the bad...just saying. Heck in a way your still doing it which makes my BS shields still go up. (as much as they do whilst arguing religion with Thorne btw)

Finally, my wife is an Irish Catholic. During the last half of the 20th Century, as she saw what the IRA and UVF were doing to each other, and, more importantly, to other innocent men women and children in Belfast, Londonderry and elsewhere, she and her family admitted to being ashamed to be Irish. I am descended from an orange Glaswegian who objected to my marriage for sectarian reasons, and I admit to being ashamed of what the Loyalists have done. Who could glory in what has happened there? Apart from Martin Sheen, perhaps.

lol Martian I will conceed is a complete idiot. Despite portraying the President we all wish we had on TV.

I also agree that it is beyound deployarable that some factions strike out at the very people they claim to represent in their resistance to tyranny. But it doesnt surprise me. Americans, like the Irish did it while resisting Brittan, The Jews did it while resisting Rome, The Russians did it while resisting Germany...the list goes on and on and on.

And I am quite certian...everyone on all sides in any of these deplorable engadgments...thought their side and their's alone was the right one.

[IAN 2411]

Neither England nor Ireland was the bad Guys, because the IRA was the bad guys. The Irish Americans knew damn all about their countries politics, because most were too young to have been born there. They only knew the propaganda that the political wing of the IRA told them. However, it was enough to get a good proportion of Irish Americans, and that proportion I will call thick American Mick’s to part with their cash. People like Martin Sheen. So that the political beggars could fill the IRA coffers, and in turn they could kill more of the British Soldiers and even more of their kin.

Ask any British soldier that was like me in the province in the 60s and 70s and they will tell you what they thought of the American Irish and their miss-guided beliefs and money. It is our buddies that have now gone to the American wars to die at the side of the American soldiers at the America’s request. I, sure as hell, don’t know why, because some American Irish are still hell bent in trying to justify the IRAs blood thirsty quest in killing their own people. A person has to have been there during and after the troubles to know anything about the politics of Northern Ireland.

One other thing that the Americans always seem to forget, whether it is on purpose or not I have no idea. There are no English in Northern Ireland except the soldiers, the people that live there are all Irish. They have the right to chose by a majority vote whether to stay in the United Kingdom or be part of Southern Ireland. There is no part of the Good Friday Agreement that was signed by all parties that states the IRA have a final vote, because that is what their political arm is for.

If they voted out of the UK tomorrow I doubt very much that the UK would do anything to stop it taking place. The province has been a thorn in our side for hundreds of years, and our troops would leave at the drop of a hat. However, don’t think for one minute that if the UK had a security alert like the Cuba/Russian problem that the Americans had. Then you can bet your ass that the British Soldier would be back with the dropping of another hat.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Originally Posted by MMI
Let me see if I understand you correctly: it was OK for the Hibernians to raid the tribes in Caledonia, Valentia, Maxima Caesariensis, Britannia Secunda and those of south-western Britannia, because that was the norm for the time, but not for Britain to build an empire in later periods, even though that, too was the norm - I refer you to Sweden, Russia, Holland, France, Austria, Spain and Portugal, for example. Do I see a double standard here?


No. I didnt mention anything about any of it being ok. At least not from my modern perspective....I am sure the successful aggressors in each case perfectly justified their own actions in their own eyes however.

Then you must have meant, in your previous post, that people behaved in a way they considered appropriate at the time. That is probably a truism. The Hibernians did as Hibernians were wont to, the British did so too.

So, if, today, Irish terrorists behave in the way they are expected to, no-one needs to comment?


Originally Posted by MMI
The trouble with discussing Ireland is that it ALWAYS involves centuries of history that, in any other country, would long ago have been forgiven and forgotten, but, as I have suggested, the Irish need someone to blame for their own flawed character - and who better than England?


That basically goes both ways...your saying in a way if you look at it the right way that the Irish "needed" all the strife of being dominated by England to become worth something to anyone and hence should basically thank you for it?

I don’t really understand that comment, but I’m sure I’m not trying to say what you suggest. What I am saying is that the Irish have never, at any time in history (so far as I can see) been at peace with each other: there has always been some division between them which has justified one side or other taking violent action against the other. They have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.

From England’s point of view, Ireland has never had much value, but it has posed a threat. During the Troubles, the majority of English would have been happy to see Ireland sink under the sea. Nevertheless, we sent in our young men to die trying to stop them from killing each other, while the Republic gave succour to the IRA and its government contemplated military action in Ulster. In other words, Eire considered going to war with Britain in support of a rebellious minority, no doubt, with the ultimate aim of incorporating British territory into its own – against the majority will of the people living there.


Originally Posted by MMI
Speak to any Irish patriot and he will claim that Ireland has been under the yoke of England for 800 years. That's his starting point, and there's not one good thing that England has done for that country ever since. To hear him, you'd think the English had nothing better to do than make the lives of Irishmen miserable.



As I said perspective in these instances is everything.

The Irish modern day "nationalist" is going to say that very thing. His perspective is that of someone who has been filled with many generations of nationalism at work. Even if his ancestors only said "Dam Lord Fitzgerald he and his Normans to hell he and Lord O'Brien that traitor are bastards and will rue the day they invaded my lands. I will get the fyrd of the Earl of Northampton to attack Fritzgerald forces in Wales before they depart and then I can deal with O' Brien myself""

Obviously, historically they were looking at such conflicts much more locally in nature.

All I did was point out that both you and Ian appear to be biased on the side of the conquerors by much the same fashion...nationalist dogma having been propagated upon you your whole life perhaps.

But the Irish patriot is wrong by saying it: he is perpetuating an untruth that everyone seems to be more than willing to believe, simply because he says it with a touraluralay in his voice.

In your scenario, you appear to be describing a feud between a two Irish lords, where one of them invites an English ally to help him in his attempts to subdue the other. One Irishman oppressing another again. And quite normal behaviour at the time. Why should the Irish patriot comment?

More to the point, why the fuck is he still blaming us for something that happened hundreds of years ago? I’ll tell you why: to justify the terrorism that continues to this day.


Originally Posted by MMI
Well, we had two empires to build and three world wars to win. We had to industrialise the world and we had to ensure free trade during the Pax Britannica.


Just like the Romans had to ironically instill Pax Romana huh? Nice guys they were hey? (depending upon one's perspective of course wink wink)

I’m not saying we were ever “nice”. We just had better things to do than trying to think of things that would make Paddy cross.


Originally Posted by MMI
What makes it worse is that so many of the claims are untrue, and many more are gross exaggerations.


On both sides I am sure.

As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.

Even I have only to quoted documented facts, not simply things that I would like to have happened.

As you have mentioned out twice now, it is important not to have a closed mind on this subject. Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.


Originally Posted by MMI
For most of history, Britain's only interest in Ireland was to ensure that it would not be used by its enemies as a staging post for an invasion from the west. Its military adventures there were simply to expel French, Spanish or Jacobite forces that sought to use Ireland for that very purpose, or to put down violent uprisings by Irish rebels of one sort or another. Apart from that, Britain was happy to let the bogtrotters, as they called them, live out their miserable existence as they liked. There was nothing else in Ireland that interested them one little bit.


That is certifiably "one" perspective...though you of all people should admit not necessarily the only one or the most truthful necessarily. lots of exploitation was involved on both sides I am almost positive. Just as war mongering Zionists infiltrated my place of birth and gave fuel to the anti-Jew fire burning in many an Arab heart.


I think my “perspective” is closer to the truth than that the notion that all Irish rebels were noble heroes struggling against England as an infinitely evil oppressor. Why should I admit otherwise?The exploitation was by one Irishman against another. Simple as that.


Originally Posted by MMI
As I have said before, and no-one has yet refuted it, the trouble with the Irish is that they cannot get along with each other. It is they who oppressed their fellow countrymen, and rose up against each other: North v South, Catholic v Protestant, landowners v subsistence farmers ... and so on right up to the modern day.


So...your saying that made it perfectly ok for the Big BG to intercede huh? <much like it must then be ok for the Americans to intercede in the middle east or any where else ?

Is it justifiable in any way to allow the people in any part of one’s dominions to rise up against each other, and to kill them – men, women and children – without trying to restore law and order? The alternative is chaos, civil strife and foreign interference.


Originally Posted by MMI
So let's forget history and look at the position today.


Yes because arguments concerning the history of the situation wont help you when you have a historian to argue with. lol (keep in mind if I were on my knees before I couldn't talk back with your manhood in my mouth winks)

Do some history, then. Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people and bringing them under her heel. Cromwell is probably a good start. Set that number against the times British troops were sent to quell civil disorder or to eject foreign invaders and Pretenders to the Crown.

At least we’ll be having a debate with facts on both sides then.

(And it’s cruel of you to even hint you’d blow me when you know you never would!)


