Brandon Sullivan ✒ I had an interesting exchange with Ian Major, AKA Wolfsbane on this blog recently. 

 I planned to respond to his detailed and measured comments, but ended up finishing and defending two articles about the sectarian murder of Protestants.

This piece of writing is in part a response to Ian, and in part a genuine attempt to illustrate why DUP, and wider unionist/loyalist denunciations of terrorism are not taken seriously by nationalists in Ireland and elsewhere, if indeed they have even been made in the first place.

March 1993: A Month of Murder, Protestant Paramilitary Support, and Sinn Fein votes

In March 1993, the IRA killed a Protestant contractor working on a security force base, a British soldier, and a member of the UFF’s C Company. They also bombed Warrington, resulting in the horrendous murder of two children, Timothy Parry and Jonathan Bell. As an interesting aside, one person who refused to condemn the Warrington bomb is former Brexit Party MEP, Claire Fox. Ms Fox’s past didn’t seem to stop Jamie Bryson from re-Tweeting her.

Loyalist were also highly active in March, 1993. They killed an IRA man, a member of Sinn Fein, and five politically uninvolved Catholic civilians. Loyalists killing two republicans out of nine members of the “nationalist electorate” was unusual – only a statistically tiny number of victims of the UVF/UFF were actually republican activists.

The IRA member, James Kelly, was one of five men shot dead by the UFF on Thursday 25th March. In West Belfast, the UFF’s C Company shot dead a 17 year old man named Damian Walsh. A spokesperson for the UFF, possibly Ray Smallwoods, had this to say about the murders his organisation committed:

We have the arms, the information and more than enough volunteers and the dedication is most certainly there as well. It is a terrible thing that anyone should lose their lives, but if you are talking in terms of success rates, yes, this week has been a success, and it’s still only Thursday.

An incurious loyalist triumphalist collective decided to name their blog after this, and publish excruciating apologia for loyalist sectarian criminality.

It is easy to dismiss that blog as unrepresentative of wider unionist views of loyalist violence. But it is less easy to dismiss a telephone poll conducted in the days after the loyalist killing spree of March 1993. David McKittrick reported in The Independent that:

One opinion poll carried out earlier this month by a Protestant Belfast newspaper, on the admittedly unscientific basis of telephone polling, came up with the alarming result that 42 per cent of Protestants supported loyalist paramilitaries.

Also in 1993, there were local elections. A third of the nationalist vote went to Sinn Fein.

Unionist politicians comfort themselves that their electorates “don’t vote for murderers” – but in 1993, there seemed to be significant support for murderers emanating from the PUL community. It is only one poll, so should be taken with numerous caveats, but then again, unionism equating a vote for Sinn Fein as a vote supporting “murder” is an extremely blunt, and inaccurate, instrument.

Willie McCrea’s Bitter Harvest, and Call for Airstrikes on the Republic of Ireland: Willie McCrea and Billy Wright

Willie McCrea is, among a crowded field, an especially odious DUP politician. He’s well known for appearing on a platform at what a member of the Alliance Party called an “extremist loyalist rally.” with then LVF leader Billy Wright. The LVF were simply murderers, who didn’t even pretend to be waging anything other than a sectarian war against the nationalist population. McCrea appeared with him in 1996, at a time when the UVF had issued a statement ordering Wright out of “Ulster” on pain of death.

McCrea is a criminal: convicted of riotous assembly in 1971. He was also a member of the Shankill Defence Association (which later morphed into the UDA), and gave prayer services at the funerals of the UVF men who blew themselves up whilst attacking the Miami Showband.

It’s worth repeating the defence McCrea gave for his appearance with Billy Wright. This is McCrea’s response to Martin McGuinness at Stormont:

First, may I say that Billy Wright was threatened to get out of the country or be put to death because of his political belief. He was threatened by the UVF, not for any action he had taken or any crime that he had committed … I did not condone any act that Billy Wright or any other had taken. Furthermore, I made it abundantly clear that anyone who had information on any criminal actions for which Billy Wright was liable and on which he could be charged should give it to the police and the case brought before the court … I did not condone any act of Billy Wright or anyone else, but he was condemned to death because he opposed the Belfast Agreement.

I oppose the Belfast Agreement. Does that mean that, in this society, I should be condemned to death for my political belief?

At the Billy Wright inquiry, McCrea reported contact with Wright in 1991 and/or 1992. This included a strange incident in which McCrea received news from an anonymous source of a threat to both McCrea, and Wright’s, life. McCrea didn’t report this to the RUC at the time. Why would that be? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems to me that McCrea had a pre-existing relationship with Wright. Either McCrea had a pre-existing relationship with Wright, or he was criminally negligible by not passing on a threat to Wright’s life.

Pertinent to this discussion is that McCrea condemns the threat to Wright’s life for his opposition to the Belfast Agreement­.

In fact, according to respected BBC journalist Peter Taylor, Wright was expelled from the UVF for, among other things, the LVF’s murder of politically uninvolved nationalist Michael McGoldrick. Mr McGoldrick was murdered on the 8th of July 1996, during the height of the Drumcree ‘protests.’ The UVF apparently started planning the ‘execution’ of Wright shortly afterwards. The murder of McGoldrick apparently didn’t figure in McCrea’s consideration as to whether he should appear with Billy Wright.

Why would any nationalist think McCrea is a man who could be trusted, respected, or taken seriously? Why would any Christian believe that this man practised the teachings of Christ? The squalid nature of McCrea is even more stark when contrasted with the life of Michael McGoldrick, and the calibre of his parents, who forgave the murderers of their son at the time.

Billy Wright, when discussing his motivations for joining the UVF, said this:

“You know,” he said, “when you've looked into the coffins of the ones you love, and you've heard the feeble excuses coming from nationalists, words weren't good enough.”

This could easily be a posthumous condemnation of the man he shared a stage with.

Willie McCrea calls for the Republic of Ireland and (nationalist areas of) the United Kingdom to be bombed by the Royal Air Force

In 2014, the Belfast Telegraph reported that: “One memo reports on the DUP annual conference in Belfast on April 19, 1986 …[it] reports: ‘Rev William McCrea urged Libya-type strikes against Dundalk, Drogheda, Crossmaglen and Carrickmore.’

The memo notes that another senior DUP member, Gregory Campbell, made an ‘extravagant contribution’ when he called for ‘even the foundations of Maryfield to be demolished."

The main speech was given by Peter Robinson, in which he outlined two alternative solutions - negotiation or confrontation … he said the latter would be ‘devastating, terrible and bloody’.”

Ironically, McCrea was inspired by airstrikes on Libyan targets carried out by American planes which took off from British airstrips. Colonel Gadhafi’s daughter was killed in the strikes, which motivated Gadhafi to send tonnes of weapons to Ireland for use by the IRA. One can barely imagine the scale of the propaganda coup for republicans that an RAF attack on nationalist Ireland would have had.

Perhaps to even out the degradation of appointing Clare “Warrington” Fox to the House of Lords, the DUP proposed, and the UK Govt accepted, Willie McCrea for membership of the House of Lords. The respected academic and military historian Edward Burke Tweeted the following:

Interesting. Appointing Willie McCrea to the HoL to ‘pack the chamber for Brexit’ might not sit well for British-Irish relations given his previous support for air strikes on Irish towns, among other things... You just couldn’t make it up!

