What he never learned about Belfast

Charles

'Appeasement' is a loaded term that belongs in the history books alongside descriptions of how 1930s politicians struggled to find a way to deal with a resurgent, remilitarised Germany that was also their bulwark against Russia and communism. It was an immensely complex situation which we can barely comprehend today. For example, how many of us appreciate the role that US investment played in Germany's rearmament? A subject that is still taboo even now, seventy years later.

Should anyone doubt the differences between the Nazis and the IRA/Taliban/Mullahs/Al-Qaeda/Hamas/etc., I would suggest a quick visit to YouTube and a viewing of Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". It rather puts things into perspective.

Dee Ranged

Despite any outward appearances, Northern Ireland is still a deeply divided nation.

In many parts the rule-of-law has been abandoned.

Ann

Should anyone doubt that Hamas is exactly equivalent to the Nazis, I recommend a careful reading of its charter. And if you speak Arabic, watching the daily antisemitic, genocidal broadcasts on Arab television, some of it state-controlled and/or sponsored. This rather puts into perspective the pathetic excuses put forward by their apologists, appeasers and useful fools in the west.

al'la' mode

New labour are fascinated by terrorists, as are all socialists. What could be more appealing to the coercive envious mindset that lies at the heart of the left wing delusion than some self righteous blathering gangster using a few rote learnt phrases about "liberation" to justify his pshychotic fantasies. Sartre slobbered over Stalin's boots. New labour prefer to salivate over the footwear of the IRA and hamas.It makes them nostalgic for barricades, scuffles with the police and feeds their their dreams of being street fighting men. Pathetic really.

libertyni

'..brought the extremes together...' Hardly a fair comment when one 'extreme'supported an IRA terrorist campaign for 30 years and the other 'extreme' supported the rule of law and democracy?

Ann

Quite so, a la mode. The adolescent mindset in its disgusting manifestation in the over-30s.

Steve

Melanie is exactly right. The peace process in Northern Ireland has been a complete and utter failure. Shame on the long list of appeasers who have brought us to the current state. Things were far better in the 1970s before the appeasers held sway.

Frank Pulley

Did Jonathan Powell ever have a real job or profession - other than ''advising' third rate politicos who couldn't think for themselves and therefore were easily duped by fourth rate social engineers and appeasers of murderous gangsters?

Howard

The issue is simply. Powell achieved something and got out there and talked to the people that needed to be talked to. Without his efforts, NI would not be where it is today, with all the faults, and the bombs would still be going off and possibly in London.

History proves you wrong as I have said before. Do you really think that Hamas will not be spoken to if it is not already?

It is very easy for you to through bricks at everyone but have you actually been out there and done what Blair and Powell did? All we get is your justifications for moving from the Guardian to the Mail! Go out and achieve what Powell did and then criticise.

steve

Frank Pulley wrote: "Did Jonathan Powell ever have a real job or profession - other than ''advising' third rate politicos who couldn't think for themselves and therefore were easily duped by fourth rate social engineers and appeasers of murderous gangsters?"
-Sorry, are you referring to Blair's support for the Bush admin's invasion of Iraq?

Joe Strummer

As someone of Ulster descent and now resident on the mainland, the ignorance here in the rest of the UK of Irish / Ulster history is truly mind-boggling.

From the wilfully naive assumption that " the British invaded Ireland in 1969 " to the bored and indifferent " why are those mad Paddies always killing each other? " comments.

It sickens true democrats on all sides on the island of Ireland that Tony Blair claims he brought peace and resolution to the Northern Irish conflict.

What Blair DID do to help end the violence was give the sectarian and racist IRA terrorists exactly what they wanted, ie, the removal of British troops from the streets of Belfast, the disbandment of one of the finest police forces in the world in the RUC, and to any decent person's horror the release of mass murdering killers of the innocent. That isn't bringing peace, that is abject surrender in no other terms.

Any previous British Prime Minister could easily have did exactly the same as Blair and falsely claimed saintly status as " the man who brought peace to Ireland" but thank God they put principles before ego.

As many experts on the subject more learned than I have already stated, after the Enniskillen bomb carnage the IRA were isolated both domestically and internationally, their organisation riddled with British informers, but most importantly they were war-weary and were looking for a way out, any way out in fact to end "their war."

