Dr John Coulter ✍ With a new coalition government - without Sinn Fein - about to be formed in Dublin’s Leinster House, the ruling Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael partnership will be trying to buy Irish Unity by pumping its so-called cash surplus into Northern Ireland.

Naturally, many in the Unionist community will be up in arms and urging organisations not to yield to the Dublin temptation of accepting Leinster House ‘bribes’.

The new Dublin coalition government will spin the view that the republic is now akin to ‘England’s Green and Pleasant Land’, and here’s the financial chequebook to prove it.

On one hand, the FF/FG cash incentive is a propaganda ploy to derail any Sinn Fein moves to call for a border poll. Its tantamount to the split in nationalism between the so-called constitutional republicanism of the coalition, and the more hardline republican approach of Sinn Fein.

In terms of this mythical border poll, while Sinn Fein was looking to its electoral success in Northern Ireland at council, Assembly and Westminster levels to trigger such a referendum, Southern nationalists in the FF/FG coalition are looking to cash handouts for Northern Ireland as their tactic.

As a radical Right-wing Unionist, I take the view that Unionism should use republican ideology against itself. There is a saying that republicans are quite happy to accept the half crown, but not to recognise the Crown!

I’m off a vintage age-wise who can recall the words of the late former First Minister, Dr Ian Paisley, who when he was campaigning for the 1979 European elections, said that he was going to the European Parliament to milk the European cow!

This is a theme I have explored in an earlier column on The Pensive Quill.

Whilst I know in modern day Unionism, the so-called Donaldson Deal was politically oversold to encourage the DUP to go back into Stormont, there is a similar danger in me urging Unionism to bleed the South of all these cash incentives for Northern Ireland.

Instead of Unionism viewing Southern cash aid as ‘sell out Ulster’ finance, Unionism should view any money from the Southern Ireland administration as reparations for all the genocide and ethnic cleansing inflicted on the pro-Union community from republican terror gangs based in the 26 counties.

Taking the history of the Troubles, how many people were murdered, maimed or attacked - especially in the border counties of Northern Ireland - only to see those republican death gangs skitter away off to the supposed political safety of the Irish Republic?

What serious efforts did the South’s security forces and intelligence community really do to apprehend republican terrorists?

How many terrorists would have been caught, and lives saved, if the Dublin government had allowed ‘hot pursuit’ tactics by the British security forces, especially the elite SAS, to chase republican terror gangs throughout the 26 counties?

What about the sectarian slaughter of the 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmills in January 1976 by the Provisional IRA in South Armagh using the cover name of the South Armagh Republican Action Force? How many of the republican terror gang which carried out this ethnic cleansing could have been caught if the SAS had been granted access to the Irish Republic?

The previous year, in September 1975, the Provos had carried out the Tullyvallen Orange Hall massacre in which five Orangemen were murdered - also claimed in the name of the so-called South Armagh Republican Action Force.

My late father, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was a senior Orange chaplain and he was invited one year to preach at the Tullyvallen Massacre memorial service. I accompanied my dad to the service and was allowed to sit at the lodge table and see the bullet scores and marks on that table.

It was a very eerie feeling to be in that chair knowing one of the occupants had been murdered. Again, could the gunmen have been apprehended if the SAS had been allowed ‘hot pursuit’ into the Republic?

As well as the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade, another notorious death squad was its East Tyrone Brigade, led at one time by former Monaghan Sinn Fein councillor Jim Lynagh, who was one of eight members of that terror gang shot dead by the SAS at Loughgall in Co Armagh in May 1987.

I’ll set aside the debate on whether the Good Friday Agreement would ever have become a reality if Lynagh and his gang had lived and gone on to form a breakaway republican terror gang contrary to the direction of the Sinn Fein peace process.

I also recall my dad being told that once when he was preaching in his home county of Tyrone, Lynagh turned up outside the church just as the service was supposed to finish. However, the service had concluded earlier and dad had left. Security sources told my dad he was the target of Lynagh’s visit.

So the solution to Southern cash is simple - its reparations for the atrocities which were planned in the Republic and how the 26 counties was used as a launching pad for that genocide of the pro-Union border community.

Such financial reparations by the Republic also opens up the debate if loyalist and republican terrorists or their spokespeople should receive compensation because of their alleged roles in the conflict.

The blunt answer is No! Why should you receive compensation for taking the law into your own hands? You either believe in the democratic process and you don’t. Likewise, such a debate also opens the can of worms around legacy payments and what defines a victim.

In the meantime, the new coalition government in Southern Ireland can ensure it ring fences a sizeable chunk of this cash to helping the victims and families who had to endure republican terror’s genocide of the pro-Union community along the border. Put your money where your mouth is, Dublin!

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Pro-Union Community Should Take Eire Cash As Reparations For Terror Campaign

Dr John Coulter ✍ With a new coalition government - without Sinn Fein - about to be formed in Dublin’s Leinster House, the ruling Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael partnership will be trying to buy Irish Unity by pumping its so-called cash surplus into Northern Ireland.

Naturally, many in the Unionist community will be up in arms and urging organisations not to yield to the Dublin temptation of accepting Leinster House ‘bribes’.

The new Dublin coalition government will spin the view that the republic is now akin to ‘England’s Green and Pleasant Land’, and here’s the financial chequebook to prove it.

