By now you’ve probably heard all about it, since most papers have been covering the story in some detail. Francie Molloy, the MP for Mid-Ulster has said that Sinn Féin has been able to work with the IRA to help it move away from paramilitarism, but the INLA is proving to be ‘a real problem’ – in fact it’s gone backwards rather than forwards. “To tell you the truth we have a real problem with the INLA” Mr Molloy told a Feile an Phobail audience. “We get a lot of co-operation with the IRA at local level in dealing with the transition, in the transformation of republican communities.” Not so with the INLA.
OK, I’ll confess. If you’re still reading and haven’t had a heart attack, you’ve probably recognized that the paragraph above is pure fabrication. It’s so full of unthinkables it very quickly collapses as a credible possibility. For a Sinn Féin MP to say he’s “working with the IRA”, to say his aim is to “help the IRA move away from paramilitarism”, to say the IRA is co-operating at local level with Sinn Féin – unionist politicians would be right to respond with righteous anger. For one, the IRA is an illegal organization and is supposed to have left the stage decades back. For two, the notion that Molloy should be “working with” the IRA to get it to do what it was said to have done long ago – abandoned paramilitarism – would provoke a blizzard of condemnation.
But while there would be unionist outrage if anything approaching the Molloy saga outlined above were to occur, there is no similar response when the shoe is on the other foot.
Jeffrey Donaldson told a John Hewitt Summer School audience that his party has been able to “work with” the UDA to help them move away from paramilitarism, but he’s critical of the UVF, which seems less disposed to move away from violence. In contrast he says his party is working with the UDA at local level to transform their communities.
Will we hear a roar of disapproval from nationalists and republicans, that the UDA and the UVF are clearly still in existence? Will nationalist and republican politicians pelt Jeffrey with condemnation for working with people who are patently breaking the law by dint of their very existence?
Jeffrey would be the first to say – and he’d be right- that there should not be a hierarchy of victims from violent conflict. But he would appear to believe there’s a hierarchy of paramilitary organisations. The IRA? Outrageous to think that they’re still around and even more outrageous that an elected politician should praise them and speak of working alongside them. The UDA? (Yes, Virginia, that is the group that is suspected of shooting dead paramilitary leader John Boreland last night)? Of course they’re still around, of course unionist politicians can praise them and speak of working alongside them.
Until the deafening clang of such massively contradictory attitudes no longer sounds, nationalists can’t help but see that what is sauce for the republican goose would be smashed on the dining-room wall if it were offered to the unionist gander.
By now you’ve probably heard all about it, since most papers have been covering the story in some detail. Francie Molloy, the MP for Mid-Ulster has said that Sinn Féin has been able to work with the IRA to help it move away from paramilitarism, but the INLA is proving to be ‘a real problem’ – in fact it’s gone backwards rather than forwards. “To tell you the truth we have a real problem with the INLA” Mr Molloy told a Feile an Phobail audience. “We get a lot of co-operation with the IRA at local level in dealing with the transition, in the transformation of republican communities.” Not so with the INLA.
Surely that is what we expect our politicians to do if not why would we elect them?
You seem to be missing the point that the PIRA was/is connected to Sinn Fein, hence the particular issue about that group’s ongoing existence and its implications for the political process.
The UDA isn’t connected to a political party.
That said, why aren’t nationalists (or other unionists) making an issue of Donaldson treating with criminal gangs?
‘The UDA isn’t connected to a political party’!
But yet they march together, protest together, are photographed together, and sign joint documents together – and you think they’re not connected.
Maybe Jeffrey’s idea of DUP co-operation with the UDA has been proven by last night’s murder of a UDA boss, apparently by the UDA!
“But yet they march together, protest together, are photographed together, and sign joint documents together – and you think they’re not connected.
Maybe Jeffrey’s idea of DUP co-operation with the UDA has been proven by last night’s murder of a UDA boss, apparently by the UDA!”
Marching or protesting or even signing documents with another organisation doesn’t mean the two organisations are part of the same conjoined movement.
I’m assuming the DUP will be doing the hokey kokey up in Stormont again after last nights murder in North Belfast.
No?
The fact that these PULC groups are called ‘paramilitary’ explains a lot. It was a term used in the early years of the current phase to differentiate between Nationalist ‘terrorists’ who wanted to destroy the statelet and those who wanted to assist the RUC to defend it. Unionist politicians have always worked hand in glove with their ‘paramilitaries’ to control the nationalist communities. So JD was merely letting us know that nothing has changed.
“It was a term used in the early years of the current phase to differentiate between Nationalist ‘terrorists’ who wanted to destroy the statelet and those who wanted to assist the RUC to defend it.”
No it wasn’t.
