r to It
For the next month, any and every word uttered by a politician must be heard with an added health warning: “It’s the election, stupid”. Sometimes the words uttered will be a rallying call, urging supporters to rise above past events and enmities. More often, it will be a rallying call, urging supporters to see how kinda terrific the speaker is.
So when Arlene Foster “slammed” (as the Belfast Telegraph put it ) Sinn Féin MLA Sean Lynch, the health warning should be considered alongside her words. The DUP leader is critical of Sean Lynch because he posted a message remembering his dead friend Seamus McElwain. Mr McElwain was shot dead by the SAS in 1986, when he and Lynch were trying to ambush an army patrol. Lynch himself was seriously wounded and when he recovered, sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Mrs Foster has said she believes McElwain was the man who tried to kill her father. She has described him as “an evil and sectarian killer.” She goes on: “I have used the scars of the past to motivate me to build a better Northern Ireland for my children. But as long as people like Lynch try to rewrite the past, I will expose them at every turn”. She also is concerned that “glorifying McElwain sends an utterly mixed message to dissident republican terrorists”.
With due respect to our First Minister, there are a number of points in her utterances that merit closer scrutiny.
- Mrs Foster says she believes Mr McElwain tried to kill her father. That suggests he was at no point found guilty of that action in a court, not even a Diplock one. So if we apply the cornerstone of British justice, Mr McElwain is innocent of the charge which Mrs Foster levels against him and which she appears to treat as fact.
- Mr McElwain may or may not have been “an evil sectarian killer”, but if he did try to kill her father, it’s reasonable to suppose that the attack was prompted by the fact that her father, John Kelly, was a part-time RUC man, rather than that he was a Protestant. The IRA did carry out sectarian killings, but for the most part directed their violence against the ‘security’ forces.
- She accuses Mr Lynch of trying to rewrite the past. This, it’s believed, relates to a speech Mr Lynch made a few days after praising his dead comrade, where he is reported as saying that the British Empire “was built on oppression, discrimination, torture and death”. Certainly supporters of the British Empire would see that as a false description of the Empire, but it is a fact that the British Empire, whether it was in Kenya or India or Ireland, did employ oppression, discrimination, torture and death to enforce its rule. Mrs Foster is entitled to believe that despite these actions, the British Empire was a Good Thing. But it’s absurd to pretend that oppression, discrimination, torture and death weren’t part of the basic building blocks of the Empire. To ignore these hard facts would be to rewrite history.
- It is understandable that Mrs Foster should harbour feelings of deep resentment against someone she believes tried to kill her father. But if she really wants to “build a better Northern Ireland”, she will have to accept that people like Mr Lynch remember their comrades in arms fondly. Just as she must accept that the people of the south of Ireland have, over the past couple of weeks, been remembering fondly the men who took over the GPO and used force in an effort to dislodge the British Empire.
- Finally, the First Minister’s warning about the lauding of Mr McElwaith sending “an utterly mixed message” to violent dissident republicans makes little sense. The message sent is that Mr Lynch reveres the memory of the man who was his comrade. Even the dullest-witted dissident is unlikely to miss that point. If by “mixed message” Mrs Foster means that Lynch’s words will provide encouragement for violent republicans today, it’d be safe to say Mr Lynch sitting in Stormont would confirm for most violent republicans that Mr Lynch is a sell-out. Far from encouragement, Sinn Féin MLAs send a discouraging message to dissidents.
To summarize: most republicans, while they would regret it, accept the fact that unionist politicians see the world in general, and partitioned Ireland in particular, in a very different way from them. In contrast few unionists seem prepared to accept that republican politicians see the world in general and partitioned Ireland in particular in a different way from them, and are entitled to do so.
Yes, yes, I know: in the end it’s the election, stupid. But shouldn’t our politicians be providing a vision for the future rather than trying to fit the past into a tight little handbag marked “DUP”?
“But shouldn’t our politicians be providing a vision for the future rather than trying to fit the past into a tight little handbag marked “DUP”?”
That is the DUP vision of the future, permanent and constant vilification of republicans while ignoring unionist responsibility for the conflict which they started.
The sad thing is, many non unionists have been sucked into the same narrative.
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Arlene seems to be quite competent in controlling a fairly positive message while inserting negativity through other members and such passing comments that get media attention.
Her aim in such attacks on Sinn Fein who they have no problem being partners with in government is therefore probably be to try and prevent Sinn Fein from reaching 30 seats which would give them control over the veto without having to rely on SDLP and Alliance neither of which can be trusted.
If Sinn Fein don’t reach 30 seats then it will be just more of the same over the next term and more disillusionment and apathy to come for nationalists. The first minister hoo hah doesn’t really matter, it is purely the tactic to frighten and motivate their electorate that unionists have always used.
The DUPs main rivals however, are not Sinn Fein but the UUP.
Mike Nesbitt has been very quiet. He is also a smart cookie and much more devious than Arlene.
I just hope it doesn’t turn into a who can attack Sinn Fein the most campaign like it was in the south which is what I am waiting on it becoming.
I’m not a unionist but shinners would probably call me part of the “unionist community”. We don’t see policemen as “security forces” Jude. We never did. That’s just a media/republican propaganda label We see them as community servants. And we consider the targeting of policemen for murder as nothing more than sectarian killing in disguise.