The British Government had the IRA where they wanted them, but decided to legitimise these thugs and gangsters instead.

Simon

Howard, the comparison between Hamas (or any other organisation with Islamist objectives) and Irish republican terrorists is entirely false. David Trimble has spelt out at length why on his website:

http://www.davidtrimble.org/publications_misunderstanding.pdf

You talk about achievements, Howard, but what's been achieved? There are parts of Northern Ireland that now operate effectively under mafia law. You don't hear about what goes on because it doesn't get as far as the police and the courts where it will be publicised. Strip back the glossy paint work and you'll find all sorts of horrors come crawling out of the woodwork. With these thugs operating off the radar and with impunity they are only going to get stronger.

Ann

I see that Steve is still peddling the ignorant loony left's demented venom about Bush.

Dirk Blade

Joe Strummer: Great post.

Mick Jones.

Melanie, interesting that you use therm "beyond the pale". I am sure you know the origin of the phrase.

As for JoeStrummer, you should be ashamed to use that name, I am sure he is spinning in his grave. What you call the"sectarian" IRA go the grave each year of the Protestant founder of Irish republicanism Theobald Wolfe Tone. I am not aware of the UVF visiting Catholic graveyards, except of course to shoot and throw grenades. The bomber of Airey Neave was a Protestant. You say the British do not understand Ireland but for you to trot out the hoary old myth that it was all about religion is astonishing. Yes the creation of a sectarian state from 1922 onwards (the longest one party state surpassing even Russia) gave a religious dimension to the conflict but the basic reason for conflict was to get Ireland ruling its own affairs. rather than by people in London who abhorred the place (both communities which they could not tell apart from personal experience)

Mark

Howard is right. But also the Rule of Law was never even remotely properly observed in Northern Ireland until recent times. All of its state institutions were corrupt and designed to dispense advantage to Protestants. Catholics were certainly not equal under the law. Northern Ireland was a place apart quite unlike the rest of Britain. I don't think this is a controversial view. Just read some history, Mel.

Commondog

Joe Strummer.

I agree with what most of what you say but I am wondering why your assessment omits any mention of the other factions involved.
You make it sound as if it was simply the IRA versus the RUC. (A few reservations there also with your description of that outfit - collusion with selected outlawed groups, is not I hope, the finest we could wish for from our police forces)

There was and is a very strong - if dormant - Unionist terrorist movement, and there are murderers now walking free who commited their crimes in the name of Unionism.

They haven't gone away either you know.

field

Appeasement is a perfectly good description of what has taken place in Northern Ireland.

However I have never argued that
appeasement is always and forever a bad policy. It is often more sensible to humour the nutter on the bus than it is to confront him and try and disarm him of his hammer. Paying Danegeld was a reasonable option when the alternative was having your society ripped apart by rape and pillage.

However, appeasement is a bad policy when (a) you are in a position of potential strength and (b) your opponent is so fanatical as to be not trustworthy and intent on your destruction.

It is not clear to me that appeasement in Northern Ireland was ever necessary. Personally I favoured full life terms for ALL terrorist offenders (big and small) and a system of parole that would be linked to the level of violence. I also favoured a system of legal assault on the terrorist institutions e.g. the clubs and bars - subjecting them to punitive taxation, cutting off utilities etc etc. Also cutting off all welfare benefits for convicted terrorists. Also linking welfare payments to a sworn commitment to abjure membership of certain groups or engagement in terrorism. Also national community service for all those aged over 16.

I think had we had the will to institute these sorts of measures, we could have killed off terrorism and preserved the moderates.

However I realise the will wasn't there and it has to be admitted that the peace agreement has prevented a lot of trauma whilst at the same time in many ways moderating the extremists.

I think one can argue it both ways. The IRA was never an organisation intent on destroying the very fabric of our society. It had/has a reasonably limited goal.

Al Queda and Islam are quite another matter.

As for Mick Jones and his rabid
republicanism - can he please tell us why he doesn't describe Eire with Catholicism written into its constitution as a "sectarian state". Following independence the Protestant population quickly dwindled from 10% or more to 2%. Not dissimilar to the way Christians in Palestine have been reducing in population under the pressure of Islam and Jihadism. That's real sectarianism. By contrast in the North there was great influx of Catholics from the south after partition.

Joe Strummer

Mick Jones

I won't personalise any dispute, re the Joe Strummer comment, as it is rather childish but regards your views on Ulster I'll answer as follow.