Peter Robinson – When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

It’s fairly well-known that Peter Robinson was a member of the loyalist paramilitary group Ulster Resistance, along with the then leader of the DUP Ian Paisley. Both men quit Ulster Resistance when it became public knowledge that the organisation had been robbing banks and buying weapons.

Robinson was also the most public face of a large group of loyalists who extensively vandalised property in the village of Clontibret and beat up two Gardai officers.

Both of these incidents, simultaneously pathetic, sinister and ridiculous, are indicative of a rather dark and dysfunctional personality. In 2014, the Belfast Telegraph reported that:

[Ian] Paisley had scorned Robinson's involvement in the infamous loyalist invasion of Clontibret in August 1986, when he led a mob of 500 in protest at the Anglo Irish Agreement, holding a military parade in the town square before being driven over the border by the gardai.

Subsequent riots at Robinson's trial in Dundalk saw Paisley attacked with stones and petrol bombs.

‘I think he thought that was going to be a tremendous uprising, but that didn't happen,’ scoffed Paisley in the documentary.

Robinson challenged his account, claiming that it had been Paisley himself who was the one who had agreed to go to Clontibret, but then had to leave to go to a funeral in the US and Robinson had stepped in as his deputy.

Robinson briefly resigned as deputy leader of the DUP after the incident.

But the harder line adopted by Paisley over the UVF Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 showed how out of step the two DUP men had become.

While Paisley said the Republic had ‘brought it on themselves’ with their attitude to the North, Robinson said ‘terrorism" was responsible’.”

Ian Paisley blaming the victims of the biggest mass-murder during the conflict won’t surprise anyone, but Robinson blaming “terrorism” on the attack is confusing. Peter Robinson was very careful not to label those from his own community who carried out terrorist acts as terrorists. In an infamous interview, in 1986 he refused to describe the UVF/UDA as terrorists, and also refused to “condemn them by name.”

Fast forward to today, and we have the current leader of the DUP apparently spending much of his time and energy with Jamie Bryson – another man who doesn’t believe terrorists are terrorists when they’re terrorising on behalf of a loyalist organisation.

Again, why would any nationalist trust any DUP politician when it is rotten from the top down with demagogues, bigots, and religious extremists? I chose Willie McCrea and Peter Robinson, but most high profile DUP figures have similarly stunted and hypocritical pasts.

Where is the unionist equivalent to John Hume? A person who condemned violence emanating from his own community at least as stridently as he did other violence?

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Unionist Denial ✑ Inciting, Excusing, Masking Loyalist Violence

Brandon Sullivan ✒ I had an interesting exchange with Ian Major, AKA Wolfsbane on this blog recently. 

 I planned to respond to his detailed and measured comments, but ended up finishing and defending two articles about the sectarian murder of Protestants.

This piece of writing is in part a response to Ian, and in part a genuine attempt to illustrate why DUP, and wider unionist/loyalist denunciations of terrorism are not taken seriously by nationalists in Ireland and elsewhere, if indeed they have even been made in the first place.

March 1993: A Month of Murder, Protestant Paramilitary Support, and Sinn Fein votes

In March 1993, the IRA killed a Protestant contractor working on a security force base, a British soldier, and a member of the UFF’s C Company. They also bombed Warrington, resulting in the horrendous murder of two children, Timothy Parry and Jonathan Bell. As an interesting aside, one person who refused to condemn the Warrington bomb is former Brexit Party MEP, Claire Fox. Ms Fox’s past didn’t seem to stop Jamie Bryson from re-Tweeting her.

Loyalist were also highly active in March, 1993. They killed an IRA man, a member of Sinn Fein, and five politically uninvolved Catholic civilians. Loyalists killing two republicans out of nine members of the “nationalist electorate” was unusual – only a statistically tiny number of victims of the UVF/UFF were actually republican activists.

The IRA member, James Kelly, was one of five men shot dead by the UFF on Thursday 25th March. In West Belfast, the UFF’s C Company shot dead a 17 year old man named Damian Walsh. A spokesperson for the UFF, possibly Ray Smallwoods, had this to say about the murders his organisation committed:

We have the arms, the information and more than enough volunteers and the dedication is most certainly there as well. It is a terrible thing that anyone should lose their lives, but if you are talking in terms of success rates, yes, this week has been a success, and it’s still only Thursday.

An incurious loyalist triumphalist collective decided to name their blog after this, and publish excruciating apologia for loyalist sectarian criminality.

It is easy to dismiss that blog as unrepresentative of wider unionist views of loyalist violence. But it is less easy to dismiss a telephone poll conducted in the days after the loyalist killing spree of March 1993. David McKittrick reported in The Independent that:

One opinion poll carried out earlier this month by a Protestant Belfast newspaper, on the admittedly unscientific basis of telephone polling, came up with the alarming result that 42 per cent of Protestants supported loyalist paramilitaries.

Also in 1993, there were local elections. A third of the nationalist vote went to Sinn Fein.

Unionist politicians comfort themselves that their electorates “don’t vote for murderers” – but in 1993, there seemed to be significant support for murderers emanating from the PUL community. It is only one poll, so should be taken with numerous caveats, but then again, unionism equating a vote for Sinn Fein as a vote supporting “murder” is an extremely blunt, and inaccurate, instrument.

Willie McCrea’s Bitter Harvest, and Call for Airstrikes on the Republic of Ireland: Willie McCrea and Billy Wright

Willie McCrea is, among a crowded field, an especially odious DUP politician. He’s well known for appearing on a platform at what a member of the Alliance Party called an “extremist loyalist rally.” with then LVF leader Billy Wright. The LVF were simply murderers, who didn’t even pretend to be waging anything other than a sectarian war against the nationalist population. McCrea appeared with him in 1996, at a time when the UVF had issued a statement ordering Wright out of “Ulster” on pain of death.

McCrea is a criminal: convicted of riotous assembly in 1971. He was also a member of the Shankill Defence Association (which later morphed into the UDA), and gave prayer services at the funerals of the UVF men who blew themselves up whilst attacking the Miami Showband.

It’s worth repeating the defence McCrea gave for his appearance with Billy Wright. This is McCrea’s response to Martin McGuinness at Stormont:

First, may I say that Billy Wright was threatened to get out of the country or be put to death because of his political belief. He was threatened by the UVF, not for any action he had taken or any crime that he had committed … I did not condone any act that Billy Wright or any other had taken. Furthermore, I made it abundantly clear that anyone who had information on any criminal actions for which Billy Wright was liable and on which he could be charged should give it to the police and the case brought before the court … I did not condone any act of Billy Wright or anyone else, but he was condemned to death because he opposed the Belfast Agreement.

I oppose the Belfast Agreement. Does that mean that, in this society, I should be condemned to death for my political belief?

At the Billy Wright inquiry, McCrea reported contact with Wright in 1991 and/or 1992. This included a strange incident in which McCrea received news from an anonymous source of a threat to both McCrea, and Wright’s, life. McCrea didn’t report this to the RUC at the time. Why would that be? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems to me that McCrea had a pre-existing relationship with Wright. Either McCrea had a pre-existing relationship with Wright, or he was criminally negligible by not passing on a threat to Wright’s life.