As you say, these are subjective matters, so let’s just consider the numbers. Throughout thirty years of the troubles, despite the actions against them and the hundreds they lost the RUC killed fewer people (55 in total) than the New York police do in a year. Or put another way, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics law enforcement agencies in the US killed 1240 people last year which translated to our population and a thirty year period is four times the rate of the RUC (1240/300 x 1.8 x 30 = 223). So the average US policeman, not just the metropolitan cop in the cities, is four times as likely to kill someone in peacetime as your so-called paramilitary “security force” of Northern Irish policemen was during the “armed struggle”.
Or put it another way. With 8,500 serving in the reserve or full time, and an average of two people killed by RUC officer in the course of their duties in a year, the average officer would need to serve over four thousand years before killing anybody and I would guess thousands of years before even drawing and using their gun.
That’s not some sort of military service Jude. That’s civil servants provided with personal protection because others were trying to kill them.
So, as a country farmer, a simple C of I Christian and a small town community servant, Arlene Foster’s father wasn’t targeted to prevent him from carrying out his evil, oppressive, imperial, military mission. He was targeted to hurt the community he came from, as part of a wider campaign to force it to subordinate itself to his would-be killers’ dictats. You’re really never going to convince anyone that the decision process that republicans went through when they decided that Ireland would be better with Arlene Foster’s father dead and in the ground was anything but sectarian.
All of the British security forces reserves were training grounds for loyalist paramilitary groups
The majority of loyalists got their weapons training there
I know in portadown it was a requirement
If you want to use statistics compare the names of reservists with loyalist paramilitary membership
Harris Boyle and many other UDR members even had UVF tattoo’s Jessica and I’m not talking about one or two small tattoo’s but prominent, easily noticed tattoo’s.
After Harris Boyle was killed by his own bomb when trying to murder all of the Miami Showband members, his arm was even discovered in a nearby field and a Portadown UVF tattoo was still noticeable on the arm.
Even after he died, his UDR company openly put a memorial to Harris in “Combat” a UVF magazine.
Collusion is no illusion. The UDR/RUC were full of UVF/UDA members and purposely so.
Billy Wright bragged about being escorted in the back of ruc landrover to carry out sectarian murders
He wasn’t bragging when Crip got him in the back of the prison van, that’s for sure.
In normal societies policemen ARE community servants.
However during the time of the RUC, we were far from a normal society and the RUC were not serving ALL of the community, in fact they attacked, often violently, one section of the community at the behest of another section of the community.
Let’s not pretend they were an impartial force going about their days work.
They too have blood on their hands.
ruc,killed fewer people[55 in total] the uvf n uda musta been busy them 55 times and couldnt fit them in.
collusion isnt an illusion.
BYC, the conflict which started in 1968 or 1969, was very much sectarian. In fact, there was nothing non sectarian about it.
I would be fine with saying every single killing during this period was sectarian.
As with all conflicts, there is a dehumanising process, and eventually we start to see sectarian murders as something else. People see the RUC and british army working hand in hand in their incursions into republican areas, shooting bullets or plastic / rubber bullets, cs gas or whatever and they become acceptable targets.
The british army seen the vehement hatred of their presence in nationalist areas and when the come under attack from citizens throwing stones, petrol bombs etc… they likewise become acceptable targets and many innocent civilians lost their lives at the hands of the british army.
Unlike the british army though, who are employees of the state and in which their participation is a career choice, each death to the local community leads to new beginnings of the conflict for many and the cycle of violence continues to grow and evolve with different groups becoming acceptable targets.
Loyalists who targeted totally innocent Catholics, did so at the instruction of the british forces who managed them directly at the early phase to reduce support for the IRA in catholic communities. It had the opposite effect.
The British military command did not care about the individuals losing their lives and likewise the individuals targeted by republicans were no more than targets in a conflict.
There was no republican response in the start of the conflict for the first few years.
The unionist community had ample opportunity to stop what was happening in their name, as did the british state. They did nothing more than state their disapproval, but turn a blind eye in case they benefitted in the longer term. The RUC and British army stood by and watched loyalist gun attacks in catholic areas leading to armed resistance by the PIRA and escalation of the conflict.
Arlene Foster’s father was a casualty in a conflict started by unionists, and one of many on both sides.
so as a farmer a simple church of i, community servant.
no mention he was a b.man,[disbanded by their beloved british govenment]that wasnt enough went and joined the ruc[again disbanded by their government]history of the disbandment is well documented[partly so far]well paid community servants must have been getting it wrong when the british of all people disband them that not rewriting history.maybe when the history of how unpaid volunteers like that lad mcilwaine were cut down comes out after all these blocked inquests in the public interest of course says she,
You saw them as police, community servants.
An elderly neighbour of mine lived with her family in a small town in south antrim until the early 70’s.
They were the only Catholic family in their estate.
The family were subjected to verbal abuse, violent attacks, numerous attacks on their property including bricks through windows.
All reported to the cops. Nothing happened.
One day a knock at the door. A local UDA man & one RUC officer. The RUC man said to the woman of the house ‘ we’ve had numerous complaints of threatening behaviour from your sons toward neighborhours’
I shit you not.
Eventually the family could take no more & moved.
When are unionists going to stop this ‘innocent’ victim nonsense ? Many RUC were belligerents in the conflict. The evidence is extensive.
BYC, there’s a massive flaw in your argument by comparing the North of Ireland to the United States of America. For a start, the USA has a population of over 300 million and the North has a population of 1.8 million. There’s maybe more than 1.8 million cops in the USA, comparing the North of Ireland to the USA is ridiculous lol Of course there’s more killings by US cops due to a much, much greater population. Not to mention the USA is one huge melting pot of different cultures, traditions, races, religions, politics, etc There was a time when the USA, specifically New York, was regarded as the crime capital of the world. The number of rapes, murders and crimes committed was staggering. Of course cops are going to use their weapons far more often, not to mention there’s a “trigger happy” culture in the USA and always have been. In Iraq the US Air Force accidently bombed British soldiers, killing a few. You can even hear the pilots laughing and cheering when they did it, not realizing that it was allies they bombed and not the Taliban. Americans tend to act before they think.
