I have before me a “Penguin Special” entitled “ULSTER” by THE SUNDAY TIMES “Insight” Team, the third reprint published 1972 just before Bloody Sunday. But, CAVEAT LECTOR (Reader Beware). Both Sir Harold Evans and Sir Simon Jenkins once worked for the “Insight” Team, and subsequently were responsible for the dissemination of some prize porkies.
Dealing with the deployment of British troops in the North of Ireland in August 1969 the “Insight” Team reported –
“Already, the equation of British power with Orange supremacy was being drawn by the more perceptive Catholics.”
“The Army, it must be remembered,had no idea of the tensions and factions within the Catholic community.Indeed,they seem to have taken most of the information about the Catholics from the Unionists. The ‘Sinn Fein Oath’ provides a fascinating example of this.The Army rapidly produced a booklet, called ‘Notes on Northern Ireland’, with the praiseworthy aim aim of giving its men some idea what the trouble was all about.”…….”As a case-study in psychosis, it (the ‘oath’) deserves reprinting-
‘I swear by Almighty God…..by the Blessed Virgin Mary…….by her tears and wailings…by the Blessed Rosary and Holy Beads….to fight until we die, wading in the fields of red gore of the Saxon Tyrants and Murderers of the Glorious Cause of Nationality, and, if spared, to fight until there is not a single vestige and a space for a footpath left to tell that the Holy Soil of Ireland was trodden on by the Saxon Tyrants and murderers, and moreover, when the English Protestant Robbers and Beasts in Ireland shall be driven into the sea like the swine Jesus Christ caused to be drowned, whe shall embark for, and take, England, root out every vestige of the accursed Blood of the Heretics, Adulterers and Murderers of Henry VIII and possess ourselves of the treasures opf the Beasts that have so long keptr our Beloved Isle od Saints…….in bondage……and we shall not give up the conquest until we have our Holy Father complete ruler of theBritish Isles, ……..so help me God.’
“Insight ” continues –
“The interesting point is that this oath was never taken by members of Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein, indeed, had no oath of any kind. The version the Army got dated from 1918, when it was forged by a group of over-heated Unionists. It has since appeared regularly in Loyalist Ulster news-sheets, most recently in Paisley’s PROTESTANT TELEGRAPH. It bears exactly the same relation to reality as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – indeed, in its constant dwelling on blood, it has much in common with the Protocols. As a document, therefore, it tells one nothing about Sinn Fein, though quite a lot about the impulses to violence in Unionism.”
The British Army had been deployed following the lethal attacks by the Six-County statelet’s armed forces on Catholics in Derry and Belfast. A Unionist Senator was reported by “Insight” to have been overheard complaining in the Stormont Members’ Dining Room –
“If only the bloody British Army hadn’t come in, we’d have shot ten thousand of them by dawn.” The “Insight” reports here quoted strike me as convincing, though I’m possibly mistaken. The words attributed to the Senator seem to speak volumes of “the impulses to violence in Unionism.” Shooting ten thousand Fenians/Taigs/Papists before dawn ” sounds like a Unionist’s Wet Dream.
“Insight” reported a cooler response from Captain Lawrence Orr, MP for South Down, leader of the Ulster Unionist MPs at Westminster , and Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of the World- “We’re getting the troops, and we’re getting them without strings.”
The “Insight” reports quoted refer to a time when there was no “Provisional” IRA, when Nationalists in the Six Counties were almost totally unarmed, and Civil Rights Activists sang “We Shall Overcome” and took inspiration from the recently murdered Martin Luther King. I don’t imagine that anyone, even the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Michael Jackson, thinks Martin Luther King was a Papist.
Google “PEDIGREE OF A PORKY” in THE IRISH DEMOCRAT
“Shooting ten thousand Fenians/Taigs/Papists before dawn ” sounds like a Unionist’s Wet Dream.”
Ah Donal. You spent all that time telling us about some 1918 loyalists and their unjust allegations of bloodlust against Sinn Fein and then you throw in that shooting ten thousand Catholics is a unionist’s wet dream. You’ve managed to be more hyperbolic and defamatory in 2016 than your UVF/Orangeman from 1918.
I heard someone on the radio this morning only briefly while in the car, but he was talking about carsons gun running and how the UVF in 1912 reignited the fenian flame and how they were the inspiration for physical force nationalism for people like James Connolly.
Hard to see how society can move on when they wont even admit they ever did anything wrong.