Originally Posted by MMI
The IRA is now spent; all that remains is its political arm. It has been replaced by a smaller group, the Continuity IRA (and a small number of similar groupings) who continue to deal out death to other Irishmen. In reply, the UVF have carried out their own revenge attacks on Catholics (in between murdering other loyalists as part of an internal feud!) Do we still see one Irishman oppressing another? I think we do. Where are the British? I'll leave that open ...


Continuing to do what they have done? Hold Dominion in one way or another...which imho isn't anything terrible compared to what their ancestors have done, which is mainly protecting their own security (though sometimes not any more nicely than their American allies do in other areas etc). I do agree that the resistance if futile (in both cases...England's and America's...neither side has any real apparent hope of victory with either of their respected adversaries IRA cant win, Al-quiada cant win, and vice versa) IE both should give peace a chance and stop the fighting period!

Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.

IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE DISRUPTING LAW AND ORDER WHO ARE IN THE WRONG, NOT THE LAWFUL AUTHORITIES THAT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEM. England cannot be blamed if Ireland is stuffed full of blind bigots whose only method of protest is to murder innocent bystanders and call themselves patriots.


Originally Posted by MMI
Someone said I should get glasses after I suggested your previous summary of Irish history showed the Irish problems were created by Irishmen and not the British. To see the Irish as oppressed by the English in this day and age would require a very heavy rose-tint on the lenses. Even looking at the whole timeline, to believe that England has done nothing but harm to that country would be spectacular self-delusion.


Oh I agree...yet you have managed to continue prior to that statement make it sound as if Engalnd is the good guy and Ireland was the bad...just saying. Heck in a way your still doing it which makes my BS shields still go up. (as much as they do whilst arguing religion with Thorne btw)


It is high time that responsibility for the Irish situation was shared properly. England has acted harshly with regard to the Irish at times, but no harsher than it has acted towards others at different times. It was acting in accordance with the normal standards of behaviour of the day. Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.

Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.


Originally Posted by MMI
Finally, my wife is an Irish Catholic. During the last half of the 20th Century, as she saw what the IRA and UVF were doing to each other, and, more importantly, to other innocent men women and children in Belfast, Londonderry and elsewhere, she and her family admitted to being ashamed to be Irish. I am descended from an orange Glaswegian who objected to my marriage for sectarian reasons, and I admit to being ashamed of what the Loyalists have done. Who could glory in what has happened there? Apart from Martin Sheen, perhaps.


lol Martian I will conceed is a complete idiot. Despite portraying the President we all wish we had on TV.

I also agree that it is beyound deployarable that some factions strike out at the very people they claim to represent in their resistance to tyranny. But it doesnt surprise me. Americans, like the Irish did it while resisting Brittan, The Jews did it while resisting Rome, The Russians did it while resisting Germany...the list goes on and on and on.

As you know, I consider the American Rebellion was just as illegal as the Irish rebellions. That, too was led by criminals and exploiters for their own enrichment rather than for the good of America in general. And just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!

There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.

I don’t think this discussion can go much further unless and until people shake off the idea that the IRA was fine body of fresh young men who marched nobly towards Dublin in the Green, where the bayonets flashed, and rifles crashed, to the echoes of a Thompson gun. Not everything the Irish did was justified by England’s existence. IF they ever were that noble, those days are long gone. What we have now is a gang of psychopathic bigots, drug dealers, pimps and extortionists.

[denuseri]

Then you must have meant, in your previous post, that people behaved in a way they considered appropriate at the time. That is probably a truism. The Hibernians did as Hibernians were wont to, the British did so too.

Pretty much. Doesn't make it ok but its how it is.

So, if, today, Irish terrorists behave in the way they are expected to, no-one needs to comment?

Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?

I don’t really understand that comment, but I’m sure I’m not trying to say what you suggest. What I am saying is that the Irish have never, at any time in history (so far as I can see) been at peace with each other: there has always been some division between them which has justified one side or other taking violent action against the other. They have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.

Which is how it appears from your perspective...just like Hezbollah justifies its actions and beliefs...the only perspective that matters is their own...they certainly don't care a wit what the Jews think.

From England’s point of view, Ireland has never had much value, but it has posed a threat. During the Troubles, the majority of English would have been happy to see Ireland sink under the sea. Nevertheless, we sent in our young men to die trying to stop them from killing each other, while the Republic gave succour to the IRA and its government contemplated military action in Ulster. In other words, Eire considered going to war with Britain in support of a rebellious minority, no doubt, with the ultimate aim of incorporating British territory into its own – against the majority will of the people living there.

Shrugs...I am sure Brittan is just like the Jedi coming in to free Naboo...all peace loving and only wanting to help and the bad meanie Irish are then just like the Sith...at least from the English perspective. I am sure that perspective is flipped around for the Irish however.

Which was the only point I was making.





But the Irish patriot is wrong by saying it: he is perpetuating an untruth that everyone seems to be more than willing to believe, simply because he says it with a touraluralay in his voice.

Perhaps...perhaps not. All it takes is one soldier getting caught pissing on a dead body of an occupied countries "terrorist/freedom fighter) and ten plus years of goodwill goes out the window like so much slop.

In your scenario, you appear to be describing a feud between a two Irish lords, where one of them invites an English ally to help him in his attempts to subdue the other. One Irishman oppressing another again. And quite normal behaviour at the time. Why should the Irish patriot comment?

More to the point, why the fuck is he still blaming us for something that happened hundreds of years ago? I’ll tell you why: to justify the terrorism that continues to this day.

Why do African Americans, Jews, People of India, Arabs, etc etc all still complain or comment on what their "oppressors" did too them so many years ago? I will tell you why: Perceptions of injustices resonate just as strongly sometimes as the actual acts that fostered them in the first place real or imagined.


I’m not saying we were ever “nice”. We just had better things to do than trying to think of things that would make Paddy cross.

I think its a bit more complicated than that and a great deal more exploitation and indifference and more than a wee bit of "Imperial" arrogance was involved.


As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.

No more so than I accuse any other nation of such fickle historical sophistry when it suits them or they don't like the way some thing about themselves or their ancestors sounds. Remember our discussions on the American Revolution? Brittan taught their version to you and your peers in school...while American children were taught their own version. Who had the "truth"...who had the "right" of it? Did Herodotus malign the Persians in favor of his countrymen in his works? Did Livy favor the Romans over all others in his histories?

Even I have only to quoted documented facts, not simply things that I would like to have happened.

Same here.

As you have mentioned out twice now, it is important not to have a closed mind on this subject. Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.

Nor the Irish cause either right?. Not if one is to truly be objective that is. Which I doubt is happening when we discuss things that are very close to one's home. (not mine I was born in beyrut..its the Jew/Arab thingy that should strike close too me)

I think my “perspective” is closer to the truth than that the notion that all Irish rebels were noble heroes struggling against England as an infinitely evil oppressor. Why should I admit otherwise?The exploitation was by one Irishman against another. Simple as that.

Your opinion is your opinion. I just think its a bit biased is all.

Is it justifiable in any way to allow the people in any part of one’s dominions to rise up against each other, and to kill them – men, women and children – without trying to restore law and order? The alternative is chaos, civil strife and foreign interference.

Ahhh now here is the rub huh? And a very tough one to answer in depth. Too be honest I dont know how the situation realistically would have been handled any differently by any other group holding power over another in the same exact situation and inclinations all things assumed equal. Obviously if England had instead been Russian and had Russian conditions and terrian and history...it would have been different...but its not its England. (Enviroment imho shapes us in some ways).


Do some history, then. Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people and bringing them under her heel.

The sole reason? There is never a sole reason. But it has happened several times. Starting with a series of Norman right on through Elizabethian times. The reasons given by the invaders however...will be documented as self justifing however...that much is pretty much garenteed. Oh I was invited to "help" but now that I am here I am staying...like it or not etc.

Cromwell is probably a good start. Set that number against the times British troops were sent to quell civil disorder or to eject foreign invaders and Pretenders to the Crown.

At least we’ll be having a debate with facts on both sides then.

Oh but we allready have...I even quoted like a whole page of historical notes way earlier in the thread. I just think you were rather subjectivly one sided in your interpetation is all, which is understadable.

(And it’s cruel of you to even hint you’d blow me when you know you never would!)

If you were right here in front of me ...how do you know I wouldnt?





Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.

I am certian that from the Crown's point of view thats precisely whats going on.

IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE DISRUPTING LAW AND ORDER WHO ARE IN THE WRONG, NOT THE LAWFUL AUTHORITIES THAT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEM. England cannot be blamed if Ireland is stuffed full of blind bigots whose only method of protest is to murder innocent bystanders and call themselves patriots.

Seriously...why do you think the bigots are being so bloody bigoted?

Seriously?