Pertinent to this discussion is that McCrea condemns the threat to Wright’s life for his opposition to the Belfast Agreement­.

In fact, according to respected BBC journalist Peter Taylor, Wright was expelled from the UVF for, among other things, the LVF’s murder of politically uninvolved nationalist Michael McGoldrick. Mr McGoldrick was murdered on the 8th of July 1996, during the height of the Drumcree ‘protests.’ The UVF apparently started planning the ‘execution’ of Wright shortly afterwards. The murder of McGoldrick apparently didn’t figure in McCrea’s consideration as to whether he should appear with Billy Wright.

Why would any nationalist think McCrea is a man who could be trusted, respected, or taken seriously? Why would any Christian believe that this man practised the teachings of Christ? The squalid nature of McCrea is even more stark when contrasted with the life of Michael McGoldrick, and the calibre of his parents, who forgave the murderers of their son at the time.

Billy Wright, when discussing his motivations for joining the UVF, said this:

“You know,” he said, “when you've looked into the coffins of the ones you love, and you've heard the feeble excuses coming from nationalists, words weren't good enough.”

This could easily be a posthumous condemnation of the man he shared a stage with.

Willie McCrea calls for the Republic of Ireland and (nationalist areas of) the United Kingdom to be bombed by the Royal Air Force

In 2014, the Belfast Telegraph reported that: “One memo reports on the DUP annual conference in Belfast on April 19, 1986 …[it] reports: ‘Rev William McCrea urged Libya-type strikes against Dundalk, Drogheda, Crossmaglen and Carrickmore.’

The memo notes that another senior DUP member, Gregory Campbell, made an ‘extravagant contribution’ when he called for ‘even the foundations of Maryfield to be demolished."

The main speech was given by Peter Robinson, in which he outlined two alternative solutions - negotiation or confrontation … he said the latter would be ‘devastating, terrible and bloody’.”

Ironically, McCrea was inspired by airstrikes on Libyan targets carried out by American planes which took off from British airstrips. Colonel Gadhafi’s daughter was killed in the strikes, which motivated Gadhafi to send tonnes of weapons to Ireland for use by the IRA. One can barely imagine the scale of the propaganda coup for republicans that an RAF attack on nationalist Ireland would have had.

Perhaps to even out the degradation of appointing Clare “Warrington” Fox to the House of Lords, the DUP proposed, and the UK Govt accepted, Willie McCrea for membership of the House of Lords. The respected academic and military historian Edward Burke Tweeted the following:

Interesting. Appointing Willie McCrea to the HoL to ‘pack the chamber for Brexit’ might not sit well for British-Irish relations given his previous support for air strikes on Irish towns, among other things... You just couldn’t make it up!

Peter Robinson – When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

It’s fairly well-known that Peter Robinson was a member of the loyalist paramilitary group Ulster Resistance, along with the then leader of the DUP Ian Paisley. Both men quit Ulster Resistance when it became public knowledge that the organisation had been robbing banks and buying weapons.

Robinson was also the most public face of a large group of loyalists who extensively vandalised property in the village of Clontibret and beat up two Gardai officers.

Both of these incidents, simultaneously pathetic, sinister and ridiculous, are indicative of a rather dark and dysfunctional personality. In 2014, the Belfast Telegraph reported that:

[Ian] Paisley had scorned Robinson's involvement in the infamous loyalist invasion of Clontibret in August 1986, when he led a mob of 500 in protest at the Anglo Irish Agreement, holding a military parade in the town square before being driven over the border by the gardai.

Subsequent riots at Robinson's trial in Dundalk saw Paisley attacked with stones and petrol bombs.

‘I think he thought that was going to be a tremendous uprising, but that didn't happen,’ scoffed Paisley in the documentary.

Robinson challenged his account, claiming that it had been Paisley himself who was the one who had agreed to go to Clontibret, but then had to leave to go to a funeral in the US and Robinson had stepped in as his deputy.

Robinson briefly resigned as deputy leader of the DUP after the incident.

But the harder line adopted by Paisley over the UVF Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 showed how out of step the two DUP men had become.

While Paisley said the Republic had ‘brought it on themselves’ with their attitude to the North, Robinson said ‘terrorism" was responsible’.”

Ian Paisley blaming the victims of the biggest mass-murder during the conflict won’t surprise anyone, but Robinson blaming “terrorism” on the attack is confusing. Peter Robinson was very careful not to label those from his own community who carried out terrorist acts as terrorists. In an infamous interview, in 1986 he refused to describe the UVF/UDA as terrorists, and also refused to “condemn them by name.”

Fast forward to today, and we have the current leader of the DUP apparently spending much of his time and energy with Jamie Bryson – another man who doesn’t believe terrorists are terrorists when they’re terrorising on behalf of a loyalist organisation.

Again, why would any nationalist trust any DUP politician when it is rotten from the top down with demagogues, bigots, and religious extremists? I chose Willie McCrea and Peter Robinson, but most high profile DUP figures have similarly stunted and hypocritical pasts.

Where is the unionist equivalent to John Hume? A person who condemned violence emanating from his own community at least as stridently as he did other violence?

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

57 comments:

  1. Regarding Claire Fox, has it been established that she wrote that piece? Kenan Malik (someone I have a huge amount of respect for) would be the more likely person as he was the editor of 'The Next Step' at the time of Warrington. Interestingly, he is never mentioned in all of this, yet Claire Fox is repeatedly singled out.

    As for the piece itself, the bit no-one quotes ("The death of two young boys in Warrington was a tragedy, and will be deeply felt by their family and friends. But such casualties are the inevitable result of war. Nationalist children in the Six Counties have been maimed and killed by Crown forces for more than 20 years") is telling.

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    1. I was at Claire's wedding!! Was her by-line on the piece?

      Delete
    2. AM,

      The only name visible on the issue in question is Kenan Malik.

      Delete
    3. I didn't read the original article. I had an awareness of Claire Fox/RCP and Warrington from around 2013, and initially found it surprising that she threw her lot in with Farage, then realised it was pretty much par for the course with her and her ilk. I find her and Spiked to be poseurs and generally extremely boring - like Oppositional Defiant Disorder in written form. I did a bit of reading around it for this article: https://thecritic.co.uk/who-told-boris-to-make-claire-fox-a-peer-and-why/

      I thought about whether to include it as an aside or not. I concluded that I should. Corybn's character was relentlessly assassinated by unionism, the Murdoch press, the right-wing of the Labour party, Tories et all for his supposed association with the Provos, whilst Fox was given a peerage. Ridiculous. The Tories have their very own former IRA member as as Croydon councillor:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Gatland

      I initially thought Fox's peerage was something of a "fuck you" to Unionists, but I think it's more that the Johnson administration is so dysfunctional that they didn't do any due diligence. I cannot think of another reason why they would give her a peerage.

      I found it amusing that Bryson Re-Tweeted her, presumably without really understanding who she is/was. I wouldn't be surprised if Fox ended up supporting Habib, Hoey, & Bryson.

      Delete
    4. how come she is blamed?

      Delete
    5. Brandon - I think Spiked has written some very good stuff and has been a foil against the censoriousness of Woke. I think, however, that Brendan O'Neill seriously diluted his logical approach with his take on Brexit. To describe it as ODD plays into Spiked hands as O'Neill has stolen a march on that with his pathologisation of dissent remark.