The IRA were and are to the core a racist, fascist and sectarian anti- Protestant terrorist group.

They callously and deliberately targeted remote and sparsely populated and more importantly defenceless Protestant villages on the Ulster border with Southern Ireland to commit horrific sectarian massacres.

The KingsMill Atrocity, where more than ten innocent local Protestant passengers on a bus returning home from work were removed and cruelly mown down by machine guns by an IRA death squad being amongst the most gruesome of their numerous cowardly attacks to ethnically cleanse the area of Protestnts and "green the border".

That the IRA murderers on that black day also asked all on board their religion, then told the only Roman Catholic passenger on the bus to run and don't look back before murdering the Protestants says more than I ever could on their crude sectarianism.

Make no mistake,the IRA despite their interchangeable Marxist language which oddly enough vanishes when fund raising in capitalist America, are Irish Nationalist Socialists, no different to the German variety in the 1930's, with a sordid history of collusion with the monumentally evil Hitler regime itself.

Indeed, one of the IRA's major players of that day, Sean Russell, died off the coast of Ireland during WW2 on board a German U-Boat on his return from meeting and receiving orders from the German Nazi High Command.

Sinn Fein / IRA, even to this today and with no shame, annually commemorate this Nazi monster Russell whose task if and when the German Nazi hordes eventually won WW2 was to round up Ireland's tiny Jewish community for deportation to the death camps in Europe.

To their eternl credit, the genuine Irish Left has on numerous occasions defaced Russell's statue.

Only recently for public consumption has the IRA's intrinsic sinister ethos of a one nation, one culture ( Gaelic), one language ( Erse), one religion ( extreme right wing Roman Catholicism )been deliberately played down. The Celtic/Aryan mythological symbology on Republican murals are also most telling of their visceral Nazi undertones.

Btw, how many Protestant churches are there in these non-sectarian happy clappy Republican strongholds in Northern Ireland, Mick.?

As to your question of Protestant IRA thugs,
yes, there have also been a handful of Protestant quislings within its ranks willing to commit murder against their own. Every tribe has its traitors, the Ulster Protestant community is no different in that respect, Wolfe Tone as a classic example which is used as propaganda by the IRA to excuse any charges of their religious bigotry.

As to this myth that the RC community were second class citizens in Northern Ireland in comparison to Protestants, could you explain, Mick, why there was actual movement in population from Eire to Northern Ireland by Irish Roman Catholics during this time of cruel British oppression.? ( sic )

Maybe it was the better NHS, Social Security benefits, etc,.?

What you should be concerned with Mick is that any group in society, be it left or right,Protestant or Roman Catholic, should attempt to overthrow democracy by violence which in Ulster very nearly occurred.

Joe Strummer

Commondog

I apologise for omitting your questions from my last reply to Mick Jones.

Of course, you are correct in stating that it simply wasn't a case of the RUC v the IRA. There were so many different armed groups with acronymns it was almost like alphabet soup in attempting to distinguish which from which.

You are also correct in saying that there was instances of collusion between individual RUC officers and loyalist paramilitaries. But it is also important to add that it was never of the epidemic proportions as certain media oulets in the UK would have the British public believe.

It was completely wrong and no apology can be enough to those innocents and their families who suffered greatly because of it.

The RUC's bravery and duty, however,can never be diminished by these few who tarnished their proud name.

As for the Unionist terrorists, or as they are more widely known as the loyalist paramilitaries, they are still armed to the teeth with frightening weaponry and like the IRA, they must also decommission.

Their Doomsday Scenario is a United Ireland against their democratic wishes and my biggest fear is another Troubles if this is to occur.

KateA

Howard: "Powell achieved something ... talked to the people that needed to be talked to. Without his efforts, NI would not be where it is today ... and the bombs would still be going off and possibly in London."

What! The ignorance about NI, its history, its people, and the roots of the recent Troubles, is mind-blowing. "Without his efforts..." my posterior. Blair and Powell arrived in (1997) at the end of a long 28 year endeavour; dedicated people on the ground coming together across the 'divides' set up by paramilitaries! By 1997, the people were war-weary.

Many of those who had worked tirelessly against false sectarian divisions found their health collapsing; their energy sapped.

