Conference tallis::celt

    
    
    >The others are free, unlike their victims and their families.
    
    As are many members of the Shankhill Butchers. Makes you think that
    perhaps the north is a safe haven for terrorists. I didn't see the
    programme but there was an article in the Irish Times to-day on the 
    bombings. The first allegation of British Army collusion in the
    bombings came from a British Army captain. Holroyd was his name. He
    alleges that there were very close links between the security forces
    and the north Armagh UVF, who were believed to be responsible for the
    bombings.
    
    Denis.

    Yes, I saw the programme.
    
    It brought back memories of the day.  A friend of mine had a date
    arranged for that evening with a girl who was killed in the bombs.  It
    was days before he could confirm why she hadn't turned up.  He was
    pretty upset about it for a long time afterwards.  I was working in
    Dublin at the time.  Somehow or other I didn't hear about the bombs
    until evening.  I went into the city to go to the cinema and I
    remember the eerie silence, as there were so few people around. 
    
    The allegations of British security force involvement in these bombings
    did not surprise me.  I think that most people have suspected this for
    a long time, especially since the confirmation of British involvement
    in the earlier Sackville Place bombings.  However, the amount of 
    documentation and the strength with which the case was presented did 
    surprise me.  
    
    It would be nice to see the security officers responsible for this
    outrage brought to justice, but I don't think that is likely.  Perhaps
    after last night's programme, however, charges may at leas be brought
    against the loyalist paramilitaries who actually carried out the
    bombings.
    
    
    Liam

    Did the program tell us anything new ?
    
    Ever since the day of the murders, the British govt/SAS/Army have been
    suspected. I'm amazed that people are only talking about it now. Do
    you still believe that the English government are above this sort of
    stuff. Dream on. They've been involved with the murder of Irish people
    for 800 years, they're not going to stop now, only their methods have
    changed.
    

    Re .3
    
    Tony,
    
    I  certainly don't believe that "the English government are above this
    sort of thing,"  though I'm not sure of the extent to which security 
    force involvement and government involvement can be taken to be the 
    same thing.  
    
    It is true that British security forces were suspected of involvement
    in these bombings from the start, but the programme did not just
    recycle these suspicions.  It named, or indicated it had the names of,
    all the bombers involved - loyalist paramilitaries, by the way, rather
    than security force members.  It detailed the links between the
    security forces and the loyalist paramilitaries at the time,
    demonstrating that the paramilitaries were trained by the security
    forces and were, effectively, run by the security forces.  It presented
    evidence that the paramilitaries did not have the know-how within their
    ranks at the time to build the sophisticated bombs that were used in
    Dublin and Monaghan.  The programme presented a very good case, though
    I would stop short of saying it proved its case.
    
    
    Liam

  Has anyone heard any information about Fred Holyroyd.
  He's an ex-SAS terrorist who gave a speach at the 
  National Press Club in Washington D.C. this week.  
  I'm told it was broadcast by C-SPAN.  He admitted to
  British Army SAS involvement in bombings, and 
  assasinations in the Republic as well as the occupied
  counties. 

                         Mark

    Please define "an ex-SAS terrorist".
    
    Laurie.

  An ex-member of the British SAS.  A British Army
  unit known for carrying out state-sponsored terrorism
  missions. So, have you heard of this Fred Holyroyd?

    [fx Hysterical laughter]
    
    Only by pure luck that a large number of Reading rail travellers
    weren't killed.

    
    re.5
      
    Do you regard the SEALS as state sponsored terrorists ???
    
    

 re. .9
 Well let's put it this way.  If they went into Dublin,
 set off bombs in an attempt to influence a vote in
 Irish government, assasinated political opposition,
 or murdered Irish civilians in an attempt to keep a
 sectarian war going, then yes, I'd call them state-
 sponsored terrorists, or more specifically, British
 state sponsored terrorists.


             Mark

    We already know you have no proof for that assertion Mark.
    
    Laurie.

    
    SAS have won more medals for gallantry since they were formed in the
    desert during WW2 than any other outfit of similar size. To call them
    terrorists is as stupid as the Globe calling the IRA in their shopping
    center bombing mode 'guerillas'.
    

 re. .13
 The SAS are a state terrorist unit. If the British 
 consider that worthy of medals, then I suspect the
 medals don't mean very much.
 Now you might consider state terrorism gallant, but
 I don't.  Would you have given these "gallant" men
 medals for their part in the Dublin/Monaghan
 bombings? 

                   Mark

    
    Unlike you, I don't canonize pure supposition. In any event the SAS
    were decorated for behind the lines ops in WW2, Korea, Iraq and I'm
    quite sure they deserved every last medal. 
    

    The SAS, like other violent groups (IRA included), need
    all the medals they can get.   Collect the whole set.
    Want to trade for some CIA medals (Grenada, Panama, Peru,
    Nicaragua, Kurdistan) ?

    
    Add in the rangers and the seals and the OSS, and you can be a real
    peacenik. 

    
    	nice one,
    
    	maybe the helicopter gunships could stop over on their way back
    from Somalia!!
    

                                  The Guardian
                                  May  16, 1994

                      FAMILIES REMEMBER 'FORGOTTEN' MASSACRE;
David Sharrock on the bitterness which still haunts Irish Republic's victims

    They call it the forgotten massacre. Twenty years ago tomorrow 33 people
were killed and hundreds injured when three car bombs in Dublin and another in
Monaghan exploded without warning. The bombers have never been caught.

    Two of the three cars used in the Dublin bombings had been hijacked earlier

in Protestant areas of Belfast. All four had  Northern Ireland  registrations.

    The Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force denied
responsibility, but a UDA press officer, Sammy Smyth, said: "I am very happy
about the bombings. There is a war with the Free State (the Republic) and
now we are laughing at them."

    Mary Robinson, Ireland's president, will attend a mass for the victims at
Dublin's Pro Cathedral tomorrow, the first time that the head of state has
commemorated the massacre. Angela O'Neill, who lost her father in the attack,
says it is not before time. "I personally would have been very unhappy if she
wasn't attending. She has been to all the other memorials, at Warrington and
other places." Ms O'Neill says she remembers the bombing as if it were
yesterday. "I was receiving first communion the next day and my father had the
two boys at the barbers. We heard the bombs going off, but we just went home and

I remember the neighbours bringing a chair for my mother."

    Her father, Edward, was killed outright. Her brother, also Edward, who was
four at the time, was critically injured and is now a 25-year-old student at
City University. Every few years another piece of shrapnel rises to his body's
surface and he must return to hospital. He is deaf in his left ear and has
vertigo.



    The families of all the victims are angry that they have been forgotten, and

bewildered that the culprits were never caught.

    Last July a Yorkshire Television documentary revealed that within three
weeks of the bombings the Gardai had a list of 20 suspects but found their
inquiries blocked by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

    A number of the suspects were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force who were

also army informers. One is believed to be still active in the province.

    The programme claimed: "Well-placed sources within the UVF, the RUC and the

British army believe the explosives, training and planning for the mission were

given by elements of the British security forces."

    After the programme was broadcast the families were invited to a meeting
with senior Garda and the Irish justice minister, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn.

    They were told that Gardai commissioner Pat Culligan would visit Yorkshire
Television to examine their "new" evidence within a week. He finally went in
September. It was the Gardai which provided most of the material to Yorkshire
Television in the first place.


    "We still haven't had any word back from Geoghegan-Quinn," said Ms O'Neill.

"We've collected 20,000 signatures, and if we haven't heard any more by May 18
we will be handing that petition in to the authorities.

    "Twenty years will have passed since the biggest mass murder and this time
we are not prepared for it to be swept under the carpet once again."

                                The Irish Times
                                   May  14, 1994
                     Scars that 20 years have failed to heal
Twenty years ago, on May 17th, 1974, 33 people died and hundreds were maimed
and injured when three bombs exploded in the heart of Dublin city and another
in the centre of Monaghan town in what the Minister for Justice recently
described in the Dail as "probably the worst tragedy on this island since
the Troubles began." Kathy Sheridan spoke to survivors about that day

    Oo Friday, May 17th, 1974, at 5.37 p.m., Talbot Street, at the heart of the

north Dublin inner city shopping area, was teeming with people as workers
streamed towards Amiens Street hoping to hitch a lift in the direction of the
north side.

   It was a poor beginning to the weekend a dull overcast evening in a city
paralysed by a bus strike. The traffic was in chaos, immeasurably aggravated by

the big CIE lorry which had broken down on Butt Bridge. Because it Was Friday,
many of the shops were staying open late and were doing a lively trade.

   Next day was First Communion day in the north inner city; small boys were
being hauled into the barbers for a haircut and little girls being brought to
town by their mothers for a final brush up at the hairdressers.

   Seven-year-old Angela O'Neill was at the hairdressers with her mother near
their home in the Dominick Street flats, preparing for her big day, when they
heard the explosion: "I remember a statue of a saint fell at my mother's feet."


   Only a few hundred yards away in Talbot Street, her father, Eddie, and her
two little brothers had just come out of Liam's Barbers.  Edward, nearly five,
was holding his father's hand and Billy, the O'Neills' second First Communion
child, had just pulled a button from his father's lapel. Fate decreed that Billy

would be diving to the ground for the button when the "flame" came.


   "It was just a big ball of flame coming straight towards us," recalls Edward,

"like a great nuclear mushroom cloud whooshing up everything in its path."