It is high time that responsibility for the Irish situation was shared properly. England has acted harshly with regard to the Irish at times, but no harsher than it has acted towards others at different times. It was acting in accordance with the normal standards of behaviour of the day. Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.

At least from England's point of view.

Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.

To the English it certiantly does.

As you know, I consider the American Rebellion was just as illegal as the Irish rebellions. That, too was led by criminals and exploiters for their own enrichment rather than for the good of America in general. And just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!

Yeah must be why they came up with that nifty new form of government that worked so dam well to limit tyranny and all instead of declaring themselves pirate kings (at least for a time...its a bit tattered now days if you ask me).

There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.

If the shoe were on the other foot I wonder what you would say then?

I don’t think this discussion can go much further unless and until people shake off the idea that the IRA was fine body of fresh young men who marched nobly towards Dublin in the Green, where the bayonets flashed, and rifles crashed, to the echoes of a Thompson gun. Not everything the Irish did was justified by England’s existence. IF they ever were that noble, those days are long gone. What we have now is a gang of psychopathic bigots, drug dealers, pimps and extortionists.

Oh I never said they were all sunshine and parades.

From my point of view....niether side is.

[IAN 2411]

Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?

You are correct, because he is worse in the eyes of the British soldier and their kin. He is the Type of disgusting filth that was filling the coffers of the IRA so that they could go and kill the British soldier. He can only be excelled by another set of garbage called J F Kennedy and the rest of his Irish American breed that are most probably still doing the same. Kennedy really was a big spender and it was a known fact that he sympathised with the Irish. I just wonder how deep his hand went into his pocket to show them real sympathy. The trouble with the American Presidents is they all want to be Irish, even Paddy O’Bama, what a fucking joke. Obama jumped from his close relations being a terrorist in Kenya to another bunch of terrorists on the shores of the UK. I’ll bet even the Russians had a good laugh at that, the English are still laughing. I wonder if Paddy O'Bama knows that there are a few Kenyans in el Qeada, we already know that there are a few IRA training them?

MMI...denu....your arguments are old hat, because you are going over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over the same bit of history. To be honest, it has damn all to do with Martin Sheen and his disgusting relations.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Ian

At least we are trying to exchange points of view (although each of us thinks the other is irredeemably biased and his/her arguments flawed). It's better than a foul tirade of angry bile.

Who knows ... one or other of us might suddenly get a new perspective on matters which, once articulated on these boards, will solve the whole Anglo/Irish problem forever? But if it's too tedious for you, skip over it. That's what everyone else is doing.

Den

I'm too tired to reply tonight, so I'll return to it another time.

[IAN 2411]

Ian

It's better than a foul tirade of angry bile.

There is nothing angry about it, and since when has truth been bile?



Who knows ... one or other of us might suddenly get a new perspective on matters which, once articulated on these boards, will solve the whole Anglo/Irish problem forever?

Get real, so you are going to do in this thread what the English and Irish have been trying to do for hundreds of years. LMAO.

Its not very nice to know that people laugh at your post, MMI, is it? And why the hell should I skip over posters that have hijacked a thread for their own ends that have nothing to do with the OP. We can all read and copy from history books but I stoped doing that in high school. I wont skip over you, but I will stay out of the thread because it has lost its way.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

Martian Sheen isn't a terrorist is he?

No, I’m sure he isn’t, but I wasn’t referring specifically to him in my previous post. And in any case, I don’t believe you have answered my point by making such a dismissive remark. Your contention is that if people behaved in accordance with the times they lived in, they are not to be criticised. Thus the Irish are not to be criticised for their murderous raids on mainland Britain during the Roman occupation.

Yet, although many European nations - and even the United States of America – have built empires in the more recent past, Britain alone is to be faulted for doing so.

As for Martin Sheen, I think Ian’s remarks above will suffice.



[The Irish] have justified their actions by saying the English are to blame.

Which is how it appears from your perspective...just like Hezbollah justifies its actions and beliefs...the only perspective that matters is their own...

I agree that we have different perspectives, but I don’t think my views can be summarily disregarded simply because they do not fit in with your uncritical absorbtion of the American/Irish Nationalist version of history; and I am quite unsure that your experience of violence in Lebanon enables you to empathise with Irish Republicans. (Why not with the Loyalists, who are also Irish?)


I am sure Brittan is just like the Jedi coming in to free Naboo...all peace loving and only wanting to help and the bad meanie Irish are then just like the Sith...at least from the English perspective. I am sure that perspective is flipped around for the Irish however.

You tell me you’re a historian, yet here you are comparing British Imperialism and Irish Nationalists with a Hollywood film! I can assure you, the problem is far more complicated than that and deserves to be considered more thoughtfully. I note you have already made a similar point earlier in this thread.

The first thing you need to understand is that the problem is not what the British did to the Irish, but what the Irish did – and are still doing - to each other. When you look at things from that perspective, you will see that Britain’s actions are almost irrelevant.


All it takes is one soldier getting caught pissing on a dead body of an occupied countries "terrorist/freedom fighter) and ten plus years of goodwill goes out the window like so much slop.

I’m not aware of this incident. Perhaps you can enlighten me?


Why do African Americans, Jews, People of India, Arabs, etc etc all still complain or comment on what their "oppressors" did too them so many years ago? I will tell you why: Perceptions of injustices resonate just as strongly sometimes as the actual acts that fostered them in the first place real or imagined.

Perceptions of injustice can be – and in this instance, I submit, are – self-delusional; and it would be wrong to pander to such self-deception when trying to understand history.



As the only version of Irish history that is generally noised around the world is the nationalist version, I don’t see how you can accuse England of lies and exaggerations.

No more so than I accuse any other nation of such fickle historical sophistry when it suits them or they don't like the way some thing about themselves or their ancestors sounds. Remember our discussions on the American Revolution? Brittan taught their version to you and your peers in school...while American children were taught their own version. Who had the "truth"...who had the "right" of it? Did Herodotus malign the Persians in favor of his countrymen in his works? Did Livy favor the Romans over all others in his histories?

As the Irish version of history is one-sided and in many places fallacious, I wonder where the sophistry truly resides.

The British educational system – at least when I was at school – spent perhaps one lesson on the American Revolution - two or three if you count the colonial period and events in Canada: it was just one small theatre in a world-wide war and not important enough to bother justifying or apologising for.

But this is a side-issue and we don’t want to start that argument all over again!


Keeping an open mind does not mean disregarding any arguments that support the British cause.

Nor the Irish cause either right?. Not if one is to truly be objective that is. Which I doubt is happening when we discuss things that are very close to one's home. (not mine I was born in beyrut..its the Jew/Arab thingy that should strike close too me)

No-one is allowed to forget the Nationalist view, so that particular question doesn’t arise. They even glory in their atrocities. When, on the other hand, have you heard anyone seriously argue against the Irish “Truth”?


Your opinion is your opinion. I just think its a bit biased is all.

… and therefore invalid? What makes you think that? Simply because I interpret historical events differently from you?


Enviroment imho shapes us in some ways.

Is that an oblique way of making Britain responsible for things like the Plague or potato blight?



Tell me when England invaded Ireland for the sole reason of oppressing the people ...

The sole reason? There is never a sole reason. But it has happened several times. Starting with a series of Norman right on through Elizabethian times. The reasons given by the invaders however...will be documented as self justifing however...that much is pretty much garenteed. Oh I was invited to "help" but now that I am here I am staying...like it or not etc.

Never simply to oppress, then, but to help or protect Ireland, or to prevent Ireland becoming a staging post for England’s enemies.

I’ll make it simpler: when was oppression of the Irish people one of the stated aims of any British invader?


I ... quoted like a whole page of historical notes way earlier in the thread. I just think you were rather subjectivly one sided in your interpetation is all, which is understadable.

Yes, I read and commented upon those notes. I said they did not demonstrate English oppression, but, rather, the opposite. Instead of patronising me by “understanding” my prejudices, please point out the events mentioned that clearly demonstrate England invaded Ireland to suppress the population as a whole (as opposed to rebels in particular).



Continuing to hold dominion ... In other words, trying to maintain the Queen’s Peace in a British province. No different than keeping law and order on the streets of London, Liverpool or Glasgow.

I am certian that from the Crown's point of view thats precisely whats going on.

So why do you doubt and deny it?



Seriously...why do you think the bigots are being so bloody bigoted?

Because the other bigots are killing them! One Irishman against another.



Every rebellion in Ireland has been by Irishmen, and has been focused on other Irishmen or property. Peace has had to be restored by English troops. To that extent, England IS the good guy.

At least from England's point of view.

No. From a detached and dispassionate point of view.



Every invasion by foreign powers has had to be defeated by England to avoid Ireland being conquered or used as a jumping-off point for an attack on Britain. The attempts by the Stuarts to seize the Irish Crown, and then the English Crown, had to be put down for the same reason. If that doesn’t make England the good guy, it certainly justifies the English actions.

