Did Obama Ask Peter King to be his Ambassador to Ireland?

Tony Roche

Perhaps Peter King is aware that “decent Irish nationalists” tried repeatedly for decades to peacefully negotiate for basic justice and human rights in NI, only to be rebuffed with disdain and typical arrogance in both Belfast and London. When NI was created in 1921, the hero of Unionists, Edward Carson, warned them not to mistreat nationalists or it would end with their own demise. Yet that is exactly what they did. Eventually Unionists were pulled kicking and screaming out of the 17thcentury and forced to concede basic justice for all, and no whitewashed article here can change that simple historic fact. Had NI been a just and fair society the IRA would have died a natural death several generations ago.

When justice is denied for long anywhere, violence invariably erupts. Global history is awash with the blood from such situations, up to and including today. See North Africa. Any civilized person anywhere on planet earth would nod in agreement with what I write here, except for one eyed flat earth Empire loyalists, a few hangers on, and some other highly selective blind haters when the issue is Ireland. The good old days are long since gone lads. You had a good run, but it’s high time to get over it now. One or two of you might even grudgingly concede, if you open the other eye also, that like you on your island, we ALSO have a right to “fight on (our) the beaches” should the need arise. Ireland – any part of it – was never other than a colony – subjugated by brute force. A simple objective fact. Like you, we value freedom above all else. And please – save me the economics lecture.

I recommend that you English/British, like we Irish, embrace the great challenges in our evolving European family (hiccups and all). Your undoubted talents would play a major role, thus offering you a meaningful raison d’etre in this 21st century and beyond, rather than living in the vacuous, jingoistic and xenophobic past, and as a lap dog of the USA..........

Slan go foill.

Commentator

Alex, for once I agree with you and your justified criticisms of the "blessed peace process": Tony Blair's squalid Yalta Agreement with the forces of Celtic fascism.

Tony Roche, it's embarrassing to behold when Irish nationalists start telling us that "there are no sorrows like unto our sorrows". My family are of largely Irish origin too but we have long since made a reasonable living and found opportunity in the land of the evil oppressor (remind me how many Jews emigrated to Nazi Germany or blacks emigrated to apartheid South Africa?). We refuse to take refuge in the vindictive self-pity and general abdication of responsibility which sums up too much of Irish nationalism. We know everything there is to know about British misrule in Ireland but the men in the Post Office in 1916 were largely (notably the Pearces, not to mention Collins) crypto-fascists and xenophobes. The British were stupid to shoot them (although well within their legal rights) but in fact being "martyred" allowed them to evade the scrutiny of their nasty ideology which they richly deserved.

The Provisional IRA are their spiritual descendants: a sadistic racist gang of very violent and greedy thugs who still wield huge de facto control over Northern Ireland (and parts of the Republic) and the North's gangster-infested economy. Not surprisingly Northern Ireland is a failed state and an economic basket case shored up by inordinate UK subsidy. The Republic is completely incapable of governing it or funding it but still demands the right to meddle.

The reality of the "see no evil hear no evil" "peace" in the Six Counties is an uneasy truce between gangs of racketeers who know that they have only to up the ante and London and Dublin will come running with Danegold. It is no surprise that the best and brightest in Northern Ireland leave.

Tony Roche

Commentator
Your response to my comment is simply a rambling assortment of rehashed terms such as “crypto fascists” “violent greedy thugs” ( one which I accept with limited application) etc. but all are red herrings, and you failed to address the central issues which I raised – the real background to the mess in NI, which unfortunately goes way beyond economic considerations, and also the right of the Irish to control the destiny of their own island. And yes I know we all live in a global economy. When you say xenophobes, perhaps you meant Anglophobes.

And as for “legal rights” in 1916, your view is highly questionable. You presumably base it on the fact that a so called Act of Union of Britain and Ireland was passed in 1801. So it was - by brute force, massive corruption, coercion, and bribery in the Dublin Parliament and against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people who had no say in the matter. But I’ll end here. Otherwise I’ll be accused of self pity for propagating the truth.............

Slan leat.

Commentator

Just a few thoughts:

1. There's nothing rambling about the terms I used and if they are "rehashed" it is because they are true. If you read the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, it makes pretty unpleasant reading. And no I didn't mean "Anglophobe", I meant "xenophobe": nationalist Ireland has shown itself to be far from friendly to immigrants...ask the Chinese who have attempted to settle in Belfast. The UK, for all its faults, has been far more immigrant-friendly.