   Meanwhile, Mrs Ida White had also come to town with her four-year-old
daughter to get her hair done. Walking along Talbot Street, she heard the blast

in Parnell Street. "It was a crack - like the sound of a shop's steel shutters
coming down. I saw people running towards Parnell Street and couldn't understand

why they'd want to run towards a bomb - then I walked straight into the bomb in

Talbot Street.

   "We were passing what was known as Little Guiney's and I felt a sort of
tremble under my feet. Then suddenly everything was black and hot, and I felt
like I was being pulled round and round a tumble dryer. I thought this is the
end'."

   Afterwards, she learned that she had been at the centre of the updraught;
being whipped up through the "eye of the storm" may have saved her life. But her

first sight on regaining consciousness was that of her small daughter lying
close by with "a huge piece of steel" embedded in her face.

   The sight that greeted five-year-old Edward O'Neill as he returned to his
senses were the bones literally sticking out of his legs and the huge piece of
metal (which he discovered later to be a piece of a blue Avenger car) that he
felt protruding from his face and head. As a strange man lifted him into the
back of his car and mounted the pavement to get him to Jervis Street hospital,
there was no sign of Billy or his father.

   On South Leinster Street on the south side of the city, 19-year-old Catherine

McLaughlin was on her way to get a lift home when she suddenly "became a ball of

flames. The bang came later and I thought this is a bomb and started to run.

   "Then I remember an arm coming around me and trying to douse the flames. It
was a man named Charlie Coyle, who worked with Chubb Alarms. He saved my life;
he was my angel from heaven.

   "In the ambulance, there was a body in the centre of the floor and one on the

other side, I don't know if the person was alive or dead.  But I felt an
unexplainable, amazing calmness; I don't remember any pain. All I wanted was to

be put in a bath of cold water.

   Catherine, too, ended up in Jervis Street.

   That night in Jervis Street, the scenes will be forever etched into the
memories of all who were present. Father Dermot McCarthy, who at the time was
a chaplain to the hospital as well as working on the television series Radharc,

headed straight for the hospital when he heard the explosions and the sirens
screaming.

   "It was indescribable you hear of situations in Sarajevo and other places
where horrific things have happened and it might be said that the corridors ran

red with blood". Well, that actually happened in the hospital, there was blood
running along the floor as people were being brought in.

   "I remember one girl who was wearing an engagement ring on one hand and
complained of a pain in her leg on the other side of her body a leg that didn't

exist any more.

   "I had the sad job of phoning her family who were sick with worry because
they knew she would have been on her way home at the time of the bombs. I rang
them at two in the morning and heard their relief that she was alive - and then

had to tell them that she was mutilated and was also blinded in one eye."

   Meanwhile, Catherine McLaughlin was in blessed oblivion but the extent of her

burns was horrific: the skin on her hands and lower arms was burnt away her
tights had been burnt into her legs right up to her thighs; her hair had been
virtually burnt off, her face barely identifiable. At 5 a.m. on Saturday
morning as she was being wheeled from theatre her distraught family failed to
recognise her.

   The horrific scene at the hospital was made trebly so by the overcrowding and

the difficulties of correctly identifying the dead and injured. In the confusion

of the bombings, normal sources of identification, such as handbags had been
lost or discarded.

   Hospital staff whose heroism Father McCarthy says was also unforgettable
could sometimes only partly decipher the names given to them by seriously ill
patients.

   Thus did Marion Bradley spend a day studying the faces and effects of
unidentified dead at the city morgue and the injured in Jervis Street Hospital,

where she finally found her twin sister, Josie, registered as Janice. "She
looked relieved to see me and squeezed my hand", Marion recalls with a wistful
smile. But Josie died a day later, just after midnight.

   Angela O'Neill remembers that her First Communion clothes were hanging on the

flat's balcony door at 10.30 on the night of May 17th when her mother got the
news that her husband was dead. He had been pierced through the heart by
shrapnel and suffered massive head injuries. Billy never made it to his First
Communion.

   OF the two boys, however, he was the lucky one; though badly injured, by
chasing the button to the ground he avoided the full force of the blast. Edward,

who spent a year in hospital, has since undergone numerous operations for a
perforated eardrum and corrective surgery.

   Burdened with facial scars in his vulnerable teenage years, lumpy areas on
his skull, suggest that some of the shrapnel has yet to make its way to the
surface. His leg injuries mean that virtually all sports are ruled out and he is

on constant painkillers for headaches and joint pains.

   Though still plagued by nightmares, last year he left his job with an
insurance brokers to pursue a business studies degree at DCU. He is a member of

a close, loving and successful family, a fact they all attribute to their
mother, a bomb survivor in her own right but whose name will never feature on
the lists of maimed and damaged.

   She was only 32 with five children under nine when the bombs hit Dublin 20
years ago. The morning after her husband's death, she insisted on escorting
Angela to her First Communion. But in August that year, she was admitted to
hospital so close to death that she was given the Last Rites and, while her
children were in England being cared for by relatives, she gave birth to a full

term stillborn baby girl.

   Ida White, meanwhile, her "new hair do not only undone but badly singed
around the edges" spent two weeks at the Mater. She still suffers from a high
pitched noise in her ear (tinnitis), is partially deaf and has severe
discoloration on one of her legs. Her daughter, who spent a month in hospital,
has some scarring on her face and leg but was probably spared an ear injury
(common among those close to the blast) because her mother had just pulled her
anorak hood around her head.

   She has turned into "a lovely girl," says her mother. Ida cried non-stop for

three months after the explosion: "I used to stand by the sink peeling potatoes

and the whole thing would run round and round my mind like a documentary film."


   Catherine McLaughlin (now Cleaver) has undergone countless operations
including more than half a dozen more than the backs of her legs were so badly
shattered. Her hands, she says, are "not a pretty sight but they're workable."

   For a while, she wore a lot of make-up to disguise her facial scars, after
certain remarks concealing "a lot of unspoken words" found their target, "but
now I tell myself to think: 'If you knew half what I've suffered, you'd have a
lot more understanding'."

   The sights that people saw that day were beyond their experience or
comprehension. A man driving his car down Talbot Street was uninjured physically

but is since reported to have had several nervous breakdowns and has become
addicted to alcohol and tranquilisers. Others who stopped to help the injured
were so traumatised by what they had to deal with that they have chosen not to
meet those they helped.

   TO talk of compensation in that context seems meaningless but even for those

most closely affected by the catastrophe the extent of the compensation was
"abysmal" says Father McCarthy. No one then or to this day has been proved to
begat fault so there is no one for the bereaved and injured to sue unlike the
victims of a car accident, for example. The victims of the Dublin-Monaghan
bombings were therefore left with the ex-gratia awards of the Criminal Injuries

Compensation Tribunal.

   "It was just like take this go away be quiet" says Catherine McLaughlin.
Still clearly distressed by memories of her appearance before the all-male
tribunal, she remembers the humiliation of being obliged to bare parts of her
brutally scarred body, although photographs showing evidence of her condition
had already been supplied.

   The tribunal awards, when they came, valued a woman's life at less than a
man's and the basic "tear money" (for distress involved in losing a loved one)
award in 1974 was Pounds 1,000.

   Thus a young widow with several small children to rear, for example, got
Pounds 5,700 while a man who lost his wife and the mother of his children was
awarded Pounds 1,900. One child who was badly scarred and in need of extensive
plastic surgery got Pounds 3,000 and an old woman who lost both legs around
Pounds 2,000.

   One of the highest awards Pounds 35,000 went to a man whose body was
virtually torn apart. One of the lowest went to a 17-year-old with a burst
eardrum who received Pounds 120.

   "Even back then, the amounts seemed miserable," says Father McCarthy. "But
those affected were too scattered, they had no common voice, they had no one to

speak for them. And there was no one who came forward to speak for them."

   For many of them, their lives destroyed or changed forever by the events of
May 17th, 1974, the pain remains: "It's very much alive," says Catherine
McLaughlin. "It's not something that goes away, it just becomes a part of your
life."

    ......and now publish the Irish Times articles on the Birmingham disco
    bombing (25-30 dead, 100+ dismembered) and the Warrington bombing
    (purposely placed outside MacDonalds to injure as many young people as
    possible).
    
    John

  All wrong John.  Wrong when the British forces
  collude with those who murdered in Dublin, wrong when 
  the Irish Republican Army strike back.  Wrong when
  the British forces try to hide their complicity,
  wrong when the Irish Republican (now wait a minute,
  the IRA aren't hypocritical, they admit that they
  are fighting a war, and admit to their attacks).
  I see what you mean by hypocrisy.  The hypocrisy of
  the British government, and the British security
  forces.

                           Mark

    
     re last
    
     "the IRA aren't hypocritical, they admit that they are fighting a war"
    
     Is that the same war that earlier this week saw a car bomb explode in
    a civilians car, killing him and seriously injuring his 3 year old
    daughter? His crime, being a cleaner at a police station. His daughter
    has many serious injuries, she's on a life-support machine and hasn't
    regained conciousness (sp) since the attack.
    
     If, as you say, the IRA are fighting a war, why do they continually
    attack, kill and main innocent members of the public. Surely they 
    should face the other "armies" face to face and fight it out. The IRA,
    like all gangsters in Ulster, both catholic and prodestant are cowards
    who hide behind guns and carry out attacks on innocent people.
    
     Danny.

    Marc,
    
    We've had this discussion before.  If the IRA are fighting a "war" why
    do they bleat when Volunteers are taken out by security forces (with or
    without collusion) ?  
    
    If they are fighting a "war", why do they not
    observe the Geneva Convention ?
    
