BS: 1970s Ireland

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:07 AM

"And for good measure, perhaps you would say what that number was, more or less? I ask because you are talking nonsense."

Rather more than a thousand Catholic officers, given that there has been a decline because of PIRA murders and aggressive targetting.
A significant number.
Not nonsense.

Anything else to support your statement that my posts are "founded on ignorance"?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 05:36 PM

I do not assign anything to you.
I did assume you were still based in NI.
I have no theories of my own.
I am an outsider.
My last link, "The statistics indicate that while the number of Catholics in the force has fallen slightly in recent years, officers of that religion have done relatively well in terms of recruitment and promotions."
Why the hostility to me?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 05:13 PM

Brave guy. (In Keith's link.) But I don't think 6.9 per cent (which is actually less than 7 per cent) is very significant given that more than 45 per cent of the population was catholic and that Westminster was desperate to push the ratio up. (Hence Flanagan and others being appointed to some of the top jobs in public service.)
Also I am not persuaded by your theory that numbers declined either after anti-discrimination measures were introduced or in the early 1970s. Catholic antagonism towards the RUC existed well before the troubles.

For the record I am not sure that anyone posting in this thread lives in Northern Ireland. For my part I live in Nottinghamshire, though I have been visiting Ireland since 1969 and lived near Belfast through the worst years of the troubles (1971 to 1982). I don't like being assigned ownership of any violent gang, there or anywhere else.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:40 PM

The first breakdown by religion of RUC was in 1993, and numbers of Catholics were believed to have fallen by then for the reasons alluded to.

"The RUC has 13,014 officers, of whom 898 are Catholic. Of the 6,161 constables, 438 (7.1 per cent) are Catholic. This percentage rises steadily through the senior ranks, however, so that the percentage of inspectors is 9 per cent, that of superintendents 13 per cent, and that of chief superintendents more than 14 per cent."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/catholics-make-up-7-of-ruc-1481268.html

I reckon over 7% constitutes a significant number.
Why the hostility Peter?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 02:39 PM

I said there were no contributors from the Unionist community.
As an outsider, I have talked of "your" problems etc. as opposed to "ours" (mainland) See my 27 Mar. 0950 AM

Here is a piece by a Catholic who was in RUC in 70s.
He makes it clear there were a number of such.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1634688.stm
Some notable Catholic RUC men were Chief Constable Sir James Flanagan KBE (Derry), Deputy Chief Constable Michael McAtamney, Assistant Chief Constable Cathal Ramsey, Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan [19] as well as RUC Superintendents Kevin Benedict Sheehy (Glengormley) and Brendan McGuigan.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 12:21 PM

Allan, I appreciate your informed, thoughtful input.
I hope you stay around.

That is the sort of guff Keith used to spout to me, until he discovered that I had no time for his unidimensional perspective.

Allan, I think my post made it clear that I was not throwing loyalist atrocities at Keith. I was responding to his argument that PIRA's campaign extended the trauma. I conceded that it probably did, but suggested he should also take into account government behaviour - internment and Bloody Sunday in particular - which plainly had a colossal impact on the course of the troubles. I referred to the Shankill butchers etc because the impression Keith creates, for all his protestations that he condemns violence from all sides, is that the atrocities came overwhelmingly from one side. The evidence you cited from Cain shows the reality.

My original point about the bombing campaign was that it caused relatively few casualties. Yes, there were fatalities and yes there were injuries, and you (Allan) have cited the figures. But they were the result of several thousand bombings. If all the bombings had been perpetrated Omagh-style, or like today's bombing in Moscow, the fatalities would have been at least 100,000 and probably more than 200,000.

Keith: I thought I had dealt directly with most of your points, but I do see one that I overlooked: Would you please say just when it was in the 1970s that the RUC employed "a significant number" of catholics? And for good measure, perhaps you would say what that number was, more or less? I ask because you are talking nonsense.

I have looked again at your response to my point about bombs and guns. The weasel words you've used to explain it away do you no credit. I have also looked again at your phrase "They started from a much worse position than you..." together with one that follows it, referring to "your violent gangs." It looks to me as though you were addressing me, or at least including me. But if, as you say, you were addressing the people of Northern Ireland (even though you had earlier told us that no-one from there is contributing here at Mudcat), is it not rather casual to assume that all the people of Northern Ireland were seeking the same outcomes? Please elaborate.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 08:58 AM

Allan, I appreciate your informed, thoughtful input.
I hope you stay around.
I have always stated my opposition to ALL paramilitaries, but many contributors have been unable to accept that it is quite possible to be anti IRA but not anti Catholic.
Instead of discussing they just shout "bigot."