To the English it certiantly does.

If you deny it, explain?



… just like the Irish, America paints its act of arch-treachery as a noble strike for freedom!

Yeah must be why they came up with that nifty new form of government that worked so dam well to limit tyranny and all instead of declaring themselves pirate kings (at least for a time...its a bit tattered now days if you ask me).

They replaced a benign tyranny (if you must call it tyranny) with a weak confederacy, run by self-interested smugglers, land-grabbers and other disreputable blackguards, that began its life by reneging on the first international treaty it signed, and planned to turn on its allies (the French and Spanish – who won the American war for them) in order to take over New France and Florida once the English had been ejected.

As for “new”, what about the Licchavi, or Rome or Lucca?



There is a difference, however between acts of treachery and acts of resistance against a foreign invader.

If the shoe were on the other foot I wonder what you would say then?

I would say the same thing: there is a difference.

[MMI]

Ian

The bile is not in the facts you use, but the way you use them.

These topics have a habit of meandering, but I don't think it has strayed from the OP - but you don't own the thread anyway. It has just moved in a direction you disapprove of. If that's the case, bring it back in track instead of whingeing or sulking off.

Otherwise, I'm glad my comments have amused you. I hope it helps you be well.

[IAN 2411]

Your coments always amuse me MMI. I might just do exactly what you say and I know I dont own the thread, but I will ask you a serious question.

What makes two American people or other than English/Irish [I asume your are both American and I will stand to be corrected]think they can work out the whys and wheres of English/Irish politics over the troubles, when the English/Irish themselves dont know the answer? It is all very well looking at the history books and quoting whats there, but what input of your own ideas have you arrived at so far.

You have both clouded your posts with known history that is almost imposible to define your inputs from what you have learned from the history books. I have yet to figure out how the hell to quote your work to question it because of this crazy way you go about talking to each other in your own little black blob. Then again maybe that makes me stupid for being like the majority in not being good at IT.

Be well IAN 2411

A PS for you MMI, Go to Northern Ireland, and come back with nail hols in your body, and then talk to me about not writing about the IRA without some depth of feeling.

[MMI]

What an excellent question. What, I wonder, made Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, and Kennedy travel to Ireland? Why did Carter "internationalise" the Troubles by issuing a policy statement on Northern Ireland, when the situation in Northern Ireland was a UK domestic affair? I don't know, but maybe it's because many Americans have close links with Ireland, even if they have a misguided understanding of the problems there.

To suggest that nobody can make any valid contribution to this problem by discussing it is the language of the gunman or the bomber. I know you're ex-army, but you don't want to get trapped down that particular road. The only outcome will be more deaths and deeper hatred (if that's possible); but if Martin Sheen is, by any chance, reading this thread, maybe he'll see there was never any glory in what the IRA did, and reconsider his earlier comments about his uncle.

As for original input, aren't you expecting a lot? However, judging by the reaction from several posters here when I said the nub of the Irish problem is that the Irish themselves, not the British, have always been oppressors of their own people, I expressed an idea not previously encountered by them.

[denuseri]

So is Collins a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a freedom fighter? Or a terrorist? I mean isn't that the man and the IRA of that time period too which Mr Sheen was referring? He was quoted as having made his statements during a show about his ancestors history etc right?

[denuseri]

How I like to reply with a quote:

Click the reply with quote key,

then I type what I want and make it a different color at various places between the text that is copied into the box and make sure to type something outside the quotes at the bottom.

How MMI does it pulling quote within quote I have no idea lol

Sorry is this is further off topic for you Ian but MMI asked me some questions so I being submissive and all will attempt to answer them. My post before this one I hope will receive some clarification since I went back to the OP and re-read it to see if I somehow missed the boat.



No, I’m sure he isn’t, but I wasn’t referring specifically to him in my previous post. And in any case, I don’t believe you have answered my point by making such a dismissive remark. Your contention is that if people behaved in accordance with the times they lived in, they are not to be criticised. Thus the Irish are not to be criticised for their murderous raids on mainland Britain during the Roman occupation.

Are the English to be criticized for theirs? Do you honestly believe that the entire predicament has zero blame to lay at England door and all the blame on Ireland?

My contention was one being that we should try to view history as objectively as possible IE: not only from our own perspectives, but the perspectives of the people on all sides of any issue in a historical setting.

Yet, although many European nations - and even the United States of America – have built empires in the more recent past, Britain alone is to be faulted for doing so.

No of course not. We do have to however take the bad with the good..."warts and all". Otherwise we risk loosing objectivity.

As for Martin Sheen, I think Ian’s remarks above will suffice.

Shrugs.



I agree that we have different perspectives, but I don’t think my views can be summarily disregarded simply because they do not fit in with your uncritical absorbtion of the American/Irish Nationalist version of history; and I am quite unsure that your experience of violence in Lebanon enables you to empathise with Irish Republicans. (Why not with the Loyalists, who are also Irish?)

I don't honestly empathize with either party. I think war however necessary at times it is deplorable. I just figured that someone best play devils advocate for the sake of discussion since no one was taking up for the much maligned Irish and you two were just bashing them up like Brown shirts going after Juden in Munich before the start of the war. (sarcasm) Point being not everything thats happened to the Irish is necessarily the sole fault of the Irish.

You tell me you’re a historian, yet here you are comparing British Imperialism and Irish Nationalists with a Hollywood film!

Why not often times such analogies get through an otherwise difficult concept to my students when I teach.

I can assure you, the problem is far more complicated than that and deserves to be considered more thoughtfully.

Yes but also sometimes a more laconic approach is merited. Both have their place. Belligerent bellicose ranting however is imho completely unwarranted in any serious discussion (not talking about you MMI).

I note you have already made a similar point earlier in this thread.

Yep and I was very disappointed it was discarded out of hand and the sophistry continued. But I tried.

The first thing you need to understand is that the problem is not what the British did to the Irish, but what the Irish did – and are still doing - to each other. When you look at things from that perspective, you will see that Britain’s actions are almost irrelevant.

Oh personally I fully agree both sides should have put away their toys and went home like 50 years ago or never started fighting to begin with after the peace Collins helped make with the British. I understand the British argument for continued occupation, I also understand their opposition...though considering the resolve of the people wanting one united Ireland free of occupancy by outsiders and all the trouble its caused I must say that someone on both sides of the peace table dropped the ball in Collins day or at the very least lacked foresight.



I’m not aware of this incident. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Oh that was a reference to the United States Soldiers that were all over TV for having taken cell pics of themselves peeing on a dead Afghan.


Perceptions of injustice can be – and in this instance, I submit, are – self-delusional; and it would be wrong to pander to such self-deception when trying to understand history.

Yep but to be anywhere near objective you have to first be able to admit that the self delusions will be prevalent on both sides of the issue in question and perhaps even within one's self.

As the Irish version of history is one-sided and in many places fallacious, I wonder where the sophistry truly resides.

On both sides. As evidenced by our collective references to the "interpetive" history and its two distinct versions we were both tuaght in our respective educations. Which I will refrain from making any further comment on in this thread.

The British educational system – at least when I was at school – spent perhaps one lesson on the American Revolution - two or three if you count the colonial period and events in Canada: it was just one small theatre in a world-wide war and not important enough to bother justifying or apologising for.

But this is a side-issue and we don’t want to start that argument all over again!

lol Agreed!



No-one is allowed to forget the Nationalist view, so that particular question doesn’t arise. They even glory in their atrocities. When, on the other hand, have you heard anyone seriously argue against the Irish “Truth”?

Oh you should have been a fly on the wall during my first European History class ever (we had an Oxford man for our instructor) and to hear him put it, without Great Brittian their would be no Europe to have a history. He oft likened them to the Athenians of Greece...and just as oft left out any and all of the more sorted tales or other bad things they did etc. (and by Britian he did indeed mean England first over all others...the Welsh, Scots etc where all from some lower order in his book).



… and therefore invalid? What makes you think that? Simply because I interpret historical events differently from you?

I was just pointing out your subjectivity is all.



Is that an oblique way of making Britain responsible for things like the Plague or potato blight?

Gosh can we blame the finacial crisis on them too? Seriously...nope not at all...just that how a culture is shaped is often a by product of its enviroment. Like the Russians I am sure wouldnt have been nearly as understanding or light handed with the Irish situation if it had been them and not the Brits dealing with it.

Never simply to oppress, then, but to help or protect Ireland, or to prevent Ireland becoming a staging post for England’s enemies.

Now you sound just like my first European history teacher again...smh. Sure you arnt an Oxford man teaching in the southern USA at a community college? (if you are you may be in for some really good blow jobs soon lol)

I’ll make it simpler: when was oppression of the Irish people one of the stated aims of any British invader?