The onset of the civil rights movement in the mid 1960s produced a revival in militant Loyalism. Two Loyalist paramilitaries were formed in 1966: the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The UPV was a short-lived group led by the Reverend Ian Paisley and other fundamentalist Protestants. It was best known for bombing power stations and water supplies in March and April 1969, as a protest against the Northern Ireland government’s moderate policies. Of greater significance was the UVF, which took its name from the anti-Home Rule militia of the 1910s. The catalyst for the formation of the UVF was the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, which generated an increase in Nationalist sentiment, celebrations and marches. The UVF’s first military commander was Gusty Spence, a Shankill Road hard man who had served in the British Army as a sergeant. Under Spence, the group began its campaign in the spring of 1966. In April UVF members petrol-bombed a Catholic primary school in Belfast. The following month the UVF also attacked a Catholic pub in Belfast, the ensuing fire leading to the death of an elderly woman. On May 21st UVF leaders issued a statement:
Extract from.
http://alphahistory.com/northernireland/loyalist-paramilitaries/
MT is not a bit interested in the origin story of the Troubles, PJ. He’s been pointed in the direction of all the available information many times before on Jude’s site . it’a all there to educate him thoroughly but he never bothers having a look.It’s a very simple linear story, not in the least bit complicated.Some of us happened to live through it first-hand, so it’s no big surprise but it is an awful pity that is is seemingly never taught in schools because everyone could learn a little from it..
“MT is not a bit interested in the origin story of the Troubles, PJ.”
Wrong. I am.
You’re not a bit interested.
“He’s been pointed in the direction of all the available information many times before on Jude’s site . it’a all there to educate him thoroughly but he never bothers having a look.It’s a very simple linear story, not in the least bit complicated.Some of us happened to live through it first-hand, so it’s no big surprise but it is an awful pity that is is seemingly never taught in schools because everyone could learn a little from it..”
I don’t need to look as I’m already familiar with it all. I’ve studied it. Unlike you I’ve read many sources and don’t rely on my own subjective experience.
But if ‘The Troubles’ were taught in schools, the loyalist version would be taught in state schools and a sanitised version would be taught in Catholic schools.
No one would teach the republican version.
BTW, you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to force/encourage education onto anyone so adamant that they want nothing to do with any learning.
Yes MT .I only lived through it as it happened around me. I didn’t need to “study” any of it as I was living and working on the streets as all that “history”unfolded around me , right throughfrom the mid 1960’s when it started up, to the present , so what would I know , eh?
Oh ..yes ..I can actually read too and watch television.I remember the Paris riots of 1968 and the deaths of JFK and Martin Luther king as they happened..I remember when the beatles became a phenomenom and changed popular music for the next fifty years. I also saw Paisley doing what Paisley did best on the streets…rabble-rousing.. I heard and saw bombings and shootings and knew someof the men who used violence and are now dead.
You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows MT, but that all said….. I’d really love to hear your own personal story and i’m hoping that you will give us your take on how things developed …for you ….from your perspective .without any rancour or pre-meditation.. or even attempts at satire..I’d seriously like to hear your point of view…and please ….no more of the cut -and- paste retorts .Write something new for us .. something that adds to the conversation and isn’t just a response to someone else’s commentary…..really…that what i really want to hear!Comedy is an artform best left to comedians , after all.
“Yes MT .I only lived through it as it happened around me. I didn’t need to “study” any of it as I was living and working on the streets as all that “history”unfolded around me , right throughfrom the mid 1960’s when it started up, to the present , so what would I know , eh?”
And there is your problem. Your understanding is based only in your own subjective experience without reference to a wider context or the experience of others.
“You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows MT”
No, but you do need a meteorologist to understand what causes the wind and what the wind is doing elsewhere.
Jude
Did you hear the bbc on radio ulster at 9am? Reporting Bishop Daly’s death and identifying him as the “priest who was cowering over the body of Joseph Duddy!!!!
Nolan repeated this when opening his show.
It’s an utter disgrace and nothing could be further from the truth of that day to describe him as cowering. I am so annoyed about this.
I’m sorry i lack the eloquence of most of your contributors to say how upset I feel.
Don’t feel sorry, Angela – you have as much eloquence as anyone on this site (and more than some). I didn’t hear Nolan – I was listening to RTÉ interviewing Eamonn McCann on Bishop Daly. It’s true he was hunched and apprehensive as he advanced waving the handkerchief – perfectly understandable when fourteen people had been shot fatally for no other reason than that they were there. I met Eddie Daly on a number of occasions and I always found him friendly, accommodating, modest and wise. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis…
“Where will the evidence lead?” Some politicians, civil servants and individuals in that oxymoron known as British intelligence will do their best to beat a track into the cul-de-sac known as national security hoping the dust will settle in the north of Ireland.