I did not intend to make the early 70s "rosie", but it is hard to overstate the achievemnts of NICRA.
And all in just a couple of years and without violence even when provoked and attacked.
They met violence with dignity and restraint just like their counterparts in USA.
The old order would not give up without a struggle, but the old order was rapidly fading.
The song of the times was We Shall Overcome.
If only we had Martin Luther Kings instead of Martin McGuinnesses.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 08:31 AM

I certainly don't agree with everything Keith says so he can reply for himself. In fact I think he paints things far too rosy in the 70s but that doesn't mean I disagree with his point that the terrorists prolonged the advent of normality.

It deosn't seem fair to throw loyalist atrocities at him though. He did say above "I was opposed to all paramilitaries and often said so." so just because one condemns republican atrocities it doesn't mean one is a defender of loyalist atrocities. I admit though that I don't know the history of postings in here so maybe I'm missing out on things said in previous threads.

It was of course a tragedy when people ended up as collatoral damage - whether they were Catholic, Protestant or whatever. But the fact of the matter remains that many did. The IRA killed 495 civilians which is more than any other organisation - the UVF came a close second at 350. Not only that but at 342 the IRA killed more Irish Catholics than any other organisation - again the UVF came in at a close second on 276. This does not include the 572 people not from Ireland which were killed by the IRA many of whom would also be Catholic. All these stats are taken from the cross-tabulation on the Cain site. If people were being targeted carefully and if organisations were really trying to avoid collatoral damage then you would expect said collatoral damage to be small but it wasn't. 1546 civilians killed by the various terrorists groups and only a handful of opposing terrorists killed by the same said terrorist groups. In total only 55 loyalist terrorists were killed by all the Republican groups combined.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:35 AM

Peter k, it is cheap and easy to say my posts "are founded on ignorance."
Refuting point by point, which is what I try to do, would be more honest but would require you to expose your knowledge.

The "you" I used referred to the people of NI.

Emma's post was all about the discredited and partisan old Stormont.
It was swept away as I said it was, by the power of peaceful protest.

Of course internment was a mistake. You bring it up as if I defended it.
Of course Bloody Sunday should have been properly investigated. Who is arguing about any of that????

I did not take you to task for the obvious truth that shooting is more discriminating than bombing people to death.
I just hated the glib way you portrayed that act of horrific murder, and the example I gave was of PIRA murdering Catholics for not agreeing their policies.

But that does not matter because they might have been run over anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:01 AM

Allan, I should think that the sheer blandness of Keith's dismissive remark "And all swept away by a couple of years of peaceful protest by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association" was calculated to be offensive. Certainly it was founded on ignorance as I would have thought Emma's post made clear, and it underlines my suspicion that most of what Keith knows has been learnt in his armchair and, perhaps, one or two Teribus-like characters he has met in pubs.

Keith may be right that the PIRA campaign was ultimately counter-productive. It's a hard one to call. Unquestionably PIRA was caught flat-footed early in the troubles in the perception of many catholics, and may have over-reacted in consequence. But it would be surprising if a scratch formation of headstrong volunteers, reacting to discriminatory governance in the absence of credible democratic processes or even a credible police force, got everything right.

Keith would do well to consider some of the mistakes made in the name of law and order, which are surely harder to excuse. There is already widespread agreement among historians that two such in particular were hugely significant in entrenching divisions and prolonging the strife: the introduction of imprisonment without trial (internment) in August 1971 and the British response when members of its Army shot dead unarmed demonstrators in Derry in January 1972. (That response was the infamous Widgery report, soon to be formally discredited when the long-awaited Saville Report at last reaches the public domain.)

I am still waiting for Keith to explain who he was talking about when he said "They started from a much worse position than you..."

Keith took me to task earlier for suggesting shooting was less indiscriminatory than bombing. Rather pathetically he invoked a reference to splattered brains, as though I didn't know what happens when someone is shot. (Again his crude illustation is easily matched, and indeed exceeded by reference to the atrocities - I won't go into the details - of (say) Lenny Murphy and his brothers, or Johnny Adair and his fascist-loyalist gang.)