      Delete
    6. AM, I think Claire is blamed because:

      - Her RCP past is well known
      - The RCP's willingness to support the IRA (LM carried a front page interview with Gerry Adams and picketed the BBC during the broadcasting ban).
      - Her being made a Baroness for an area near Warrington.

      Personally, I find a lot of the hysteria surrounding Spiked quite tedious (try mentioning them on the IREF). Sure, the headlines are clickbait and some of the takes are bad but there are quite a few pieces that offer up quite a bit to think about in terms of civil liberties, the culture wars, societal breakdown and race relations.

      Delete
    7. Christopher - her RCP past is well known but to assign authorship of a piece to her for that without evidence that she did write it seems a step too far.
      There are times when I get accused of having written pieces on this blog which were demonstrably written by somebody else.
      Couldn't agree more on Spiked. What I enjoyed about them is that they often acted as a draught in my comfort zone. And they took no Woke nonsense.

      Delete
    8. I assume that, somewhere down the line, her "RCP past = up the IRA" has been conflated into her writing that piece. An easy, but insidious, mistake to make.

      Colin Perry (father of Jonathan) did give her credit for speaking to him about the subject, but wasn't happy that she didn't condemn the bombings. Personally, I think that would be a no-win situation as Mr. Parry, undoubtedly, has the moral high ground and so a layered discussion of the bombing and the issues around it would be quite difficult.

      Delete
  2. To be fair even we called McRea " The Singing Bigot".

    Another thought does occur though, you focus on the Duppers which until the GFA were nowhere near the main unionist party. There was plenty among us who held Paisley and Robinson in low regard too. They were all talk, first to jump in front of a camera when it suited and the first to abandon us when the shit hit the fan.

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    Replies
    1. he was referred to as that in the jail as well.

      Delete
    2. @ Steve R

      It's a fair point re focusing on the DUP which were not the main unionist party until the GFA. But then again, it's the exact same for Sinn Fein. The SDLP were, often by a considerable margin, the biggest nationalist party.

      I picked McCrea and Robinson because they're high profile, and powerful. I was going to include Harold Gracey as well, given his out and proud support for Billy Wright, but couldn't find my copy of Drumcree.

      I also can't for the life of me remember the exact name and quote, but a female unionist politician once called for the RAF to bomb the Falls. Pauline something, I think.

      But the main point I was trying to get across was that unionists simply don't have the moral authority to damn nationalists for voting Sinn Fein, unless they condemn their own inciteful politicians.

      I'd liked to have looked for Catholic pastors who were as virulently sectarian as Paisley and the Free P's - I don't think there were any, but I'm happy to be corrected.

      The OUP/UUP had more than their fair share of cranks and bigots as well, of course. Bill Craig being one of the worst.

      I don't think there has ever been a nationalist equivalent to either extreme: as hateful as Willie McCrea/Bill Craig, or as compassionate and consistently critical of all violence as John Hume. The reasons for both of these are worth of studies and research projects.

      Delete
    3. Wasn't that Priest in charge of the Claudy bombings? And the other one who scored all the Memo timers from France back in the 70's? If memory serves Bik McFarlane was also training to be a Priest. ( not that he was a Politician).No matter, I take your point. There's also the fact that Paisley's Duppers were evangelical types who I always hold in great suspicion so perhaps by default they were always going to be more noticeable. Besides the recent gains by Alliance has rattled the Unionist dinosaurs so they'll be dragged screaming into the Enlightenment soon!

      Delete
  3. @ AM

    I think Fox is associated with the RCP position because of her refusal not to retract, and her later prominence on the BBC and Brexit party. Her MEP constituency included Warrington, which brought the story to prominence. To be quite honest, Christopher's providing the full statement gives a fairly robust context. I would be interested in knowing how the Provisionals viewed the RCP. They certainly had some involvement with the Troops Out movement, iirc.

    Where was Spiked's position on cancel culture when Jeremy Corbyn had the full might of the British establishment media against him? I will acknowledge not widely reading Spiked, but where I did, I found their articles to be mundane, almost transferable, pieces which seem performatively contrarian, and often dog-whistles to unpleasant right-wing tropes.

    I don't think much of Spiked's writing steps out of general, mainstream right-wing reactionary so-called culture war territory. I don't see it at dissent, really. What are they dissenting from? They strike me as being Toby Young-esque.

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    1. Her past is hardly reason to assign authorship of a piece to her that she might not have written. Up until Christopher raised the matter here I assumed she had expressed the view. Now it looks questionable.
      Asking where was Spike when Corbyn was abused is like raising the nationalist sectarianism in response to your piece on the Orange Order and Michaela McAreavey, They didn't have to be anywhere so long as they were not shutting down the space for Corbyn to state his case.
      I don't read them myself these days but when I did I always found what I read to be quality stuff and to a standard I would love this blog to reach.
      They dissent from every position they oppose. For example, cancel culture, censorship, Transgender, the EU . . .
      We don't need to agree with them on anything to see the valuable role they perform.

      Delete
    2. "Where was Spiked's position on cancel culture when Jeremy Corbyn had the full might of the British establishment media against him?"

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/05/22/corbyn-and-the-ira-an-infantile-scandal/

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2015/09/21/no-jeremy-corbyn-is-not-a-threat-to-life-as-we-know-it/

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2015/06/23/the-use-and-abuse-of-jeremy-corbyn/

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2016/10/04/corbyns-critics-are-trivialising-anti-semitism/

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2016/03/21/dont-blame-corbyn-for-the-rise-of-anti-semitism/

      Delete
  4. @ AM

    Re-reading what I wrote, I'm relieved to note that I didn't actually say Fox wrote the 1993 piece - but I did quote the BBC (and other outlets) which point out that she has consistently refused to condemn the Warrington bombing. The subject is clearly more complex than first glance, though.

    I don't see Spiked's positions on most subjects are substantively different from the most widely consumed mainstream media, particularly the Murdoch press. I don't therefore consider them to dissent - if anything, they simply endorse and reinforce generally accepted right-wing positions.

    All that being said, they certainly get people talking.

    This Tweet amused me: https://twitter.com/AllyFogg/status/1318616917519835139

    I'm off to see Fran Lebowitz, but will get back to other comments later or tomorrow.

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    Replies
    1. It has been long said that she wrote the piece - way before you wrote the above article. Dissent is not the prerogative of the Left or the Liberals. The right too can dissent. Spiked has provided a valuable forum for dissenting opinion. That it dissents from what the Liberal - Left hold dear is no less dissent. Another important area in which it has dissented is the manner in which the label of Islamophobia has been used to silence criticism and discussion.

      Delete
  5. @ Christopher Owens

    Re your links, well, I think my comments about Corbyn/Spiked can safely be withdrawn! I did do a search before posing the Corbyn/Spiked question, but I think it was a case of confirmation bias: I had a preconceived idea of their stance, and saw headings that confirmed it. Happy to be proved wrong. Well, not happy to be proved wrong, but content to acknowledge I was wrong.

    What's IREF? It's ringing a bell somewhere, but can't place it.

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    Replies
    1. Irish Republican Education Forum. A great Facebook group for papers, photos and articles.

