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"No alternative to IRA violence"

tones

tones

Tones deaf
So said Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill, while regretting that it had to happen. This has provoked the usual outrage from Unionist sources, plus that of the relatives of the many innocent victims. And yet, although it pains me to admit it, it seems to me that the lady has a point. I have always agreed with the Republican goal of a united Ireland, but never the IRA's way of trying to achieving it. Would the Good Friday Agreement have come about had it not been for the violence? It was a tacit recognition by both sides that neither side could win militarily, except by the British instituting a Nazi Germany- or Soviet-style police state.

Would the Unionists ultimately have been persuaded by peaceful means? John Hume tried that, using the tactics of the US civil rights marchers, and this was met with violence, both official and unofficial. Perhaps in time (a very long time, when Catholics finally outnumbered Protestants, something that has just happened), but the whole Unionist discriminatory arsenal would still have been in place, and Westminster would have continued to ignore it, as it did from Partition to the early 1970s.

What the Unionists can't bring themselves to admit is that the violence and all of those innocent deaths were ultimately caused by British misrule in Ireland. This does not justify 3500 deaths, which is 3500 too many, but politicians are hopelessly short-sighted, and they can't (or won't) see the consequences of their actions on ordinary people. And Westminster has now give the UK a choice of two equally hopeless candidates for the top job. Heaven help us!
 
What she actually said:

When asked about IRA violence, Ms O'Neill replied: "I think at the time there was no alternative."

"Now, thankfully, we have an alternative to conflict and that's the Good Friday Agreement.
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That's a bit of a different sentiment to the clickbaity title.
 
Seeker_UK said:
What she actually said:



That's a bit of a different sentiment to the clickbaity title.
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Yes that’s my concern, that certain media interests or politicians might pull out a phrase like that and exploit it for partisan purposes. I’m genuinely worried about what could happen in Northern Ireland if it’s fragility is exploited.
 
TheDecameron said:
Yes that’s my concern, that certain media interests or politicians might pull out a phrase like that and exploit it for partisan purposes. I’m genuinely worried about what could happen in Northern Ireland if it’s fragility is exploited.
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I was speaking to someone from Norn', a couple of days ago. He was saying that things are volatile over there at the moment; extreme care needs to be exercised by politicians and the media reporting it.
 
tones said:
Sorry, wasn't meant to be thus, but it is the heart of what she said - without it, there would have been no progress.
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I have to disagree. Whilst I do not agree with what she said, I can understand her POV and that was clearly about the past. Unless it has been intentionally cut from the BBC report, there was no mention that she felt it was the case today as inferred by the title.
 
Needless to say, there was substantial coverage in the Belfast Telegraph, which is where I picked up the story. A quote:

DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has rejected a claim by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill that "there was no alternative" to IRA violence.
It's after Ms O'Neill, speaking on the BBC's Red Lines podcast, said there was now "an alternative to conflict" in the form of the Good Friday Agreement.
"My whole adult life has been building the peace process. I wish the conditions were never here that actually led to conflict," she added.
"The only way we're ever going to build a better future is actually to understand that it's OK to have a different take on the past. My narrative is a very different one to someone who's perhaps lost a loved one at the hands of republicans."

Sir Jeffrey is 100% correct that "there is no justification for murder". However, there seems to be no appreciation for the fact that people marginalised and pushed into a corner may object, and may ultimately do so violently. By turning a blind eye to the Unionist Party's activities in Northern Ireland, Westminster played right into the hands of the IRA's romantic attachment to the gun and the bomb.
 
Unfortunately there was no alternative at the time.

If anyone has any bright ideas what could have been done instead, I'm all ears.

I will remind you, that even the limited political representation that nationalists had, was cynically diluted further, by the gerrymandering of the electoral boundaries.

Peaceful civil rights protests (zero IRA involvement) were dealt with by shooting unarmed civilians.

Even when the PIRA were active in Northern Ireland, the UK still took zero notice until their financial district in London was bombed.

As already posted PIRA terrorism was a RESPONSE to UK/loyalist treatment of the nationalist minority in NI.