As is often the case, Keith missed my point, which was that catholics were much less likely to finish up as collateral damage when PIRA used guns rather than bombs. (Before Keith picks me up on that, even face-to-face murder was not 100 per cent reliable: for the loyalist thug Lenny Murphy it was enough that the people he tortured and shot had been picked up in "catholic" streets - as a result of which some of his victims turned out to be protestants.)

To support his argument that the death rate in the troubles was high, Keith says that if it had been replicated in the UK, total fatalities would have exceeded 100,000. That's quite a lot fewer than actually died in road accidents in the same 30-year period. If the rate of fatalities in the breakup of Yugoslavia had been replicated in the UK, the total would have exceeded 500,000 in just three years.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 01:39 AM

Yes Emma, violence was used against them as it was against the Civil Rights movement in USA.
But, both succeeded, through peaceful protest and appealing to the good will of the decent majority of people..
All NICRA's demands were met!
The movement morphed into the SDLP to continue furthering the aspirations of the Nationalist people.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 06:25 PM

"Let's look at that couple of years of peaceful protest by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association."

A couple of years though? Doesn't that say it all? The Troubles lasted for decades. Again the point is that violence begets violence. It escalated so that in the end no one wins. And in the process each sides paramilitaries hardly touched each other whilst indiscriminately murdering hundreds upon hundreds of innocent civilians. The issues themselves were then lost on the wider UK public who just looked on nonplussed amazed at the hatred.

It is a what-if debate so no-one can be proven right or wrong so we could go around for ever. However I honestly agree with Keith that the terrorist campaign hindered Northern Ireland getting to normality rather than helped it. Outside the low brow tribal sectarianism in Glasgow's environs the extremes of Ulster sectarian ultra-unionism simply didn't exist in Britain. The bombing campaign simply hardened opinion in Northern Ireland itself and in the rest of the UK it was a public relations own goal of enormous proportions for the nationalist cause.

Even there I'm being a bit unfair on Glasgow. There were fears in the late 60s and early 70s that real tribal conflict would spill on to Scottish streets - but it didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Connacht Rambler
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 06:11 PM

Kevin Myers is a great man for stirring it up. Sells newspapers and brings the reconstructed student radical lots of lolly.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 05:25 PM

Let's look at that couple of years of peaceful protest by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

It was founded on 29 January 1967 at a public meeting in the International Hotel, Belfast.
The meeting was attended by all political parties in Northern Ireland, although the Ulster Unionist Party delegate Nelson Elder withdrew over a dispute about capital punishment

Wiki describes The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association as 'an organisation which campaigned for civil rights for the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s' in a conscious imitation of tactics used by the American Civil Rights Movement'

On 20 June 1968 Austin Currie, a Nationalist MP at Stormont, and two local men occupied a house in Caledon, Tyrone, in protest over its allocation by the local council to a nineteen-year-old unmarried Protestant, Emily Beatty, who was the secretary of a local unionist politician while more than 250 people were on the waiting list in the Dungannon rural district.
The Catholic Goodfellow family had just before been evicted from the house next door where they had been squatting

As a follow up to this the first civil rights march in Northern Ireland was held on 24 August 1968 between Coalisland and Dungannon.

Loyalists organised a counter demonstration in an effort to get the march banned and in fact the planned rally was officially banned, a tactic repeated many times subsequently, although on this occasion the march went ahead illegally without incident

Over the end of August and beginning of September the NICRA and the Derry Housing Action Committee organised a march to be held in Derry on 5 October 1968.

On the 1st of October, the Protestant fraternal organization, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, announced their intention to march the same route on the same day and time, in an attempt to get the civil rights march banned.
The Northern Ireland Home Affairs Minister responded and banned the civil rights march from the city centre.

When the civil rights marchers attempted to defy the ban, they were baton-charged by the Royal Ulster Constabulary who injured many marchers, including West Belfast MP Gerry Fitt.
Television pictures of the march taken by an RTÉ cameraman shocked viewers across the world

Radicalized by these events a more radical civil rights organization People's Democracy was formed on 9 October 1968 at Queen's University Belfast

In imitation of Martin Luther King's Selma to Montgomery marches, about 40 PD members held a march between Belfast and Derry starting on 1 January 1969.
It was repeatedly attacked along the route but whilst passing through Burntollet on the 4th of January, 1969 was 'ambushed' it is reported by 200 Loyalists in 'scenes which horrified nationalists and the world.' as unarmed marchers were beaten with crowbars and lead piping apparently aided by the police.