By 1997, the Provisional IRA had already realised they could not 'win' a terrorist war. By the time Powell got there, the only thing the paramilitaries had achieved by violence was stalemate.

WHY? Not just the presence of the British Army, but the dogged 'get on with life' courage of a majority who are decent people. By 1993 (PIRA ceasefire), it was clear the North of Ireland would NOT be BOMBED into an Irish Republic. More, it was clear the Irish Republic didn't want a NI with a majority of dissenting Protestants whether or not those Protestants had been bombed into 'submission'.

The 'arm chair' experts who pontificate on NI; on the similarities between NI and Gaza; between Irish Republicanism and Islamic fundamentalism are just WRONG.

A too, too familiar idiocy when making that comparison is: 'Ugh ... Britain didn't attack Dublin ... after IRA bombs in London'! Wow!

Britain didn't bomb Dublin folks BECAUSE, it was NOT the Irish Republic that was bombing London! Had the Irish Republic bombed London it would have been an act of war against another sovereign nation.

Rockets from Gaza into Israel IS AN ACT OF WAR because ... Hamas is the elected government of Gaza. Get the difference? I have no doubt the British Army and Air Force would indeed have bombed Dublin had that been the case.

However, the Provisional IRA was and still is, an illegal terrorist organisation both north and south of the border.

NI is NOT comparable to Gaza in ANY sense. There was a political WILL in NI, on both sides to resolve the conflict. Political discrimination had been resolved by 1974 - the Sunningdale Agreement. That was achieved by products of the 1944 Education Act Great Britain.

It was opposed by two extreme MINORITIES - the PIRA and Paisley's DUP.

Powell, 23 years later in 1997, was a civil servant intent on placating and enabling Sinn Fein, the political wing of PIRA. At the same time, he needed to stroke the ego of the greatest megalomaniac in Irish history. Politically, Powell and Blair achieved no more, no less, than Sunningdale i.e. a power-sharing assembly.

The great difference between the Good Friday Agreement 1998 and Sunningdale 1974 is that the former was achieved by the destruction of the middle ground - SDLP, Alliance and Official/Ulster Unionists. Powell and Blair's great 'achievement' was to enable the ascendency of extremists.

The so-called 'Chuckle Brothers' - Paisley and McGuinness - sacrificed 3,000+ dead and thousands of injured to their own political ambitions. Together they condemned one and a half million people to daily fear. For what ends? The paramilitaries are still doing what they do best - criminality.

Unlike the Gaza of Hamas and every other Islamic state, there was no hate-propaganda in the education system; no text books demonising the 'other side'. NI, despite pockets of sectarianism was a Christian society and recognised as such by even the terrorists. It was not therefore the simplistic 'sectarian' war so dear to media hearts.

It was a territorial and political war which utilised the divisions imposed by the Catholic Hierarchy in 1922. The RC Church accepted the establishment of the NI State on the guarantee they would have total control over Catholic education. All state schools in NI were and are 'open' to those of any faith or none.

Finally, NO Irish Republican group, throughout a 200 year history, has ever aspired to conquest of Britain or any other country in the world. No Catholic or Protestant terrorist group has ever had an agenda of converting the world.

It is relevant that Provisional IRA propaganda ALWAYS claimed NI Catholics to be 'Ireland's Palestinians'! This despite all the benefits of social housing, free education and a free NHS system. That lie, of course, just like the lies of Hamas, gave them the right to 'dance in the blood of their neighbours'!

Ann

Excellent analysis, Kate. One small point: the IRA terrorists DID try to conquer a piece of Britain, one called NI or Ulster.

KateA

Thanks Ann - I'm smiling! You are quite correct. Normally my codicil to such a statement is: 'outside the island of Ireland'.

Further in the context of Republicanism - the concept of 'Unity' (which included Catholic emancipation) but 'no King' i.e. Irish Republicanism - introduced by Irish Protestants in 1793. Engagement of Protestants in non-sectarian political Republicanism has continued for over 200 years. It is unfortunate that the ideal of a Republic 'cherishing all its children equally' was thrown away by successive Irish governments in thrall to the RC Hierarchy.

Mick Jones: "What you call the"sectarian" IRA go the grave each year of the Protestant founder of Irish republicanism Theobald Wolfe Tone. I am not aware of the UVF visiting Catholic graveyards ..."

