In response to GUEST,AR

"I could see your point if you'd been a serving squaddie over there or lost friends in Ireland, correct me if I got this wrong, but you were a part time soldier in the TA and never saw any kind of service deployment ?"

How do you know that he didn't Guest Al?? I don't know where you call home, but talking as you do about Northern Ireland and "The Troubles" you must know that the bombing campaigns of the "Provisional" IRA and the INLA did not just restrict themselves to targets in Northern Ireland, and they most certainly did not restrict their targets to regular Army units – TRUE??

"….you start threads about peace in Ireland or Irish rebels and welt the back of the Irish for standing against masters who arrived over there from Britain."

Shows how much you know about the history of Ireland or of the British Isles. I mean really:

•        "I will gladly admit to understanding the actions of the Irish and their right to deal with the invader."
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•        The Irish people will always be grateful to the American nation for their support through the tough times, they delivered and it will never be forgotten.

Guest AR without any shadow of a doubt you are the Ernest Hemmingway of Bullshit.

" if the German army had landed on my shore during the 1939-45 war my old man would have cut the crap out of them any way he could."

Irrelevant, you are comparing "Apples to Oranges". Ireland as a united country only came into being under British rule, prior to that no such "country" or "nation" existed. What you did have were a number of small kingdoms who were never "unified" or fully at peace with one another. The "English" or more correctly the Normans have been in Ireland since 1172, that's 837 years Guest Al, hardly "Johnny-come-lately's" by any stretch of the imagination. Invading German Armies did not afford the inhabitants of the countries they occupied the option of voting on anything.

"So Keith, were the Irish wrong not to roll over and take what we did to them? There was a government in Northern Ireland in the 1950's which treated Irish catholic's like slaves and second grade."

Keith said something very true and yourself and Big Mick should take heed of it:

"Stating falsehoods as truths does not take us forward."

Now tell us exactly what it was that "WE" did to them. Who is the "WE" and "WHEN"? I personally have not done anything to them, might have played a small part in stopping some of them being killed or maimed but I see no reason to apologise for that. Oh yes Guest Al, I did spend some time over there "on the ground", two tours, unlike Big Mick.

That "government in Northern Ireland in the 1950's" that you refer to, was formed by who? If memory serves me correctly from around 1922 Northern Ireland was completely autonomous it had "Home Rule". So I'll ask you again what did "WE", as in us "Brits", do to them and "WHEN". That Government based at Stormont was an absolute joke and a complete and utter embarrassment. But as Keith, I think, pointed out The Civil Rights Movement and the SDLP were making them look increasingly ridiculous, and this was acknowledged by the "Official" IRA at the time, who saw the possibilities of real advancement through peaceful means.

"Come on man, be honest, if you knew the south coast was covered in landing craft and your town hall had been taken over you would be one of the first to "tip and run" against their rule."

You mean today – absolutely, I'd be there like a rocket. If you mean 900 years ago – forget it, after that amount of time, who the f**k cares. Mind you if you are absolutely set on causing trouble and want to blow folks up you could always invoke Big Mick's "righting ancient wrongs" crap. Personally I'm not all that keen on killing people on such flimsy and questionable premises. Besides when did the "British" ever invade Ireland Guest Al?? That charge might arguably be leveled against England, but not against the "British". And that English "invasion" if indeed it was one was pretty half-hearted. Things picked up a pace when James I and VI decided to settled his problems on the Anglo-Scottish border by shifting the riding families to Northern Ireland – Not an invasion as the King of England had been declared King of Ireland from 1541 – you can't invade your own Kingdom.

Al, ever wonder why England got interested in Ireland in the first place? If you ever want to find out read a book call "Sovereign of the Seas" by a Canadian Naval Historian called N.A.M.Roger. It is an excellent book which deals with an overall European view of things and not just with individual counties in isolation and should be compulsory reading for anyone teaching the history of the British Isles.