THE ATTACK 'Next time, it will be the last rites'

Following these events the non-violent politics of the NICRA rapidly became submerged

Nevertheless, NICRA campaigned against internment following its introduction on 9 August 1971.
At a NICRA anti-internment march in Derry on 30 January 1972, 13 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by British troops, in what became known as Bloody Sunday.

The demonstration marked the effective end of NICRA, though also led to the end of Stormont Parliament that had passed the discriminatory legislation in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 04:32 PM

"While there is little evidence that gerrymandering seriously affected the vote in Parliamentary elections as much as the abolition of PR almost certainly did; the manipulation of local government boundaries is much more firmly based - there are instances of Nationalists losing control in a number of councils where they had a majority of electors."

There was also an instance where a unionist majority of electors saw Nationalists have control. Hence it depends on who votes and who doesn't and it also depends on the assumption that every single Catholic would vote for a nationalist and vice-versa. There seems to be no doubt that discrimination went on but it also seems to have been somewhat exaggerated by some for political purposes.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm

It seems that the discrimination went on more at local level. Stormont itself somewhat less so. But of course devolution was disbanded and direct rule from Westminster was imposed. By the mid to late 20thC, apart from possibly west-central Scotland again at ground level rather than government level, such sectarianism was completely foreign to the vast bulk of folk in Great Britain. Britain was certainly complicit in not clamping down on certain practices in Northern Ireland - possibly through fear of not rocking a reasonably steady boat. However once it hit the headlines the British public would have been the natural allie to those not being treated fairly in Northern Ireland. So I think Keith's main thrust is that the IRA's campaign was actually counter productive and rather than bringing a better Northern Ireland - it actually prolonged the time until that could be attained. It turned the attention away from the core issues on to the actions of the terrorists themselves. I kind of agree with Keith on that. As to their motives. I'm sure some perhaps genuinely thought it was the only choice they had - and I am also pretty sure others would have had no truck with the British no matter what the government did.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 03:40 PM

I know Emma.
And all swept away by a couple of years of peaceful protest by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.
With SDLP taking up the political causes of the Nationalist people, the future looked bright.
Then PIRA started their war.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 01:38 PM

To continue the discussion Keith - some details about what a 'strange place; Northern Ireland could be too leading up the the 70s

VOTING RIGHTS

In the late 1960s for a population of some 1.5 million there were some 73 local authorities across Northern Ireland
However, the electoral franchise for local government elections continued to be based on certain practices abandoned in the rest of the United Kingdom by 1946 but actually retained and even strengthened in Northern Ireland

The right to vote in the six counties was based on the 'ratepayer suffrage' and the 'company vote.'

Ratepayer suffrage meant that, with some exceptions, only those who were owners or tenants of a dwelling (or their spouses) were entitled to vote in local government elections; as a result adults living in the parental home or as lodgers did not receive a vote

It has been estimated that in 1961 over a quarter of the parliamentary electorate were disfranchised at local elections

The company vote resulted in the existence of property plural voting for both Parliament and local government for approximately one and a half percent of the population

In May 1973 the franchise was finally widened to embrace universal adult suffrage.

GERRYMANDERING

While there is little evidence that gerrymandering seriously affected the vote in Parliamentary elections as much as the abolition of PR almost certainly did; the manipulation of local government boundaries is much more firmly based - there are instances of Nationalists losing control in a number of councils where they had a majority of electors.

This control of local councils had other effects

EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS

The Cameron Commission examined employment practices in five unionist-controlled areas, and concluded -

"We are satisfied that all these Unionist controlled councils have used and use their power to make appointments in a way which benefited Protestants.
In the figures available for October 1968 only thirty per cent of Londonderry Corporation's administrative, clerical and technical employees were Catholic.
In Dungannon Urban District none of the Council's administrative, clerical and technical employees was a Catholic.
In County Fermanagh no senior council posts (and relatively few others) were held by Catholics. . .
Armagh Urban District employed very few Catholics in salaried posts, but did not appear to discriminate at lower levels.
Omagh Urban District showed no clearcut pattern of discrimination, though we have seen what would appear to be undoubted evidence of employment discrimination by Tyrone County Council"

Somewhat similar patterns can be found for the Northern Ireland civil service and there was a similar imbalance in the judiciary

Catholics were also under-represented on statutory bodies, and among the higher ranks of the employees of such bodies.
In the publicly owned gas, electricity and water industries the imbalance against Catholics seems to have reached down through all levels.
The census of 1971 shows that of 8,122 people employed in these industries, only 1,952, or 154 per cent, recorded themselves as Catholics.