Oh that would never be the stated claim at least not offically we all know that. Most invaders want to be seen as liberators or protectors if the people they invade. (note how America has followed our British forbears example in the middle east during our invasions there)


So why do you doubt and deny it?

All I am saying is that obviously the people fighting back do not share the viewpoint of the Crown on this matter and they most likely think of themselves as freedom fighters much the same as the "terrorists" in the middle east do. I bet their viewpoints are shared with the Crown as much as Alquieada shares the USA's view or William Wallace shared the English view whilst fighting them at Stierling. (yes I may be setting up for another movie quote or two).





They replaced a benign tyranny (if you must call it tyranny) with a weak confederacy, run by self-interested smugglers, land-grabbers and other disreputable blackguards, that began its life by reneging on the first international treaty it signed, and planned to turn on its allies (the French and Spanish – who won the American war for them) in order to take over New France and Florida once the English had been ejected.

As for “new”, what about the Licchavi, or Rome or Lucca?

Now now shouldnt we make a whole seperate thread where we can flirt over that subject?



I would say the same thing: there is a difference.

Seriously is you were born and raised in Belfast and raised to believe that your father and mother and brothers etc were fighting for your independence from opression...how would you really feel?

[IAN 2411]

A day in the life of the British Para, 1967-74

Get up 6am, do two hours of security road blocks at random and then patrol the surrounding countryside in open top land-rover until mid day.

During the afternoon patrol the protestant area of Belfast, stop to talk to the locals. Union flags in most windows. Red hand of Ulster flags painted on the end of terraced houses. The protestant community are pleased to see you patrolling their estates? I think not. They hate the British soldier as much as the Catholics in Bally Murphy.

“Do you want a cup of tea my dear?” A woman asks.

“Yes says the NCO, and a few of the section have the tea thinking they are safe. They think the same as the Americans that these people are English. They are not they were born in Northern Ireland and that makes them dangerous. The section finishes drinking their tea and walk off carrying on with business.

The section is told by the radio operator that a fight has broken out in Bally Murphy, the sections turf. They jump in the two vehicles and drive off to the location. They are met with a bombardment of children and women throwing stones and bottles. The section jump out of the vehicles cock weapons and take up defensive positions waiting for the real show of force. It never happens but the stone throwers have disappeared, but in place walking towards the section is a crowd. These are the real deal, men and boys spoiling for trouble and outnumbering the section. The radio operator calls for back-up they are outnumbered and outgunned, somewhere among that two hundred restless men is one lone shooter waiting to get his chance. The section waits and hopes the back-up will arrive fast as this is not looking to good. The British soldier only has live rounds to fire at the crowd and they will never be used.

Back-up arrives and section withdraws back to base.

Just before meal half the section doubles up in pain and doctor arrives [Arsenic poisoning.] Yes that good old cup of tea the friendly protestant’s gave the soldier had powdered glass mixed with the sugar. The part of the section which is only five men that never had the tea are about to do roaming night patrols in Belfast City.

Eleven pm, suspicious man near Match Factory at end of M1 and the half section goes out to investigate. While investigating a shot is fired at the section and as they hit the ground in defensive positions a nail bomb is thrown. The radio operator is lucky this time as the nails only killed his radio...the next time he will feel pain. There were no other injuries but the section has been informed that another section of soldiers has apprehended an IRA suspect just north of the Match Factory running away from a suspected explosion. Clear the area and leave for base arriving two am. Flop on bed fully dressed, must be awake at six for more road blocks at random.

.................................................. ......

Not bad for one day’s work, poisoned by the Protestant’s, stoned by the Catholics , and damn near killed by the IRA. The whole lot of them hated the British Soldier. While walking through the Protestant estate we were stopping their Para military from actively doing their clandestine work. By being in the Catholic Bally Murphy we were bait for the bigger rioting real deal. They knew we would send for back-up and it was the back-up that would get the shooter. The IRA bomber, well he was the only one that could be respected because he was the enemy. He was not just the enemy of the British, the Soldier, but he was an enemy to the Irish people both Protestant and Catholic and both sides of the border.

If the Irish Americans knew this would it have made any difference, probably not because they would say it was English propaganda? They would believe their extended kin that they knew damn all about because they wanted to be part of a cause.

I will say that the TRA started out at the beginning as a self appointed freedom fighter, but somewhere along the long trail they lost their way. The IRA graduated into terrorists and no longer has respect for the cause they are fighting. There is no cause now since the Good Friday Agreement, and once you offer your services to train others, [el Qaeda] then you are no longer a soldier but a terrorist mercenary.

It is just that I find it strange that the Americans still think that the English are still the oppressors in Northern Ireland, because we have a military presence. The strangest thing about the little story above that did take place, is the fact that for the last hundred or so years. The British were not there to protect the Protestants and Unionists. The British Soldiers were there to stop the Protestants and Unionists from annihilating the minority in Northern Ireland....The Catholics. [Remember the powdered glass]?



I know you're ex-army, but you don't want to get trapped down that particular road.
I hear what you’re saying.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

Oh that would never be the stated claim at least not officially we all know that. Most invaders want to be seen as liberators or protectors if the people they invade. (Note how America has followed our British forbear’s example in the Middle East during our invasions there)
If what you say is what the American Government was thinking, denu; then the Americans had not read their history properly, because the British got their ass kicked there. A few hundred years later the Russians got their ass kicked also. Looking at the way things are going at the moment the British are still getting our ass kicked, but at least this time we are not on our own.

Oh personally I fully agree both sides should have put away their toys and went home like 50 years ago or never started fighting to begin with after the peace Collins helped make with the British. I understand the British argument for continued occupation, I also understand their opposition...though considering the resolve of the people wanting one united Ireland free of occupancy by outsiders and all the trouble its caused I must say that someone on both sides of the peace table dropped the ball in Collins day or at the very least lacked foresight.
The British could not pack up and leave, and until it is a United Ireland I doubt that they ever will. The IRA started something they could never win, because the majority of the population in Northern Ireland where Protestants. All the time the loyalists held the governing power and supposedly wanted to be part of the UK, the soldiers would stay. One of the reasons was because of the Protestant Para Military being in a better position with many more soldiers in the correct place than the IRA.

If the soldiers left Northern Ireland the Protestants would overwhelm the Catholics proclaiming Northern Ireland their own. They would then UK that theirs was the right under the majority rule. However, the British Soldier where not going to leave at any price. Make no mistake there would have been a blood bath, and then the British would have been accused of failing the Catholics. The right dishonorable Ian Paisley came very close to stating that very fact so many times, and he was as much of a pain in the ass to the peace treaty as the political arm of the IRA.

Paisley was an instigator of violence and was disliked almost as much as the IRA by the British Soldier. He coveted his place in the British Parliament and used his position to cover his own illegal membership of the protestant Para Military. To be factual he also had a lot of blood on his hands, making him no better or worse than Martin McGuiness. Paisley, never wanted peace, and that’s why he was forever shouting his mouth off at every opportunity. It was to instigate more violence by giving speeches that had double meanings.

When Paisley dies, the term Reverend will be of little use to him as he forfeited the right to hold that status. He and McGuiness can shout at each other while they stoke the fires of hell.

When in the Province I attended as many Protestant riots as I did Catholic, and we did as many house searches in the Protestant areas as we did in the Catholic. The Irish were more of a danger to themselves and their kin and other Irish, than the British soldier could ever be on a bad day. It was the Irish that were fighting the war between themselves, and the British soldier stayed there to make sure they couldn’t.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

"A Day in the Life of the British Para 1967 - 74"

If this site still had a "Thank-you" button, I'd use it now. Apart from showing the unenviable position the British soldier found himself in, it demonstrates beyond argument that the Irish are factional, and no one faction can live with another: one Irishman against another. It also shows how they blame the English for what they are doing to themselves.





Originally Posted by MMI
I know you're ex-army, but you don't want to get trapped down that particular road.

I hear what you’re saying.

Be well IAN 2411

I feel a little churlish asking this, but do you still advocate more military action against the Irish, until CIRA is destroyed (and UVF too)?


The Irish were more of a danger to themselves and their kin and other Irish, than the British soldier could ever be on a bad day. It was the Irish that were fighting the war between themselves, and the British soldier stayed there to make sure they couldn’t.

Be well IAN 2411

You have made the same point as I have been trying to make, but you have done it much more succintly.

[MMI]

So is Collins a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a freedom fighter? Or a terrorist? I mean isn't that the man and the IRA of that time period too which Mr Sheen was referring? He was quoted as having made his statements during a show about his ancestors history etc right?

No doubt about it: he was evil. He was also unlucky enough to be dumped on by his own side, but no sympathy here. Casts a different light on deValera, though!

As for the rest of your posts, can I ask for an extension before responding?