On one hand, the FF/FG cash incentive is a propaganda ploy to derail any Sinn Fein moves to call for a border poll. Its tantamount to the split in nationalism between the so-called constitutional republicanism of the coalition, and the more hardline republican approach of Sinn Fein.

In terms of this mythical border poll, while Sinn Fein was looking to its electoral success in Northern Ireland at council, Assembly and Westminster levels to trigger such a referendum, Southern nationalists in the FF/FG coalition are looking to cash handouts for Northern Ireland as their tactic.

As a radical Right-wing Unionist, I take the view that Unionism should use republican ideology against itself. There is a saying that republicans are quite happy to accept the half crown, but not to recognise the Crown!

I’m off a vintage age-wise who can recall the words of the late former First Minister, Dr Ian Paisley, who when he was campaigning for the 1979 European elections, said that he was going to the European Parliament to milk the European cow!

This is a theme I have explored in an earlier column on The Pensive Quill.

Whilst I know in modern day Unionism, the so-called Donaldson Deal was politically oversold to encourage the DUP to go back into Stormont, there is a similar danger in me urging Unionism to bleed the South of all these cash incentives for Northern Ireland.

Instead of Unionism viewing Southern cash aid as ‘sell out Ulster’ finance, Unionism should view any money from the Southern Ireland administration as reparations for all the genocide and ethnic cleansing inflicted on the pro-Union community from republican terror gangs based in the 26 counties.

Taking the history of the Troubles, how many people were murdered, maimed or attacked - especially in the border counties of Northern Ireland - only to see those republican death gangs skitter away off to the supposed political safety of the Irish Republic?

What serious efforts did the South’s security forces and intelligence community really do to apprehend republican terrorists?

How many terrorists would have been caught, and lives saved, if the Dublin government had allowed ‘hot pursuit’ tactics by the British security forces, especially the elite SAS, to chase republican terror gangs throughout the 26 counties?

What about the sectarian slaughter of the 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmills in January 1976 by the Provisional IRA in South Armagh using the cover name of the South Armagh Republican Action Force? How many of the republican terror gang which carried out this ethnic cleansing could have been caught if the SAS had been granted access to the Irish Republic?

The previous year, in September 1975, the Provos had carried out the Tullyvallen Orange Hall massacre in which five Orangemen were murdered - also claimed in the name of the so-called South Armagh Republican Action Force.

My late father, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was a senior Orange chaplain and he was invited one year to preach at the Tullyvallen Massacre memorial service. I accompanied my dad to the service and was allowed to sit at the lodge table and see the bullet scores and marks on that table.

It was a very eerie feeling to be in that chair knowing one of the occupants had been murdered. Again, could the gunmen have been apprehended if the SAS had been allowed ‘hot pursuit’ into the Republic?

As well as the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade, another notorious death squad was its East Tyrone Brigade, led at one time by former Monaghan Sinn Fein councillor Jim Lynagh, who was one of eight members of that terror gang shot dead by the SAS at Loughgall in Co Armagh in May 1987.

I’ll set aside the debate on whether the Good Friday Agreement would ever have become a reality if Lynagh and his gang had lived and gone on to form a breakaway republican terror gang contrary to the direction of the Sinn Fein peace process.

I also recall my dad being told that once when he was preaching in his home county of Tyrone, Lynagh turned up outside the church just as the service was supposed to finish. However, the service had concluded earlier and dad had left. Security sources told my dad he was the target of Lynagh’s visit.

So the solution to Southern cash is simple - its reparations for the atrocities which were planned in the Republic and how the 26 counties was used as a launching pad for that genocide of the pro-Union border community.

Such financial reparations by the Republic also opens up the debate if loyalist and republican terrorists or their spokespeople should receive compensation because of their alleged roles in the conflict.

The blunt answer is No! Why should you receive compensation for taking the law into your own hands? You either believe in the democratic process and you don’t. Likewise, such a debate also opens the can of worms around legacy payments and what defines a victim.

In the meantime, the new coalition government in Southern Ireland can ensure it ring fences a sizeable chunk of this cash to helping the victims and families who had to endure republican terror’s genocide of the pro-Union community along the border. Put your money where your mouth is, Dublin!

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

4 comments:

  1. Oh, dear - another Northerner who thinks that the Republic is chomping at the bit to get the North back. In a poll before the recent election, Irish unification did not even make the top ten of the issues of concern to the electorate. Sinn Fein barely mentioned the North in its manifesto - if they had suggested that the Apple windfall should go to the North, they would have received even less votes than they did.

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    Replies
    1. Tonyol as this stage I can't work out whether John is merely writing for shits and giggles.

      Delete
  2. John does raise an interesting point on the Republic’s involvement in the Troubles. Thanks to excellent books like “A Broad Church” , about the Provos in the Republic and “Anatomy of a Killing” about the killing and the killers of RUC man Millar McAlister, we now know a great deal more about the daily activities of the Provos than perhaps they would wish. Like armed robberies (more than a thousand of them) and blowing up business premises to order, for insurance and compensation purposes – for an appropriate fee, of course. But, in Provo-speak, these were not crimes, but merely “fundraising activities”.

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  3. Tonyol - send your email address. It won't be published

    ReplyDelete