But then, Britain covering up its role in the conflict, redacting all evidence to make it unusable, making state documents containing evidence unavailable for decades and manipulating the media are hardly good role models going forward.
The more truth comes out the better Donal.
In my own opinion, had it not been for the PIRA, 10s of thousands of Catholics would have been driven out of the north.
That was the intended means of dealing with the growing catholic population at the time.
“The “Insight” reports quoted refer to a time when there was no “Provisional” IRA, when Nationalists in the Six Counties were almost totally unarmed”
So, does this mean that you don’t believe what the senator said about shooting tens of thousands of Catholics?
Forgive me for seeking clarity but if there was no PIRA and only heavily armed Protestants assisted by the army hell bent on forcing out Catholics then how come there wasn’t this Bosnian scenario (Bombay st notwithstanding lest someone think I don’t know about that)?
And please, I can’t be bothered with context-twisting assumptions or whataboutery, if you know the answer just tell me, if you don’t then spare me an irrelevant speel about collusion (these days seemingly the emergency-break glass for nationalists when they can’t answer a question).
So, in short, if unionists were as bad as what nationalists tell us (e.g. Bombay st) and the army was as bad as what nationalists tell us and unionist politicians were advocating the shooting of thousands of Catholics before dawn and there was no PIRA then why didn’t it happen?
Why are there still Catholics in places like Ballymena, North Antrim, Coleraine and Portadown and other areas where they would have been exposed in the early 70’s? Surely this pogrom-hunger that us Prods have inside us (facilitated by the British army) would have been able to dispatch them in exposed areas?
Why did it not happen?
Could perhaps (at least) one of the general nationalist assumptions be incorrect?
“Why did it not happen?”
The PIRA didn’t allow it to happen AG.
So the PIRA which Donal says didn’t exist at the time stopped loyalist mobs backed by the police and the British army from expelling Catholics in areas where they were exposed and very much the minority e.g. in places like Ballymena, Coleraine, Ballymoney and Larne?
AG – I’m butting into your conversation with jessica just to mention that at the famous Battle of the Bogside, the RUC + B Specials were openly assisted by loyalist mobs.I’m not sure if that fits into your discussion but it’s a matter that receives little attention.
I get that Dr C but the narrative is these days that when the British army arrived in town they were chomping at the bit to expel Catholics too (see Donal’s final quote regarding the troops without strings) so, what I want to know is how come IF unionists were as desperate to commit pogroms as the accepted nationalist narrative would have us believe and were aided and abetted by the British army then how come (in an era when the PIRA didn’t exist) there wasn’t mass expulsions in what would have been considered unionist strongholds?
Look at what Donal is saying (and implying) and hold that up against the fact that over the space of 3 decades and 100 000 security forces personnel (of what nationalists now accept to be a thoroughly collisional army) passing through the Wee Six we somehow find that the Catholic population grew rapidly and the numbers killed by the genocidal military machine are in three figures (well, four figures if one believes that the UDA and UVF were under their control too).
I’m afraid it doesn’t stack up.
I have a fair whack of friends and drinking buddies from Bosnia and the former Croatian Krajina.
They faced pogrom hungry militias backed by the state army (JNA) and the casualty and expellee figures (over the space of 3-5 years) are terrifying.
So much so that I’ve stopped talking to them about NI because they actually laugh at me and the scale of what happened in NI.
So, why the disparity?
Are the British army actually as ineffective as the stormtroopers from Star Wars or perhaps this nationalist narrative might have a few cracks?
Please note, this is NOT a denial of unionist or BA wrong doing but I would like a bit more scrutiny of what is being passed off as an acceptable narrative because when a unionist does it they’re instantly dismissed and the great whataboutery game begins.
You have a point, AG – actions against Catholics in the north can be overstated, and yes, by comparison with other countries, what happened here was minimal. At the same time, you never hear “It was comparatively minimal” coming from unionists when they talk of killings performed by the IRA. The other thing is that periodically, throughout the existence of the state, Catholics have been victimized by their unionist neighbours. Two examples:
1. “The McMahon killings occurred on 24 March 1922 in Belfast, Northern Ireland when six Catholic civilians were shot dead and two were wounded, allegedly by members of either the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) or the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The dead were aged between 15 and 50, and all but one were members of the McMahon family. The gunmen broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside. It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) killing of two policemen the day before.”