[IAN 2411]

I feel a little churlish asking this, but do you still advocate more military action against the Irish, until CIRA is destroyed (and UVF too)?
There is no need, the IRA of any type are extinct along with the UVF. There might be a handful of these hardliners left and it is now up to the Northern Ireland police to find them and bring to justice. They are not freedom fighters of any type now, just racketeers, thugs, murderers and thieves, giving protection through stealth. Their flow of money from the USA has almost expended and dried up, and even the American Irish that gave most of their money to their coffers has dried up. [I hope]

The soldiers in Northern Ireland are not there to fight the IRA, UVF, UDA, UDR, Irish or criminals. They are there for show, and to tell the Irish factions that if they don’t toe the line with the Good Friday Agreement, they can be deployed once more on the streets. They are a warning of intent until such times as Ireland sort out their differences.

People such as Paisley, McGuiness and Adams, are all hard liners and hard core leaders of fighting factions. They have no right to be in the positions they are in, because for Northern Ireland to move forward with the rest of the world they need peace keepers at the helm not killers of their own kind.

The British do not fight the IRA we protect ourselves from them, as if they were any other terrorist unit. Their cause is no more but they are too stupid to see that, and their supporters are hard line thugs and felons and in their pocket. I know from being over there that when the Provisional IRA had a rally most of the crowd had been told to be there or else. Nothing has changed because the same is still taking place, and will do until the Irish police arrest all the men in balaclavas and send them to prison. It is not down to the soldier now, as it is for the Northern Irish to prove they have come of age to be left on their own. Until Ireland becomes a whole once more the British presence in military form will always be there.


do you still advocate more military action against the Irish, until CIRA is destroyed (and UVF too)?

A quick answer....You cannot destroy political ideals with a show of force.

Be well IAN 2411

[IAN 2411]

I have had something on my mind for a long time and I might be a million miles away from the truth. My battalion of Para were the first Special Forces to be posted to Northern Ireland, and I have often wondered why? Para’s like Marines are shock troops and go in fast paving the way for the main forces and then withdraw. There was a relative calm in the Province when we arrived and we could drive about in open top vehicles.

We went into the Protestant areas and they were hostile or should I say they gave us a lot more attention than they gave other units. They were unfriendly but not openly aggressive towards the Para’s. As we walked their streets passing groups of women or men there could be heard whispers in our wake. Our platoon had the outskirts of the town to patrol and also the countryside about.

It was about a month into the tour that things started getting hairy and I often wonder if the powers to be knew this would happen. The IRA started getting bolder and the riots started getting bigger. It was as if because the Para’s had arrived the whole of Northern Ireland upped their game to coincide. They must have known that we would not take the same type of crap the other units were taking.

The other units were in a strange sort of way a little complacent of the peace they had. I think that looking back the Irish, both Catholic and Protestant had placed them in a false state of security. It was peace, but the type of peace the factions wanted so that they could carry out their clandestine activities. I think even to this day that the Special Forces were sent there to shake them about a little and see what falls out. I think the high command knew what was going on and wanted life in the Province without punishing the other units commanders.

Well we did shake them about and made many arrests locking up members of both factions. It was this that started to bring the Provisional IRA, out into the open and they openly walked next to their dead comrades coffins. Para’s took advantage and even more arrests were made the day of the funeral, the peace had been broken and the factions were fighting back. In the six months I was there during that tour, all hell was let loose. 1 Para took over from us and were there for two years, and during the two years there was some of the bloodiest fighting between the factions. Bloody Sunday was just icing on the cake that had been cooking since our first day in the Province.

It’s only a thought.

Be well IAN 2411

[MMI]

No answer for that, Ian - I simply do not know. But I suspect that Harold Wilson and Ted Heath had no idea what was in store for them when the Troubles began, while O'Neill probably had a very good notion.

However, by the time it was decided to send in special forces, they must all have realised that matters had got wildly out of control and that a heavy hand was needed to restore some semblance of order.

[MMI]

Sorry is this is further off topic for you Ian but MMI asked me some questions so I being submissive and all will attempt to answer them. My post before this one I hope will receive some clarification since I went back to the OP and re-read it to see if I somehow missed the boat.

It is not off-topic: it is just one of two or three themes.

Referring back to your last post, you claim that your position is neutral and that history must be viewed objectively. You also allow that people on each side of the problem have their own subjective opinions. However, throughout this thread you have challenged any attempt to put forward an objective justification – or even an explanation – of the English viewpoint. Did I say “challenged”? I meant “denied”: denied out-of-hand with nothing rational to support your rejection.

Then you accuse me of sophistry! At least sophists recognise facts.

I will accept the British have done bad things in Ireland; but you must accept the Irish have done worse, more often, and to their own countrymen. It is despicable to put the blame for their own low behaviour on the English, but innate in the Irish character.

You go on to ask,




Seriously is you were born and raised in Belfast and raised to believe that your father and mother and brothers etc were fighting for your independence from opression...how would you really feel?

Seriously, I still would believe there is a difference between acts of treachery (e.g., British citizens who kill other British citizens in the name of Irish Republicanism) and acts of resistance against a foreign invader (e.g., the French resistance).

================================================== ================================================== ================

Further evidence of the Irish habit of subjugating their own was provided in BBC Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour” last week when they discussed how mothers in Londonderry are forced to ensure their sons, who have been fingered by Republican Action Against Drugs (an IRA splinter group “policing” Republican areas of Londonderry) to keep an appointment for a shooting, because they will be shot anyway, but more seriously if they ignore the summons. Listen to it, then maybe you’ll understand a bit better:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18068691


MOTHER "I had to let him go"

INTERVIEWER "Why?

MOTHER "Because that's the way of it ..."

It must be remembered that drugs formed a significant proportion of the IRA’s income, and with that in mind, one wonders why RAAD is seeking to eliminate drug dealers in Londonderry, even though drug-dealing and drug-taking is still rife.

[IAN 2411]

This is nothing new really, the only thing new about it is the fact that it is still being carried out. However, now it is done in a little more humane way. While over in the Province we found many people like that as young as 15 boys and girls. They had been knee capped, and for all you people that don’t know anything about knee capping? I will inform you. The victim is taken to a farm or building and gagged. Then a hole is drilled into his/her knee cap with an electric drill. After the IRA had their sick fun, and it was the IRA and not the RAAD, they would dump the person on the streets of Belfast. Selective punishment, I also remember that they shot a orphan Catholic boy that was 10 years old that was backward and could hardly speak...the reason....he delivered the papers to an army unit....it was our unit. Sick, Sick, Sick.

The IRA dealt in drugs and as MMI stated it was their main source of money after the Irish Americans donations. The problem was that those drugs were being dealt with in the UK, and USA along with most of the continent. Yes the USA where they were receiving most of their war chest, the IRA hold only loyalty to themselves. They were Catholics and Ireland must be kept clean of anything the Pope thought was against the will of God. Killing was ok, because if you look back at history the Pope used to go to battle with the army’s and advocated violence.

Summing up, I can honestly say that all Paramilitary units in Northern Ireland both sides of the conflict are now in it for their own gain. There is no war to fight and they are now just vigilantes with disgusting habits. They are not fit to walk on the same streets or Earth as the rest of the human population.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

Referring back to your last post, you claim that your position is neutral and that history must be viewed objectively.

Should be viewed as objectively as possible. My position is and will remain in this regard completely neutral.

You also allow that people on each side of the problem have their own subjective opinions.

Yep. Their individual perspectives in combination with the human proclivity to self justify one's self and one's actions no matter how heinous is also factored in. Which is why I say that the one side will view the other as being the bad guys. Just like Al Quida vs the USA, or Arab vs Jew etc etc ...or in this case Irish vs English.

However, throughout this thread you have challenged any attempt to put forward an objective justification – or even an explanation – of the English viewpoint. Did I say “challenged”? I meant “denied”: denied out-of-hand with nothing rational to support your rejection.

When I see a truly objective explanation I shall indeed give much praise. So far I haven't seen anything objective so much as pro-English only with window dressing to give the basest of appearances of objectivity (almost as sublime a use of sophistry and subjectivity as that I receive from my main opponent in the religion section here) at least on your part (much the same as in our discussions concerning the American Revolution only there we were both being "subjectively" objective in our own way due to the primary sources from which we each respectively were drawing our information IE English schools taught a pro-English stance where as American one's taught a pro-American stance).

Then you accuse me of sophistry! At least sophists recognise facts.

Shrugs I call em like I see em. Sophism is a hard bucket to stay away from...its soooo natural for human beings to resort too it. So much so entire schools of philosophers followed it's tenants for centuries before those influenced by Socrates was adopted by people during the Renaissance. Additionally ...I have read all the things you presented as facts...and I have read everything else you presented...my only issue (the main point of which your participation has only added supporting evidence too btw) is that one's perspectives on these matters have everything to do with whether or not one views Mr Sheen's comments as being an affront too society or not. As to whether or not the Irish or the English are objectively in the right? My call is that it is perhaps no different than the USA and the Islamic Terrorists...both parties are perhaps in the wrong to one degree or another "objectively"...with each side "subjectively" accusing the other of being more if not totally in said "wrong".