Many politicians in the past, advocated the use of the gun and partial policing as a response to legitimate concerns articulated about poverty, gerrymandering, unemployment and housing issues. Eighteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the gun in Irish politics and the sight of some politicians at bonfires remain indicators of the true nature of a state created by gun boat diplomacy, armoured cars and tanks and guns.
The vast majority of people in Ireland wish to live as citizens of a stable, prosperous, culturally diverse country. Advocates of sectarianism and racism, armed or unarmed in Belfast or London, remain part of the problem.
Quite right Jude, loyalist paramilitary groups only purpose is to line there pockets with money and exert power and control in there Communties. They serve no purpose and they have no political aims or right to authority.
They should be treated no different to the Costa nostra, Triads or North Dublin drug gangs. They are simply organised criminal gangs.
To engage with them politically is ridiculous and only serves to give them a sense of legitimacy that they don’t deserve.
The people I feel sorry for are the decent people who live in those working class areas and live under the constant fear of these groups.
I’d agree with that , Scott.
There is a curious irony in wee Jeffery’s comment, given what happened in Ballysillan last night.
Now, on recent comments by Ryan in respect of the nexus between loyalism, the drug dealing sort and the elected sort, (with which comment I wholeheartedly agree) why has the Deputy First Minister not withdrawn the party he leads in Dun Donhmaill from that place?
Sir Jeffrey is a member of The Privy Council. He could now be appointed
Groom of The Stool if he plays his cards right. For those not familiar with
high office, it would require him to be available 24/7 to attend to the monarch’s
toiletry needs.
Time was, Esteemed Blogmeister, when the h-word in a Free Southern Stateen context meant one thing and the one thing only : the Hierarchy of the Holy Catholic Church (Roman).
Nowadays, of course, the H-word has been laicized and downsized accordingly to a lower case status as if it were almost a, erm, form of lowerarchy itself. As you clearly show, EB, ‘hierarchy’ is nowadays commonly used in relation to a wide diversity of day to day realities from victims to paramilitary organisations.
Your stark contrasting of the green political reaction with the orange political reaction to the paramilitary hierarchy as exemplified by the unctuous *Daniel O’Donnell-sound-and-look alike, Donaldson, J., is something we are not privy to down here, south of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
The orange reaction in this case was not covered by, for instance, our paper of record, aka, The Unionist Times, curiously enough. But that might be because it has been rather pre-occupied, to the point perhaps, of being obsessed by the goings on and the goings down alike in the H.Q. of the Hierarchy.
Now, there are those who will argue that Maynooth is no longer the H.Q. of the real or even the continuity Hierarchy in the Free Southern Stateen but is to be found rather in Tara House, where the Harpies that once, still are, on Liffeyside:
-There is a strange atmosphere of strange goings on there, it seems like a quarrelsome place with anonymous letters being sent around.
This was a prominently featured quote in the Maynooth story and – indubitably – could easily apply, only more so, if the fruity truthiness were known- to the H.Q. of the real, continuity Hierarchy:
– Theresa May-Newt.
While the past week’s pre-occupation has been orchestrated in a full, philharmonic mode by the paper of record’s indefatigable religious correspondent, the revered Patsy McGarry, Bachelor of Arts, one might with more relevance look back to the issue of March 25, 2016 of The Unionist Times. That that just happened to be Good Friday is not. without. a. certain. sig. nif. i. cance.
Here the hierarchy of victimhood took centre stage, mainly in the rotund shape of one who toils in the sister vineyard of The Unionist Times, RTE, one who, if he were an ecclesiastical establishment, could well be described as ‘a broad church’.
– A reading of the names of all the dead of Easter Week 1916 took place at Dublin’s Unitarian Church on Friday, including 40 children under 17.
Broadcaster Joe Duffy (for it was he !), who took part in the ceremony, said how it had taken ‘less than a minute to read out the names of the 40 children in there today. It took us 100 years to get here. It was a week when Dublin was the most dangerous place in the word for children’.
Eh?
With your permission, EB, lemme talk to Joe about this for a moment by running a few fat stats past him, as distinct from mere stats of the flatulent variety. The avuncular Joe , being a big figure of a broadcaster himself , is one who is in his comfort zone when it comes to dealing with big figures.
Having watched, according to Wikipedia , his modest salary of 408 thousand euros plus downsize at an alarming rate to a mere 378 thous by 2011. God alone knows what meagre amount the betl-tightening broadcaster who never forgot his Ballyfermot accent gets to wheelbarrow home these days.
Asked to comment on TV3’S Midweek programme in 2009, the bearded but self-effacing broadcaster tentatively opined that ‘he and his Liveline programme’ were ‘good value’ for RTE.