    If they are honourable people, why did the actual perpetrators of the
    Birmingham (and other) massacres, not stand up (in their safe hideouts)
    and tell the world that they and not the "B'ham 6", "Guildford 4" etc
    did the deed.
    
    Why do they sacrifice their own supporters in this way ?
    
    John

  You know, that's the sad thing about a war isn't it.
  I've yet to see one in which both sides don't manage
  to kill civilians.  I think we can all agree that
  war and violence are wrong.
 
  Why don't the British forces stop hiding in bases
  next to Irish schools, and stand out in the open
  and fight face to face?  Why don't they admit that
  they collude with the loyalist death squads?  Why
  do they fake evidence and imprison innocent men and
  women?  
  The cowards who hide behind censorship, guns, and
  childrens schools, are in British uniforms.

                     Mark

  

    The big difference Mark, and well you know it, is the IRA *target*
    civilians.  
    
    

    
    And round and round we go.. 

  re. .28
   Take a look at the note title.  Who did British
  Intelligence decide should be targeted in Dublin?
  Looks to me like the civilian population of Dublin.

                     Mark 
 

    And who said the British did it ?  Amnesty International ?  A dodgy
    Channel 4 program ?  Your mates in Noraid  ?   Sinn Fein ?
    
    

    Yawn..........
    
    		zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    All this bullshit about military targets makes me sick. The terrorists
    on both sides are cowardly scum, not "soldiers". They aren't fighting a
    war, they're killing innocent civilians for their own ends. Anyone
    supporting or defending any terrorist organisation is guilty of murder
    by association. Before you come out with any crap about collusion and
    the like Mark, get a grip, get a life.
    
    Laurie.

...and sit back and wait for some tedious git to start drawing parallels
between HMG and the terrorists, to apportion blame...

        re 27

>>> stand out in the open and fight face to face?  
  
      They'd love to fight the IRA face to face....why?.....Because they'd
    slaughter them in a straight fight.They IRA know this,this is why they
    hit and run.
    
    
    SCott

  re. .35

  I wouldn't call colluding with the loyalist death
  squads coming out in the open and fighting face to
  face.  I'd call it murder of political opposition by
  proxy.

                 Mark

    
    Does anybody care what YOU call it Mark...apart from yourself that is

>    Does anybody care what YOU call it Mark...apart from yourself that is

shall we have a vote on it?  I, for one, don't believe a word he says.

Chris.

    Nor do I.
    
    Laurie.

    then why bother reading/replying to his notes ??? Don't give him an
    audience for his diatribes. Just hit NEXT/UNSEEN

from An Phoblacht/Republican News
news and views of the Irish Republican Movement-Sinn Fein
May 18, 1995




      British Involved in Dublin/Monaghan Bombings Says RTE

     Five secret SAS-type units -- including one based in Dublin --
were set up by the British army in the 1970's for assassination
purposes, an RTE (Irish National Broadcasting Company)
program investigating alleged British intelligence involvement in
the Dublin and Monaghan bombings claimed.

     The "Primetime" program quoted a man, said to be at the heart
of the secret units operating in Derry, Newry, Castledillon, Co.
Armagh, Belfast and Dublin, that the talk at British army
headquarters after the 1974 bombings was that it was carried out in
conjunction with that army.

     The man, who gave a written statement to "Primetime", said the
five units were involved in assassination and the Derry unit
carried out a failed murder bid on IRA leader Daithi O Conaill.
The program outlined alleged collusion between the RUC Special
Branch, the SAS and loyalist paramilitaries.

     The program, on the day after the 21st anniversary of the
Dublin and Monaghan bombings, comes at a time of increasing public
pressure in the 26 counties for an independent public inquiry into
British involvement. The allegation that the 1974 bombings, which
left 33 people dead and over two hundred seriously injured, were
orchestrated by British military intelligence was highlighted by a
Yorkshire Television documentary in 1993.

     As well as repeating that allegation, the RTE program exposes
British covert activities in Counties Donegal and Monaghan in the
early 1990s. According to Dublin's Sunday Business Post a tape
recording made last year by a Sunday Mirror journalist and made
available to RTE, captures a conversation between a British
intelligence officer and an agent about explosives and detonators
being brought by car from Monaghan to County Tyrone by the agent
for delivery to a British army base.

     The 35-minute documentary "Friendly Forces", which is to be
shown Thursday on the Prime Time program on RTE 1, is to focus on
a British military intelligence organization known as the Joint
Services Group which operated on both sides of the border.

     During the making of the program a Londoner who worked as a
British agent south of the border was filmed telephoning the
British Embassy in Dublin. During the phone call, the former agent
speaks to the embassy's Military Attache, Colonel Sean Lambe, and
on another occasion, Lambe's assistant, Warrant Officer Geoff Camp
bell. Both calls were recorded.

     The calls, while not in themselves indicative of illegality,
do verify that the agent is known to the British Military Attache's
office in Dublin. During one conversation, it is confirmed that
Colonel Lambe visited the agent's family in the west of Ireland.
Meanwhile, the British government cover-up continues unabated. Last
week British direct ruler Patrick Mayhew slapped yet another Public
Interest Immunity Certificate on evidence to be submitted by former
Chief Constable John Stalker and the Director of Public
Prosecutions announced that there would be no prosecutions
following the six-year Stevens Inquiry into collusion.

     The final part of the report by John Stevens, the Chief
Constable of Northumbria, was passed to the Six-County DPP in
January. The report, which like the Stalker Inquiry before it,
remains secret, is believed to have laid out detailed evidence
against four members of the British crown forces involved in
sectarian killings.

     The DPP's refusal to prosecute marks the final chapter in the
collusion cover-up which began in 1989 with the revelation that
thousands of British intelligence documents containing the personal
details of nationalists were in the hands of loyalist death squads.
Intended as a whitewash, the Stevens Inquiry inadvertently exposed
the role of British agent Brian Nelson, probably the single most
damaging revelation about Britain's dirty war in Ireland.


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    I've just read it.
    
    My views have grown stronger.
    
    The sinking of the Belgrano? Baghdad? You have just defeated yourself
    in this argument.
    
    That was war pal. 
    
    You call the I.R.A. struggle a war. 
    
    The I.R.A. can blow things up willy nilly, but the British Army can't,
    due to rules of engagement, human rights etc.
    
    Hypocrite.
    
    
    
    CHARLEY

re .42,

been said many times before, and falls on deaf ears.  Apparently the
IRA can do what the hell they like to whomsoever they like, but it's
a different story when some of their brave freedom fighters is removed
from service.  Then all the yelling about `legitimate targets' and
`they're at war' is suddenly forgotten, at least until another civvy
cops it because of a trigger happy Republican.

Chris.

    Out of interest, how many of the people in this conference who are
    calling the SAS men 'cold blooded murderers' etc live in Ireland ?
    
    
    Jamie.

    What does it matter where people live? Are people that live in England
    the only ones entitled to an opinion? I consider anygroup that kills
    unarmed civilians, be it the SAS or IRA, cold blooded murderers.
    
    Two wrongs don't make a right. If the thugs were perpetrating a crime, 
    then arrest them, convict them, and sentence them accordingly. But
    shooting them first without due process?
    
    /George

    The British government has never, to the best of my knowledge,
    declared/acknowledged the "troubles" to be a war. Therefore, the
    rules of wartime engagement do not apply.
    
    John 
            

    Yes but the I.R.A. do.
    
    
    Basically what you are saying is "I.R.A. can, British Govt. can't"
    
    And it does matter where you come from.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    RE: .47
    
    I merely report a fact. Your interpretation of that is 
    entirely your own business, but don't put words on a page 
    for me.
    
    BTW.. why does it matter where I come from?
    
    John

>    I merely report a fact. Your interpretation of that is 

`facts' are often objective.  My interpretation of them is often
masked by the fact that I'm sometimes inclined to play `devil's
advocate' (or s..t stirrer, if you like).  And yours...?

Chris.

    .48
    
    So why tell us not to do something when you do it yourself????
    
    Pick your toys up.
    
    
    CHARLEY

In reply to 1236.42:
       
   >> The sinking of the Belgrano? Baghdad? You have just defeated yourself
   >> in this argument.

   >> That was war pal.

Yes CHARLEY, cetainly it was war. And the British State has a long and terrible
record of using terror against the civilian population during war. 

   >> You call the I.R.A. struggle a war.

Well I have heard British army generals call it one. The question is not
central to my argument though. 

   >> The I.R.A. can blow things up willy nilly, but the British Army can't,
   >> due to rules of engagement, human rights etc.

Don't put arguments into my mouth and then knock them down. I would agree with
those who say that the IRA should never have engaged in terror against
civilians. It is quite wrong, pointless, counterproductive, sickening, and
enables the British state to justify and increae its repression and cruelty. I
would also agree with the argument that if the IRA consider themselves soldiers
in a war then they should stick to military targets. HOWEVER, I reject the
right of those who themselves engage in terror against civilians or who justify
it to make that crticism of the IRA, and that goes for the British Army and
those who defend it. 
   

   >>Hypocrite.

Now that's not very pally, is it CHARLEY? If you find someting hypocritical
in my argument, do please point it out. But let's not trade insults. May I
invite you to withdraw that remark ? You know CHARLEY, rules of engagement,
etiquette, fair play, not cricket, and all that. 

Kevin

    Where do you live Kevin?
    
    
    CHARLEY

    During the week, in Ennis, Co Clare, CHARLEY, and at weekends in
    Taughmaconnell, Co Roscommon.
    