      Delete
  6. How can anyone not condemn Warrington?

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    1. easily enough unfortunately. There are people who fail to condemn or deny the Holocaust. It might irk you but don't let it surprise you.

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    2. Claire Fox and her RCP comrades also saw fit to deny the atrocities at the Bosnian Serb concentration camps at Omarska, Trnijople and other sites and their Living Marxism journal rightly got put out of business when sued by the ITN reporter Penny Marshall for their denials. But they were the foreshadow of the post-truth pathologies of our era.

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  7. Brandon, I can see how the CNR community views the DUP condemnations of terrorism and those who vote for SF as hypocrisy. The cases you give, especially the WM. McCrea support for Billy Wright, are indeed hypocritical.

    But it is more nuanced than that. The PUL community did not give their support to their terrorists becoming their leaders. The CNR community did. The reason for that is simple – they do not trust their terrorists to behave democratically if they get power. The community knows the backroom boys will not feel constrained by any dissent.

    As to PUL support for the terrorist campaign, I would not be surprised by the figure in the poll. The level of support would depend a lot on the circumstances: the success of IRA/INLA terrorism and the failure of the Security Forces in responding; the political threat to the Union in a Government initiative, etc. And conversely, the vile nature of a particular loyalist act of terror.

    Where IRA activists and their political wing were the targets, I reckon most PUL thought they were only getting what they were giving, and thoroughly deserved it. Where innocent Nationalists were the targets, most PUL would have condemned it in their hearts, if not in public when it would be unsafe to do so.

    Very few PULs will march or gather to remember dead Loyalist terrorists. We find it very sad and alarming that SF do and are still voted for by the majority of Nationalists.

    So no total rejection of Loyalist terrorism where it was deemed better than no response at all. But no support for them being elected to power, nor honoured as heroes worth celebrating. The heroes for the majority of PULs are the RUC/UDR/ARMY and the businessmen and workers who contracted service to bases, etc. at risk of their lives.

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  8. @ Wolfsbane

    "The PUL community did not give their support to their terrorists becoming their leaders ... the reason for that is simple – they do not trust their terrorists to behave democratically if they get power"

    Do you believe that Northern Ireland was governed democratically from 1922 - 1972? A British diplomat in Peter Taylor's excellent BBC documentary series "Provo's" described the unionist regime as a "mild form of tyranny."

    The PUL community could be justified in considering that active militant republicans were "getting what they were giving" but loyalist paramilitaries killed more members of the PUL community in mistake for Catholic civilians than they did militant republicans, therefor that particular claim is something of a red herring.

    I put the actions of loyalist paramilitaries the month prior to the phone poll to demonstrate just what it was the respondents said they were supporting. The phone poll was anonymous as well.

    Members of the PUL community commemorate and honour loyalist dead. 5000 people attended Billy Wright's funeral. Soldier F and many other security force killers of Irish people receive wild support within the PUL community.

    I think your points tend to shrink when they are analysed in depth. For my part, I think that each armed entity in the Troubles committed a broad range of actions, ranging from the most despicable atrocity to brave, principled activities.

    PUL politicians allow themselves extensive wriggle room and claim moral superiority for the rather weak reasons you have detailed.

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  9. Yes, NI was governed as democratically as the Free State/ROI. The 'mild tyranny' perhaps refers to the security response to sporadic terror by the IRA. There were no ongoing arrests or detentions of Nationalists. The Irish government responded in a similar manner to IRA activity.

    Was there gerrymandering? Yes. A common enough corrupt practice in other democracies.

    Read my comments again on how the majority of Unionists regarded the Loyalist terrorists. It was only the murders of known Republicans that they accepted. The murder of innocents, Catholics or Protestants, did not have their approval.

    Funerals are a bit different from annual commemorations. There are family connections that lead some to attend, despite their rejection of the individual's actions. Colm Eastwood knows that. Then too those who go to see the spectacular- in my experience, that accounts for a lot of those who gather. But of course many will be supporters of the cause represented. But what percentage of the community do they represent? Not much.

    The case of soldier F and other soldiers is different. Those who campaign for them believe they are innocent of wilful murder, and are being picked on by Republicans as part of their agenda to rewrite history. You might think that very naive, but put yourself in their shoes and see the Republican wailing about Security Force murders, but utter silence about all the murders they carried out against Protestant and Catholics. It makes them suspicious of any claims supported by Republicans.

    The hypocrisy of PUL politicians is no indication that the majority of the PUL community supported terror or those who fronted for it. With the exceptions I noted, they did not.

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    1. The regiment Soldier F belonged to was guilty of massacring an unarmed civilian population on two occasions within a six month period. There is no difference between it and Kingsmill. It was state terrorism and there are people who supported it and want the victims denied justice.

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    2. Wolfsbane. You forgot to mention the widespread discrimination in public sector jobs, housing allocation and provision of services by Stormont. Also the multiple business vote was retained until 1968. No "democratic" state this side of the Atlantic Ocean gerrymandered on the scale of Derry and Omagh councils to ensure that these and other majority CNR towns returned Unionist electoral majorities. Also the Special Powers Act was the envy of John Vorster PM of Apartheid South Africa.

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  10. @ Wolfsbane 1/2

    This gets to why I entered into this discussion with you. I think your points of view are not unusual within the PUL community.

    I carefully read your comments, which is why I am taking issue with them. You accepted that a poll revealed that 42% of the PUL community supported loyalist terrorism. You then reject this notion and state, without evidence, that this support was actually “acceptance” of the “murder of known republicans.”

    This is a totally dissonant position.

    As I detailed, the month prior to the poll, out of seven people killed by loyalists, five were politically uninvolved Catholics, one of them not even old enough to vote. I also pointed out that, for loyalists, this was an unusually high ratio of republicans to civilians killed. Support for loyalist paramilitaries is support for sectarian murder.

    To use your analysis, those that supported the IRA in April 1993 did so because they killed a member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters the month before.

    The mild tyranny the retired British diplomat referred to was a one party state which through commission or omission, based on ethno-religious background, discriminated against one class of person. The repressive security apparatus was simply part of it. Few people try to argue against this generally accepted historical fact, including the late Ian Paisley.

    You claim that the PUL would not vote for terrorists because they could not be trusted to act democratically once in power. I don’t think there is any evidence that unionists acted as democratically as, say, the Westminster Government did. So I think your point is invalid. There is also no evidence to suggest that Sinn Fein would act undemocratically. Your points are presented without evidence.

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  11. @ Wolfsbane 2/2

    It’s worth unpacking the following statement in full:

    “The case of soldier F and other soldiers is different. Those who campaign for them believe they are innocent of wilful murder, and are being picked on by Republicans as part of their agenda to rewrite history. You might think that very naive, but put yourself in their shoes and see the Republican wailing about Security Force murders, but utter silence about all the murders they carried out against Protestant and Catholics. It makes them suspicious of any claims supported by Republicans.”

    It is not only republicans who believe Soldier F and the other Para’s are responsible for wilful murder. Douglas Murray, the neo-conservative writer, also does. The PSNI do. Londonderry coroner, and former British soldier, Major Hubert O’Neill called it murder at the time. Lord Saville and the British Government accepted that the killings had no justification. I think that you only see republicans raising these issues. The Parachute regiment also murdered Protestants on the Shankill Road, robbed Post Offices in the North (as did the Argyll’s), and one of them became a despotic mercenary, eventually executed for a range of murders in Africa.