Ummh .... yeah; smoke and mirrors. The Provisional IRA campaign was more focused on sectarian warfare than any 'old' IRA campaign in the previous 60 years. I am making a distinction here between pre and post-1916 insurgents. Civilians, as opposed to RUC and British Army, WERE deliberately targeted by the Provisionals. Martin McGuinness actually spoke at a meeting in the early days claiming it would segregate the communities as effectively as apartheid.

Pockets of the IRA have, specifically since 1916, confused and conflated Republicanism with Catholicism. Politically, in 1969/70 (and with the assistance of Paisley) the Provos indulged in that conflation.

You ARE I presume, 'aware' that in 1932 - during a brief period of working-class unity in Ireland - Shankill Road Protestant Trade Unionists attending the Republican Congress were attacked and beaten by the Tipperary IRA when THEY (Protestants) marched to Wolfe Tone's grave to pay their respects? Not a 'myth', I have ancient pictures of the event passed on by one who was there.

It is a long and convoluted history. Sectarianism was fostered in Dev's Republic - A Catholic State for a Catholic people. Protestants, those remaining, kept their heads down. Partition, in 1922 created a Protestant State for a Protestant people. Mirror images. Joe Strummer is correct, large numbers of Catholics entered that state to escape the rural poverty of Dev's Catholic Ireland - mainly from Cavan, Donegal, Monaghan and Leitrim. The working class in Dev's Ireland enjoyed grinding poverty made worse by clerical fascism; they emigrated in their thousands.

I would aver, from a long activism and longer, hopefully methodical and balanced, research that: the Roman Catholic Hierarchy which, being in cahoots with the British government for the funding of Maynooth et al, did NOT support armed rebellion in 1916, BUT moved very quickly to establish theocratic control after the event.

Equally, continuing quiet co-operation with the British government enabled them to extend that same theocratic control over Catholics in the North of Ireland. Catholics were NOT denied access to state education. Segregated education, and by extension, control of the 'flock', was a 'deal' between Catholic Hierarchy and Unionist Establishment.

Yes indeed 'field' the Protestant population of the 26 counties of the south of Ireland declined even more dramatically than you have suggested. From 24% pre-1916 to an astounding 10% by 1924 and today, 2%. A few reports I have seen would suggest a small increase - perhaps 3%.

Bob Gray

Please don't think me a pedant but my passport says that I am a citizen of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

JamesC

Joe Strummer and KateA have implied that in Northern Ireland Catholics were not second-class citizens. Here are a few quotes and facts which suggest otherwise (quotes taken mainly from CAIN site, which is run by the University of Ulster):

1) Quotes by the Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland from 1921-1969:

“I have always said I am an Orangeman first and a politician and Member of this Parliament afterwards. ... The Hon. Member must remember that in the South they boasted of a Catholic State. They still boast of Southern Ireland being a Catholic State. All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and Protestant State."
Sir James Craig Northern Ireland Prime Minister1921-1940

"Another allegation made against the Government and which was untrue, was that, of 31 porters at Stormont, 28 were Roman Catholics. I have investigated the matter, and I find that there are 30 Protestants and only one Roman Catholic there temporarily."
J. M. Andrews Northern Ireland Prime Minister 1940-1943

"When I made that declaration last ‘twelfth’ I did so after careful consideration. What I said was justified. I recommended people not to employ Roman Catholics, who were 99 per cent disloyal."
Sir Basil Brooke Northern Ireland Prime Minister 1943-1963

"It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have eighteen children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless, and lives in the most ghastly hovel, he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance. If you treat Roman Catholics with due consider and kindness, they will live like Protestants in spite of the authoritative nature of their Church ... "
Captain Terence O’Neil Northern Ireland Prime Minister 1963-1969

All of these were members of the Orange Order. Indeed, J.M.Andrews was Grand Master of Ireland and a member of the wonderfully titled Imperial Grand Council of the World. To give some idea of the influence and the anti-catholic nature of this organisation, until 1969 all but three cabinet minister had been members of it, and of the other ministers, one left the order because his daughter married a catholic, while another was expelled because he attended a catholic religious ceremony.

In regard to O’Neill’s rather codescending remarks, the Irish who left Southern Ireland for the US during the famine have done exceptionally well, even though most of them left with nothing. The Republic is booming as well. Hence, there is every reason to suppose that now the troubles are at an end, and discrimination is a thing of the past, Catholics will do well in Northern Ireland, too.