    And may I ask where you live yourself CHARLEY?
    
    Kevin  

    Would you shout so loudly if 3 members of the S.A.S. had been shot in
    the same circumstances.
    
    
    CHARLEY

Similar circumstances have occurred, although have been quickly forgotten
when the victims are members of HMG or associated forces.

Chris.

    That *does* surprise me.
    
    
    CHARLEY

     In reply to .54
    
    What do you mean by the same circumstances ?
    
    The antithesis of the question is wrong.
    
    I see a difference between those doing the bullying and those being
    bullied.
    
    And I see a difference between the possibilities of a guerilla army
    with about 1000 members to take prisoners and the British Army.
    
    Also, what do you mean by shouting ? The three IRA volunteers knew well
    that if they were caught they would be shot out of hand. The same goes
    for Robert Nairac, an SAS member who was indeed shot by the IRA in
    similar circumstances. 
    
    But what about Seamus Grew, who is the name I mentioned at the start of
    all this. He spent the day painting his mother's kitchen and was on his
    way home when he ran into the security forces. He was a citizen of the
    UK in the UK. His mother is still waiting for the truth. The inquest, I
    believe, has never been completed.
    
    I mention this because one Sunday I was in a Protestant Church in Oxford
    when prayers were said for Robert Nairac. I joined in the prayers, but
    I wondered, why wern't there any for Seamus?
    
    Robert Nairac should have stayed at home in England's green and
    pleasant land. He had no need to join in the opression of the
    nationalist communities of Belfast where the IRA volunteers came from. 
    I take no pleasure in his death, and I have made my position clear on
    IRA methods already.
    
    But CHARLEY, tell me, what do you think of those who cheer and dance in
    the streets when IRA volunteers are killed, and support terrorist
    attacks on the minority communities? What do think about the historical
    argument of the nationalist community in the North that a democratic
    decision by the House of Commons and House of Lords was turned over by
    the terrorist activities of the UVF? 
    
    Kevin            
    
    

    O.K. a few years back.
    
    The two soldiers that took a wrong turn and a mob of 20 blokes stopped
    thier car pulled them out, stripped them and shot them through the
    heads. All of this was caught on national telly.
    
    Not one was arrested, taken to court, had a T.V. program made about
    them, petitioned etc.
    
    It's one rule for one and one rule for another.
    
    So don't talk to me about human rights.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    >Not one was arrested, taken to court, had a T.V. program made about
    >them, petitioned etc.
    
    Charlie,
    
    Your statement may not be accurate if you're talking about the 2 soldiers,
    (Derek Smith and someone else that drove into the funeral procession in
    the VW scirroco) I believe the British detained about 20 men after viewing
    the videos, and I further believe that many of them were prosecuted
    and jailed for that heinous crime. I'll get back to you with more info
    on the case.
    
    George
    
                           

 re. .58

 I'm probably wasting my time on educating you Charley.

>     The two soldiers that took a wrong turn and a mob of 20 blokes stopped
>     thier car pulled them out, stripped them and shot them through the
>     heads. All of this was caught on national telly.

  Two armed British soldiers in civilian dress, who drove their car into
   a funeral procession for Kevin Brady.  Kevin having been murdered a few
   days before by loyalist Michael Stone (aided by the RUC).
    
   The crowd, fearing they were being attacked again, disarmed and removed
   the men from the car.  The Irish Republican Army later killed these 
   two undercover soldiers.

>     Not one was arrested, taken to court, had a T.V. program made about
>    them, petitioned etc.

   Hundreds of innocent people were arrested or raided by the "security forces".
   Charges have ranged from assault and affray to false imprisonment and murder.
   None of those hundreds were ever accused of the actual killing or even
   of being members of the IRA.

   Amnesty International has expressed deep concern over the violations of
   the rights of all these innocent people, and the British principle of
   "common purpose".  The trials of these people have occurred in no-jury
   courts, in which the Right to Silence has been abolished.

   This was obviously the British way to punish the local community for the
   subsequent actions of the IRA.

>      It's one rule for one and one rule for another.

   I'll say.  It's a slap on the wrist when a British soldier murders an
   Irish man or woman.  It's life in prison when an Irish man or woman
   tries to protect themselves.

>    So don't talk to me about human rights.
   
   I figure the only way you could be educated is with a two by four.  I 
   put in the note so others aren't mislead by your lies.


                         Mark
    
    

>   I figure the only way you could be educated is with a two by four.  I 
>   put in the note so others aren't mislead by your lies.

very civilised of you.  At least we know where you're coming from, now.

Chris.

    reply to .58
    
    I don't have the full facts on this, but I am fairly sure that your
    desription is not complete either.
    
    These killings followed killings at another funeral a few days before
    by loyalist terrorists. 
    
    There have been court cases about it.
    
    I'm not talking to you about human rights. I'm saying it is a dirty war
    and it is time to go. And I'll say it again, many young squaddies caught
    up in it are workers who cannot afford to buy their way out of the
    army. If they were given a free choice they would probably hop it at
    once. I regret that they are caught up in it and get killed in it.
    
    I take your point that the IRA cannot expect much sympathy on human
    rights when they terrorize civilians. 
    
    But why do you keep insisting that the British Army is as white and
    innocent and pristine as the England criket team trotting down the
    steps at Lords?   
    
    And why do you not adress the question of the historical injustice and
    constant terror which the nationalist minorities in the North have been
    subjected to?
    
    And when are you going to take back your "hypocrite" insult, you tory
    stooge???
    
    I'm going home for the weekend.
    
    Kevin

>    But why do you keep insisting that the British Army is as white and
>    innocent and pristine as the England criket team trotting down the
>    steps at Lords?   
    
probably as a contrast to those who insist that the opposite is true.

Chris.

    KMANNERINGS :- Oh dear, I had you down as a sensible lad until the
    weedy playground insult at the end. I suggest you eat as much ice cream
    and jelly as you can over the weekend.
    
    
    Are you threatening me HOLOHAN...??
    
    As that just about sums up the mentality of all I.R.A. members and
    their sympathisers.
    
    My final point :- I believe that the British army should pull out
    And  1/ Wait for the Catholics to start wailing for our protection like
    last time or 2/ let the civil war start and supply arms to the
    protestants.
    
    
    CHARLEY
    
    

    RE a long way back...
    
    The reason I asked about where people live is because the further away
    you are from where something happens, the more distorted the picture
    you get. It seems that many Americans in here are at one end of the
    spectrum; English b*stard murdering scum, and many English in here are
    at the other end; Irish b*stard murdering scum.
    
    The most balanced view in this note comes from Kevin Mannerings who
    lives in Ireland and recognises that there are atrocities and tragedies
    on both sides; the people dying are the troops - and they don't always
    have much choice about it.
    
    So, your location is *very* important. Ever played 'Chinese Whispers' ?
    I *know* that what I hear is what the media tell me and I therefore am
    aware that it's not necessarily true or the whole story. I urge some of
    you to be similarly aware.
    
    Jamie.

CHARLEY,

first and BTW, I call you CHARLEY as that is how you sign yourself, and I
assume that is what you want to be called
 
>    KMANNERINGS :- Oh dear, I had you down as a sensible lad until the
>    weedy playground insult at the end. I suggest you eat as much ice cream
>    and jelly as you can over the weekend.
    
For someone who preaches about double standards and rules of engagement
this is rich. You call me a hypocrite and then go into your silly child routine
when I reply in kind. Your silly child routine has a purpose though. You use it
to avoid debate and not answer questions. This, although you ask plenty of
questions yourself which I have tried to answer as honestly as possible. The
reason you do not answer my questions is obviously because you don't have an 
answer for them and don't want to question your own blinkered views. 
    
>    Are you threatening me HOLOHAN...??

Mark Houlahan's remark is a disgrace.
    
>    As that just about sums up the mentality ofD all I.R.A. members and
>    their sympathisers.
    
>    My final point :- I believe that the British army should pull out
>    And  1/ Wait for the Catholics to start wailing for our protection like
>    last time or 2/ let the civil war start and supply arms to the
>    protestants.

If that is the level of your political contribution, it is no wonder you have
to hide behind your silly child routine. What you are saying is, those mad
Irish keep fighting one another and we unfortunate English have got caught up
in it again. What you are calling for is ethnic cleansing of the catholic areas
of Northern Ireland, and that indeed has been the aim of much of the terror and
pogroms to which those communities have been subjected since the British
Parliament decided to grant home rule to Ireland, following several elections
on the question, before WW1. 

You should not be surprised when the physical force tradition in the Republican
movement reply in kind, and frankly when the crocodile tears about fair play
then come, the derision they provoke amoung Republicans is understandable. 

Fortunately, the great majority of fair minded British people reject your
sectarian and bigoted position. The tragedy of the conflict is that the
mistaken methods of the IRA and their petit-bourgeois nationalist agenda
has prevented mobilising mass opposition to the sectarian imperialist position
and we are politically not much further than we were when the stones started
raining down at Burntollet Bridge.      
    
Kevin Mannerings    
                                 
    

    <those mad Irish are fighting each other again>
    
    IS THAT NOT THE CASE?????
    
    I have not stated anything hypocritical.
    
    It was the people who in here and in 1511 saying it's O.K. for the
    I.R.A. to do it but you can't.
    To be fair kevin you've highlighted atrocities on both sides.
    I got annoyed with the narrow minded berks who say yeah S.A.S. @#$%&%$
    pigs got done for killing people. 
    
    I went over the top at you when it wasn't your fault.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    NO CHARLEY, it is not the case that those mad Irish are at it again. 
    