I will accept the British have done bad things in Ireland;(<<< there you have made an attempt at objectivity...claps in applause) but you must accept the Irish have done worse, more often, and to their own countrymen. It is despicable to put the blame for their own low behaviour on the English, but innate in the Irish character.

Sighs...ahh but their you had to go and resort to the subjective all over again...and that my dear Sir is where the sublime sophism is coming into play followed by a wee bit o' bigotry I might add in bold at the end. Smh, I seem to recall a certain Austrian who made similar comments (though far more bellicose) about a certain group of Semites not so long ago. Innate in their character huh?

You go on to ask,



Seriously, I still would believe there is a difference between acts of treachery (e.g., British citizens who kill other British citizens in the name of Irish Republicanism) and acts of resistance against a foreign invader (e.g., the French resistance).

My guess is you would be throwing rocks with the others at what you have been taught to believe is a foreign invader who has kept your people oppressed for hundreds of years. Additionally you would also most likely self justify such actions and call what the English are doing the real "treachery" and perhaps even honestly believe as children of KKK members sometimes do about people of color that whatever is bad in "them" it is "innate in their character".

================================================== ================================================== ================



I do however thank you for proving my point for me though. (that one's perspective determines who the good guys and the bad guys are in this issue)

It is my overall opinion that:

both sides have done wrong and that their are groups on both sides who are willing to look past said wrongs and agree to both start doing right....but as with most of the other divisions of perspective we have touched on...some asshats (on both sides) ") keep setting things up to fail, or keep pushing, or cant be objective and are going to extremes that some find horrific because they are either unwilling or unable to allow peace or accept it until whatever it is they are fighting for is accomplished without compromise in full or the other side relents in total etc (maybe because its "innate to their character huh?).

Which imho is also a crying shame.

[js207]

Denuseri: Would you say there is a valid perspective from which the Mafia are the "good guys"? In some ways here, I'm reminded of how brainwashed the Taleban had their followers, to the extent of not even knowing the Northern Alliance were a rival Afghan Muslim group (somehow, their fighters were under the mistaken impression they were Christian invaders) - that some of them at least thought they were fighting for what they thought was a good cause, but based on a pack of lies from those who controlled them. There's a world of difference between different perspectives and having swallowed a pack of lies...

[denuseri]

Its all a matter of faith in the veracity of what one is tuaght or exposed too within reason.

[thir]

Sorry to come in late, but have been away for some weeks, and this is an interesting discussion.

Quote Originally Posted by denuseri
So is Collins a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a freedom fighter? Or a terrorist?


He was a freedom fighter, quite obviously. England had no business being in Ireland.

Some points:

1: I do not see how any country can justify invading another, whether for strategic reasons or because they think said country do not behave as they should.

2: If you do invade, and call said country 'your domain', I do not see how you can complain about having to spend money and soldiers hanging on to it, or to keep it 'orderly'.

3: I do not understand how taking a country makes it yours by moral or divine right or whatever, and any uprising thereafter 'rebels' or 'treason'. It is all about violence, nothing else.

[js207]

Thir: He kept fighting - against his fellow Irishmen - even after the British and Irish governments signed a treaty and the RoI was independent. "England" was never in Ireland in the first place, any more than New England is in Iowa now - but they shared a government, made up of people from all constituent countries, including Collins himself for some years.

How do you view the American Civil War, in this context? Northern troops using force to subdue the government of another part of the continent, which hadn't been part of the original USA - do you regard that as an invasion as well, and the Confederate troops as legitimate freedom fighters?

[denuseri]

In the case of the Civil War each state and territory had rules it initially agreed to abide by when it joined the Union.



As mentioned in the case of the English vs the Irrish perspective was everything: if you fought for the north you were fighting to "preserve the Union" and later to "bring freedom to the slaves". If you fought for the south you were fighting to preserve "state's rights and end northern agression".

[MMI]

He was also a cowardly assassin, but js makes a much better point.

As to your three points,

(1) If a country fails to act in the face of a perceived strategic imperative, it is likely to be destroyed. But if one country behaves in a way that its larger neighbour disapproves of, that is no justification for invasion (unless that "misbehaviour" constitutes a threat).

In the present case, when has Ireland been invaded for displeasing England by its behaviour? The Tudors? They conquered Ireland to quell a usurpation of the Irish Crown by an Irish Earl (threat), and they restored power to the Irish Parliament which had been assumed by the more powerful Earls and Chiefs. The Plantation of Ulster? Northern Ireland was settled by Scottish and English farmers who were given land taken from the rebellious O'Neils and O'Donnells (threat) in the hope that the new demography would be more amenable to English authority. Cromwell? The Irish were supporting the Royalist cause (threat - ironic that the Irish hate the enemy of England's monarch, whom their ancestors supported and fought and died for)

(2) The presumption being that England has no right "to be there". By that argument, virtually the whole population of the Americas - north and south - have even less right to be there, because they arrived much later. The same goes for Australia and New Zealand. Presumably, if the Aboriginals or Maoris started to foment revolution, you would say that the governments there could not complain about the cost in money or lives spent in maintaining order?

(3) Moral right ... England was invited, and being in control, it was obliged to maintain order; divine right (a) Pope Adrian granted the English Crown suzerainity over Ireland, and (b) the Irish Jacobites upheld the Stuart claim to the "Divine Right of Kings". Michael Collins, for example, was born a British subject, studied in King's College and began his career in London working for important financial institutions. His act of rebelling against the established government cannot be anything other than treason, and using violence against the state invites a violent response, even today in any country you care to name.

[thir]

Thir: He kept fighting - against his fellow Irishmen - even after the British and Irish governments signed a treaty and the RoI was independent.


Yes, there was a civil war, and he was on one side. The independance was not independant enought in some eyes, while it was in the eyes of others.



"England" was never in Ireland in the first place, any more than New England is in Iowa now - but they shared a government, made up of people from all constituent countries, including Collins himself for some years.


See above.



How do you view the American Civil War, in this context? Northern troops using force to subdue the government of another part of the continent, which hadn't been part of the original USA - do you regard that as an invasion as well, and the Confederate troops as legitimate freedom fighters?

If not a part of US at the time, yes, they were freedom fighters.

[thir]

He was also a cowardly assassin, but js makes a much better point.


I do not know what you are refering to here, but surely the army uses assassins? And drones? And bombs meant for hostile leaders?



As to your three points,

(1) If a country fails to act in the face of a perceived strategic imperative, it is likely to be destroyed.


So, when the Sovjet Union took half of Europe after WW2 to make a buffer zone, they were within their right?

If, theoreticallly speaking, it had been possible for Ireland to invade parts of West England to protect their shores, they would have been within their right?



But if one country behaves in a way that its larger neighbour disapproves of, that is no justification for invasion (unless that "misbehaviour" constitutes a threat).


Example?



In the present case, when has Ireland been invaded for displeasing England by its behaviour?


Another poster made that claim, that is why I included it.



(2) The presumption being that England has no right "to be there". By that argument, virtually the whole population of the Americas - north and south - have even less right to be there, because they arrived much later. The same goes for Australia and New Zealand.


You have to distinguish between military invasion, and immigration. But I see colonization as invasion too.



Presumably, if the Aboriginals or Maoris started to foment revolution, you would say that the governments there could not complain about the cost in money or lives spent in maintaining order?


Yes, I would.



(3) Moral right ... England was invited,


No country invites invasion



and being in control, it was obliged to maintain order;


Complaining bitterly about it too, and using excessive force, but yes



divine right (a) Pope Adrian granted the English Crown suzerainity over Ireland, and (b) the Irish Jacobites upheld the Stuart claim to the "Divine Right of Kings". Michael Collins, for example, was born a British subject, studied in King's College and began his career in London working for important financial institutions. His act of rebelling against the established government cannot be anything other than treason, and using violence against the state invites a violent response, even today in any country you care to name.

Nonsense. What right does any pope have to give away other people's lands? They did it in South Africa and Asia as well. It is just another way to say 'we take the right'.

England took Ireland, and any act of rebellion is the right of any invaded country. Ireland was a colony for so many years, that does not mean they do not have the right for independance, just as for example India and many African states.

Just as the other colonies Ireland had so much trouble getting back on its feet economically.

[thir]

Yes, there was a civil war, and he was on one side. The independance was not independant enought in some eyes, while it was in the eyes of others.


Maybe that was too short: what I meant was that the war of independance ended with a treaty:

"The Anglo-Irish Treaty (Irish: An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence. It established the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire and also provided Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State, which it exercised." from Wikipedia.


The war of independence was about independence, and not everybody felt that being a dominion within the British Empire was independence from the British Empire.

