IRA burn Protestant orphanages to the ground in Galway

[Fir Bolg]

Its beyond me why the fact that a portion of the island is still occupied (2, if you count Shannon) should mean that we can't assert the Independence that we do have. Your points about reparations are very interesting, but they are only a sting in the tail, not the whole animal.
The Land Commission had already undertaken a significant redistribution of lands and continued doing so.

The country was still paying land annuities to Britain. It was not until Dev got into power that these stopped, which caused amongst other things the economic war with Britain.

[BullLee]

Anyone who bothers to study the british police reports or courts of inquiry will find them actually admitting that the man shot was 'on friendly terms with the police'. Very few attacks by the IRA in War of Independence were sectarian but the Civil War did see much more attacks on protestants purely on a sectarian basis.[/QUOTE]

Clearly not many of you here are familiar with your Protestant neighbours. Fact is this: the RIC was disproportionately protestant. Protestants were a significant minority. Therefore a Prod being on friendly terms with members of the police was not unusual - in fact both my grandparents were in the RIC, and both were in the same regiment in the Great War. We were a very insular group. These "informer" accusations are now made as a matter of routine and they do not stand up to logical scrutiny. They are intellectually lazy and frankly a moral cop-out, along the same lines as justifying anti-semetism as "he was friendly with a money lender."

Many of the anti-republican sentiments expressed here by Fir Bolg etc prove to me that "United Ireland" still means uniting fields and hedgerows, not flesh and blood. Neanderthal.

[Fir Bolg]

Clearly not many of you here are familiar with your Protestant neighbours. Fact is this: the RIC was disproportionately protestant. Protestants were a significant minority. Therefore a Prod being on friendly terms with members of the police was not unusual - in fact both my grandparents were in the RIC, and both were in the same regiment in the Great War. We were a very insular group. These "informer" accusations are now made as a matter of routine and they do not stand up to logical scrutiny. They are intellectually lazy and frankly a moral cop-out, along the same lines as justifying anti-semetism as "he was friendly with a money lender."

Many of the anti-republican sentiments expressed here by Fir Bolg etc prove to me that "United Ireland" still means uniting fields and hedgerows, not flesh and blood. Neanderthal.

Thanks for the insult. It helps your argument immensely.

The RIC was not disproportionately protestant. It reflected the country's demographics quite well.

What anti-republican sentiments have I expressed?

[BullLee]

I think you need to check your sources there Fir Bolg. Files from the 1842 cadet system show a disproportionate CofI membership of the RIC by almost two-thirds of their civil representation. These files balance out marginally later on but still show a disproportionate level of CofI membership. I am not even taking into account other Protestant denominations.

Secondly, I do not consider a united ireland in terms of land ownership as reflecting any aspect of republicanism. It is prospecting. If you are talking in terms of uniting people, then, looking at some of your previous posts, some self-reflection may be in order.

[Fir Bolg]

I think you need to check your sources there Fir Bolg. Files from the 1842 cadet system show a disproportionate CofI membership of the RIC by almost two-thirds of their civil representation. These files balance out marginally later on but still show a disproportionate level of CofI membership. I am not even taking into account other Protestant denominations.

Secondly, I do not consider a united ireland in terms of land ownership as reflecting any aspect of republicanism. It is prospecting. If you are talking in terms of uniting people, then, looking at some of your previous posts, some self-reflection may be in order.

1842!!!!! We are talking about an event that occured in the 1920's, 80 years later. The RIC didn't exist in 1842, it was just the Irish Constabulary back then, and was used mainly against agrarian secret societies and the rural poor (the majority of the population before the famine). Hence, it did not reflect the demographics of the country in those times and would have harboured more people from a traditional loyalist background i.e. Protestants. But the "famine" changed all that.

I don't need any self reflection. My previous posts are quite clear and easy to understand. I explained the situation in the context of the time.

[Glennshane]

Care to enlighten us?

Google it. Weaver Street, Belfast. You Southerners do not know what real sectarianism is.

[Glennshane]

One of the tags at the bottom does state 'propaganda'. That is what the Irish Times was all about back then.

And it still is an extremely dishonest newspaper.

[Gabha Óir]

And it still is an extremely dishonest newspaper.

I started a thread on it , Roger.

http://www.politics.ie/media/88945-i...st-people.html

[SevenStars]

Look, anyone with a Church of Ireland background knows these stories. They're in every Prod family in the state. The problem is too many Southern Prods are weak. In fact the fact that they hide these stories from Catholics shows how utterly emasculated they have become since the prod working classes left. Sean MacEoin himself visited Longford in my grandfathers time because two entirely innocent Prods were executed by republicans in the bog of Allen.

.

You portray Irish protestants as a homogenous bunch. This isnt true. Your post completely over looks in the existence of class divisions on this Island and the class basis of the civil war (or what should really be called the counter-revolution). You can moan about sectarianism but the fact is that Roman Catholic big houses were also burnt down by the popular forces, these were essentially acts of class war. Also you forget that a lot of Irish protestants fought against the forces of reaction in the civil war, to this day support Fianna Fail and could be classed as "nationalists". Again there were (and are!) a lot of Roman Catholic Unionists.

It is true however that partition created two sectarian statelets in our country and created just what James Connolly said it would, a carnival of reaction. British Imperialism had suceeded in preventing the Republican goal of subsituting the name Irish for all ethnic and/or religious divisions. As bad as discrimination was though against protestants in the south it can not be compared to all that went on in the Orange state. I often feel nervous talking about the oppression that did happen to some protestants in the south because it is used by apolagists for British Imperialism here to justify their washing their hands of the occupied six counties.

Sectararian division iand oppression in this country has been carefully fostered by British Imperialism whether under the guise of reactionary Roman Catholic nationalism or Ulster Unionism in order to protect its interests here. We can only seriously begin to remove sectararianism from our country once we have removed the British gun pointing at our head and that starts with dismantling partition.

[The OD]

Well at least i am not ashamed to put an avatar beside my name budwheres your??

Wheres my what and dont call me 'bud' it makes you sound like you have a burberry cap, a pencil moustache and 0.05% bodyfat.....and drive a 'custom' Nissan Micra....