2. “In July 1920 the IRA shot dead Lt Colonel Brice Ferguson Smyth, who had earlier made an infamous speech in Listowel, where he said that the police were perfectly justified in shooting people who did not immediately put their hands up when challenged and that, if mistakes were made, policemen should not face court proceedings. When his body was taken to Banbridge, his home town, for burial, the Ulster Volunteer Force instigated the burning of Catholic-owned homes and property in the town. This violence spread to Dromore and Lisburn, with Catholics being forced out of work and out of their homes. Violence was revisited on these communities the following month, when RIC District Inspector Oswald Ross Swanzy was shot in Lisburn on a Sunday morning as worshippers poured out from Lisburn Cathedral. Swanzy had been implicated in the murder of Tomás MacCurtain, lord mayor of Cork and commander of the IRA’s Cork No. 1 Brigade. He had fled to the safety of the strongly loyalist town of Lisburn. This was sectarianism at its most blatant, as practically every Catholic-owned business in the town was burned to the ground and the parochial house was totally destroyed.”
When republicans attack a member of the British armed forces, the retaliation tends to be visited on the heads of innocent Catholics. And sometimes even when there’s been no republican attack, as Andy Boyd’s ‘Holy War In Belfast’ catalogues. I’d agree that nationalists/republicans can overstate the case,but there is a recurring theme of sectarian attacks on Catholic communities over the decades.
“the British army arrived in town they were chomping at the bit to expel Catholics too”
That is not what I have been laid to believe AG. I was too young at the time but enough people have told me that when they first came over it was to prevent the attacks by unionists against catholics which they did stop for some months from happening.
There is plenty of factual evidence that they stood along with the RUC and journalists and watched armed loyalists attacking an enclave in north belfast but which was successfully repelled by the PIRA which led nationalists to seeing them as their protectors and swelled recruitment to their ranks bringing them into existence.
It is hard for me to take seriously any condemnation of republicans for the conflict from anyone who is not prepared to accept and take into account these facts which match my own experiences.
Shortly after this, the battle of the bogside, the army drove over an ex british army man trying to calm the situation. Again, the PIRA were only in infancy then.
But when they then shot an unarmed civilian in the back, the camels back was broken and the conflict between the british army and PIRA began.
If what you are saying is that the conflict I experienced and witnessed did not exist as the british army could have wiped all catholics out.
Such an act would result in at best the government being overthrown in england if not even civil war there. How many Irish live in Britain? Do you think they would stand by and let mass murder tale place?
There is a difference between unionists wanting that to happen and allowing to actually happen.
For decades unionists wanted the same action taken as in Israel against Palestinians. If you are asking why it didn’t happen, I have just explained one reason.
There is also precedent as there was a backlash in England over the war of independence over their actions which the people demanded they stop.
I wrote an article on this period here if you want more facts:
http://www.judecollins.com/2015/12/truth-justice-and-reconciliation-part-3-by-jessica-mcgrann/
If it were not for unionist aggression, there would never have been a PIRA and the OIRA would have disbanded as they had planned to in 1965.
Paisley and his cronies misjudged the situation, (another acknowledged fact) which left us with the legacy of the troubles part 2.
I can’t disagree with any of that Dr C.
What I’d like to see is a straightening out of the narratives as opposed to the current state of affairs which is run as far as we can in the opposite direction from each other in the hope that an outsider will plant a flag pole in the middle and say “well, the truth must be around here then”.
Unionism does need to accept its mistakes, for sure. They just kept making scenarios much much worse over the years (and continue to do so much to my frustration).
Likewise, I’d like a reeling in of some of the accepted truths that are being bandied about in planet nationalism.
This collusion topic needs to be investigated, thoroughly and heads must roll but the thin end of the wedge of the collusion topic is being used these days to paint nearly ever member of the armed forces and RUC as genocidal taig-haters which is blatantly untrue as is the up and coming narrative that the British Army was there to do the unionists bidding (anyone who thinks such things should spend time with ex-soldiers from the British army (not the UDR!)).
I’d like a big pow-wow where everyone can admit their mistakes, from the unionists opposing civil rights, treating Catholics as a fifth column etc to the Provos admitting that after the early 70’s when Catholic defence had been ‘sorted’ (an insufficient word I’m afraid) that going around killing people and blowing things up was pointless to the British gov coming clean about what it did to its own citizens.
Admittedly the day that happens we’ll be building a hanger for Swine-Airways at Aldergrove but it’s worth driving towards.
Rather than barking loudly about the mistakes of others I think we should be looking at our own mistakes, past and present (as I’m constantly doing on slugger, the Lundy that I am….).