The Northern Ireland problem was created with the Government of Ireland Act 1920:

The Act was intended to establish separate Home Rule institutions within two new subdivisions of Ireland: the six north-eastern counties were to form "Northern Ireland", while the larger part of the country was to form "Southern Ireland". Both areas of Ireland were to continue as a part of the United Kingdom, and provision was made for their future unification under common Home Rule institutions. Wikipedia.

[MMI]

I do not know what you are refering to here, but surely the army uses assassins? And drones? And bombs meant for hostile leaders?

I'm referring to Collins and his "Squad" - highly paid sneak assassins.


So, when the Sovjet Union took half of Europe after WW2 to make a buffer zone, they were within their right?

If, theoreticallly speaking, it had been possible for Ireland to invade parts of West England to protect their shores, they would have been within their right?

Look at it this way. If the Soviets had not created a buffer zone, and the US had invaded Russia, their country would have fallen due entirely to their lack of precaution.

Or look at it this way. West Europe was the USA's buffer zone and had troops stationed all over the western nations, just in case of a Red invasion.

Historically speaking, Ireland did invade the western British Isles many times, and it has been confirmed in an earlier post that this was perfectly acceptable at the timer.

If Ireland was under threat from a third country, and could protect itself by invading Cornwall (and was strong enough to), do you think it would not?



Another poster made that claim [that England had not invaded Ireland], that is why I included it.

So, tell me, when did those English invasions occur?


You have to distinguish between military invasion, and immigration. But I see colonization as invasion too.

I'm not so sure a distinction is always necessary, but the Spanish Conquest was certainly military, the British-Americans and their USA successors were pretty ruthless against the native indians, and the Australian colonials' treatment of the Aborigines left much to be desired. My point stands: England's authority over Ireland predates the creation of many other countries.


No country invites invasion

In 1169, Dermot MacMurrough invited a force of Norman knights to help him recover the throne of Leinster, which the High King of Ireland had deprived him of. As a result of this action, Dermott swore fealty to the English King and he was restored to his kingship.



[Britain] Complaining bitterly about [its obligation to maintain order in Ireland] too, and using excessive force

Correction: the Irish complaints about England are far more bitter than the English complaints about keeping them from killing each other. Excessive force? How many car-bombs have the British left in busy Irish shopping streets? How many letter bombs have they posted? How many passenger trains have they blown up? How many doors have they knocked on and shot whoever answered? All of those things were done by Irishmen against Irishmen and THAT is the whole of the problem.



What right does any pope have to give away other people's lands?

Back in those days, the Pope did have the right. In fact, Argentina's claim to own the Falkland Islands is based upon a Papal edict


England took Ireland, and any act of rebellion is the right of any invaded country.

An invaded country has the right to resist an invader, agreed, but England did NOT "take" Ireland. Ireland submitted itself to England. And that happened in the 12th century! Thereafter it remained an independent lordship/kingdom until 1800, ruled by a person who also happened to be king of England (like the Isle of Man, for example), and, later, king of Scotland too. In 1800 Ireland became an integral part of the United Kingdom, exactly the same as Scotland or Wales. Who calls Scotland or Wales an English colony? Neither was Ireland; nor is Northern Ireland a colony now. At that time, the Irish Lords took seats in the House of Lords in England, and Irish Parliamentarians sat in the House of Commons, with the same voting rights as everyone else.


Just as the other colonies Ireland had so much trouble getting back on its feet economically

Economically, Ireland was better off as part of the UK than not. Britain was responsible for the industrialisation of the North, which, for example, gave birth to the Titanic. Once the Republic became independent, it became a third world nation, and stayed that way until EU euros brought the short-lived Celtic Tiger into being. Ireland is now paying for its profligacy. But that's not our fault.

[thir]

t:
I do not know what you are refering to here, but surely the army uses assassins? And drones? And bombs meant for hostile leaders?

MMI
I'm referring to Collins and his "Squad" - highly paid sneak assassins.

t:
And this is different from what armies do - how??

t:
So, when the Sovjet Union took half of Europe after WW2 to make a buffer zone, they were within their right?
If, theoreticallly speaking, it had been possible for Ireland to invade parts of West England to protect their shores, they would have been within their right?

MMI:
Look at it this way. If the Soviets had not created a buffer zone, and the US had invaded Russia, their country would have fallen due entirely to their lack of precaution.

t:
USSR would have fallen anyway, they were in no shape to fight any more, with a ruined country and 20 mill dead. But anyway I simply say that you have no right to invade another country for such reasons.

MMI:
Or look at it this way. West Europe was the USA's buffer zone and had troops stationed all over the western nations, just in case of a Red invasion.

t:
And they had no right to do that either.

D;
Historically speaking, Ireland did invade the western British Isles many times, and it has been confirmed in an earlier post that this was perfectly acceptable at the timer.

t:
Not by me, I do not agree.

MMI:
If Ireland was under threat from a third country, and could protect itself by invading Cornwall (and was strong enough to), do you think it would not?

t:
I do not know, but I think they have no right.

t:
You have to distinguish between military invasion, and immigration. But I see colonization as invasion too.

MMI:
I'm not so sure a distinction is always necessary,

t:
But you do agree that there is a difference between immigrants and an invading army?

MMI:
but the Spanish Conquest was certainly military, the
British-Americans and their USA successors were pretty ruthless against the native indians, and the Australian colonials' treatment of the Aborigines left much to be desired. My point stands: England's authority over Ireland predates the creation of many other countries.

t: What do you mean - the creation of other countries? They weren't really there, until the English took them?
t:
Quote Originally Posted by thir View Post
No country invites invasion

MMI:
In 1169, Dermot MacMurrough invited a force of Norman knights to help him recover the throne of Leinster, which the High King of Ireland had deprived him of. As a result of this action, Dermott swore fealty to the English King and he was restored to his kingship.

t:
Come on! Inviting the enemy for his own ends is not a country inviting someone in.

MMI:
How many car-bombs have the British left in busy Irish shopping streets? How many letter bombs have they posted? How many passenger trains have they blown up? How many doors have they knocked on and shot whoever answered?

t: I do not defend terrorism, no matter who are doing it.

But in general, there seems to be a tendency to think that in a conflict you have to kill like an army would, even if you are not an army, and any way an army kills is just ok, because it is an army.

MMI:
All of those things were done by Irishmen against Irishmen and THAT is the whole of the problem.

t: the jews were doing it all to themselves - ups, must have been thinking of something else.
Anyway I lost track. What do you mean that is the whole of the problem?

t:
What right does any pope have to give away other people's lands?

MMI:
Back in those days, the Pope did have the right. In fact, Argentina's claim to own the Falkland Islands is based upon a Papal edict

t:
But what, IYO, gives the Pope the right to decide who's country is whose?

t:
England took Ireland, and any act of rebellion is the right of any invaded country.

MMI:
An invaded country has the right to resist an invader, agreed, but England did NOT "take" Ireland. Ireland submitted itself to England.

t
It wasn't invaded, it just submitted?

MMI:
And that happened in the 12th century! Thereafter it remained an independent lordship/kingdom until 1800, ruled by a person who also happened to be king of England (like the Isle of Man, for example), and, later, king of Scotland too.

t:
Independant, but ruled by the king of England..?

MMI:
In 1800 Ireland became an integral part of the United Kingdom, exactly the same as Scotland or Wales. Who calls Scotland or Wales an English colony?

t:
Ehm - the Welsh and the Scots? Have you tried to call the Scots or Welsh English by mistake? You only get away with it by way of being an ignorant foreigner and a small female person as well, and to promise that you will never, ever say it again ;-))

MMI:
Neither was Ireland; nor is Northern Ireland a colony now.

t:
Of course Ireland was a colony, so regarded by the rest of the world. But I doubt we can get any further discussing it, we'd only be repeating ourselves.

MMI:
At that time, the Irish Lords took seats in the House of Lords in England, and Irish Parliamentarians sat in the House of Commons, with the same voting rights as everyone else.

t: sorry, at what time?

t:
Just as the other colonies Ireland had so much trouble getting back on its feet economically

MMI:
Economically, Ireland was better off as part of the UK than not.

t:
They were really much better off, and you could teach them some civilisation..

MMI
Britain was responsible for the industrialisation of the North, which, for example, gave birth to the Titanic.

t:
LOL - not a good example!

MMI:
Once the Republic became independent, it became a third world nation,

t:
My! Just like that?

MMI:
and stayed that way until EU euros brought the short-lived Celtic Tiger into being.

t:
Actually the Celtic revival started way long before that, 18something and onwards.

MMI:
Ireland is now paying for its profligacy. But that's not our fault.

t:
Profligate | Define Profligate at Dictionary.com

adjective. 1. utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute. 2. recklessly prodigal or extravagant.

Of course - all their fault.