Your right about one thing though BYC, the RUC was a community police force or servants as you said. They were a community police force for Protestants only, that much is clearly obvious and backed up by evidence, hence your anger at them being targeted. They weren’t a police force for Catholics and weren’t meant to be. The RUC was disbanded for a reason. They were colluding with Loyalist terrorists and they, along with the UDR, were described by the SDLP then as “Unionisms armed wing”.
BYC, just because you see the killings of RUC members as “sectarian”, doesn’t mean it was. It quite obviously wasn’t. The IRA was targeting the RUC because they were servants of the state. If the IRA wanted to commit sectarian killings it would’ve been so much easier for them to just do what the UDA/UVF were doing and commit sectarian murders. It takes a lot of time to prepare, plan and execute a mission to kill police officers. On the other hand if you wanted to carry out sectarian murders all you have to do is drive onto the Shankill Road and fire out a car window at any random person. If the IRA pursued such a sectarian agenda as the UVF/UDA/RUC/UDR pursued then there would be far more people in their graves today. So your argument is nonsense, its a case of you believing what you want to believe, not what the facts show.
BYC, before you put on your self proclaimed victimhood hat again, its important to look at the facts and history because don’t depend on people not knowing history, they will pull you up on your crazy assertions.
Arlene Fosters father was a member of the RUC, he knows the risks there was of him joining such a force, a force that was full to the brim with UVF/UDA members and their sympathizers. Even the first RUC man on the scene at the Kingsmills massacre was a UVF man who boasted that he would never work with a Catholic. He did work with one Catholic RUC man though but him and his mates intimidated the Catholic out of the RUC. Is this the “community servants” your talking about BYC?…..
I put a sum in there for you Ryan showing the adjustment in the US rate for the NI population and the thirty year period.
I didn’t claim to be a victim Ryan. I was talking about RUC members. I’m not one.
There’s a difference between “knowing your history” and knowing just enough facts to justify your own prejudices and then deciding you’ve got the whole story.
On this thread you’ve agreed with Ciaran that the republican campaign couldn’t have been sectarian because of the proportion of Catholics killed by republicans – even though the openly sectarian loyalists killed exactly the same proportion of Protestants – and on a previous thread you told me that Douglas Hyde’s election proved the open and equal character of the new Irish state when the story of Douglas Hyde was that he lost the only election he fought (as senator) when he was attacked by the Catholic Truth Society because he was a Protestant. Your “facts” seem to do your own arguments more harm than good.
“We don’t see policemen as “security forces” Jude. We never did. That’s just a media/republican propaganda label We see them as community servants.”
A deceased friend of mine answered a knock at his door in Belfast 1967. Three gentlemen politely advised him to move to another area. The “community servants” would not intervene and my friend and his wife moved to another area.
It is still possible to view “community servants” in action, battering people who were exercising a democratic right to protest about gerrymandering, poor housing and unemployment. Some of the baton wielding “community servants” were Inspectors in the RUC.
A number of “community servants” attacked the Devenney family in their own home on 19 April 1969. Mr Devenney died as a result of his injuries on 17 July 1969. It could be argued that Mr Devenney was targeted in his own home to the hurt the community he came from. The Drury Report is available in relation to this matter. Let us look to the future, because files on the late Mr Devenney will remain sealed until 2022. Cui bono?
Somewhere …sometime… there has to be a stop to this re-writing of historical facts ,else madness will consume us all.
There are some of us left alive who remember a life before “the Troubles” of 1968…….onwards to whenever! The horror didn’t spring up from a perfectly manicured rose-garden of 1960’s innocence. We weren’t all skipping about like wee Spring lambs without a care in the world. Some of us lived happy enough 1950’s and 1960’s lives with nice inside bathrooms, three bedrooms, aliving room , a kitchen and maybe a scrap of a garden; all the new mod-cons such as a black and white television with two channels ,a twin- tub washing machine ,or maybe even one of those new-fangled fridge things to replace the coldstone in the larder to keep the butter fresh….and such… but these things weren’t the norm for many living in grubby over-crowded homes with a grey cloud of “Never on A Sunday” and know your place ….hanging over their every day …..as they went to the local shop daily to get a few “messages” on tick.. a quarter of cheddar or a few bacon rashers sliced off the big machine …hopefully to be paid for on Friday if a wage came in.
That was the background that the Civil Rights movement played out against. Arlene Foster’s old DUP party leader was not some glorified chortling lump of a Lord back then .He was seen by sane people as an opportunist demagogue- in- training who spouted otherworldly bullshit and political aggression against Popery first and republicanism – under -the- bed as a distant second. He seemed a guldering , broad , loud-mouthed boor with a dictatorial complex …a man to be followed only by the feeble-minded and politically incontinent. A rabble-rousing extremist who saw wee popes at every turn…just as a child would see faeries at the bottom of the garden .