There was a consistent pattern - at manual labour levels, Catholics generally received their proportionate share of public employment.
But, at any level above that, they were seriously under-represented, and the higher one went, the greater the shortfall

The suspicion that discrimination was relatively important was fortified by boasts openly made, and incitements given, by prominent unionists

In September 1946: the Derry People reported
'At a meeting in Derry to select candidates for the Corporation Mr. H. McLaughlin said that for the past forty-eight years since the foundation of his firm there had been only one Roman Catholic employed - and that was a case of mistaken identity'

As late as 1961 during the Belfast municipal elections, a pamphlet issued by the St George's Ward Unionist Association stated that its three candidates
'employ over 70 people, and have NEVER employed a ROMAN CATHOLIC'

ACCESS TO PUBLIC HOUSING

After 1945 a large-scale public housing drive was launched in Northern Ireland and by 1961, 21 per cent of all housing in the province was public-rented;; ten years later the proportion had risen to 35 per cent

the Northern Ireland Housing Trust funded by the Northern Ireland government
, was set up in 1945 to supplement the efforts of local authorities and had a reputation for developing attractively designed and well managed estates

It selected tenants, not just on the basis of need, but on their ability to pay which meant hat it creamed off the tenants in the better paid employment

While this may not be deliberate discrimination the provision of public housing by local authorities was another matter

In 1950 Omagh Rural District council allocated forty new houses at Coneywarren to forty unionists 'a majority of whom were either not married at all or were married and without children, or had but one child', although the nationalist minority on the council submitted 'the names of 22 desperately badly-housed families'
The Cameron Commission concluded

'There have been many cases where councils have withheld planning permission, or caused needless delays, where they believed a housing project would be to their electoral disadvantage. . . . We have no doubt also, in the light of the mass of evidence put before us, that in these Unionist-controlled areas it was fairly frequent for housing policy to be operated so that houses allocated to Catholics tended, as in Dungannon Urban District, to go to rehouse slum dwellers, whereas Protestant allocations tended to go more frequently to new families. Thus the total numbers allocated were in rough correspondence to the proportion of Protestants and Catholics in the community; the principal criterion however in such cases was not actual need but maintenance of the current political preponderance in the local government area."


The civil rights agitation of 1968 was sparked off by the allocation of a house at Caledon, in Dungannon Rural District, to an unmarried Protestant girl who, as the Cameron report said (1969: para. 28), could 'by no stretch of the imagination . . . be regarded as a priority tenant' when there were Catholic families in the area badly in need of housing.


"Ulster Unionists, fearful of being isolated on the island, built a solid house, but it was a cold house for Catholics"
Davis Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Keith a
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 01:09 PM

I said I was starting a discussion.
The assertion was a comparison, which you took beyond its limit in order to appear to refute it.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Lox
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 12:35 PM

"Lox ... you are both trying to change the perspective of this debate."

Not atall ... just calmly, reasonably, neutrally and objetively casting doubt on an assertion.

Besides which, I didn't realize that it was a debate as you denied having a point earlier.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Keith A
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 10:27 AM

Lox and Peter, you are both trying to change the perspective of this debate.
To lift a people out of poverty and raise their life chances by such an amount does take decades, or even generations.
What has been achieved in both places is equal rights, an outlawing of discrimination and full participation.
We were only talking about the relative merits of the two governments in Ireland in the 70s.
PIRA deemed it worth the death of thousands and the impoverishment of the whole Province to switch them.
I regard that as tragically misguided and against the will of even most Nationalists.
More was achieved in USA in a fraction of the time without one bombed sreet or murder.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 10:08 PM

There's probably little point regurgitating all the old arguments, Keith, but I should just correct myself on one point. I said above that I had "much sympathy with" the PIRA campaign whereas "some understanding of" would have been a better representation of my view. You may recall that on a number of occasions here I railed against instances of republican violence. I also understood - and tried to explain here - why many protestants were often so frustrated and behaved so mindlessly (as for instance when a massive daily security operation was necessary to get catholic children safely into their school in Ardoyne. The stuff you have just latched on to about catholic repression in Ireland is stuff I was posting here years ago.

I also have a question Keith. Who is the "you" in this statement of yours: "They started from a much worse position than you..."

