Hello again, Teribus:

The problem with war, is that often folks accept the same facts and draw differing conclusions ... and then fight each other to convince the other, not of the facts but the conclusions ... so ... well, thank God for pubs, pints and computers ... much better ways to look at the conclusions. Your cultural context leads you to one set of conclusions from what you have read or saw, mine leads to another from what I lived through in the northern counties of Ireland in the seventies...

You write "By this fantasy I take it you mean the physical and political entity known throughout the world as Northern Ireland. Internationally recognised as being part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Unfortunately for the Republicans in 1922, having just fought an extremely bloody civil war of their own in order to establish Eire..."

That is one way to look at it. Many see the Irish Republic coming into existence after the elections of 1911. Or, if you will, international treaties are law. So, when Britain signed a treaty in 1921, which they reneged upon, then the occupation of the northern counties became illegal.

The civil war began, when Michael Collins negotiated a treaty with Britain, after the successful 1919-21 Anglo Irish war. From memory, I think it was Lloyd George, who threatened him with the "Orange Card" that is to say, if they did not accept a two year period of transition on the issue of the northern most counties of the nine counties of Ulster, then Britain would arm the loyalists. Collins saw this as a step towards an end to the struggle. Others felt, they had won a horrible struggle, where British troops such as the Essex Brigade who pretended to surrender to fire on the West Cork Brigade members under a flag of truce ... and felt they should not accept a conditional end to the struggle. Britain had a heavy hand in forcing the split which led to the civil war, and then armed the Free State helping to insure that the split would be violently decided. Frankly, it is a great shame that Ireland did not fall for the division Britain fostered, but, it is hard for people living at peace to judge the behavior of people who had been through a brutal war in their own villages and towns. The British atrocities in Ireland where extreme and led to extreme feelings and actions.

There is a difference between saying that civilians were a target of war, and that civilians were killed. The history of civilian deaths in the war in the North is very complex and Britain cannot be held innocent in weighing that process. wither or not you believe it was British policy to continue a war as a way of keeping a nonaligned nation destabilized ... well, I must leave for a committee meeting in a mo, and I do want to answer as much of your points as possible ... I will write more on this, perhaps tomorrow...

As to the low injuries during Bloody Sunday, due to the actions of the RUC, British Army etc... would there have been fewer still, if the army had not fired on unarmed demonstrators in the first place?

Must run, more latter

all the best

Lorcan