That was the noxious, unedifying public presence who formed Arlene’s wonderful DUP . Super Unionist! Super Bigot ! Super Prod! The kind of laaloo with a Mickey Mouse degree from some redneck correspondance school of wizardry like one of Jerry Lee Lewis’s southern bible bashing cousins…. that Donald Trump would, no doubt , carefully understudy. A raving rollicking cartoon that became whole …and whose ribald and rumbunctuous followers hung onto his every utterance. He collected bucketfuls of money at meetings and services from these backwoodsmen as a circus barker would collect the pennies from the dopey country rubes queuing up to see the elephant shite. That was the reality . That was the real origi story.
It was also the reality that he led and encouraged those same madmen to oppose Civil Right on the streets .
..Yes ….OPPOSE CIVIL RIGHTS ! Yoiu couldn’t make it up . If you were opposing Civil Rights anywhere in the world you would be seen for the bloody cretinous asshole that you really were …a Klansman of sorts.
Can you imagine that? The man had a fascist beating heart at bottom. A Mussolini…a Hitler … As if life wasn’t bloody bad enough for people , this leviathan of a guldermore wanted to make it worse again. So that was the background of the Troubles. Had Paisley joined in a drive for Civil Rights for everyone, instead of the path he took ,we might have never experienced the Troubles at all. In fact he practically single-handedly inflamed the Troubles into fiery life because it started right there with his noisy and belligerant nonsense.
So let’s not forget the genesis of Arlene’s party and it’s sordid origin story.It arrived in hateful violence on the streets…directly ostensibly at the mixed Civil Rights movement but in reality at the Catholic or Nationalist population… and before long Nationalists and those same bloody papists were being interned willy-nilly, guilty or not… and streets were being burnt out by rampaging loyalist mobs .Let’s not attempt to re-write these historical facts . There was no IRA and certainly no importation of arms by nationalists on a huge scale at this point in time. That came later when the talking appeared to have delivered little.
In the rose-tinted garden of unionism’s vision there was no reason to fight back, of course. Everything was very obviously perfectly fine and those damned nationalists simply didn’t know how well-off they were. Sure weren’t most good protestant unionists living in the same grubby holes as them and they were perfectly happy with their lot? Who needed bloody Civil Rights anyway?
Two points,BYC. The RUC/PSNI were set up originally from the A specials. (Remember the B specials? We do.) They did not contain many catholics – at least northern catholics – so if this once illegal private militia suffered a fatality there was a good chance that it was not a catholic. This brings us to more recent times when catholic RUC men were killed. How does that fit in with your sectarian argument? Are all soldiers not armed for their personal protection? The raison d’etre of the local yeomanry is to defend,strengthen and justify this illegal state in Ireland that has been gifted to them as planters by the original land thieves across the water.
Your correct fiosrach.
The first “Specials” were 97% Protestant. The 3% of Catholics in the forces were deeply mistrusted by all the others in the force simply because they were Catholics. Indeed numerous complaints were filed to senior commanders, who were very sympathic to the complaints. The complaints were of the bigoted kind, the general theme being: No taigs in our force. It was similar to the complaints filed by the Orange Order from OO members in the Civil Service last month: bigoted, petty and sheer laughable. The Manchester Guardian newspaper even warned that the Specials were not being used for as they were intended and were seen as a sectarian force against Catholics in the North due to numerous “retaliation” murders of normal Catholic families.
In Susan McKays book “Northern Protestants” Willie Frazers (yes, that Willie) mother is interviewed. Margaret Frazer is described even by the author as “very bitter”. The Frazer family have a very long history of being involved in the RUC, B Specials, UDR and allegedly the UVF. Indeed the Garda said they had intelligence that Willie Frazer himself was a member of the Red Hand Commando. The PSNI turned down Willies request for a legal firearm because he “was known to associate with Loyalist paramilitaries”. Anyway, Margaret Frazers father was in the B Specials and he told his children “The only good Catholic is a dead one”. Margaret Frazer even praises the Black and Tans and boasts that the Black and Tans use to jump out at people at checkpoints and those who ran they shot dead. Margaret then says that the Tanns use to tell Protestants to stand still when they did this.
The Planters arrived here to ethnically cleanse, steal and commit genocide. I’m shocked at how many families here in the North today still hold land that their ancestors stole back in the 1600’s. Indeed the Orange Order has an “Ulster Land Fund”. This fund was set up and Orange men do fundraisers to build up cash to buy land with the deliberate purpose of keeping land out of Catholic hands. The Orange Order even advocates that no Protestant should sell their land to Catholics.
Again in Susan McKays book, one Fermanagh Protestant Farmer advocates that Protestants should never sell their land to Catholics but he gets angry when Catholics wont sell their land to Protestants. The farmer and his wife pretend to be “moderates” and admit that they wanted to sell up their land/home a few years before but backed out of it when the highest bidder for the land turned out to be a Catholic.
This is why I believe all Catholics should boycott businesses owned by Orange men/women. Why should we fund their bigotry towards us? Let them go to the wall.
readers will find evidence of what Ryan said in many posts on the eurofree3 blog For example – the land fund and selling land to catholics https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/no-pope-here-never-ever-ever/
there’s also a trilogy on mr paisley – if anyone is interested
and lots of references to back up the statements and for further reading .
I want to make one more point – I totally agree with Ryan’s last proposal
” all Catholics should boycott businesses owned by Orange men/women. Why should we fund their bigotry towards us?”
Though I would extend his invitation to boycott orange businesses to all decent people in northern ireland.
” all Catholics should boycott businesses owned by Orange men/women. Why should we fund their bigotry towards us?”
I would be cautious about throwing businesses to the wolves Ben as they will be leading the way in reunification.
Having said that, I to this day refuse to buy nutty crust or anything by Irwins since they fed and supported the Orangemen at Drumcree.