Oh, and if you think equality has been achieved in the US, and gives us a good model, you are more detached from reality than I'd realised. Have a look at the relative proportions of blacks and whites in US jails - particularly those in the 18-21 age group. Have a look at the death-row population. Try analysing those in poverty by ethnicity.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Lox
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 06:15 PM

There are many that would say, notwithstanding Obama's presidency, that equality for Blacks in the USA remains a long way off.

In Atlanta Georgia for example, the underground railway is called MARTA, (The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) - Affectionately known as "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta" in recognition of its primary users.

That is a frivolous example, but there are more serious ones.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 09:50 AM

I could not answer all your points in one post.
I did not excuse the discrimination. When it was brought to our (mainland) attention by NICRA, steps were taken to deal with it.
It was never going to be a quick fix though.
I did not compare 72 with 98.
I do say that if the momentum of progress had not been destroyed by the campaign of terror, what took 35 years could have been achieved in less than 5.
We have a good model in the US struggle for equality.
They started from a much worse position than you, and yet their peaceful protests brought change that left your violent gangs decades behind.
Who believes that black equality would have been hastened if black paramilitaries had executed tens of thousands of police officers and soldiers (numbers in proportion) and used bombs to destroy the commerce of the whole USA?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 07:33 AM

It would have been idiotic if I had suggested that intercommunity tensions and discriminations had been swept away.
I did not.
The situation had been addressed with robust antidiscrimination legislation though.
The Dublin government could have done no better. Did you not tell us that a public librarian could be sacked for being a protestant under them?

There were significant numbers of Catholics in RUC in early seventies, and the antidiscrimination laws would have ensured that more would join.
It was PIRA that made RUC a protestant organisation by ordering Catholics to leave!
The brave ones who defied them were murdered in their own homes.

As you say " Shooting was the preferred method for murdering, as it was less indiscriminate."
So the children saw their father's violent deat and were spattered with his bloody brains, but were unharmed. Right?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 08:27 PM

OK, I think you're winning this argument Allan. The fact remains though that adequate warning was given about a large proportion of the bombs and indeed codewords were agreed so that the security forces usually knew which warnings to take seriously. Yes there were blunders and in those cases the IRA (but not I) dismissed the fatalities and injuries as an acceptable level of collataral damage. And yes, in some cases the intention was plainly to endanger lives.

On the whole though, the IRA had nothing to gain from the indiscriminate killing of civilians, and quite a lot to lose - as in the Le Mons atrocity in which several of the fatalities were catholics. Shooting was the preferred method for murdering, as it was less indiscriminate.

Keith, you really know nothing about Northern Ireland in 1972 if you believe that any kind of democracy and any kind of equality between the nationalist and loyalist communities existed then. The legalised gangsters of the B Special reserve had been disbanded, but the police force (the RUC as it then was) was overwhelmingly and disproportionately comprised of loyalists and sometimes operated in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Likewise the Ulster Defence Regiment.

When John Stevens (later to be the boss of London's police) led a major inquiry into RUC abuses, much of the evidence gathered by his team was destroyed when his offices within Carrickfergus RUC station were burnt out.

Catholics were still hugely disadvantaged in the jobs market, and endured institutional discrimination in other ways too. I was glad I was not a Catholic because if I had been I would certainly have felt I was a second-class citizen. That for you Keith might seem a minor inconvenience, but there was no excuse for such discrimination in a civilised country late in the 20th century.

In short, your implication that there was little to choose between 1972 and 1998 was idiotic.Also the insurgency was never "my movement," and your suggestion that its objective was to restrict individual liberties was again idiotic. The restrictions you had in mind would have been just one consequence, albeit on the downside, among many that would have resulted from the reunification of Ireland.
(And when it comes to homosexuality, abortion and even whether public parks should be locked on Sundays, Northern Ireland had always been nearly as repressive as the republic.)