    The UDA described the Para’s as murderers in the early 1970s.

    The CNR community sees unionist political support for murders committed by the security forces as deeply sectarian. That’s because, I think, the support is sectarian. Some unionist politicians were quick to condemn and even threaten the RUC because of the rerouting of an Orange Parade, but defend even the most egregious thugs and murderers, so long as they are wearing a British army uniform. This is rank hypocrisy.

    Edwin Poots son, Luke, joined (he said accidently) a well-attended annual commemoration for two UFF terrorists killed by the IRA. There is a well-attended annual commemoration for UVF terrorist Brian Robinson, shot dead immediately after he murdered a Catholic civilian. Flute bands are named after dead loyalist terrorists. There is plenty of evidence there if you want to see it of the PUL community commemorating their dead terrorists. Buck Alec was something of a folk hero within elements of the PUL community.

    I don’t actually think there is much wrong in commemorating dead paramilitaries. But let’s be honest about it. It happens on both sides. What I object to is the solipsism that exists in significant elements of the PUL community.

    The PUL community (like the CNR community) contains large elements that supported terrorists, commemorates terrorists, and its political leaders incited, encouraged, facilitated, and excused terrorism.

    Once the duality of this behaviour is accepted, it’s liberating. We all have a lot more in common than we might like to think.

    Steve R responded to my question about Catholic clerics engaging in demagoguery by pointing out the antics of James Chesney and Frank Ryan (both Priests), and Bik McFarlane, who had at one stage trained for the priesthood. My immediate response was to look for how it was different. But I took a different approach: I looked at the similarities. I think that that’s the best way forward to understanding politics in the north.

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  12. Wolfie,

    I've dealt with the Para's first hand. They are animals. I too, saw the raising of their Battle Standard in PUL areas with great disappointment but no surprise. It was a "Fuck You" to Sinn Fein without the wherewithal to accept the barbarity of what that regiment had done. The smart move would have been to realise there would be no meaningful prosecution of UK forces and so pick a better battle to fight-and there are plenty of them- from Bloody Friday to the Disappeared.

    Brandon,

    "There is also no evidence to suggest that Sinn Fein would act undemocratically."

    This goes to the old question of the Army Council. Does the AC still run SF?

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-fein-minister-sought-consent-for-action-from-unelected-official-inquiry-finds-1.4202344

    Just what position did Ted Howell hold? He wasn't democratically elected as far as I can see, yet he was always never far away from the Adams Group and Adams himself often deferred to him.

    And Sinn Fein have a zero tolerance policy for anyone who doesn't toe the party line, never hear of a Shinner going on a solo run in the press, don't know about not being democratic but they sure as shit know a thing or two about fascism. One Party, One Vote, One Voice.

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  13. @ Stevie R

    For every Ted Howell, there's a Jamie Bryson. Dominic Cummings wasn't elected - he was simply a Special Advisor.

    I'd agree with you about Sinn Fein's appalling track record of stamping out dissent, and dissidents. Didn't a former Shinner in Derry tell all? I'm going from memory.

    To return to Wolfie's point though, he claims that the PUL community wouldn't return "terrorists" to parliament on the grounds that they wouldn't behave democratically. I think that the PUL community consistently elect people to parliament who are simply not interested in pursuing democracy if it in any way interferes with their politico-religious-ethnocentric agenda.

    Armed republican groups set up a flawed democracy in Eire. Armed loyalists groups, and their political representatives set up a "mild tyranny" in the North.

    I think Wolfie's point about the PUL electorate not electing "terrorists" for the reason he gave is baseless. I don't think loyalist paramilitaries really need a political voice - there are people more extreme than them in the existing political structures, who used (and abused) loyalist paramilitaries and disaffected citizens to bolster their own position.

    The only distinction I see between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness is that McGuinness led from the front and got his hands very dirty. McGuinness was also, from what I can gather, non-sectarian, whereas sectarianism was the dominant strain in Paisley's personality.

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    1. The PUL community is a broad church the vast bulk of which are middle of the road, middle class and notionally 'churchy' types. Where the paramilitaries stemmed from is the working class. There is/was a disconnect between all strata. The old school Unionist politicians in the UUP were very much middle class with a tendency to being of working class roots with the odd landed gentry blue blood pretender thrown in or in the Paisleyites case, rural farmers vehemently Christian or born again townies. Both the UUP and DUP used fear to bolster their positions, Paisley being the biggest gobshite of the lot of them. But the working class knew that it was better to have these gobshites in parliament working for them rather than the paramilitaries as the paramilitaries even back in the 70’s were known to sort their own pockets out first. Case in point I distinctly remember a story from during the UWC strike about only certain people getting fresh bread brought through the lines.
      As for MMG being ‘non-sectarian’ that’s not going to fly with me or the PUL community. He was the head honcho of Northern Command ( or at least on the AC)during the Enniskillen Bombing and Teebane. He would have had notice of them going ahead and given the nod. Don’t insult us by claiming they were anything but sectarian attacks. It’s us who buried the dead.
      On another note check out MMG’s Wikipedia page. Some Shinner Apparatchik has bestowed “Hero of Ireland” status posthumously upon him!

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    2. There is nothing of surprise in claims that McGuinness would not have been sectarian. My experience of the Derry IRA was they could never understand the sectarian animosity of others in particular Belfast.
      I speculate that you are right about him signing off on Enniskillen although what resulted and what he signed off on were most likely not the same. Nor was it an accident - it was a deliberate targetting of the innocent, but by the people on the bomb rather than those who gave the green light. I guess McGUinness was assured that the UDR could be hit hard. That does not make the attack any less appalling. There is nothing that can be said in mitigation. It is just an observation on McGuinness and his relationship to sectarianism. It was a PR disaster for the IRA and SF so made no sense. Apparently the fall out from it was pretty serious.
      There was a flare up in the jail over it - one guy who was on the wings but not for anything political made a dismissive comment and an INLA guy punched him.
      At the same time, a I spoke later to one of the Belfast IRA leadership and he said to me he cheered when it happened, thinking it was retaliation for RUC attacks on IRA funerals.

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    3. Enniskillen shocked in the way Bloody Sunday did for Nationalists I suspect. There was a strange, horrible cold emptiness about that day. We were stunned for days.

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    4. of that I have no doubt

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    5. I have it on good authority that two volunteers attended the 'Remembrance Sunday' parade in Enniskillen in '72 or '73 to observe the proceedings with a view towards an attack on the security force contingents over the following years. As I heard it, they reported back that the opportunities were limited; too many civilians and too many youngsters, Boys Brigade & Girl Guides in the formations.
      A long-range sniper-shot at a high-ranking officer laying a wreath was ruled out as there was no decent vantage spot with a definite escape route. A workable alternative plan to place a radio-controlled directed charge in one of the flower containers adjacent to the Cenotaph was given scant regard too. Though the volunteer making the proposal was a radio ham, in a time before even TV remote controls the potential for radio activated detonations were still way beyond the reach of his peers.
      Where the '86 charge was placed was never considered. It made no sense to place a charge inside a building, outside of which on-lookers stood to view the ceremony.
      (A couple of years after the dreadful Enniskillen attack, one of those volunteers mentioned was in conversation with someone who he believed to have been the operational director for the area and related his experiences of 72/73. The reply he got was that the source of the intelligence had always previously been accurate. The conversation I'm told, was abruptly brought to an end with a glare and an admonishment, "Now you won't be telling that to anyone else will ya")

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  14. AM said:
    ‘The regiment Soldier F belonged to was guilty of massacring an unarmed civilian population on two occasions within a six month period. There is no difference between it and Kingsmill. It was state terrorism and there are people who supported it and want the victims denied justice.’