“Unionism does need to accept its mistakes, for sure. They just kept making scenarios much much worse over the years (and continue to do so much to my frustration).”
It is refreshing to hear that AG.
Unionists like yourself who accept even that much will be totally accepted by republicans. That does not mean I would ever stop looking towards independence and having a country of our own which I don’t feel like I have at the moment, but it would be nice to reach common ground and make Ireland a country acceptable to all who are prepared to be reasonable and do what is in the best for all of the Irish people over the whole of this island, including having the best possible relationship with Britain. Partition is wrong and will never be anything but wrong.
“Likewise, I’d like a reeling in of some of the accepted truths that are being bandied about in planet nationalism.
This collusion topic needs to be investigated, thoroughly and heads must roll but the thin end of the wedge of the collusion topic is being used these days to paint nearly ever member of the armed forces and RUC as genocidal taig-haters which is blatantly untrue as is the up and coming narrative that the British Army was there to do the unionists bidding (anyone who thinks such things should spend time with ex-soldiers from the British army (not the UDR!)).”
Until collusion including the Dublin monaghan bombing cover up is properly investigated and dealt with, it is a fact that there are plenty in all parts of this island who will find it hard to trust britain.
I have been on the receiving end of both british army rifle butts, and beaten by RUC, taken to a police station and strip searched for no reason but humiliation, ive been lifted by the ruc in belfast and thrown out of the back of a moving landrover in a loyalist estate in that I was unfamiliar with so I know first hand there have been wrong doers with intense hatred towards catholics in all of those organisations.
I was no angel and started drinking at a young age but I was never stupid. I know the majority of the british army sent here did not have any problems with the irish, held no animosity and many were scared shitless just being here. I recall 2 scottish soldiers I met one night. I was drinking (underage) with some friends out of the road or so we thought when they came out of nowhere. They asked if it was ok to sit with us for a while. It turned out they were celtic supporters and as we got chatting we ended up winding them up and having a drink and a bit of craic with them before they moved on.
They were nice guys, on their first tour and said it was the last place they wanted to be but if they kept their heads down and got it over with it would be good for their careers. I think they were meant to be stopping cars.
I am very well aware the majority of the British army are good people AG. But the British state forces as a whole, involved itself in active terrorism here.
There has been reams of evidence on the activities of FRU for example. How do you feel about even 40 year old evidence being denied on grounds of national security. That isn’t planet nationalism AG. That is simply wrong.
“So the PIRA which Donal says didn’t exist at the time stopped loyalist mobs backed by the police and the British army from expelling Catholics in areas where they were exposed and very much the minority e.g. in places like Ballymena, Coleraine, Ballymoney and Larne?”
Yes, loyalist mobs started attacking nationalist communities before PIRA existed.
2 households of my own family were put out and no longer live in Ireland. They left before the PIRA existed also.
Another household in my family who lived in Ardoyne, some years later when the PIRA were organising and taking on the british / loyalist attacks, due to the violence had to move into a camp in Waterford (either Wexford or Waterford I was only a child at the time). They later moved to England before later returning.
Had it not been for the PIRA, it is unlikely that I, other members of my family and I am sure many thousands of other catholic families would be living in Ireland today.
Do you fully understand this AG?
These are not fictitious lies, they are factual experiences that impacted on mine and my own families lives.
Yes I do, but do you understand my question when I ask IF the British army was complicit with loyalists and unionist politicians like those in the interview then how could the Catholics is isolated areas like Coleraine, Ballymoney and Ballymena survive?
And don’t just say ‘because of the IRA’.
Give me specifics of large scale mob attacks by the army, police and loyalist mobs and examples of defences against them.
And just to be specific I’m not talking about Belfast, rather places like those mentioned above.
And again please answer MY question rather than using it as a platform to air grievances.
“battle of the bogside” – Sorry, I meant the falls attacks and curfew here
Probably the fear of facing an imagined armed to the teeth horde of rebels put them off !
Well there was a lot more Catholics put out of their homes by loyalist mobs than soley Bombay street.
I get that Antonio but if I didn’t mention Bombay st then someone would simply say “what about Bombay st” as if this somehow answers my question.
So I thought I’d put it in there to show I’m not entirely ignorant of that aspect, but what I am ignorant of is an answer to my main question in my post.
As far as I can see you’re are asking why there was no mass genocide carried out by Protestant s against Catholics.