    The great majority of people in Ireland reject the violence and despair
    at the inadequacy of politicians who have failed to stop it. The
    origins of the conflict are historical, political and social, NOT
    racial.
    
    Both the Republic of Ireland and the UK have large minority populations 
    of British and Irish citizens respectively, not to mention the millions of
    us who are a happy mixture, (a la Jack Charltons football team). 99% of
    us work and live together in peace and it is absurd to let a tiny
    minority set the agenda, spreading religious and political hatred.
    
    Kevin  
         

    So if people reject the violence and despair at the inadequacy of
    politicians, why elect Sinn Fein????
    
    
    CHARLEY

> The tragedy of the conflict is that the
> mistaken methods of the IRA and their petit-bourgeois nationalist agenda


  Come on Kevin, "petit-bourgeois nationalist agenda".  You're way off base
  here.  It might cozy up to the likes of Charley (who would kill over a 
  ball bearing), but it doesn't cut it in the light of day. These people
  aren't in it for any bourgeois agenda.
  They are struggling against years of injustice that's been reaped upon
  them by the British.  Why are Nationalists twice as likely to be unemployed?
  Why are their two kinds of justice, one for Nationalists, and one for the
  British and their supporters?  Why can British forces murder with impunity
  and get a slap on the wrist, or a party back at the barracks?  Why does the
  British government turn over dossiers on Nationalists to the Loyalist hit
  squads?   Why does the international human rights community continue to
  condemn the British for these crimes?  
  I'll tell you why, because the British are dead wrong.

  Could you seriously believe that the ten men who died in the hunger strike,
  were pursuing a bourgeois agenda? 

  It is hypocritical to fault brave men and women who fight back against this
  injustice.


                           Mark

    Whatever I might say against the IRA, I wouldn't say "petit-bourgeois"!
                                                           

> The tragedy of the conflict is that the
> mistaken methods of the IRA and their petit-bourgeois nationalist agenda


>  Come on Kevin, "petit-bourgeois nationalist agenda".  You're way off base
>  here.  It might cozy up to the likes of Charley (who would kill over a 
>  ball bearing), but it doesn't cut it in the light of day. These people
>  aren't in it for any bourgeois agenda.

I'm not sure those who have criticised me on this understand what I mean.
And indeed Mark Holohan (got the spelling right this time), I don't think you
share my class analysis of society or my perspective on capitalism. For me Sinn
Fein/IRA is a fairly typical nationalist movement which draws its ideology from
the self employed, small farmers, professional people, the petit bourgeoisie.
It has little time for the politics of the industrial working class and no 
significant support in the working class. The nearest to them in Irish politics
is Fianna Fail, and indeed Gerry Adams has called Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein's 
political cousins. He also talks wistfully about the Mick Collins tradition 
in Fine Gael. Given the history of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael and their
treatment of IRA prisoners since the civil war I find this hard to take.
(Pierepoint, Liam Lynch)

Sinn Fein/IRA has been consistently rejected by the labour movement and the
trade unions, and does not even seek support in the wider working class, in
particular the protestant working class, even though there have been signs that 
the protestant workers reject sectarian violence, as shown by the magnificent
protest strike against the murders of their catholic colleagues by the largely
protestant workers at Harland and Wolf. Sinn Fein/IRA could not relate to this. 
They have never got beyond a murderous and useless strategy of tit for tat 
killings as a response to sectarian murders, which reached its awful climax
when a teenager was sent into a fish shop on the Shankill Road with a badly
made bomb.      

>cosy up to CHARLEY ?? 
No fanks!


 > Could you seriously believe that the ten men who died in the hunger strike,
 > were pursuing a bourgeois agenda? 
 >
 > It is hypocritical to fault brave men and women who fight back against this
 >  injustice.

I recognise the bravery and dedication of IRA volunteers. Francis Hughes was a
talented guerilla leader who was more than a match for the SAS, and who stuck
to military targets and saw himself as a soldier. But where are
they being lead, Mark ? Was it all worth it just to shake hands with Albert
Renolds and Bill Clinton? What have those two clowns got to offer young
workers? I'll tell you what, Mark, stinking jobs in the meat factories and
hamburger shops for lousy wages. 

Kevin 
    
PS .71 alright then, what do you and yer granny think are the politics of
    Sinn Fein/IRA ? 

    Good note Kev.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    re .73
    
    
    Oh gawd ... how embarassing. 

> And indeed Mark Holohan (got the spelling right this time), I don't think you
> share my class analysis of society or my perspective on capitalism.

  Reading Karl Marx, and agreeing with everything he says, are two
  different things.  And no, I haven't gotten the forman's job at last :-)

> For me Sinn
> Fein/IRA is a fairly typical nationalist movement which draws its ideologyfrom
> the self employed, small farmers, professional people, the petit bourgeoisie.

  Like any political party, you'll find a variety of people offering support.
  Quite frankly what's wrong with the ideology of someone who is self employed,
  or owns a small farm, or is a professional?  If you got to that position 
  through hard work, than all the more power to you, and I'd value your input.

  Sinn Fein draws most of it's support from the community of people that have
  suffered the most from the British occupation.  This includes the Nationalist
  ghettoes.  Would you call the folks in Ballymurphy - self employed, gentleman
  farmers who live the bourgeoisie live style?

> It has little time for the politics of the industrial working class and no 
> significant support in the working class.

  Sinn Fein is busy trying to move this peace process forward.  Gerry Adams has
  consistently offered his hand to all political parties in north east Ireland.
  He has agreed to put the past behind, and move forward with the future.

  How do you define "working class"?  Do you rule out the people who want to
  work, but are not allowed to under Her Majesty's policies of discrimination.

> Sinn Fein/IRA could not relate to this. 
> They have never got beyond a murderous and useless strategy of tit for tat 
> killings as a response to sectarian murders, which reached its awful climax
> when a teenager was sent into a fish shop on the Shankill Road with a badly
> made bomb. 

  Sinn Fein is a democratic political party, who use the democratic system to
  advance the goals of the Nationalist community.  The Irish Republican Army
  are a military force, who up until the cease-fire, used military methods to
  advance the goals fo the Nationalist community.  Sinn Fein is not the IRA.
  They happen to share a similiar goal, but have different methods of achieving
  that goal.

  As for "tit for tat", read note 1124.  This is a myth perpetuated by the
  British government. The article is written by Martin Finucane.  His brother
  was Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.  Pat was murdered by the British
  establishment.

  I think you also know that the Shankill Road bombing was an attempt to 
  decapitate a Loyalist murder squad (in the pockets of the British government).

> Francis Hughes was a
> talented guerilla leader who was more than a match for the SAS, and who stuck
> to military targets and saw himself as a soldier. 
> But where are
> they being lead, Mark ?

  Hopefully down the road to peace.  That unfortunately will depend on the
  British government finally agreeing to sit down with the democratically
  elected representatives of all the people of the Island.

> Was it all worth it just to shake hands with Albert
> Renolds and Bill Clinton?

  Nope, that gesture was only symbolic.  Only time will tell.  Unfortunately
  the rumour mill says that the British are preparing to use this "opportunaty"
  to make another sweep of the Nationalist areas, arresting suspected
  Republicans.

> What have those two clowns got to offer young
> workers? I'll tell you what, Mark, stinking jobs in the meat factories and
> hamburger shops for lousy wages.

  First you need peace.  Then you can have economic development.  Fair wages
  can be attained by collective bargaining, and government minimum wage
  guarantees. Add to this educational opportunity, and anyone with the will
  to strive can better themselves.

  Britain is still a very class oriented society.  Getting away from it is
  the first step towards economic opportunity for all.

  
                                Mark

  CHARLEY,

>     Are you threatening me HOLOHAN...??

  Nope. It's your views that help demonstrate to the noting community the
  bigotted nature of some Britain's, and unfortunately the nature of those
  in power in the British establishment. 

                Mark

    re .75
    Mark, I'm on training for the rest of the week and will get back to you
    later.
    Kevin

    .75 AND .76
    
    Two more comedy notes by a "It's O.K. to blow childrens legs off" racist.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    Re .78
    
    One more comedy note by a "It's O.K. to shoot Irish people in the
    street" racist.

    .75 sounds pretty logical and straight me...

    .78
    
    No, it's O.K. to shoot terrorists in the street - there is a
    difference.
    
    
    CHARLEY

>    One more comedy note by a "It's O.K. to shoot Irish people in the
>    street" racist.

another comedy note by an "it's okay to kick English kiddies' heads
in" racist.

Chris.

What is this whole string trying to achieve?  It's obvious that there
are people with strong opinions on both sides entering notes that they
would otherwise never enter into a *public* forum like this.  Why not
agree to disagree on this one and move onto something else that we
might be able to solve, or at least not get so heated/upset about. 

We have a lot more in common than not!  Why can't we work on that
rather than harbouring feelings/resentments from the past that are as
destructive now as they were then? 

                          James.

    Yup,
    
    	When I first started reading this conf last year say, I thought
    there would be some good celtic notes which would encourage me to go to
    Ireland on holiday. But Iam sorry to say after all this bantering which
    takes place daily, I think I'll give Ireland especially Northern
    Ireland a miss. 
    
    	Hows the hell is anything going to get resolved with all this -ve
    vibes which are coming from the common people.....
    
    	Oh well theres one good thing about leaving digital, I'll not need
    to read anymore so called celtic notes.....
    
    				Alan.......

> Oh well theres one good thing about leaving digital, I'll not need
> to read anymore so called celtic notes.....