    I agree. But the people who support the Paras on that mostly believe the victims, especially in Derry, were either unfortunately caught up in a gun battle between the IRA and Army, or were active participants. That was the official story for a long time and those opposing it were seen to be suspect, with a Nationalist/Republican agenda.

    I have the privilege of having known former Republicans from Derry, whose word I trust and I accept their account that it was an unjustified slaughter, state terrorism. Had I not heard that, I likely would have remained suspicious no matter what later enquiries decided.

    Of course there are others who just don't care. They regard the whole CNR community as enemies and just shrug if Loyalists or Security Forces murder them.

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    1. @ Wolfsbane

      If you agree that Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, and Kingsmill were acts of murderous terrorism, then it stands that those supporting the Para's are the moral equivalent of the IRA unit who perpetrated the Kingsmill massacre.

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    2. there is much in that. Many unionists have since come around to the view that it was a state atrocity. A DUP guy said to me at a conference in England many years ago that had he endured what nationalists did he too would have joined the IRA.

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    3. I dissent from the view that there is an absolute equivalence between the actions of the Para's and those who carried out the Kingsmill Massacre. All were dastardly acts, however the actions of state forces, by necessity and obligation, must be held to a higher commitment to lawful conduct. Those entrusted with enforcing the law must themselves firstly rigorously uphold it.
      The circumstances, both before and after 'Bloody Sunday' clearly demonstrate that the Para's had no commitment to upholding the law, rather they were committed to enforcing the will of the state, the will of the state regardless to its lawfulness. What transpired 6 months later in Ballymurphy bears this out, as does their behaviour at Magilligan strand one week before.
      So aggressive and egregious was their stance on that particular day that John Hume in its aftermath called for the anti-internment demonstration in Derry for the following weekend to be called off. He was so concerned and distressed by the behaviour of the Para's that he refused to participate in the march. To equate the Paras’ actions with those who committed the Kingsmill Massacre is, on scrutiny, tenuous and disingenuous. Those committing the Kingsmill atrocity were insurgents, a loosely constructed cabal of dissidents, dissenting from an enforced and discredited polity; probably parochial, largely uneducated and highly reactionary. To equate their actions with one of the elite regiments of a then major, albeit diminishing, world power is to any reasonable observer largely unsustainable and even fatuous.

      Those carrying out the Kingsmill atrocity on Jan. 5th '76 were reacting to an equally horrendous series of events; 120 innocents Catholics murdered by Loyalists in 1975 with more than a 1/4 of them having been committed within the Armagh region i.e., in the murder triangle. Eighteen days previous to the slaughter at Kingsmill, Loyalists planted a bomb outside a Dundalk pub, killing 2 and injuring 20, followed up a few short hours later with a bomb & gun attack in Siverbridge, where they killed 3 more and injured 6. Then culminating on the eve of the massacre with the murdered the 3 Reavey brothers and 3 members of the O'Dowd family.

      None of that is to justify nor diminish the horror of the act, merely an attempt to lay out a time-line and more accurately set the record.

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    4. There is an absolute equivalence, any difference is of degree not kind. Both were crimes against humanity; both were war crimes; both were the pre planned annihilation of an unarmed civilian population, both sets of victims had the exact same right not to be butchered. The above while not approving the massacre at Kingsmill still sounds like our mass slaughter was better than yours.

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  15. Barry said:
    ‘You forgot to mention the widespread discrimination in public sector jobs, housing allocation and provision of services by Stormont. Also the multiple business vote was retained until 1968. No "democratic" state this side of the Atlantic Ocean gerrymandered on the scale of Derry and Omagh councils to ensure that these and other majority CNR towns returned Unionist electoral majorities. Also the Special Powers Act was the envy of John Vorster PM of Apartheid South Africa.’

    No doubt there was widespread discrimination. That was the folly of a society that could have instead tried to convince the Nationalists that NI was a good place to be while they waited for their numbers to successfully vote for a UI. O'Neill might have pulled it off, had Paisley and others not been able to point to Republican involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. They used that to convince enough Unionists that it was all a Republican plot, and the reconciliation initiatives of O'Neill and Lemass were folly by the former and bogus by the latter.

    The Business Vote was part of the UK local government until 1948, I think. It did give a margin to Unionism, so likely that's why it was retained. But the non-business Unionists had the same vote as non-business Nationalists.

    Yes, it may well be that America was the nearest haven of gerrymandering. I don't know enough about divided societies like Belgium.

    The Special Powers Act indeed gave broad powers to the Civil Authority. The closest to it may have been the Offences Against the State legislation in the Free State/Republic. But the key issue is the effects of such legislation. How many people were interned or executed under it? I think we will find that Republicans were a lot safer in NI than in the Free State, at least until the last Troubles.

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  16. Brandon said:
    ‘This gets to why I entered into this discussion with you. I think your points of view are not unusual within the PUL community.’

    Yes, I believe they are as represented as I indicated. I have a caveat though: I do not frequent pubs and clubs, so I gave no access to voices freed up by alcohol. I depend on personal conversations with the people who do frequent that scene. So I am perhaps not faced with the worst attitudes. I regard myself as a working class man, with friends in both the working and middle classes.


    ‘I carefully read your comments, which is why I am taking issue with them. You accepted that a poll revealed that 42% of the PUL community supported loyalist terrorism. You then reject this notion and state, without evidence, that this support was actually “acceptance” of the “murder of known republicans.”
    This is a totally dissonant position.’

    Sorry if I have been unclear. The figure for support of Loyalist terrorism would have reflected that, with the qualifications I gave. But if you have the specific questions asked and they specify a total acceptance of all Loyalist terror, then I would have to disagree with the figures given. From my experience, there was no such unqualified support at that level.

    ‘As I detailed, the month prior to the poll, out of seven people killed by loyalists, five were politically uninvolved Catholics, one of them not even old enough to vote. I also pointed out that, for loyalists, this was an unusually high ratio of republicans to civilians killed. Support for loyalist paramilitaries is support for sectarian murder.’

    Only if that applied across the board. Did all who supported the IRA support all their acts, including sectarian mass murder? Did all who supported the Security Forces support all their actions, if they were known to be unjustified? I don't think so. Even among the shooters and bombers, I know that some actions by their organisation were deplored.

    ‘To use your analysis, those that supported the IRA in April 1993 did so because they killed a member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters the month before.’

    As above, some might well have supported the IRA in killing Security Force members, but deplored their murder of civilians.

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  17. Brandon said:
    'The mild tyranny the retired British diplomat referred to was a one party state which through commission or omission, based on ethno-religious background, discriminated against one class of person. The repressive security apparatus was simply part of it. Few people try to argue against this generally accepted historical fact, including the late Ian Paisley.’