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 04:19 AM

I agree about the injured Allan.
Often left with mutilations that condemn them to a life of pain and dependency, they may well envy the dead.
When looking at the casualty figures, remember too that the population was only about 1.5 million.
For the same impact on mainland Britain you should multiply by 35 or more times!
The whole community was also condemned to decades of economic stagnation. Just look at the transformation since the bombs stopped.
The tourist boom of the eighties and nineties passed them by completely.
Of course, the PIRA leadership have done very well for themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 10:58 AM

Peter you say Omagh was exceptional, and that it wasn't the PIRA - but the point I was making was that you can't just count the casualties of a bombing by those killed as there is invariably far larger numbers injured, and the PIRA carried out many of these attacks. For instance no-one died in Manchester so are you saying that the 212 people injured weren't victims? There were 11 killed at Enniskillen but weren't the 63 injured also victims? Only two 'children' killed at Warrington but another 54 people injured. 21 dead at Birmingham but 182 injured. The list goes on. Plus of course the PIRA didn't just kill by bombing. According to the Cain site Republican Terrorists were responsible for 2058 deaths in total - but only 55 of these were Loyalist Terrorists whilst 703 were innocent civilians. Likewise the Loyalist Terrorsits were responsible for 1018 deaths but only 41 of these were Republican Terrorists and they managed to kill 843 civilians. It almost looks like these two factions who were supposedly at war were actually deliberately trying to avoid confronting each other whilst targeting civilians mainly in Northern Ireland but in the PIRA'a case also in England. I say England because as far as I know Scotland and Wales never really suffered attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Dead Horse
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 10:22 AM

Peter K.
Words fail me.
I sincerely hope you and I never meet.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 04:17 AM

But Peter, the demands of the Omagh murderers were exactly the same as the demands of the PIRA terrorists who planted their devices on Bloody Friday, an attack you approve of.

You compare PIRA's campaign with other liberation movements, but their grievances were a lot smaller.
By early 1970s they had no grievances at all!
B Specials gone, Stormont gone, full democratic representation for all and the SDLP confident of maintaining the momentum of progress, but for the campaign of terror by PIRA.

All PIRA were demanding was that the people of the North be handed over, against their will, to the poor and backward country to the South.
The border was wide open. Anyone could go South but the traffic was all the other way.
Only terrorists on the run went South, and even their families stayed in the North.

Most liberation movements fought for freedom. Yours fought for the removal of basic freedoms like the right to plan how many children to have.
A bit like the Taleban.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:21 PM

Omagh was wholly exceptional Allan. No other bomb in Nothern Ireland came anywhere close to 29 fatalities. Yet even Omagh ranks low on the scale, against bombings in other parts of the world (Pakistan, India, Iraq, etc), where loss of life was a primary objective.

In any case Omagh was not among the bombings to which I referred, since it was not a PIRA operation.

Also I did say "relatively little loss of life." Obviously that's just an opinion, but it's well supported by the plain fact that total loss of life during the troubles (1969-98) was exceptionally low in comparison with many other insurgencies around the world in recent times.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 07:38 PM

So, is anybody familiar with Anthony Murphy, speaking of Ireland in the 1970's.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:20 PM

"So in reality the bombings achieved their aim of widespread commercial damage and infrastructure disruption at the expense of relatively little loss of life."

I think different people would have different ideas of what constitutes a 'relatively little loss of life' and many people may find your post a touch on the callous side. The Cain site lists each individual death so if anyone has the inclination to count them all the total lost to bombs could be easily enough got to. However for most folk a significant number were killed that way and that is only part of the story. Just take one incident like Omagh! There were 29 killed which is horrendous enough but on top of that there were about 200 injured never mind the others emotionally and psychologically damaged by the event itself or by losing a loved one or having a loved one severely maimed. Sure that was a major event but many of the smaller events also would have affected many more people than just those who died.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 04:30 AM

Peter K, I do agree with you about the old Stormont "Protestant Parliament."
In my second post I made clear that I was thinking of when it had gone and the demands of NICRA met.
I did used to argue against Republican paramilitaries. I was opposed to all paramilitaries and often said so. Loyalist ones had no defenders to argue with.
I am firmly of the belief that Republican terror groups delayed by decades the progress we have now seen.
I did support the army but not every action of the army. I think that they did their best in an impossible situation and prevented civil war.
Republican paramilitaries killed many hundreds of civillians, mostly with IEDs in public places.http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/troubles/troubles_stats.html#statusperpetrator

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 04:06 PM

Keith, I was making the point here years ago, in the interminable debates we had about Ireland, that decent-minded non-catholics were fully justified in viewing with horror the prospect of being absorbed into such a repressed society.

But that, of course, did not in any sense justify the monstrous excesses of Northern Ireland's self-proclaimed "protestant parliament for a protestant people." The difference between you and me was that I had much sympathy for the PIRA insurgence, given the scale of protestant support (both active and passive) for Stormont's abuses, whereas your sympathies seemed to lie largely with the British Army. (I became less enamoured of the PIRA campaign as increasingly robust, non-gerrymandered, deomcratic processes were established.)