2) Discrimination in Public employment

"When it is remembered that the first Minister [of Home Affairs], Sir Dawson Bates, held that post for 22 years and had such a prejudice against Catholics that he made it clear to his Permanent Secretary that he did not want his most juvenile clerk, or typist, if a Papist, assigned for duty to his Ministry, what could one expect when it came to filling posts in the Judiciary, Clerkships of the Crown and Peace and Crown Solicitors?"
Mr. G.C. Duggan, Comptroller and Auditor-General in Northern Ireland (1967)

“Clear instances of discrimination against well qualified Catholics occurred from the beginning . . . At the Ministry of Home Affairs, Bates refused to allow Catholic appointments. . . . While Unionist politicians were included on civil service appointment boards, nationalist requests for this privilege were ignored.
As the years passed, evidence emerged of Orange Order surveillance of Catholic civil servants and even civil servants married to Catholics. Prominent and respectable Unionists like Sir Robert Lynn (editor of the Northern Whig) and Sir Charles Blackmore (Cabinet secretary) were the messenger-boys for the Order in these matters. Craig's attitude was at best ambiguous. Predictably, the number of Catholics in the higher ranks of the NICS dropped consistently throughout the late '20s and early '30s”
From Bew, Gibbon and Patterson “The State in Northern Ireland, 1921-72” (Note: Paul Bew, now a member of the House of Lords, is a unionist historian, and, to use his own words, an ‘informal advisor’ to David Trimble)

“We are satisfied that all these Unionist controlled councils have used and use their power to make appointments in a way which benefited Protestants. In the figures available for October 1968 only thirty per cent of Londonderry Corporation's administrative, clerical and technical employees were Catholic. In Dungannon Urban District none of the Council's administrative, clerical and technical employees was a Catholic. In County Fermanagh no senior council posts (and relatively few others) were held by Catholics. . . Armagh Urban District employed very few Catholics in salaried posts, but did not appear to discriminate at lower levels. Omagh Urban District showed no clearcut pattern of discrimination, though we have seen what would appear to be undoubted evidence of employment discrimination by Tyrone County Council”
The conclusion of the Cameron report (1969) (Commission appointed by
the Governor of Northern Ireland)

It is also worth mentioning that Terence O’Neill states that when he was Minister of Finance in the 1950s he had to face a campaign against him in the Cabinet because it was believed that since he had taken up office Catholics were being encouraged to join the civil service.

3) Discrimination in Private employment

'At a meeting in Derry to select candidates for the Corporation Mr. H. McLaughlin said that for the past forty-eight years since the foundation of his firm there had been only one Roman Catholic employed - and that was a case of mistaken identity'
Derry People 26 September 1946.

“[Our three candidates] employ over 70 people, and have NEVER employed a ROMAN CATHOLIC”
Pamphlet issued by the St George's Ward Unionist Association during the 1961 Belfast municipal elections.

At the end of the 1960’s, Harland and wolf employed about 10,000 workers. Of these, less than 500 were catholic. Roughly the same proportion was found at Shorts and other big employers. Moreover, many of the Catholics employed there were subject to sectarian abuse. This situation was brought to the attention of the American authorities by members of the nationalist community. The result was the Macbride principles, a code of conduct for US companies operating in Northern Ireland, which ensures that there is no discrimination in selection and other areas. These principles have now been passed in sixteen states in the US. It is quite remarkable that a foreign country has to introduce such a code in its dealings with a modern European “democracy”.

4) Discrimination in Local elections

"The Nationalist majority in the county, i.e., Fermanagh, notwithstanding a reduction of 336 in the year, stands at 3,684. We must ultimately reduce and liquidate that majority. This county, I think it can be safely said, is a Unionist county. The atmosphere is Unionist. The Boards and properties are nearly all controlled by Unionists. But there is still this millstone [the Nationalist majority] around our necks."
E.C. Ferguson, Unionist Party, then Stormont MP, April 1948

” I need hardly point out to you that in Derry , unless something is done now , it is only a matter of time until Derry passes into the hands of the Nationalist and Sinn Fein parties for all time . On the other hand, if proper steps are taken now, I believe Derry can be saved for years to come… ”
Sir Dawson Bates to Lord Craigavon 1934

In 1920’s, against strong opposition from the British Government, the Northern Ireland Parliament abolished proportional representation and redrew the electoral boundaries, with the result that they gained fifteen more seats, leaving the nationalists, who made up roughly a third of the population, with eleven seats out of seventy-three. For this reason, nationalists have since that time been consistently under-represented.