    That describes the NI state, but I would not use the term tyranny, as so many democratic states with divided communities would fall under that condemnation. Let the mono-national countries reflect on how they would do otherwise.

    ‘You claim that the PUL would not vote for terrorists because they could not be trusted to act democratically once in power. I don’t think there is any evidence that unionists acted as democratically as, say, the Westminster Government did. So I think your point is invalid. There is also no evidence to suggest that Sinn Fein would act undemocratically. Your points are presented without evidence.’

    Westminster did not have a large minority seeking to bring down the state. So Unionists were democratic, aside from local pockets of gerrymandering. As to trusting SF to operate democratically, it is not only Unionists who would fear that the IRA calls the shots in any SF government. Barry makes the point for me in his post above. I would no more trust SF than I would trust the PUP.

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    1. " I would no more trust SF than I would trust the PUP."

      I would no more trust the DUP's competence than put Jimmy Savile in charge of a Children's home. At least with the Shinners you can tell what they are going to do by what the DUP whinge loudly about.

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  18. Brandon said:
    ‘It is not only republicans who believe Soldier F and the other Para’s are responsible for wilful murder. Douglas Murray, the neo-conservative writer, also does. The PSNI do. Londonderry coroner, and former British soldier, Major Hubert O’Neill called it murder at the time. Lord Saville and the British Government accepted that the killings had no justification. I think that you only see republicans raising these issues. The Parachute regiment also murdered Protestants on the Shankill Road, robbed Post Offices in the North (as did the Argyll’s), and one of them became a despotic mercenary, eventually executed for a range of murders in Africa.
    The UDA described the Para’s as murderers in the early 1970s.’

    I don't say no one but Republicans think the Paras guilty. I say the majority of Unionists have or had that view. Loyalists would be more realistic, given their experience at their hands.

    ‘The CNR community sees unionist political support for murders committed by the security forces as deeply sectarian. That’s because, I think, the support is sectarian. Some unionist politicians were quick to condemn and even threaten the RUC because of the rerouting of an Orange Parade, but defend even the most egregious thugs and murderers, so long as they are wearing a British army uniform. This is rank hypocrisy.’

    The point I'm making is that there is a spectrum of belief in Unionism as to the guilt of the Security Forces in certain incidences. Many genuinely thought them innocent. Others knew or thought it likely they were guilty and deplore it. Others think the same and welcome it or at least are indifferent. The hypocrites are those who know but deny the truth.

    ‘Edwin Poots son, Luke, joined (he said accidently) a well-attended annual commemoration for two UFF terrorists killed by the IRA. There is a well-attended annual commemoration for UVF terrorist Brian Robinson, shot dead immediately after he murdered a Catholic civilian. Flute bands are named after dead loyalist terrorists. There is plenty of evidence there if you want to see it of the PUL community commemorating their dead terrorists. Buck Alec was something of a folk hero within elements of the PUL community.’

    Exactly. As I said, there is a section of Unionism that supports Loyalist terrorists. But it is not the majority view.

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  19. Brandon said:
    ‘I don’t actually think there is much wrong in commemorating dead paramilitaries. But let’s be honest about it. It happens on both sides. What I object to is the solipsism that exists in significant elements of the PUL community.’

    I see no problem with people remembering a fallen comrade, but not celebrating his/her actions. Yea, there are hypocrites amongst the Unionist people, especially amongst their politicians. Surely that is a given in any community?

    ‘The PUL community (like the CNR community) contains large elements that supported terrorists, commemorates terrorists, and its political leaders incited, encouraged, facilitated, and excused terrorism.’

    Not the majority of the community, however. As to the manipulating and idle threats from some Unionist leaders, the majority can be blamed for still following them, but they too did not act out the threats their leaders had made and resiled from. Hypocrisy and play acting, but not actual murders and bombings.

    ‘Once the duality of this behaviour is accepted, it’s liberating. We all have a lot more in common than we might like to think.’

    I agree that there are levels of support for terror in both communities.

    ‘Steve R responded to my question about Catholic clerics engaging in demagoguery by pointing out the antics of James Chesney and Frank Ryan (both Priests), and Bik McFarlane, who had at one stage trained for the priesthood. My immediate response was to look for how it was different. But I took a different approach: I looked at the similarities. I think that that’s the best way forward to understanding politics in the north.’

    Yes, there are essential differences, but both sides had clerics meddling in unlawful outworking of politics. It definitely was not all on one side.

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  20. Stevie said:
    ‘I've dealt with the Para's first hand. They are animals. I too, saw the raising of their Battle Standard in PUL areas with great disappointment but no surprise. It was a "Fuck You" to Sinn Fein without the wherewithal to accept the barbarity of what that regiment had done. The smart move would have been to realise there would be no meaningful prosecution of UK forces and so pick a better battle to fight-and there are plenty of them- from Bloody Friday to the Disappeared.’

    Totally agree.

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  21. Brandon said:
    ‘I don't think loyalist paramilitaries really need a political voice - there are people more extreme than them in the existing political structures, who used (and abused) loyalist paramilitaries and disaffected citizens to bolster their own position.’

    Agreed. My point however is that the Loyalists will not get their hands on government. The DUP or whoever will not be checking out their next statements or policies with the UVF leadership, and obeying their decisions.

    ‘The only distinction I see between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness is that McGuinness led from the front and got his hands very dirty. McGuinness was also, from what I can gather, non-sectarian, whereas sectarianism was the dominant strain in Paisley's personality.’

    Paisley at times used Loyalist threat or actual violence to further his career. But he did not run a terrorist organisation. He did not order specific murders nor delegate his juniors to murder their neighbours. Both were hypocritical, but one was toying with terror and the other was a professional.

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  22. Wolfie - for some reasons some of your earlier comments went to spam and I just noticed them. They go back as far as May. I have uploaded them - not sure what happened. Apologies for not checking the spam folder much earlier.

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  23. Brandon said:
    'If you agree that Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, and Kingsmill were acts of murderous terrorism, then it stands that those supporting the Para's are the moral equivalent of the IRA unit who perpetrated the Kingsmill massacre.'

    Only if the supporter believes the Paras murdered innocent marchers. Many still believe the Paras' account. They may be gullible, even prejudiced, but are not knowingly condoning murder.

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    1. I can see that - the converse is that few nationalists would see Narrow Water as murder.

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  24. Yes, in both communities there is a spectrum of approval/condemnation, and it varies with not only the incidents but also the circumstances.

    I know good men who joined the Loyalist terrorists when they thought things were desperate enough to require an armed response. And I'm sure the same applies to many decent Natonalists who joined the Republican terrorists.

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  25. @ Steve R

    Within loyalist circles, were attacks on security force contractors seen differently compared to attacks on the RUC and UDR?

    A friend of mine said that the attacks on security force contractors were as sectarian, or non-sectarian, as loyalist attacks on drivers for taxi firms which financially benefited the Provisionals, or shops that sold Republican News.

    I think he raises an interesting point, but I'm not sure it holds up to deeper analysis.

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  26. Brandon,

    Only slightly. Viewed as pure sectarian by the community. Ruc and Udr losses were seen as occupational hazards. Ordinary prods working for a living being blown to pieces boiled the blood.

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