As far as I'm concerned, the UK were directly responsible for the actions of PIRA, and, if I choose to be provocative, the UK citizens who did nothing to oppose their government's actions.
 
The excellent 7 part BBC doc 'Spotlight On The Troubles' (on iplayer and youtube) was educational over and above of what I already knew;-

 
tones said:
Needless to say, there was substantial coverage in the Belfast Telegraph, which is where I picked up the story. A quote:

DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has rejected a claim by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill that "there was no alternative" to IRA violence.
It's after Ms O'Neill, speaking on the BBC's Red Lines podcast, said there was now "an alternative to conflict" in the form of the Good Friday Agreement.
"My whole adult life has been building the peace process. I wish the conditions were never here that actually led to conflict," she added.
"The only way we're ever going to build a better future is actually to understand that it's OK to have a different take on the past. My narrative is a very different one to someone who's perhaps lost a loved one at the hands of republicans."

Sir Jeffrey is 100% correct that "there is no justification for murder". However, there seems to be no appreciation for the fact that people marginalised and pushed into a corner may object, and may ultimately do so violently. By turning a blind eye to the Unionist Party's activities in Northern Ireland, Westminster played right into the hands of the IRA's romantic attachment to the gun and the bomb.
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Not to mention the subsequent atrocities committed by the Parachute regiment at Ballymurphy and the Bogside/Bloody Sunday.
 
bor said:
the gerrymandering of the electoral boundaries.
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The classic example being Derry/Londonderry, which was over 60% Catholic but which always ended up with a Unionist city council! Not to mention the fact that business owners (almost always Protestants) were given multiple votes. The game was so rigged that it defies description. And all in a part of the UK.

Bor also commented that:

the UK citizens who did nothing to oppose their government's action

Most of them neither knew nor cared about the situation in Northern Ireland, and Westminster and the Unionists took good care to keep it that way. In one of the Queen's University's excellent talks on Partition:

https://www.qub.ac.uk/talks-100/broadcasting-and-the-border/

Prof. Rob Savage describes how the globetrotting Alan Whicker decided to trot across the Irish Sea, and blew the lid off the whole mess. For the first time, mainland audiences was introduced to the bizarreness of this other bit of the UK. Stormont was beside itself with rage, the BBC was forced into a grovelling apology and made to promise that it would always get clearance from Stormont for any Northern Irish content, and Whicker's remaining programmes were cancelled, much to his disgust
 
tones said:
Needless to say, there was substantial coverage in the Belfast Telegraph, which is where I picked up the story. A quote:

DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has rejected a claim by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill that "there was no alternative" to IRA violence.
It's after Ms O'Neill, speaking on the BBC's Red Lines podcast, said there was now "an alternative to conflict" in the form of the Good Friday Agreement.
"My whole adult life has been building the peace process. I wish the conditions were never here that actually led to conflict," she added.
"The only way we're ever going to build a better future is actually to understand that it's OK to have a different take on the past. My narrative is a very different one to someone who's perhaps lost a loved one at the hands of republicans."

Sir Jeffrey is 100% correct that "there is no justification for murder". However, there seems to be no appreciation for the fact that people marginalised and pushed into a corner may object, and may ultimately do so violently. By turning a blind eye to the Unionist Party's activities in Northern Ireland, Westminster played right into the hands of the IRA's romantic attachment to the gun and the bomb.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair to Sir Jeff - he does perhaps have a closer insight to the mindset and loyalties of those who would support the use of the gun in Irish politics than many ..

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4591268/The-terror-links-Ian-Paisley-s-DUP-party.html

(And if it that's coming from a source as The Mail - you can imagine what the press on the other side might have to say on the topic :) )
 
-alan- said:
Well to be fair to Sir Jeff - he does perhaps have a closer insight to the mindset and loyalties of those who would support the use of the gun in Irish politics than many ..

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4591268/The-terror-links-Ian-Paisley-s-DUP-party.html

(And if it that's coming from a source as The Mail - you can imagine what the press on the other side might have to say on the topic :) )
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At one point, Big Ian did try to emulate Lord Carson by founding his version of the original UVF. I can remember film of a parade of men, each of whom produced a licence to own a firearm. Don't know what happened after that. Some background:

 
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