You don't have to leave Digital, you just have to delete CELT from your
notebook.  Such drastic action is unnecessary ;-).

                            James.

    Sh.t,
    
    
    	I wished I though of that before I handed in my resignation.....
    
    
    
    			Oh Well......

Good luck anyhow on the outside!

>     from the south, and if you ask me, when the vote comes, most of them
>    will choose to stay with Britain simply because of the economics of it.

Well put Laurie, or as someone said recently - when push comes to shove - 
the half-crown is and always was more powerful than the crown up north,
or anywhere for that matter!

                             James.

    Well said Laurie. I myself have visited the north, south, east and west
    and have encountered very little of the narrow minded biggotry that
    some people adhere to concerning the troubles.
    
    Celtic culture and history is very vast and very interesting and has
    little or nothing to do with the un-educated or ill-informed bigotry
    which unfortunately punctutaes this conference.
    
    Shaun 

    Just a quick reply to .83, .84.                              A
    
    What am I trying to achieve?
    
    I would strongly disagree with those who turn their backs and ignore
    the bigots, chauvinists, and propagandists who are using this
    notesfile. The terrorist murderers need such an environment to massage
    their egos and survive. The cancer of sectarianism and the murder it
    brings with it can only be beaten if the great majority who reject it
    speak out and argue with all its various forms. Nor is it a purely
    Anglo-Irish problem. Look at Jugoslavia. The clock doesn't necessarily
    move forward, it moves backwards to. 
    
    So don't bury your heads in the sand, speak out against it.
    
    Life is too wonderful to leave to such elements.  
    
    Kevin

    Re .91
    
    Well said Kevin.
    
    I would, however, also add that the discussions which go on in this
    conference help people to appreciate that there is another side to the
    story. In Britain most people are spoon-fed the opinions of the popular
    press which wholeheartedly supports one side. The people who read this
    section of the "popular press" tend not to be interested in the fuller
    story which good documentary type TV programmes often give. For
    example, very few people whom I spoke to saw the BBC Panorama programme
    which examined the evidence for and against Private Lee Clegg, but many
    read the "newspapers" (E.G. The Sun and The Mirror) which gave a
    one-sided story and even mounted campaigns to have Clegg released from
    jail.
    
    Argument is the whole basis of democracy. How can anyone reach a
    considered opinion until he or she has considered all sides?
    
    Let's argue!
    
    Ed.

    I agree that one needs to see both sides, all sides?, if one is to
    reach a sensible decision. What happens here is that information is
    selectively presented.
    Mark repeatedly cites Amnesty International as stating various view,
    and he reports these accurately, though with passion. I took the time
    to read the 1994 report, I would read the 1995 report but have not yet
    found a copy. As Mark says the 1994 report raises questions about the
    actions of the British Government. What this report also, roundly
    condemns is the actions of loayalist and catholic terrorists. Indeed I
    would say that there are more concerns raised about terrorist actions
    than Governemnt actions.
    Until the terrorists, of all sides, make some moves, other than
    stopping lawless activities I find it hard to see progress occurring,
    and I am saddened by that. I would further agree that all parties now
    seem to be in a standoff situation with no one prepared to make the
    first/next move.
    
    Andrew

    Clegg was innocent.
    
    
    CHARLEY

Re -1

God loves a trier CHARLIE!

                          James.

    If Clegg is innocent, somebody else is guilty.
    
    John

    Re .95
    
    Yeah...
    
    	and so is OJ Simpson!!!!

    re .98
    
    	Eddie,
    
    	Good man, I always new you would come round.
    
    	O.J has now the problem of changing the whites minds.....!
    
    	Something along the same sort of line as in this conf....its gona
      
    	be hard for him.....
    
    				...Alan

    Take your blinkers off lads.
    
    
    CHARLEY

    CHARLEY - why do you spell your name with an 'EY'. Is it perhaps an
    effiminate affectation or are you female?
    
    If indeed you are a woman, and not just an attention seeking screamer,
    please accept my apologies.
    
    Regards
    Mark(ey)

    
    	Thats probably one of the weirdest notes I've seen in here, what
    does it matter the way you spell your name, sometimes I spell Alan with
    two y's....
    
    	Why do you ask take the blinkers of when refering to the O.J case,
    cant you see that this good old honest American citizen was set up. I
    can and so does Eddie....
    
    			Alyayn...
    

    Please! OJ in a different note, not this one. In fact,
    in a different conference.
    

  Andrew,
>    Mark repeatedly cites Amnesty International as stating various view,
>    and he reports these accurately, though with passion. I took the time
>    to read the 1994 report, I would read the 1995 report but have not yet
>    found a copy. As Mark says the 1994 report raises questions about the
>    actions of the British Government. What this report also, roundly
>    condemns is the actions of loyalist and catholic terrorists. 

  The report contains 47 pages.  5 are dedicted to abuses by Republican
  groups (not "catholic terrorists"). AI is impartial and is reporting
  against all abuses.  AI had to utilize the other 42 pages to list the
  crimes committed by the British forces, and their loyalist allies.

  Reading the report, it's easy to see who is driving the injustice in
  north east Ireland.  That is the British forces, with their shoot-to-kill,
  collusion with loyalist terrorist groups, cover-ups etc.

                      Mark

>     Might I suggest you refrain from such 'tatter' ?    
>     Shaun


  And what was your opinion of the report then?

                    Mark

      

Stir, stir... business as usual I see... :(

Chris.

> I have not read the report, in fact i've not read any AI official
> reports. Although I fully respect and appreciate the work AI does it is
> still only a pressure group, as is Greenpeace, and like many pressure
> groups it lacks the resources necessary to produce 100% factual
> reports.

  Might I suggest that you read an AI report before you categorize it?

>   I myself prefer to base my oppinions on the many and various publicised
>   works documenting the 'Troubles' by respected historians and political
>   analysts.

  Do tell.

                         Mark

  Let's see, you don't consider "pressure group", "lacks the resources necessary
  to produce 100% factual"  categorizing the work of an Amnesty International
  report.  None of which you have ever read.  OK, I got it.  I won't waste
  my time with you anymore.

>     Shaun$amused

  Well, on a positive note, at least something comes easily to you.


                    Have a nice day,
                         Mark

Don't take yourself so seriously, Mark.  No-one else does.

Chris.

    Right, i'll try again. My initial note criticised your use of
    propoganda .... *your* use. You replied by asking if I had read the
    report. I replied that i hadn't, that I see no relation between my
    oppinion of your biasedness and the report, and that if I were to read
    the report I would be naive to draw conclusions based on one report
    alone....be it from AI, The White House or Aunt Mauds cookery recipes
    for NI.
    
    I also, quite honestly, stated that no pressure group - in fact noone
    or nothing - has the resources necesary to produce a document which is
    100%....thats 100%....accurate. Hence the need for people who desire to
    form an oppinion on a particular subject to consult a broad range of
    text relating to that subject.
    
    If you find that the above is total pugwash then you're a very sad mad
    indeed. If you also feel that you shouldn't 'bother' with me in the
    future then thats no real loss.....is it ?
    
    If, however, you wish to discuss the Irish troubles then i'd be very
    interested in hearing your oppinion as it is a subject that interests
    me greatly and one on which I have spent a fair while studying.
    
    Should I add that, as much as I enjoy discussion, I detest 'The Sun'
    like comments that occasionaly puctuates your notes.
    
    I hope this clears any confusion over the matter and is thus the last I
    shall say on this particular note.
    
    I look forward to discussing soberly with you in the future.
    
    Shaun.

>    I look forward to discussing soberly with you in the future.
    
don't hold your breath, Shaun, our Mark's not given to being particularly
open minded.  Time and again people have tried to carry out reasonable
debate, time and again they are treated to the same hostile response.  If
a person wanted to make a point, they would try to win people over; if
someone wants an argument, or to create ill feeling, they come across as
very hostile and insulting.  Our friend would appear to fall into the
latter category every time.

Chris.

    .113
    
    :^))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

In reply to .75

>  Like any political party, you'll find a variety of people offering support.
>  Quite frankly what's wrong with the ideology of someone who is self employed,
>  or owns a small farm, or is a professional?  

Not necessarily anything.

But the tendency of political movements which arise from this social group 
tend to reflect the situation they are in. They tend to be individualists, who 
do not relate to the politics of collective action and trade unionism as they 
do not face the problem of workers trying to organise strikes etc.  Thus most 
trade unionists oppose racism and sectarianism, as they realise such divisions 
amoung workers have a disastrous effect on solidarity amoung the workers. Small
farmers, shopkeepers, solicitors etc have no such tradition and no such need to
organise coollective action to achieve their goals. That does not mean that all 
small farmers are potential nationalists or anything so mechanical. Individuals
in any class may support the politics of a different class. But the tendency
and tradition is there.

 
>  Sinn Fein draws most of it's support from the community of people that have
> suffered the most from the British occupation.  This includes the Nationalist
> ghettoes.  Would you call the folks in Ballymurphy - self employed, gentleman
> farmers who live the bourgeoisie live style?

Of course not.  You are approaching the question very mechanically. I am saying
the ideology of Sinn Fein/IRA is not that of the broard working class. That
does not mean they have no support amoung the working class. A sustantial
proportion (20-30%) of the British working class vote tory. That does not mean
that the tory party draws its ideology from the working class (!). 


>  How do you define "working class"?  Do you rule out the people who want to
>  work, but are not allowed to under Her Majesty's policies of discrimination.