(As well as manning the phone of his call centre of excellence in RTE for an exhausting five or so hours a week, incidentally, Uncle Joe holds down the demanding role in Dublin of Honorary Consul for the SDLP. One mentions this because it defines, to all intents and p., his take on green paramilitaries).
But, some stats. And dealing in round figures, to facilitate the rotund broadcaster:
-7 million civilians died as a result of the Great Donkey Derby, 14-18. 1 million were directly killed by the military (including Celts in khaki) ; the remaining 6 million died as a result of famine and disease.
Give or take, this means that 2 million children were casualties of the courageous carnage.
The duration of the GDD being 4 years or 200 weeks, roughly (very), this computes as, there or thereabouts, 10,000 children killed on average on the European mainland and elsewhere on a weekly basis.
So, if 40 children (by inference/ implication) were killed by green paramilitaries on Liffeyside) how come disloyal Dublin was ‘the most dangerous place on earth for children, Easter 1916’ ?
-Talk to us, Joe.
To conclude: did one mention that, nine years ago or so, the crozier of the correspondent re religious affairs, in The Unionist Times passed from (gulp) one iconic pillar of the Unitarian Church, Andy Pollack to (gasp) another iconic pillar, the current incumbent, Patsy McGarry.
The prime time platform of this correspondent, of course, is his spiritually robust weekly column, Rite and Reason. This is the same column which rigorously challenged the morality of the Easter Terrorism Ritual while simultaneously keeping its trap, in a Trappist like manoevre, shut severely tight when it came to probing the probity of the GDD’s recruiting sergeant in chief, Lord Kitchener, paedophile extraordinare.
-Ooh, aah, up the R.A.R. !
PS According to its own website:
‘The congregation which assembles in the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green every Sunday can trace its descent back to English Puritans who came to Ireland at the end of the 16th century and early in the 17th century.
*Despite their superficial similarities there is no way that O’Donnell and Donaldson could ever be mistaken, one for the other: wee Daniel has a sly sense of humour.
Just somewhat off point, but near enough connected to the above article:
Listened to Nolan this morning discussing the murder of the UDA leader John Boreland by (presumably) UDA members.
It was said: ‘But remember, there is a grieving family here’.
Probably so, but were that grieving family not fully aware of what he had been involved in as UDA leader, and according to the PSNI ‘involved in criminality for years’.
The grieving family would most likely have lived high on the fruits of his ‘labours’, so sympathy might be in short supply in some areas (like some of his victims)!
Even a Sinn Fein member was encouraging ‘anyone with information’ to report it to the PSNI.
This is the same PSNI who run most UDA members as agents and informers, paying their wages.
So if someone reports to them: ‘I saw that murder and it was done by Joe Bloggs’, but that ‘Joe’ turns out to be another PSNI agent, maybe valuable, we know from experience that ‘our’ police service will do absolutely nothing to prosecute that person!
When will Sinn Fein learn a bit of sense?
“This is the same PSNI who run most UDA members as agents and informers, paying their wages”
Big claim there Sherdy. Got any proof or have you strayed into the realm of pure speculation?
Check the reports of Pat Finucane’s murder by the UDA – all five involved were in the employ of the ‘security services’ – later bumped off in case they would talk.
Mount Vernon UVF boss Mark Haddock, protected from prosecution for years because he was an agent of the state.
And of course it wasn’t only on the loyalist side – Stakeknife, Denis Donaldson etc.
Only a very small sample you might like to check up on!
“Check the reports of Pat Finucane’s murder by the UDA – all five involved were in the employ of the ‘security services’ – later bumped off in case they would talk.
Mount Vernon UVF boss Mark Haddock, protected from prosecution for years because he was an agent of the state.
And of course it wasn’t only on the loyalist side – Stakeknife, Denis Donaldson etc.
Only a very small sample you might like to check up on!”
That was in the 1980s and didn’t involve every member of the UDA being an informer, so how is it relevant to your statement?
During one of the inquires into collusion, Stalker I think, of 300 loyalist paramilitaries arrested 297 were working as agents of the state, 99% exactly
But Sinn Fein did work with the IRA to end their paramilitary activities (maintaining the notion that they were separate entities).Was there outrage about it at the time of the peace process?
I don’t recall it.
The problem is not so much that the DUP are talking to loyalist paramilitaries, it is rather that they still exist at all in 2016 nearly 20 years after the GFA.
Sinn Fein should not be asking why Jeffrey is talking to them,they should be asking why these groups still exist.
Maybe Gio,M.T and Scott will lead a campaign to demand unionists militia leave the stage? The deafening silence from the ‘unionist’ community at the continued existence of these groups could lead to unfair generalisations don’t ya know. Btw it’s no real surprise that Jeffrey Donaldson, former member of that UDR terrorist gang, is showing tolerance to other unionist terror gangs. Cut from the same cloth and all that.