I suppose there are still raw nerves over that experience.
I would like one day to be able to let it go.
It does seem pretty insensitive at best for a public representative to put this on social media.
And of course the approval of McElwain’s actions can be used by dissidents and their supporters to justify similar acts today. The fact that it all ended with Sean Lynch In Stormont is irrelevant.
Lynch was right about one thing though, in my opinion. The PIRA did indeed have the same legitimacy as the leaders of the rising i.e. none at all.
“The PIRA did indeed have the same legitimacy as the leaders of the rising ie none at all”
What legitimacy did the British Government have in Ireland Gio?
“What legitimacy did the British Government have in Ireland Gio?”
Same as they have today Ryan, none at all.
Ryan
Good old whataboutery! Where would we be without it.
Legitimacy comes from democracy. At least that is how the vast bulk of people feel it should be in the modern era. Tragically this is the idealistic notion of political power. It is not the reality so much as something that most people strive to be the case in some distant future.
A contemporary government has greater legitimacy than its predecessor of a century ago. A government a century ago had greater moral legitimacy than its predecessor of 2 centuries ago.
The British government’s legitimacy in Ireland was forfeited by their consistent refusal to implement the democratic will of the minority of people who could vote in the period 1870-1914.
But the Irish parliamentary parties partial legitimacy, bestowed on them by the majority of the small minority who could vote at that time was enjoyed at a time when democracy as configured and understood in current times did not exist.
Consider, all newspapers were heavily censored by the state in 1916.
Consider, newspapers that were considered to be ‘ beyond the pale’ were banned. Their editors prosecuted before the courts.
The notion of illegitimacy for the IRB who sparked the rising is shakey, what is legitimacy & how is it gained ?
The state has always claimed the sole legitimate use of force. In fact legitimacy was based on force, who had the greater threat of force was the legitimate power.
In 1916 the IRB sought to set in motion a change in the legitimate use of force. Consequently in the 26 counties today oglaigh na hEireann has the legitimacy of force. Without the easter rising it may well still be the British army with legitimacy in the 26 counties – and then our children could be cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan much like the Redmonites said our children should be cannon fodder in the Somme.
“Legitimacy comes from democracy.”
To me, democracy is a means of making decisions effecting many people by weighted majority.
State legitimacy comes from social buy in from the population.
State legitimacy is lost when society decides it has had enough and will take no more.
Legitimacy for the rising was given in abundance by the people when the dust settled and the actions were seen in a wider context which was indeed also proven electorally. That loss of legitimacy was ignored by the British resulting in the first period of the troubles or the war of independence.
That legitimacy cannot now be undone by small numbers in the generations that follow who disagree with the methods used.
To me, social buy in, in the north was lost in 1969 before PIRA existed but was ignored by the British resulting in the second period of the troubles which lasted decades.
The GFA is not legitimacy for British rule in Ireland but a peace agreement to agree a method of removing British rule without violence.
The denial of a border poll or even any effort to discuss unification in a serious way by either state almost 20 years later to me has binned the GFA.
I am left with a choice of not participating in the democratic process or avoiding it and allowing the risk of a political vacuum to return which will lead again to a loss of social buy in but also perhaps further violence.
I am angry with our Taoiseach and our President for doing so little to ensure the Sinn Fein led peace process endured and am questioning their legitimacy to represent the Irish nation any longer.
They have put their anti Sinn Fein agenda above the interests of the Irish people, in particular in the north.
That is not acceptable
I read this report recently and pointed out that Arlene had claimed to be a solicitor in a previous life.
She claims to ‘believe’ this man ‘may’ have tried to kill her father, without indicating she had any evidence of proof in the matter.
As a former ‘legal eagle’, should she not know better to shoot off her loose cannon of a mouth.
Frankly, her claim is not worth a fart in a can!
This is the DUP leader who had four of her leading party members pictured in the papers yesterday supporting the Camp Twaddle protest – and she claims to be building a new N Ireland.
Connected to the election, but something very different:
I saw an election poster today of the SDLP’s Fearghal McKinney – don’t know if anyone else has noticed – but I never saw anything more designed to put people off voting for the party.
Now, its not a ‘bad’ or ugly picture, as I suppose, he’s reasonably good looking, but, but, but, the expression on his face is the epitome of smug! Unbelievably smug – definitely off-putting!
Sherdy
Your lack of basic compassion is impressive.
Why should she not express a view about who tried to kill her father? She has been given information to suggest it was McElwaine. He is dead and cannot be libelled.
In any case he had form for this type of action so it would presumably be something he would have been proud of.
Maybe Sean Lynch can enlighten us on whether or not McElwaine did in fact carry out this brave deed.
Would you be so quick to dismiss the views of other relatives, Alan Black say, on who shot their loved ones?
After perusing your forensic posting today, Esteemed Blogmeister, it would appear that there is at least a prima facie case to be made that the cards are stacked against Sean Lynch, MLP.
Indeed, erm, Austin Stacked against him. As recently as only a few days ago, the latest personification of that hallowed name was guesting on, of all programmes, Yawning Ireland on RTE Radio 1. For the inside of which studio the same guest hardly needs a road map, having enthusiastically engaged there during the democratic process known as GE 2016.
Not that he was actually standing in the election or the studio itself, having been afforded the most comfortable chair in RTE at that time. He was there as a representative of the neo-Hierarchy in the FSS, and a very narky neo-Hierarchy it is too, the Hierarchy of Victimhood.
