Wow - some pretty snidy comments being thrown around here.

Who cares about the ordinary working Irish man?

Sounds like some are more interested in their ego and sense of self importance.

Some are just plain wrong.

Pira aren't elected yet Dion.

And you certainly aren't.

Till then they and you have no mandate.


Just so happens by the way that I am a Collins man and not a Dev man.

But Dion, they lived in a different reality. There is no comparison between the quality of life then and the quality of life now.

The economic problems happening in Ireland today are part of a global recession. We aren't being sucked dry by "the Brits" the way we were back then.

Our problems aren't the result of an occupation any more.

Politically, the issues we face are to do with finding solutions to differences between loyalists and republicans.

But now you're going on about "freestaters", are you trying to whip up another civil war amongst your own?


The Irish civil war was the most shameful event in our history.

Enough blood was spilt then to last for the duration of Irish history past and Irish history to come.


Irish culture is made great by thinkers and peaceful men.

People like Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Dan O'Connell, Yeats, Joyce, O'Connor, etc etc etc.


It is also made great by our history of never invading another country, making slaves of another nation and being known all over the world as both the best of hosts and the best of guests.

When we go abroad, to rugby matches, football matches or just to wedding holidays or to find work, we are remembered afterwards as warm genuine fun and often wise.

We have a great tradition of music, art, and literature.

Our heros, Pearce, Connolly et al are known in Ireland and all over the world as great heroes because they sacrificed themselves first, by leading from the front. They were not bullies and they did not put the lives of ordinary people at risk and that is why they were heroes.

They also had a clearly recognizable enemy.

Again, circumstances are Completely different today.



Dion, the world is full of different people with different priorities and points of view.

People either learn to find solutions to their problems by communicating or they continue an eternal cycle of killing death and misery.

Pira sentences the children of Ireland to a life of grief and fear by keeping the violence going.

Bullets in ankles, in knees and OBE's as you call them, are trademarks a type of thinking that has nothing to do with the culture of sweet beautiful Ireland.

The kind of justice of which you speak is on a par with the kind of justice meted out by lynch mobs in the southern states of the USA before civil rights put an end to it.

And I though the IRA were defenders of civil rights!!!


I have children Dion, and they like me will be proud to be Irish and will want our Island one day to be a Peaceful republic.

And despite the obstacles placed in our way, by the likes of Pira as much as anyone else - Our Day Will Come!