All those who have to sell their labour power to capital to obtain a living. The
unemployed are part of that. Social welfare, eudcation, health services etc are
a part of the social wage which capital pays to labour.   


> Sinn Fein is a democratic political party, who use the democratic system to
> advance the goals of the Nationalist community.  The Irish Republican Army
> are a military force, who up until the cease-fire, used military methods to
> advance the goals fo the Nationalist community.  Sinn Fein is not the IRA.
> They happen to share a similiar goal, but have different methods of achieving
> that goal.

I can see no difference in their politics, as you say, they share a similar
goal.


>  As for "tit for tat", read note 1124.  This is a myth perpetuated by the
>  British government. The article is written by Martin Finucane.  His brother
>  was Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.  Pat was murdered by the British
>  establishment.

>  I think you also know that the Shankill Road bombing was an attempt to 
>  decapitate a Loyalist murder squad (in the pockets of the British government
  
The label given to such actions is irrelevant to my argument. Call it an attempt
to decapitate a loyalist murder squad if you like. Personally I feel such a
desription and also what happened shows a callous lack of feeling for the 
innocent protestants who happpened to be in the shop at the time, and it should
be said that whoever "planned" the operation took protestant civilian
casualties to be an "acceptable" risk, if not a "positive side-effect".
But that is  all of no consequence to my argument. Let us assume the IRA had 
carried out a  "nice clean doorstep job," and had suceeded in killing four 
known psychopathic mass murderers, all known to have had contact with the 
RUC/MI5 etc etc, with no innocent victims. What would it have achieved ? 
Absolutely nothing apart from an ego boost for those who believe in such 
methods. The loyalist terrorists would not have been isolated from their host 
community or damaged politically.  New terrorists would come forward and the 
legitimacy of the group would have been strenghthened. An atmosphere is created
in which the dark side of the British state can pursue shoot-to-kill, community 
bullying, and clandestine dirty operations amidst the political confusion. 

The way to defeat the loyalist terrorists is to work for solidarity between 
the two communities on a non-sectarian class basis. Sinn Fein/IRA have no 
concept for this. Indeed the protestants in Gerry Adam's constituency went 
out and voted for the SDLP at the last election to ensure his electoral defeat.

Your continuous blaming of the Brits serves to hide from this political fact,
however true parts of what you say may be. The political attitude towards
protestants by the Sinn Fein/IRA is reflected in your own attitude to fellow
workers at Digital in this conference Mark, who you heap weird abuse on and
make strange remarks about with threatening content.  You think in nationalist 
categories and not as an internationalist. That means you are not capable of 
dealing with the nationalist and imperialist prejudices of some other 
contributors, but get reduced to inane squabbles. You are not concerned to 
win their solidarity against the loyalist terrorists or for their support of 
the right of Irsh self-determination and you have no strategy to isolate and 
expose any supporters of loyalist terrorism, not least because for example 
your own evident indifference to the innocent victims of the Shankill atrocity
means that your fellow workers would not listen to you anyway.
                                      
It is quite possible that the peace process will fail and that we will have
another round of this political madness. I fear it is quite likely that there
will be splits amoung republican paramilitaries as the weakness of their
politics becomes apparent.  

One last word to those who say that it is hopeless to try and persuade certain
participants here. Maybe it is in some cases. Nevertheless it is important to
counter the arguments.

Heaven knows, it is not that difficult.

Kevin  

    *APPLAUSE*
    
    
    CHARLEY

    I have to thankyou Kevin on writing such a ballanced and well thought
    out note that I feel expressed the views of those of us who are trying
    to propogate constructive debate.
    
    I bet that took some time ;-)
    
    Shaun

re .117,

wot 'e said.  Thanks for taking the time to write a balanced analysis
of the problems of communication!

Chris.

    RE: .117
    
    Well said, Sir.
    
    Laurie.

In reply to .117 (Kevin)

  COMMIE! PINKO!  just kidding ;-)  For those of you who are joke impaired,
  this was meant as a joke, and only a joke.

> They tend to be individualists, who 
> do not relate to the politics of collective action and trade unionism as they 
> do not face the problem of workers trying to organise strikes etc.

  There is nothing wrong with a bit of individualism.  Human beings are not
  bees in a hive.  I agree that there are times when individuals should come
  together to work on a collective action (be it trade unions, social issues,
  or to overthrow an oppressive occupying government).

> I am saying
> the ideology of Sinn Fein/IRA is not that of the broard working class. That
> does not mean they have no support amoung the working class.  

  I don't agree.  Sinn Fein in the occupied counties draws most of it's 
  support from the people you defined as "working class". 

> A sustantial
> proportion (20-30%) of the British working class vote tory. That does not mean
> that the tory party draws its ideology from the working class (!).

  And here I was thinking that the Labour party was drawing it's members
  from the Tory party :-)  I'll be surprised if you see any of the British
  working class voting Tory next time around. 

> I can see no difference in their politics, as you say, they share a similar
> goal.

  Regarding Sinn Fein and the IRA.
  There is a difference between the politics of war, and the politics of
  the ballot box. 

> Your continuous blaming of the Brits serves to hide from this political fact,
> however true parts of what you say may be.

  I've concluded that the British government are at the heart of this problem.
  This is a conclusion drawn from considerable investigation.  Most of my
  conclusions have been reached after reading the reports of international
  human rights groups regarding north east Ireland.  These groups are not only
  Amnesty International, but Helsinki Watch, European Human Rights Watch,
  and various local north east Ireland groups.

> The political attitude towards
> protestants by the Sinn Fein/IRA is reflected in your own attitude to fellow
> workers at Digital in this conference Mark, who you heap weird abuse on and
> make strange remarks about with threatening content.

  I lost my temper with your number one fan (CHARLEY). I've no time
  for his bigotted remarks regarding Catholics.  As for attitudes towards
  Protestants,  you're way of base here, my mother is Protestant.  I wouldn't
  support a group that was anti-Protestant, any more than one that was
  anti-Catholic.  As a firm believer in separation of Church and state, I
  wouldn't support any group that was associated with a particular religion.
  But this isn't an issue of religion.  It's an issue of freedom, and 
  human rights.

> You think in nationalist 
> categories and not as an internationalist.

  Actually, I think of myself as a citizen of the world first, and a U.S.
  citizen second.  If I didn't I probably wouldn't have posted or distributed
  my first Amnesty International Report.

> You are not concerned to 
> win their solidarity against the loyalist terrorists or for their support of 
> the right of Irsh self-determination and you have no strategy to isolate and 
> expose any supporters of loyalist terrorism, not least because for example 
> your own evident indifference to the innocent victims of the Shankill atrocity
> means that your fellow workers would not listen to you anyway.

  You're wrong here.  I in no way condone the killing of the innocent civilians
  in the Shankill fish shop.  I do however understand why the Irish Republican
  Army tried to decapitate the loyalist death squad that operated from it.
  Have you forgotten the killings of so many Nationalists by this death
  squad, just before the cease-fire was to take place.
 

                                        Mark

 

    Mark,
    
    You are side-stepping my argument Mark. You say you understand why the
    IRA tried to decapitate the loyalist death squad. My point is that even
    if they had suceeded, it would not have achieved anything.
    
    I accept what you say about the killings of protestants, but it would
    help if you put such sentiments at the front and not the back. 
    
    With respect, your mother's religion does not change the politics of 
    Sinn Fein. I did not say that Sinn fein was anti-protestant, I said it
    was indifferent to the support of the protestant working class and has
    no support there, and is not exactly following a state of the art
    marketing strategy to get it.
    
    On the question of defeating an imperial occupying power, which you say
    is your aim, have you considered how this can be achieved? I would put
    it to you that without mass support in Ireland and Britain, it can't
    be. How do you think that support can be built ?
    
    No side stepping please, and no "THE BRITS ARE THE CAUSE OF IT ALL"
    simplifications as ersatz answers, I think we have all got the drift of
    your argument there by now you know.
    
    Kevin 

  Kevin,
    On the contrary, I have not side-stepped your argument.  Your argument
  contained many points.  Some of which I have given my opinion on, such
  as individualism vs collectivism, where Sinn Fein draws most of it's support,
  the politics of war vs the politics of the ballot box, and not to belabour
  the point, my reasons for laying most of the blame on the British.

    As for the Shankill bombing, no one can predict the outcome if the Irish
  Republican Army had succeeded in killing the leaders of that Loyalist 
  death squad.  One could hazard a guess, that there would have been less
  dead Nationalist civilians.

    As for Sinn Fein, they and the SDLP have been the only parties to hold
  out their hands to their political opposition, and ask for immediate all
  party talks, so that the peace process can stand a chance.  I wouldn't say
  that a party attempting to advance the peace process was "indifferent to
  the support of the protestant working class".  Peace is positive for both
  the Nationalist and Loyalist community.  You must also remember that up 
  until last year, Sinn Fein was demonized and censored by the British 
  government.  That didn't exactly set the stage for Sinn Fein being able to
  canvass the protestant working class communties.  The British government
  has already polarized the two communities with it's policies of demonization
  and past censorship.  That process can only be undone at the peace table.

                              Mark

    Kevin, you really are wasting your time...
    
    Laurie.

    Question,
    
    
    	Why is it every note in this conf finally goes to that old slagging
    match, come on lads give it a break.....
    
    				Alan

    You lost your temper with me Mark????
    
    Good.
    
    The reason why I like Kevs notes are because they are calm and
    reasonable and they make sense, they are not the psycotic ravings of a 
    bigot who, instead of informing me of both sides of the story, rants on
    and on about anti-British ideals. 
    