That he was there at all this time around, however, was certainly a wake up call to at least one listener. For that particular listener was under the impression that this particular Hierarchy had been finally laid to rest with the recent erection of the Necropolis Wall in Glasnevin. Indeed , as reported at the time on Yawning Ireland itself.
It might be said that Hard Necropolis doesn’t even begin to enter the equation.
This time he was interrogated by the Man in The Wideawake Hat himself.
The topic under discussion was a proposed movie based on the Big Escape from the Maze Health Farm, to be fillumed on Spike Island. Having been given the ok to go ahead by the Prison Service of the Free Southern Stateen.
To say that Austin Stack was up in arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers, palms, thumbs and nails, is just to concentrate on two of his limbs. This fillum would go ahead, he seemed to be asserting in the strongest possible terms. In a manner of speaking , ‘over his dead body’, though these were not his precise choice of words.
Now while the interrogator went through the motions, it was clear that the heart of The Woodman in the Wideawake Hat (for it was he!) wasn’t in it. He was just not his usual limb-lobbing self. Instead of the normal whack ! whack ! whack ! it was more like, here’s a prozak, prozak, prozak.
On the other side of the Black Sow’s Dyke, Mrs Foster, nee Kelly was playing the same card as Austin Stack. A case of A.S. you were, only more so . And as you forensically point out, EB, how can Mrs. Foster, nee Kelly be SO sure ?.
Fathers, all of a sudden, are all the fashion. Including the violin-playing Father of the current PM of the outgoing UK. Not so much Father’s Day, as Fathers’ Week, much in the same way as St. Patrick’s Day has gone, a-stretching.
Why, as recently as this very morning, another Daddy made the breakfast time news, a Sugar Daddy this time, hitherto unexpected, totally. One who not only liked to sprinkle sugar over his Kellogs in copious quantities but with (gasp) a connection with Fermanagh, nee Fear Manach itself, tenous though it may well be.
That would have been (gulp) the biological father of (gasp) the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby. Who turned out to be none other than (double gulp) Sir Anthony Montague Browne, OBE, DNA.
Who he? Apart, that is, from being the bio pop of the top man in the Church of Engerland, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby-Browne.
He was , in fact, the last Privates, oops, Private Secretary of (double gasp) Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill before the latter experienced his final, if not, his finest hour.
Note the recurrence of the, erm, ecclesiastical theme here. For it was the last named coiner of deathless phrases which still have currency who minted the following;
-‘The whole map of Europe has been changed; and before the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerge once again’.
To conclude; this being Grand National day, (not to be confused with the Irish version, which is ‘ The Feckin’ Grand National’) one must away and abide by the deathless words of another Foster . This time, an eloquent one, name of Stephen:
-I bet my money of the bob tail nag
Somebody bet on the bay.
PS The beauty of the bloodstock industry, of course, is their strict insistence of keeping a close eye on bloodlines, that sort of thingy. Whatever about human paternity, there is no such ambiguity regarding our four legged friends. For instance, Son of Shergar, neigh Shergar, means what it says.
Dooh-da, dooh-da
Oh, de dooh-da day.
–
In reply to BYC,
“the decision process that republicans went through when they decided that Ireland would be better with Arlene Foster’s father dead and in the ground was anything but sectarian”
Sir, with respect, you actually present no evidence to support that statement. None.
You clearly like statistics, well lets have some from the CAIN index.
Significantly more Catholics died in the troubles than Protestants. So if this really was a wholly sectarian war then the former clearly lost by failing to murder as efficiently as their Protestant countrymen.
I understand that 35%+ of the victims of republican violence were Catholic, which seems to not a very discerning statistic IF as you propose their aim was to murder people BECAUSE they were Protestant. It doesn’t stand up to inspection.
In wars generally the death rates of the civilian population are massively higher than combatants. Generally 90%+ of those killed in wars are civilians, they are so indiscriminate.
Well over 50% of the IRA’s victims were members of the ‘security forces’. This statistic is an anomaly when compared to other violent conflicts. It demonstrates that actually the IRA were very discerning in their target selection. A very little research into other conflicts will prove the veracity of those statements. In short this evidence totally undermines any accusation that the IRA’s campaign was no more than a sectarian killing spree. If the IRA had wanted to kill civilian protestants, they could have done it indiscriminately, en masse, every single day. Demonstrably the IRA didn’t care what religion their targets were.
With the ‘security forces’ you will see that overwhelmingly their victims were Catholic, at least 90%+. Similarly for the loyalist terror gangs; created, staffed, armed and informed by the ‘security forces’, their victims were almost entirely Catholic, with a far lesser number of ‘their own’ killed in inter and intra-organisational feuding.
Arlene Foster’s father was targeted as he was identified as a member of a state armed force by an organisation that was at war with that state. That much is obvious except to those who refuse to accept the inconvenient truths that are six inches in front of their face.
Actually Ciaran – if you cross tabulate organisation summary and religion on Cain’s Sutton Index, as you recommend, you’ll see that republican paramilitaries killed 444 Catholics out of their 2057 murders and loyalist paramilitaries killed 232 Protestants out of their 1027. So by your logic as the loyalists killed the same proportion of people from “their” community (22%) as republicans loyalists weren’t sectarian either. Is that what you really think?
“Actually Ciaran – if you cross tabulate organisation summary and religion on Cain’s Sutton Index, as you recommend, you’ll see that republican paramilitaries killed 444 Catholics out of their 2057 murders and loyalist paramilitaries killed 232 Protestants out of their 1027. So by your logic as the loyalists killed the same proportion of people from “their” community (22%) as republicans loyalists weren’t sectarian either. Is that what you really think?”
