tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post4028313105705936830..comments2024-03-28T10:25:42.597+00:00Comments on TPQ: The Birth Of The BorderAMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-4893493982322238622020-05-24T07:45:25.115+01:002020-05-24T07:45:25.115+01:00Most Catholics/nationalists probably favoured a un...Most Catholics/nationalists probably favoured a united Ireland but did not see the answer to the problems of partition in an armed campaign. There is a difference between wanting a united Ireland and supporting a violent campaign to achieve it.<br /><br />Nor was I referring to MacStiofain but the Belfast republican who basically formed the PIRA. Republicans were all too eager to take the penaltyAMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-81794985561671397312020-05-23T22:50:45.806+01:002020-05-23T22:50:45.806+01:00Was doing practical stuff today so away from the c...Was doing practical stuff today so away from the computer. <br /><br />Anthony<br /><br />The thing is that a lot of Catholics didn't see the answer in a united Ireland either. There are many videos of interviews carried out at the time when Catholic areas were being attacked by sectarians. None of the people interviewed proposed Irish unity, and none of my Catholic friends or their families Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-37294420109457351592020-05-23T14:14:00.816+01:002020-05-23T14:14:00.816+01:00Mike
The mkiners strike may well have succeeded h...Mike<br /><br />The mkiners strike may well have succeeded had there been a national ballot. Miners from areas like Nottinghamshire may well have opted to stay on strike. Arthur Scargill should have been aware from labour history that the experience of the Spencer unions in the 1926 General Strike that callling the mkiners out on stike without their consent.<br /><br />It is easy to dismiss Barry Gilheanyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14220262677398695734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-62207796854914523112020-05-23T11:14:04.794+01:002020-05-23T11:14:04.794+01:00Mike - in saying the scabs miners were not driven ...Mike - in saying the scabs miners were not driven by differences in national identity and religion you tend to illuminate the point I made - just as armed activity was not the cause of working class disunity there, neither was it in the North. There were factors extraneous to it. The working class is divided everywhere for a whole host of reasons. I resort to Poulantzas who in arguing that the AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-1569637902274700672020-05-22T21:53:47.361+01:002020-05-22T21:53:47.361+01:00Anthony,
Trust me, Duh. LOL
If I can recall what...Anthony,<br />Trust me, Duh. LOL<br /><br />If I can recall what I was thinking this morning. I disagree that one can just say that in the early 70s was disrupted everywhere. It certainly is now. <br />The scabs who undermined the Miners' Strike were not driven by differences in national identity or religion, so there's no direct comparison. They were just scum!<br /><br />There were Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-66836881176594710962020-05-22T14:14:46.166+01:002020-05-22T14:14:46.166+01:00Mike - LOL. I spelt Lynk wrong so that is what con...Mike - LOL. I spelt Lynk wrong so that is what confused you - it was Roy Lynk I was referring to - I wasn't trying to place a link!!<br />As I'm not sure what you disagree on I'll wait until you come back. Sorry for the confusion. AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-49114320088390379932020-05-22T13:11:22.499+01:002020-05-22T13:11:22.499+01:00Anthony,
Your link didn't appear in your comme...Anthony,<br />Your link didn't appear in your comment, but I imagine it's the late Roy Johnston you were leading me to. Please post the link again.<br /><br />I never quite agreed with his thinking on the issue, but I'll also have to agree to disagree with you on it as well.<br /><br />You have written here recently that there was a period in the 70s where the Provos carried out Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-46811095357036275932020-05-22T11:44:49.601+01:002020-05-22T11:44:49.601+01:00Mike - I had no interest in secularism back in the...Mike - I had no interest in secularism back in the day. Nor had republicanism for that matter. It is one of the five isms of republicanism and the one I probably feel strongest about today. I don't believe the war inhibited class unity - class unity is disrupted everywhere. The war didn't cause Roy Link and his UDM to fracture class unity during the miners' strike in the UK. Class AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-58749739484095927712020-05-22T10:49:01.937+01:002020-05-22T10:49:01.937+01:00Yes I agree that the conditions were there and I t...Yes I agree that the conditions were there and I think I always did. <br />From my field of vision when I was 20, and not long married into a republican family at the time, I saw no secularism in republicanism, in fact exactly the opposite, so I wasn't getting involved in a war that I saw as both sectarian and futile. <br />In the years since, I have learned that it was never quite as simple Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-34677979884115021622020-05-22T10:30:43.005+01:002020-05-22T10:30:43.005+01:00Mike - yes, I would have. Not because it was the r...Mike - yes, I would have. Not because it was the right thing to do but because it was the thing to do at that age. Having reflected on things over the years and written quite a bit about it, I have come to the view that the insurrectionary energy that fuelled the Provisional IRA was less about the British being here and more about how they behaved while here. Had the 26 Counties flooded and sank AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-44279651843973862812020-05-22T10:20:19.287+01:002020-05-22T10:20:19.287+01:00Anthony,
In something I wrote here a while back I ...Anthony,<br />In something I wrote here a while back I used quite a few sentences to try and explain what has been compressed into this, <br />'a political problem is rarely solved by those who ‘tend to see it as it first existed and not as time and society continually refashion it … the history of the problem is nearly irrelevant to its solution'. <br /><br />Thanks for this!<br /><br /Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-25645132190600752252020-05-22T10:01:31.314+01:002020-05-22T10:01:31.314+01:00This looks like an interesting book which might be...This looks like an interesting book which might be worth the effort. <br />I hope it will be easier to read than this review which had so many negative and positive inversions that I had to read it four times to catch a ride on the sine wave before it disappeared under a floor of noise. <br /><br />Mike Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01660761750411785160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-788865361488684982020-05-22T07:30:27.110+01:002020-05-22T07:30:27.110+01:00Connal - thanks for this strong review. Partition ...Connal - thanks for this strong review. Partition is a very thorny concept that doesn't always get the cold light of day stare that it requires. But even as far back as 1954 we can find John V. Kelleher commenting that a political problem is rarely solved by those who ‘tend to see it as it first existed and not as time and society continually refashion it … the history of the problem is AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.com