The answer is probably that most Protestant s had no desire for such extreme actions.
Similarly the reverse never happened either ( despite what g.Campbell seems to believe) again because most Catholics had no desire for such extreme action.
I’m no expert on these definitions but ethnic cleansing may be an appropriate term here. There were tens of thousands of Catholics threatened out of their homes in the 69 early 70’s period.
But others may say ethnic cleansing suggests MASS murder rather than MASS displacement and so it wouldn’t be an appropriate term.
I don’t know whether a Unionist senator said that or not. I think it would have been more accurate to describe it as the ‘wet dream’ of some Unionists, or a minority of Unionists as opposed to simply Unionists’ which suggests it would have been a wide spread perspective, which is unlikely.
As for the British army it is clear they did not partake in genocide. But my reading of the early 70’s is that they made a bad situation worse which is unfortunate as their initial introduction calmed things down significantly. There after so many of their actions (&in actions) increased support for physical force republicans. A support which was very limited prior to ’69.
I’ve yet to work out whether this was by design or stupidity.
“I don’t know whether a Unionist senator said that or not. I think it would have been more accurate to describe it as the ‘wet dream’ of some Unionists, or a minority of Unionists as opposed to simply Unionists’ which suggests it would have been a wide spread perspective, which is unlikely. ”
I disagree.
While a majority of unionists would not want their hands dirty in doing the actual deeds, the vast, vast majority would have been more than happy to see mass displacement of Catholics out of the north and very few would have spoken out.
In fact, does anyone know did any unionists or even the protestant churches stand up for Catholics prior to 1970 during the loyalist attacks?
“As for the British army it is clear they did not partake in genocide. But my reading of the early 70’s is that they made a bad situation worse which is unfortunate as their initial introduction calmed things down significantly. There after so many of their actions (&in actions) increased support for physical force republicans. A support which was very limited prior to ’69. I’ve yet to work out whether this was by design or stupidity.”
The british army had no desire to get involved in Ireland, but I have my suspicions that there was british forces involvement in UVF bombings in the early period.
Why else would loyalists suddenly stop using bombs overnight?
My belief is the bombings were assisted by britain including Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and it was a deliberate decision made to stop.
Britain was up to their necks in terrorist acts in Ireland.
A fair enough round-up there Antonio.
I am watching the Nolan show here and it reminded of this conversation yesterday.
Nolan put the following question to David McNarry (UKIP) Do you not accept that as bad as our troubles were here in Northern Ireland what is happening in places like Syria & Iraq is much worse??
McNarry replied: ‘No I do not!’
yep he actually said that!
As someone who witnessed events on Divis St in August 1969, I can give you some insight. Firstly, there were 6 weapons in St Gomgalls’s school facing Divis St, a mixture of short arms rifles and a Thompson. These were weapons which had not been dumped in 1962/3. The IRA weapons that had been dumped after the 56/62 IRA campaign had been sold by Cathal Goulding to the Welsh RA. The lack of an IRA active service unit in the Falls when it was attacked in 1969 was one of the reasons why the Provisional IRA was formed in January 1970. The six people in the school were veterans of the 40/50s campaigns.
The story in Ardoyne was similar, there were few weapons in Ardoyne the main one was a legally held shotgun which was passed from street to street.
The use by the RUC of Browing heavy machine guns meant there were lots of Richochets, several of which Hastings St Barracks, they thought they were being fired on from Divis Flats. Firing at the flats they wounded several people and killed Trooper McCabe, a British Soldier, home on leave. You may recall that last year this man was exonerated by inquest of involvement in any shooting.
As for making the IRA, in September following the August attacks, with the lower Falls barricaded and virtually Brit free, there was a meeting in a school, to which all the men of the area were invited to discuss the “defence” of the area. This was the start of recruiting the IRA.
You don’t have to accept the above but there are plenty of reports from the era that will substantiate much of the above.
For those of you here too young to remember the forced exodus of Catholics in the early 1970s, I’ll give a brief account of how it looked from south of the border.
I live in area that received Catholic refugees from the North during the early 1970s. When the numbers overwhelmed the local Army camp designated to receive refugees, mothers and children were accommodated in B&Bs redesignated as refugee accommodation, so a good many became my neighbours. Distraught families struggled to cope with what had happened to them. Mothers who seemed reconciled to spending a few weeks or months by the sea suddenly erupted into tears, sobbing aloud while walking the beach or paddling with their toddlers.
