A Year Without The Light of The Dark

[Mr Crowley]

That was all on purpose to increase sectarianism? You truly with your hand on your heart believe that?
You're welcome to it, but it's not a lazy attitude to comprehension of Irish history that leads me to refuse to accept any of that.
I accept the most of what you referred to actually happened, and that they were extraordinarily bad policies in a variety of senses. But that they were done with the intention of deepening the sectarian divide in order to continue to rule is not a credible suggestion.

As I have probably made clear, the experience of continental Europe prevents me from discussing any roots of a conflict that occurred outside of living memory -- at least if such arguments are added to a mix that attempts to justify violent resistence to the state. They may be interesting historical observations, but they justify nothing.

However, I'm off to bed.

Waffle and psuedo-intellectual cowardice.
Let me sum it up; the British empire was founded on 'divide and conquer' and sustained by 'conflict management'. Sectarianism has been a tool of such practises.
Did they forget their tradecrafts? No they continuously honed them in successive generations and various locations until finally they had little else but their 6 county conflict lab.
Lucky for them Mr Bush arrived with the opportunity to export their skillset once again. Who was it caught inflaming sectarian tensions in Iraq.....British special forces; surely not.

[Mr Crowley]

Whereas your analysis is simply fiction.

Bollocks.

The central assumption is that from 1969 the Brits has a national interest in keeping NI. They clearly didn't. They stayed because they had to or because their loyalty to the unionists forbade them to leave. The activities of the provos only strengthened both motivations for staying,

You make no effort to counter the argument in my previous post, you just trot out the usual misguided rubbish.
The British establishment are loyal only to themselves and they would not still be in Ireland without a selfish, strategic reason. If you think the expense of billions has anything to do with Loyalty to their post-colonial embarressments then you truly are a fool.

as well as reinforcing sectarianism by blowing up church halls during church services and the like (yes, I'm afraid it's that old chestnut again).

Statements like these only further reinforce the perception of deluded ignorance on your part. No such incident ever occurred; you're that lazy you can't even research a suitably illustrative atrocity.

[the_moss]

Great article Mr Crowley and thanks for the link.

[tiocfaidh]

But it wasn't the Russians they were fighting, was it?

And they were called freedom fighters by a substantial and generous portion of the population of the USA.

No, of course it was not the Russians they were fighting. As it was, they (the IRA) were called freedom fighters by a sizable portion of the Irish American community, but still a minority in that community, and an even smaller minority of the US population in general. We all know the tales of how popular the IRA was/is in the bars of Boston and New York, but as a whole, across all of the US, most of which is protestant and conservative, it did not have widespread support. The point of the poster I referred to was that if the IRA was doing the exact same things it did in Ireland in some disputed section of the then-USSR, fighting the Soviet form of oppression rather than the British form of oppression, perhaps in one of the Soviet republics that had aspirations of independence, then the label attached to it by 90% of the US population (instead of, say, 3%) would have been "freedom fighter" instead of "terrorist". Obviously these numbers are rough estimates, but you get the point.

This is not to deny the generous aid that the IRA did receive from the US, which you correctly allude to.

[merle haggard]

Indeed?

This isn't a private message board.

I don't like republican sentimentality (which is why I felt the need to post on this thread). Even if it is well-written (and Anthony McIntyre's stuff is very well written) I find it blinkered and otherwise aesthetically challenged.

I have my reasons. For one thing, decent, respectful discussion of the career of this particular paramilitary figure would do well to address the rights and wrongs of his activities in a mature manner, and not simply indulge in pointing sooty fingers at black kettles.

If you wanted a nice, cosy, intrarepublican chat, there are plenty of places to do that where I'm not allowed go, and indeed would go to even if I was allowed.

Now either toddle along for your chat with your pals or argue with me, rather than spewing the usual tirade of personal abuse that I've come to expect from p.ie's republican threads.

which is what you most definitely have not done , and appear incapable of doing. Youve just come onto a thread and proclaimed how little you know about the subject , how you care even less but are dtermined to make posts pointing that out while levelling scorn on a man who was respected even by his enemies What yiour doing is trolling and people have every right to call you on it . your not contributing the slightest thing to any political or historical debate or discussion . Your trying only to derail it

[Glennshane]

So did I. But thatcherism didn't cause the Northern Ireland conflict, Northern Irish gerrymandering, discrimination, violent repression and general sectarianism did.

Are you questioning the right of the victims to struggle against that tyranny? Are you describing their struggle against sectarian tyranny as "sectarianism"? Why have you been passing judgement on a person who suffered so much in that struggle against tyranny? Could that not be left to other victims?