Only the british/loyalists targeted people purely for their religion BYC.
Unionism started the conflict for sectarian reasons in the first place.
Is that really the argument you are going with, which side was more sectarian than the other?
Why not, that will sort all our problems.
I agree with your point Jessica that the whole thing was sectarian. The least sectarian people were the ones without the guns and the people trying to protect them.
“I agree with your point Jessica that the whole thing was sectarian. The least sectarian people were the ones without the guns and the people trying to protect them.”
Oh now that I totally disagree with.
The UUP paid the UVF to kill. Paisley put more guns in the hands of young protestants than any other individual.
In fact, no other individual has more blood on their hands than Ian Paisley or is more responsible for the whole sectarian conflict to begin with.
Dividing a country was always bound to lead to sectarian divisions and unionists are quite content to live with sectarianism so long as they have things their way.
For that reason, sectarianism is much more rife in the unionist community even today and it is not limited to people with guns.
The Orange Order is sectarian to the core.
In fact, most of the people with guns would never have had any interest in guns if it weren’t for the sectarian bigots within unionism who kick started the whole thing off in the 60s.
PIRA only came about to protect people without guns.
You are still trying to vilify one side over the other BYC. There is no justification of conflict, any conflict.
Well done on hammering BYC’s argument Ciaran, couldn’t have put it better myself.
I sometimes think Unionists confuse the IRA with the UVF/UDA. The UVF/UDA openly admit they were sectarian, Catholics were their targets, any Catholic, it didn’t matter. Indeed, they murdered a Catholic RUC officer because…..yes, he was a Catholic. Collusion is suspected.
Paisley and his band of merry lunatic Protestant fundamentalists had young Loyalists on the side of hills holding legal firearms where Paisley was giving his usual Protestant fundamentalist, anti-Catholic speeches. Many of those young Loyalists later joined the UDA/UVF, murdered Catholics and then went to prison. Indeed one of them even said: “I curse the day I ever listened to Paisley”. This particular loyalist was upset, not that he murdered a Catholic civilian, but because Paisley had abandoned him and others who were caught.
Unionism cant handle the truth. Its just as simple as that. People like MT, BYC, etc cant face up to the fact Unionism is to blame for the Troubles and most of what happened before. Who created a sectarian state? Unionism. Who deliberately pursued sectarian, discriminatory and oppressive policies against the Catholic community? Unionism. Who sat with Loyalist paramilitaries planning and plotting before the troubles even began? Unionism. I could go on.
As Susan McKay said, a Protestant herself, by the way: “Protestants have a mind set of denial, revisionism and suspicion”.
I maybe wouldn’t have used the word “Protestant” if I was Susan but what she said could definitely be implied to Loyalists and Unionists. They cant accept, handle or tolerate the truth.
BYC….we will never truly know how many people the police killed in and out of uniform. I am sure you deliberately omitted that minor point? And if you seriously deny that the RIC and RUC were not the eyes and ears of the state then, well, you are in denial. Sin é.
I don’t deny that the RUC and RIC were the eyes and ears of the state Wolfe. They’re servants of the state. I’m denying that the institution and the great majority of serving officers were so oppressive that anyone would consider a campaign of murder against them as justifiable if it weren’t for the sectarian divisions in our society and all the attendant rumour, mistrust and total lack of empathy for each other.
“They’re servants of the state. I’m denying that the institution and the great majority of serving officers were so oppressive that anyone would consider a campaign of murder against them as justifiable if it weren’t for the sectarian divisions in our society and all the attendant rumour, mistrust and total lack of empathy for each other.”
There was never a campaign of murder against them BYC, there was a conflict in which they made themselves participants and perhaps understandably.
They were almost entirely from the unionist protestant community, any Catholics who crossed British intelligence within the RUC were murdered by their own don’t forget also.
As I keep saying, the conflict started prior to republican militancy and as with all conflicts, each death opens the doors for new beginnings, new loss, new anger, new directions. It is a cycle of violence that is hard to break because so may fallen comrades are left behind and the RUC are no different in that pain.
Most loyalists would say they joined the UVF because of IRA actions, which I respect. But it is a circular argument, if the PIRA started killing because the state did nothing to stop loyalist and police militancy and murdering Catholics, and each killing in turn results in retaliation, resulting in more retaliation and so on. You cannot then choose to simply ignore the events that started the conflict and try and apply reason and logic to what went on throughout the conflict. That is pointless.
Unionism has yet to touch on what started the conflict, but it is going to have to sooner or later.
Perhaps the mistrust and total lack of empathy might lessen when they do.
Well if they were willingly the eyes and ears of a foreign establishment that has/had no right to be there in the first place, then they can’t quibble when others targeted them, in an effort to remove that foreign establishment? After all the rulers use tools, like a police force, to maintain their interests. It isn’t rocket science. I can understand how some police, at the very beginning of the conflict, were there ‘to serve the community’ but after a couple of years they should have been in no doubt they had involved themselves in a war.
Btw before anybody jumps in and questions whether the IRA’s war was just or not; that they couldn’t force a million unionists into a United ireland, let’s not lose sight of the fact that a half a million nationalist or so were forced into a state they most certainly didn’t want either. So if the IRA were misguided in thinking they could force unification then they can be forgiven as they were only doing what others did before them to achieve their aims.
By the standards she uses on Republicans, has she ever proved that she was not a sectarian bigot?