2. I wasn't in fact basing my comments on the Act of Union. The British were simply dealing with an irregular fifth column which had attacked them at the height of a deadly war with Imperial Germany and which had actively allied with the enemy. The British simply dealt with the Easter ringleaders in the same way that the Americans dealt with German irregulars whom they caught in early 1945 when they invaded Germany. The British were in fact quite lenient: most of the rebels were quite quickly released even though many thousands of Irishmen were fighting and dying on the Western Front.

3. You have a problem with the fact that despite much credulous whitewashing by Hollywood and the IRA's many useful idiots, Irish nationalism has often shown itself to be an intolerant, self-pitying, malevolent creed. Just look at the names of Irish political parties. That doesn't make the Unionist cause perfect (far from) nor does it mean that British rule of Ireland was a success (it wasn't). But the fact that there were grievances does not justify much of the response. After all Germany in 1919 had justified grievances too...

Tony Roche

Commentator
We could go on ad infinitum here going round in circles with futile name calling and point scoring . Like yourself I could expand my comments way beyond Anglo Irish relations, but to what purpose ? Black kettles and pots come to mind.

You refer to the Proclamation of 1916 as “unpleasant”. I recommend that you read it (Google it) again, and apart from observing the poetic language, and that it is directed against occupiers, I believe it to be relatively mild and would be acceptable logic to decent people almost anywhere. It all comes down to national perspective I suppose. Let’s leave it there.

Slan leat.

Craig Strachan

Alex: "Peter King could have been a decent Irish nationalist."

Being a decent American congressman seems to be quite beyond him, however,

Craig Strachan

Tony Roche: 'we ALSO have a right to “fight on (our) the beaches” should the need arise'

Like Shillington Beach, Co Louth?

Tony Roche

Craig Strathan

Judging by you times of GMT postings you are either a very poor sleeper or as I suspect, more likely living far from NI. No doubt you would do anything for the place except live there. Bondi or Coney island beaches perhaps? By all means go for your life to defend them !

Craig Strachan

@Tony - As a matter of fact I'm in Malibu, but before I could defend the beaches here I'd have to take them from the surf nazis, which is easier said than done.

(And it's pretty well documented that the Irish Republic has benefited from diaspora support over the years. Why shouldn't NI?)

Patricia McKelvey

"And there's the rub: King and those Americans who shared his views could have supported the perfectly-respectable United Ireland cause without endorsing or defending the IRA. They chose not to. Their hostility to Britain and to Unionists is fine"
Disagreeing with someone's politics is fine, being hostile to someone for being a unionist (or a nationalist) is not.

"Peter King could have been a decent Irish nationalist. He chose not to be."

As someone who happens to live in his constituency, I tend to believe that decency is not in his nature.

John Crabtree

cant understand this article as I remember Pete King in the mid 1980s calling for all party talks, pity it took the rulers in London until the late 90s to come round to this point of view.

As a proud Englishman I am baffled why we havent examined more the role the mainland played in the conflict, i.e sending our troops into protect and molly coddle the RUC( the blood brothers of the ss, with their collusion with the loyalists, their torture and their attacks on catholic funerals).

With regard to the gentleman who claims to be of Irish stock, you are quiet simply lying or you were of Anglo-Irish stock i.e the landlord class who forced the natives to pay 90 per cent of their weekly earnings in rent or starve.

As for examples of the Irish expericence and Nazi Germany or South Africa, it is more similiar to the north africans in France or the blacks in America, people who found little welcome and were forced to do the most menial jobs

Simon Templar

Ah come on you lot for God's sake. There's a peace of sorts in the North of Ireland. That was achieved by the heroic work of John Hume, the determination of British and Irish politicians, Sinn Fein, loyalists et al. I'd never though I'd hear Sinn Fein condemning a policeman's murder, or a DUP man going to mass to attend their funeral. That's incredible progress. I was brought up and lived in the North through the Troubles. Compared to then, this is paradise. It'll take generations to get where we need to be but in the meantime, for god's sake just be thankful to all those people who took the brave step towards an honourable and peaceful solution on all sides.