Incidentally your reference to IEDs "often killing ordinary folk" is over-stretching it a bit. Many thousands of bombs were detonated, 1,000 of them in just one twelve-month period (1972-73) in Belfast alone. Yet in the 30 years of the troubles the number of fatalities on all sides, many of them resulting from gunshot wounds, totalled significantly fewer than 4,000. So in reality the bombings achieved their aim of widespread commercial damage and infrastructure disruption at the expense of relatively little loss of life. (There were a number of notable exceptions such as Claudy, mentioned above, Le Mons, etc.)

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 03:41 PM

"As a bit of light relief,"
Thanks for that Jim - magic.
Jm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Emma B
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:38 PM

Could I also point out that in this year of grace 2010 abortion in Northern Ireland is only legal in cases where the child cannot be born alive or when it is done in order to preserve the health of the mother.

The Department of Health Statistics for the year 2006 show that 1,295 women from Northern Ireland accessed abortion in Great Britain.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:29 PM

Yes, I meant to mention her too but couldn't think of her name.

Christy Moore sang about her:Everybody knew, nobody said.

A week ago last Tuesday.
She was just fifteen years.
When she reached her full term.
She went to a grotto.
Just a field,
In The Middle of The Island.
To deliver herself.
Her Baby died,
She died

A week ago last Tuesday.
It was a sad slow stupid death for them both.
Everybody knew, nobody said.
At a Grotto
In a Field
In The Middle Of The Island


Some tight ship it was, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Emma B
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:12 PM

In memory of Ann Lovett too

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:03 PM

Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. Wikipedia has an entry on the matter - interesting story.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 01:22 PM

What are Kerry babies? I had never heard of this. mg

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:33 AM

dunno whether it was a problem with me or the Pathe site, but every few seconds the LOADING icon stopped the action & sound & I eventually gave up -

pity, it looked interesting

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:57 AM

As a bit of light relief, here's an old British Pathe newsreel of what Ennis, Co.Clare looked like a few years before the 70's:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=46743

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:07 AM

I was not making a point.
I thought I was just opening another discussion.
I have only just learned of those issues about the old Irish government from the abuse thread.
Those same issues are relevant to the early days of the troubles.
I do not think that has been explored.
I certainly not saying that one side was more right, but the Unionist viewpoint has seldom been put here.
No other point Lox.
Is that OK?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Lox
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 07:32 AM

Keith.

Yes.

This is a forum.

In which people make points.

What is your point?


Is it that we should all be understanding of each others fears?

Catholics and protestants?

I presume it couldn't possibly be that Protestants were right all along could it?

That would suggest that when Ireland was under protestant rule it was better off ...

... was Ireland better off when it was run by protestants?

Again, none of this has any focus when we don't know your point.

What is your point?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 07:08 AM

Thank god I'm an atheist.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:43 AM

The exchange of views is a point in itslf.
It can promote understanding.
Isn't that why people talk to each other?
Isn't that why people post to this forum?
The point?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Lox
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:28 AM

Trying to fiure out what the point of all this is.

Is it that we should all show greater understanding?

In which case it might be considerate to let this little pile of embers die out.

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:50 AM

No one even mentioned that my link did not work.
Please use Peter's link here.
thread.cfm?threadid=128156&messages=101&page=1&desc=yes#2868545

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 04:24 AM

Let us try to walk in the shoes of the majority people of the North in those times. (We have no members who post from that community.)

Not rabid Loyalists, but the ordinary decent protestant folk.
They supported the Civil Rights movement and were relieved and happy when the sectarian excesses of the old Stormont were swept away.
But, they wanted no part of the backward, feudal regime that was demanding control over their lives too.
Anyone unsympathetic so far?
The government and people of the country they wanted to remain part of, did not want them. They wanted rid of the whole lot of them.
What would you have done?
Then came PIRA, whose stated aim was to hand them over to that regime descrbed in my opening post.
To further that aim they used IEDs to systematically destroy their market streets, businesses and bus stations, often killing ordinary folk quite apart from the campaign of executions.

Anyone have an opinion?

Subject: RE: BS: 1970s Ireland
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 12:56 PM

The Catholic church have a lot to answer for but when they were in control they ran a tight ship

Ah yes. The good old days of the Kerry babies, the Magdalene Laundries and all that.