The McCartney Sisters

three points worth mentioning.
First the Republic of Ireland makes no claim on northern reland and does not support the ira in any way. We modified our constitution to make that clear.
Secondly the present troubles in the north have their origion more in the civil rights marches of the late 60 than any thing that came before. The catholics held marches to demand proper houseing, schools and the same job oppertunitys as protestants in northern ireland. The british army fired on one of these marches in what became knowen as the second bloody sunday. As the first was in the 20's. The ira and sinn feinn jumped on the opportunity and the rest is as they say history.
Thirdly It is all about power and not religion.
I personnaly would prefer to see the gerry adams and ian paisleys of northern ireland strung up but if they have to be there then they would do well to learn the lesson from this. they can no longer rule by fear and hatred. People in the north have seen that they now have a say in things so they wont accept what they would have accepted even five years ago.

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First the Republic of Ireland makes no claim on northern reland and does not support the ira in any way. We modified our constitution to make that clear.

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I don't think anyone was bringing Eire into this at all.....

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Secondly the present troubles in the north have their origion more in the civil rights marches of the late 60 than any thing that came before. The catholics held marches to demand proper houseing, schools and the same job oppertunitys as protestants in northern ireland. The british army fired on one of these marches in what became knowen as the second bloody sunday. As the first was in the 20's. The ira and sinn feinn jumped on the opportunity and the rest is as they say history

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Actually the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, (NICRA), was marching in the mid to late 1960's and the traditionally accepted date for the beginning of this set of "troubles" is August 16th 1969. Bloody Sunday did not take place until Jan 30th 1972. The British Troops were fired upon initially from a rooftop during a demonstration. Then the gunfire began to come from IRA members within the crowd itself. The Second Batallion, Parachute Regiment returned fire... Into the crowd.. IMO a bad command decision but then it was that or withdraw.... I have this first hand from a friend I served with for several years who was there. So the two incidents are entirely unrelated and the issues had been ongoing for more than two years when this event took place. On August 16th 1969 the British government sent the troops in to protect the Catholics _from_ the Protestants who were beginning to "invade" the Catholic areas nightly and the RUC, (Royal Ulster Constabulary), could not handle it. The Catholics began barricading themselves into their neighborhoods to stop them. After the troops arrived and began patrolling the Catholic areas - keeping the Protestants out - the barricades were taken down. It was less than a year later that the barricades went up again - this time it was to keep the troops out. They didn't really come down until 1973 during Operation Motorman when the military _took_ them down through a massive show of force.

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Thirdly It is all about power and not religion.

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Yes, it's about power... But it's divided along religious lines... Way back then FTP used to _only_ mean "**** the Pope", REM used to only be part of REM 1690, (when England first conquered Ireland). These are things you see painted on the walls of the buildings close to the "peace lines" between Catholic and protestant areas - just over the line in the Catholic area when the kids show how brave they are to cross the line and deface the Catholic property. The Catholics did similar on the walls of the protestant house just across the peace line.

All that being said it is a classic example of a minority not liking the democratic rule of the majority and chosing the route of terrorism as a "way out".

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Most borders are fixed through war and are maintained through defense...if they ( the Official Government of Ireland ) want the land back they stole in the first place from it's original inhabitants they should declare war...or try to annex it through peaceful means.

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It was in answer to that.
I was keeping the answer simple and more or less agree with you. Except :p .........

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All that being said it is a classic example of a minority not liking the democratic rule of the majority and chosing the route of terrorism as a "way out".

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Basically that means the catholics should have accepted the religious discrimmination of the protestants, The fact that being catholic excluded you from decent housing, getting the same wage as a protestant for the same job or even getting the same job. I suppose you could say it was normal as the catholics were not very well educated. Then again it was democratic as 90 % of the funding for education went to 60% of the population.
The civil liberties marches as you said went from the mid sixties to 1972 when the march was fired on. The british army says they were fired on while the march orgainsers say the only ones to fire were the soldiers. We may never have all the details. What are called the troubles did effectively start in 1969 and as I said they have their origions in the civil rigths marches. The incident mentioned above was used by the ira and sinn feinn to increase their power and support on the republicain side.

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On July 1 1690 two Kings faced each other across the River Boyne. By evening King William had won a decisive victory, preserved the Protestant settlement in Ireland and drove King James into permanant exile. It was a great victory for William and is celebrated to this day by the Orange Order

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source

just as an aside REM 1690 is a referance to the battle of the boyne which was a battle between two English kings. Ireland was invades and conqured by the english/normans in 1169.

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Basically that means the catholics should have accepted the religious discrimmination of the protestants, The fact that being catholic excluded you from decent housing, getting the same wage as a protestant for the same job or even getting the same job. I suppose you could say it was normal as the catholics were not very well educated. Then again it was democratic as 90 % of the funding for education went to 60% of the population.

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Change Catholic to Women - Womens Lib begins :)

The start of the troubles isn't really an issue nowadays, but the British Army was used to protect the Catholics: Odd that in a sense.

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All that being said it is a classic example of a minority not liking the democratic rule of the majority and chosing the route of terrorism as a "way out".

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It is a very simplistic sentence, and I'm sure that TS could expound on it :)
But for the hell of it; it IS as true as it gets.
They [Catholics] should have followed the democratic / vote way. They just got swallowed up by the terrorists, who figured out a way to make a LOT of money out of it all [protection / black cabs {all in Northern Ireland pay to the 'cause'} / smuggling / robbery / kidnapping {Shergar ?} / the list goes on.

But just as they [IRA] used it to make money. We [ Brits] had got the best training ground in the world for urban combat. [ no offence to anyone, but does ANYONE believe that the terrorists could have survived for 30 years if we had REALLY wanted them dead .........]

Hi MURACU,

I made that statement you quoted in reference to the fact that only the governing body has the privilege to declare war...it would have made no sense at all if I were to have said that the IRA could declare war as they are not the ruling government....which is why I defined " they " in brackets so no one would assume that the " they " I was speaking of were the IRA. I was not trying to state where the government stands on this issue.
In short...only the ruling government can declare war or annex through peaceful means...the IRA, as stated, are terrorists and do not have that privilege.

Eg ;)

Just warning you that i am just getting back in after celebrating paddys day so if i dont make sense i plead drunkeness.

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The start of the troubles isn't really an issue nowadays, but the British Army was used to protect the Catholics: Odd that in a sense.

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That is the only way for people to go forward. People need to stop pointing the finger and get down to sorting out the situtation. It is true that most people dont know that the army was sent in to the north to protect the catholics.

Eg,
A lot of people outside ireland have, as has been said here, a romantic view of the heroic struggle of the downtrodden irish people of the north against the evil english occuppying army from the east.....(amazed i even managed to write that :p) To be serious it is a commonly held misconception especially in the states that the IRA has the complete support of the irsh people and state.

It's especially a misconception among American tourist who visit Ireland. After a few days they are ready to revolt against the Crown. :rolleyes:

Maracu, I am still planning my trip although the time line is not set. :D I found a killer deal with Trafalgar last night....

...and the funniest notion of all, is all the stuff about religion.

the intelligent mind can and will normally become irrational and aggressive when talking about religion / defending the beliefs of the particular cult to which it "belongs". infact alot of people would take offence to someone calling their organised religion a cult...a cult that legally congrugates and monotonously chants scripture.

the whole catholic v protestant thing is deep rooted though isn't it? something about a king having a feud with a pope about a wife?

It's that and a little deeper. It all started with this dude names Luther. ;)

i'd say it started along time before him and his nail ;)

people have had beliefs as long as there have been people.