    This only serves to strengthen my views on the subject, so you really are 
    wasting your time mate.
    
    Kisses,
    
    
    CHARLEY

> Why is it every note in this conf finally goes to that old slagging
> match, come on lads give it a break.....

Slagging is a national sport in Ireland.  Much of the slagging is good
natured though (except when it come to the North and related issues).

IMHO.

                           James.

Mark

>    As for the Shankill bombing, no one can predict the outcome if the Irish
>  Republican Army had succeeded in killing the leaders of that Loyalist 
>  death squad.  One could hazard a guess, that there would have been less
>  dead Nationalist civilians.

I think we have got to a core difference here Mark, and you are still
side-stepping. I gave a detailed argument about the political effects of such
actions on the protestant community. You have ignored this, and hazarded
a guess, which I think runs contrary to experience. It is not good enough to
say no one can predict what would happen. If you cannot predict the
consequences of killing people then you should leave it out. But in fact we
have plenty of experience of what happened after such assasinations. Loyalist
terrorists went out and attacked soft targets in the catholic communities. 
The IRA were quite powerless to stop them and it is arrogant presumtion to
present yourself as protectors of the catholic community when you have neither
the political concept nor the military power nor remotely a mandate, to provide
such a solution. So we can hazard a guess, nay we can say with the certainty 
that experience brings,that such individualistic actions by the IRA only 
exposed soft targets in the community to revenge attacks, which the IRA had no
political response to and no concept to deal with. I was living in Dublin at
the time of the bombings referred to in the base note, and I was in an isolated
rural area at the time of the Shankill bombings. The guess you are hazarding 
is "way off base" Mark. 

It also runs contrary to my experience when there is a pretense that there has
been no such thing as support for revenge killings or civilian terror within
the physical force tradition in the republican movement. I recall a discussion
I had with an IRA volunteer in the 1980's. He explained to me the theology of 
a justified war, which I didn't hear again until the Archbishop of Canterbury
turned up on TV explaining why it was ok to bomb Baghdad some 8 years later.
I challenged him on two subjects. One was a case where a group calling
themselves the South Armagh Republican Action Force stopped a van of workers on
their way home and asked them their religion. Ten who said they were
protestants were shot. The driver was a catholic who was let go.  These murders
were a response to the murder shortly before of I think five catholic farmers
who were out making hay and who were stabbed to death with their hay forks.   
My friend told me he considered that the retalliation murders had
helped to stop the loyalist terror. This was during a lull in the 1980's!!
The second was the practice of putting car bombs in town and villages and the
phoning a warning through. This had lead to some appalling tragedies, one which
remained in my mind for some time was at the village of Clody, but there have
been innumerable examples. Most of his answer was Archbishop of Canterbury.
They gave warnings. They were ignored. They were trying to escape from the Brit
jackboot and there were not many options.

I tried to explain to him, as I am trying to explain to you, the political folly
and moral bankruptcy of such acts.  For the record I should point out that he 
had a shocking story of abuse and torture which he had recieved from the Brits. 
He was also the first person to tell me the truth about what had happened to
Seamus Grew at the time plain lies were on the front of every British paper and
unionist politicians were celebrating his murder.   

So could we have a straight answer to the question: how do you think the
loyalist terrorists can be defeated politically?

Now for the usual cleaning up we have to do in this note.

CHARLEY : "the psychotic ravings of a bigot"  ?? 

Do you have to be so RUDE to Mark?

You remind me of those awful football fans who came to Landsdowne Road. Why
can't you be like those nice sports fans who come there singing "swing low sweet
chariots" ? 

Kevin

  Kevin,
    It's easy for you or I to sit on the sidelines and speculate on the moral
  right or wrong of the actions.  It's another to be in the situation, watching 
  your friends and family members die.  I've always considered it hypocritical
  to morally condemn the actions of a man or woman who fight back after having
  their friends murdered by the state, or imprisoned by the state.  That said,
  I can understand why the Irish Republican Army killed British soldiers, bombed
  British industries, and attempted to decapitate a murder squad with whom the
  British forces collude.  I can't understand the "murder" of soft targets by
  either the British forces or the Republican forces.  I don't understand
  what was gained by British soldiers shooting peaceful demonstrators, or
  shooting children in the head with plastic bullets. 
    That's the tragedy of a war, and seems to me all the more reason for
  all sides to sit down at the peace table and begin talking immediately.
  Sadly, the British government are still refusing to allow this to happen.

> how do you think the
> loyalist terrorists can be defeated politically?

  I don't think anyone should be defeated.  I think that everyone involved
  should be invited to the peace table, and given the opportunity to talk.
  The evidence of collusion between British forces and Loyalist terrorists
  leads me to believe that Britain has been directing Loyalist terrorism.
  I think that Britain must be forced to stop playing the Orange card. I would
  hope that this can be accomplished via international pressure, since the
  British government doesn't seem to want to stop on its own.

                                Mark



    See what I mean?
    
    
    CHARLEY

    Mark,
    
    you are putting words in my mouth and doing your favorite side step
    again! I say it is morally bankrupt and politically counterproductive
    to engage in civilian terror and sectarian killings as a response to the 
    situation. I distinguish clearly between such actions and actions which
    are part of the war. 
    
    What you are saying is that Brit oppression is an excuse for everything
    and therefore you won't debate the politics of such actions. 
    
    You say you don't want to defeat loyalist terrorists politically, but
    in the same breath you express support for decapitating them! 
    
    Let me be quite clear about my position: all those who have during the
    history of Northern Ireland colluded in or carried out pogroms and murders
    against the minority population deserve to end up in the dustbin of
    history and nowhere else. If the likes of Gusty Spence express remorse
    and regret at the murders they committed and then dedicate themselves
    to ensuring that it never happens again that is acceptable because they
    have accepted the political defeat of what they stood for. But he will
    never be some kind of hero, and the least he could do as recognition of
    the evil he did would be to refrain from political activity in the
    conventional sense. 
    
    And to be honest with you I think there should be a dustbin for those
    who have been using methods of individualist terror to pursue a petit
    bougeois nationalist agenda instead of recognising the class nature of
    the conflict. The Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties of today started
    out as two wings of Sinn Fein. When they got to power they showed
    themselves to be accomplished at getting their hands on the loot while
    hundreds of thousands hat to get the boat to Holyhead. 
    
    The politics of provisional Sinn Fein today are no different and your belief
    that if we had peace we would live in a land of milk and honey is
    laughable. Irish society today is just as much a class society as
    Britain or the USA. The likes of Tony O'Reilly, Michael Smurfit, or the
    Dunne family will not end up working in Larry Goodmans meat factories
    for 3 pounds an hour. They will never understand the problems of living
    on means tested poverty payments of 66 pounds a week. And they will not
    watch their millions being taken from them through the PAYE system,
    indeed the profit from the tax system and milk susidies from it.
    
    And they will fall over each other to accumulate more capital as the
    investment boom which may follow "peace" leaves the working people
    little better off than before.
    
    Kevin   
         

>    ... to pursue a petit
>    bougeois nationalist agenda instead of recognising the class nature of
>    the conflict. ... 

Out of interest, who were you thinking of here?

I would be hard placed to name a single individual that you match such a
description. THe interviews I have seen/read (TV/News) would tend to 
indicate that UDA/IRA terrorism is almost exlusively staffed from the
"working class". When questioned about their former lives, most of them
don't quote Lawyer, Engineer, Doctor etc.. 

M

    Mark, 
    
    you are going round in circles. I already answered that question twice
    with regard to Sinn Fein. The class nature of Loyalist terrorism is
    different to that of the IRA. The loyalists are Unionists, who have
    traditionally been linked to the right wing of the tory party. As I
    mentioned already a sizeable proportion of the working class vote tory.
    In Northern Ireland, throught the Unionist brand of the Tory party, the
    proportion is sadly much higher. The Labour vote in the protestant
    communities has always fallen to sectarianism, deliberately stirred up
    by the unionists. So for me the political leadership of loyalist
    terrorism has always been in the dark corners of unionism with the
    likes of John Taylor MEP actually making public remarks encouraging
    such terrorism and describing it as helpful without being brought to
    Acourt for incitement to murder.
    
    Sinn Fein has no base in the trade unions or labour movement. There is
    a republican tradition is the Irish working class, which found its
    expression in James Connolly, but which quickly got ditched by Sinn
    Fein when it came to power in the South. Sinn Fein has some working
    class support in the North, but its political agenda comes from main
    stream republican tradition, typified by the 'republican' party in the
    south, Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail has also enjoyed some working class
    support in the south, but this is falling as the reality of the
    politics of the FF whizkids such as Haughey and Reynolds becomes more
    apparent and the vote has moved to the (social democratic) Labour party 
    and the (former stalinist) worker's party.
    
    Young workers in the North supported Sinn Fein/IRA at the start of the
    present Troubles because they were sick of the British and Unionist
    J[Aackboot and wanted to see armed struggle. Precisely because the then
    very small IRA leadership lead them away from class politics and
    towards the nationalist agenda, that struggle got nowhere. Indeed the
    IRA enjoyed secret ideological support from the likes of Charlie
    Haughey and Kevin (we shall not stand idly by) Boland . Sinn Fein
    has tacked some left wing rhetoric onto the green flag but that did not
    turn the flag red. And sinn fein is coming under increasing pressure
    from those workers as they realise that whichever flag you wave at the
    football match on Saturday it is the same old story when you get back
    to work on Monday.
    
    Kevin