The city of Derry is perhaps the best case. Since the formation of the Northern Ireland state the population ratio of Derry has been more or less 60:40 catholic to protestant, but the structure of the council has always been roughly 40:60 nationalist to unionist, simply because the boundaries were changed in order to produce a unionist majority.

For reasons of space I have said nothing in regard to policing, or parades, or housing. I have included quotes to show not merely that the Northern Ireland state was unjust from top to bottom, but also that the discrimination which occurred was more or less policy and was often openly expressed.

The standard unionist explanation is that Catholics were discriminated against not because of their religion, but because it was thought that they might be people who might work within the system to bring about a United Ireland. This does seem odd, for, first, part of the South’s hostility to the north was a result of the discrimination, and, second, it is generally the case that giving people equality makes them less, not more, likely to want to change the status quo. Yet it does appear that this was part of the reason. Nonetheless, it can hardly be without significance that the Orange Order is found in Scotland, the USA, Canada, and New Zealand, and in all these places its members have invariably been fiercely, and sometimes violently, anti-catholic.

Commondog

Thank you JamesC for providing some balance here. For a while back there it looked like the let's bash a Catholic show.

Commondog

Ann.

The point you make is by no means small.

The 'piece of Britain' that the IRA were and are concerned with, is one which they seek to regain, not conquer.

Their desire is to control what was until only a few centuries ago, their land; taken by force.

This is surely not too dissimilar from the right and just struggle which regained the land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people?

Joe Strummer

James C

It is easy to deliberately cherry pick where and when any supposed "anti-Catholic discrimination" occurred in Northern Ireland to assume their favourite mantle of eternal victimhood. I'm sure Protestants could do the same, both North and South of the border, especially Eire.

In fact is there anywhere in the world where Irish Catholics haven't been the most beaten down and " most oppressed"( sic) of any nation's community.?

Its just a pity than whenever they ended up in collective political power, such as the Eastern Seaboard of the USA they don't apparently learn from their supposed prior oppressors treatment of themselves and instead put up a closed shop where " Non Irish Catholics Need Not Apply."

Glasgow in Scotland and its surrounding Lanarkshire districts, for instance, are infamous for incredible anti-Protestant job discrimination in the public sector.

The well documented and highlighted Monklandsgate scandal where Catholics were given different coloured job application forms from the other Protestant candidates to ensure the Protestants were kept out was a classic example.

That these areas are highly and densely populated with Roman Catholics of Irish descent is no coincidence either.

See how easy it is, James C, to stereotype any particular group as "bigots." ?

Ann

Common dog, I am afraid your analogy is back-to-front. Just as the Arabs have their own countries but are determined to grab Israel too, so the Irish have their own country but some of them (and I believe the Irish constitution demands it for all of them, but correct me if I am wrong) want to grab NI/Ulster too.

Commondog

Ann.

You ignore the difference between 'conquering' and regaining. The former would suggest no historical right to the territory, whereas there is a case here for re-asserting rights over a land which was taken by aggressive force. This sense of historic right would seem to me to have at least a common basis with the right of Jewish ownership of Israel. In what way is that back to front?

Your use of the word 'grab' indicates a repetition of your reluctance to recognise this crucial difference.

Please address the argument rather than attempting to roll over it with bluster.

Joe Strummer

Commondog

How can Ireland ever be "re-united" when the only time in its entire history it was one nation was as part of the British Union.?

Those described as Ulster Protestants today are descendents of The Plantation, Scots of original Ulster roots.

These Scots, in effect, were returning home during The Plantation and could never be described as ""invaders" of Ireland or stealing anyones land.

Commondog

Joe Strummer, Ann, KateA et al

This is what I think we should be doing here:
I am not going to change your view on this and vice versa.
Thankfully, we make our comments in a much more peaceful time than not too long ago. Long may that last.
Most importantly, these troubles are ones which are dwarfed by The Trouble which confronts us now and on which, I think we see common ground.
Melanie rolls on and we would all be best trying to keep pace.