Displaced children came to play with my children because we had toys and they didn’t. One little girl told me every day how lovely my yard was. Eventually I asked her what was so lovely about my scruffy yard. She answered, “There are no soldiers in it”.
Unaccompanied children with name labels pinned to their coats arrived daily on express buses, nervously asking strangers, were they “in the State”. Then, on finding that they were indeed in safe territory they asked, more confidently, for directions to Finner Army Camp.
A unionist wet dream for sure, and just as shocking in its time, even though on a lesser scale, as the Syrian refugee crisis today.
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Michael Jackson, was quoted in the IRISH TIMES
last week. He was warning students at DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY about the abuse of history.
He attributed the renewal of violence in the North of Ireland to the 1966 commemoration of
the 1916 Rising.
Strange that the Civil Rights demonstrator in 1968 and 1969 sang the American Civil Rights
song “We Shall Overcome” and revered Martin Luther King.
Archbishop Jackson hails from Co Fermanagh and was 8 years old when Gerry Fitt was batoned in Derry.
A perusal of the IRISH TIMES stories and editorials of 1968 and 1969 would demolish the
Archbishop’s contentions. THE SUNDAY TIMES “Insight” Team’s coverage of that period
tend to undermine the Archbishop’s complaint. I believe that giving young students a
“Bum Steer” on recent history is not a recipe for future peace and justice.
The students might learn nothing, but remember and believe spurious history lessons.
That’s why I have quoted the “Insight” story at length.
Here’s the speech Donal
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/1916-speech-church-of-ireland-archbishop-of-dublin-michael-jackson-1.2548604
The archbishop does not say that 1966 les to the renewal of violence – he says
“Many people in the Republic of Ireland may still not be aware of the extent to which The Commemoration of 1966 succeeded in alienating those in Northern Ireland at the time who were of a different political affiliation and blood-line of identity. The swift following-on of The Troubles and the political ambiguities around gun-running and the parallel deployment of members of The Irish Army along The Border simply underpinned an emerging anxiety and erosion of trust by neighbour of neighbour in Northern Ireland. In no way is this to transfer blame for The Troubles in Northern Ireland to citizens of The Republic of Ireland. It is, rather, an attempt to apportion some responsibility in equal measure to both media and politics in order to enable us to use honourably words like: reconciliation; a shared future; parity of esteem; even the word Agreement itself.”
Where does the Bishop blame the celebration of the rising for the troubles? All he does is point out that it fed the siege mentality of northern unionists. It did come just four years into the breather the IRA were taking after their border campaign. You’re attacking the Bishop for a misrepresentation of history and you’re not even honestly relaying what he said.
“Many people in the Republic of Ireland may still not be aware of the extent to which The Commemoration of 1966 succeeded in alienating those in Northern Ireland at the time who were of a different political affiliation and blood-line of identity. ”
It led Ian Paisley to believe a new republican rising was imminent and led to the rebirth of the UVF and militant unionism which led to the troubles.
In a way, he is saying it was irresponsible to celebrate that way then and indirectly it did play a part in starting the conflict BYC.
It is now acknowledge unionist fears at the time were unwarranted. Unionism started the conflict for nothing.
Why would Unionists be “alienated” by the Commemoration? They themselves are unique in the world in having a “Marching Season” where Catholics were routinely abused by speakers and marches provocatively routed through their neighbourhoods. The 1966 Commemoration
were 17 months after an RUC baton charge in the Falls Road at the behest of Paisley. That
baton charge was about a year and a half after Lord Brookborough stepped down as Prime
Minister. He had not changed since in the 1930s he told Orangemen that any of them who
employed Catholics were traitors. Though Brookborough and his followers did not drive
sufficient Catholics out of Fermanagh to make the County’s population, or even its
Westminster electorate predominantly Unionist or Protestant, the Archbishop’s statement
implied that it did. He thus echoed a piece written by the Dowager Duchess of Westminster
in the Daily Telegraph about “Fermanagh people” in which the Catholic and Nationalist majority simply didn’t exist. Her late husband, before his elevation to the Dukedom, sat in
the House of Commons for Fermanagh although he had no popular mandate to do so.
The Archbishop, when writing of Protestants and Unionists shot by the IRA does not indicate the extremely high proportion of them belonged to armed forces of the Crown
or armed bodies in collusion in it. Lord Brookborough himself was a private Warlord who
raised a unit named for himself in the 1920s. The Archbishop’s disingenuous apologia
should not go unchallenged.