All this constant talk of “rewriting history” from Unionism is very revealing. The reality is its Unionism that is seeking to rewrite History and foolishly trying to prevent Republicanism giving their narrative and their side of History, all of which is usually backed up by cold, hard facts. Hypocrisy it seems runs through the veins of Unionism just as surely as blood does. Indeed Arlene is leader of the DEMOCRATIC unionist party, is it not undemocratic to try to stop Republicans having their say? Of course it is. We all know the DUP and Unionism as a whole is as democratic as the men/women who helped ship in guns for the UVF in 1914. Indeed they see the original UVF as their role models and applaud them.
But all of this from Unionism is pointless and in vain. Trying to stop Sinn Fein and Republicans from remembering their dead, remembering their struggle and giving their narrative is as likely to succeed as discrimination and oppression against Catholics was.
As Jude rightly points out, where is Arlenes evidence that Sean was the one who wanted to kill her father? Surely if she has it she would present it to the PSNI. The IRA made no secret of targeting RUC members, just like the UDA (Arlenes party was always very cosy with the UDA even to the present day, even carrying the coffins of UDA Leaders) made no secret that normal Catholic civilians were their targets. The RUC was also systematically involved in Collusion with Loyalist terrorists. That’s not “rewriting history”, that’s just fact and there’s plenty of evidence to prove it. Even in Susan McKays “Northern Protestants”, the RUC express “frustration” at Loyalist paramilitaries amateur tactics and failing to kill their targets on many occasions. They also said Republicans are “very professional” when targeting members of their organisation to kill.
If Arlene and Unionism really want to move into a new future then they have to drop all this nonsense. Republicans will always hold their views and past actions to be legitimate, they will certainly not allow themselves to be lectured to by the biggest hypocrites on this planet or be bullied into keeping their mouths shut.
But this is all about the Elections. Arlene, the so called moderate, is banging the sectarian, “keep them’uns out”, lambeg drum just as hard as Paisley and Robinson did. There wont be any change to the DUP under her watch. In a way I think its impossible for the mind set of Unionism to change. They have been conditioned for so long to fear, mistrust and hate Catholics that I don’t see it ever changing. Indeed the vast majority of Protestants who emigrate from the North to other parts of the World say how glad they are to be out of the sectarian cesspit of the Northern state, out of the influence of the Orange Order and political Unionism……and who could blame them?……
“In a way I think its impossible for the mind set of Unionism to change. They have been conditioned for so long to fear, mistrust and hate Catholics that I don’t see it ever changing.”
You don’t change a winning formula.
The day there is a nationalist electoral majority, unionism will change forever.
They will no longer be relevant and the Irish citizens will make this land our own. When they realise they will not be mistreated or discriminated against the way we were by them, then unionism will evolve and only then will we be able to share this place as equals.
So you take Loyalist failure as evidence of police support Ryan? All those trained reservists with all those police weapons and leaked files and they still couldn’t pick targets properly? Sounds like a theory with a few holes in it. If the RUC were driving loyalist killings how is it that so many loyalists were arrested by the RUC and so few (any?) were able to cite RUC officers as co-conspirators?
… “the RUC express “frustration” at Loyalist paramilitaries amateur tactics and failing to kill their targets on many occasions.”
They had no problem “picking” targets as you say. The frustration lay in the execution of these targets…..thankfully.
Me thinks you know fine rightly where the allegations of collusion are levelled at? You don’t tell the foot soldier/cannon fodder who is pulling the strings. Again it ain’t rocket science to recruit those who run an organisation rather than the cannon fodder. That way you can increase your ability to control the violence. I.e you can determine who the cannon fodder kills. It also allows you to pretend you are the peace keeper/the good guy(no laughing at the back). It allows you to arrest those ‘on both sides’ of the conflict and again negates any allegations of bias or scrutiny from public observers. Simple. You need to be long in the tooth to play the sectarian card and the British state has tusks.
Another footnote, if you compare even to this day the sentences meted out to combatants on ‘both sides’, never mind the lack of them with the security forces, you will find a distinct difference like for like, with republicans and unionists. Added to that the security forces were never as trigger happy when they encountered the odd armed unionist gang as they were with armed republicans. Don’t mention Brian Robinson. He was just taken out to balance the books and to silence allegations of bias against the state forces. Cannon fodder if you like.
john william nixon m.b.e.now this is a nice example of a community servant,even opened his own club for the other community servants and give the the club the name [the cromwell club]nice cross community name innit.membership was gained by doing what oliver specialised in killing taigs.so arlene trying to pish down our backs n tell us its raining isnt gonna work.buck alec was in this outfit and he was an alterboy according to the dup.
“It is understandable that Mrs Foster should harbour feelings of deep resentment against someone she believes tried to kill her father. But if she really wants to “build a better Northern Ireland”, she will have to accept that people like Mr Lynch remember their comrades in arms fondly. Just as she must accept that the people of the south of Ireland have, over the past couple of weeks, been remembering fondly the men who took over the GPO and used force in an effort to dislodge the British Empire.”
I think most people would take the view that progress ought to require pro-terror people to *
stop glorifying terror rather than for anti-terror people to start tolerating those who glorify it. The Belfast Agreement was founded on a rejection of terror not a toleration of it.
“The Belfast Agreement was founded on a rejection of terror not a toleration of it.”
It certainly wasn’t founded on covering up British state murders and their terrorist activities, but that’s what we got.
The Belfast Agreement isn’t worth the paper it was written on.
The sooner we leave everything behind the better. It should be a requirement for running for Stormont that you have no experience and has spent no time with politicians currently in Stormont, only then can we have a fair and just assembly where the arguments are about what’s best for the people and not “you did worse things in the past” “no you did”.