Ireland likes to have it's children assaulted by terrorists

[Lucifer12]

If they don't approve of grown men terrorizing schoolgirls, why do they keep supporting terrorists? If you ask them (Catholic or Protestant), why they continue to look the other way when their family or friends skulk off to heroically bomb 7 year olds, they always have some 'Yes, but-' answer ready.

Next time this happens the Ulster Protestants should flood the streets with torches and clubs and start hunting down all known Protestant terrorists and stoning their families, as should the Catholics next time an IRA sociopath blows up some senior citizens.

Of course they won't, they'll all say 'Yes, but-' and bring up a list of grievances.
They alaways try to blame England or the Pope or whatever; it's always some excuse to keep it going and be the laughingstock of Europe.

Now all you IRA thugs better get ready for that drive-by revenge shooting at the nursery school. Just don't think you're fooling anyone with your empty-minded rhetoric but yourselves.

What say you?

[gobear]

OK, we'll be off to the Pit in 10...9...8...

Ireland is an independent nation. You're talking about Northern Ireland, a province of the UK. The present situation is a continuing tragedy, and I will leave it to more informed posters to lecture you properly.

[ruadh]

Originally posted by Lucifer12
Now all you IRA thugs better get ready for that drive-by revenge shooting at the nursery school.

And this would be in revenge for what?

[Jodi]

I hate to say the OP'er is right -- gross generalizations, too little information, blah blah blah -- but . . .


I think he kind of has a bit of a smallish point.

I mean, I know the situation is complicated. I know there's baggage. But I look at headlines like this and I wonder what the heck the Irish are thinking (those involved in the conflict, I mean). How much war is enough? How much death? How many years of violence? How many opportunities for greatness as a country squandered because you're at each others' throats?

To the average uneducated American (this one, at least), the conflicts in Ireland do not appear on their surface insurmountable. You're all Irish. You're all even Christian, for God's sake. Protestants and Catholics don't kill each other over here; most of 'em don't give a shit about each other's religious affiliation in the first place.

I just don't get it. I'll freely admit it: I just don't get it.

[Captain Amazing]

Well, Protestants and Catholics don't kill each other in the Republic either.

[ruadh]

Originally posted by Jodi
You're all Irish. You're all even Christian, for God's sake. Protestants and Catholics don't kill each other over here; most of 'em don't give a shit about each other's religious affiliation in the first place.

I just don't get it. I'll freely admit it: I just don't get it.

Well, you're laboring under a few misconceptions here, Jodi.

The conflict has little to do with religion per se, in the sense of doctrinal differences. Religion is a marker of cultural identity. And (most of) the Protestants' identity is not an Irish one. They think they're British. Fundamentally it comes down to which flag they want flying over their head, and that certainly makes the conflict less than unique. It does make it fairly insurmountable, though - there isn't much room for compromise.

[ruadh]

That should have been "cultural and national identity."

[Duck Duck Goose]

I'm with Jodi--I don't get it. I sat down and read the paper this morning, and nearly leaped off the john in my haste to get downstairs and start a Pit thread titled, "Northern Ireland: what is the MATTER with these people?" But I didn't.

Grownups shooting and tossing bombs at each other is one thing--but...shades of Alabama desegregation and Ruby Bridges! Children requiring a police escort to get to school? Or I am the only one who remembers this?

http://members.aol.com/kitecd/blk_hist.htm
In 1960, the year Ruby started first grade, she and four other African American girls were ordered to attend two different white elementary schools. Only Ruby was sent to the William Frantz Elementary School. On Ruby’s first day of school, crowds of angry white citizens gathered outside the school to protest.

President Eisenhower ordered federal marshals to accompany Ruby to and from school each day. Each day she paused for a few moments before reaching the angry crowd to pray for them and once, having forgotten to do so beforehand, she stopped in the midst of the crowd to pray. Ruby was the only child to attend school at the William Frantz Elementary School for much of that year.

A touching painting done by Norman Rockwell entitled "The Problems We All Live With" depicts Ruby’s determination making her way to school in the same way each day, surrounded by the federal marshals.
The painting.

http://www.allposters.com/link/redirect.asp?aid=232711&item=139560

If the folks in Ulster can't learn from their own mistakes, can't they at least learn from ours?

If you're out of the loop:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/03/nireland.riots/index.html
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The governors of a Belfast Catholic primary school are urging parents to take their children by an alternative route after violence plagued the start of the new term.

Riot police clashed on Monday with a crowd of Protestant activists blocking the entrance to a Catholic junior school.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/04/nireland.violence/index.html
A nail bomb and a number of blast bombs were thrown at police lines on Tuesday evening during disturbances close to the area where loyalists are engaged in an ongoing protest to prevent Catholic children going to school.

< snip >

Earlier in the day, parents and children going to the school ran the gauntlet of police and protesters for a second day, causing some girls to retreat in tears.

Students of the Holy Cross primary school for girls -- some as young as four -- were in tears and at least one parent reported stones being thrown as he tried to escort his daughter to class.

Some parents determined to take their girls through the school's front door rather than the back entrance recommended by school governors led their girls up a street strewn with rubble from overnight rioting.

But the parents and children eventually turned back despite the efforts of riot police to hold back the protests.

About a third of the school's 150 girls, aged four to 11, made it into school for classes on Tuesday.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/05/belfast.violence/index.html
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Violence at a Catholic girls school in Belfast has escalated with a bomb thrown at police lines, injuring two officers and causing panic among children and parents.

The explosion came as Protestant protesters in the Ardoyne Road confronted girls and their parents on their way to Holy Cross Primary School for a third day on Wednesday.

Children, aged between four and 11, screamed in terror and one woman fainted after the blast. They were hurried along a security corridor towards the school.
Timothy McVeigh bombed children and got the death penalty. Oh, sure, he might have gotten the death penalty anyway, but you know as well as I do that it's the picture of Baylee Almon that "done him in".

Picture of Baylee.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/oklahomasurvivors000419.html

These are little kids. Ages 4 to 11. These are not college kids desegregating the University of Alabama against the express wishes of George Wallace--these are kindergartners. They shouldn't have to be doing this.

But I'm not really talking about the bombers and the shooters here; they're such obvious "terrorists" that it's not even worth discussing. I'm talking about the "nice folks" blocking the school's entrance. What "sense of national identity" could possibly entitle adults to block children's access to education, to frighten them to tears at the thought of going to school? What "cultural identity" could possibly justify a group of shouting, furious grownups blocking the entrance to a school? I'm sorry, I don't get it, either. I am repulsed, baffled, and just generally so "WTF?" with this, I don't care how many years/generations/centuries it all goes back, blah blah blah ...

It makes me ashamed to be a Protestant. :( Go thou and get a clue, brethren mine...

[Duck Duck Goose]

...and the reason I didn't start a Pit thread is because I discovered that Ruadh already has one going.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=85239

[Robb]

Another for the "I don't get it" group. I was reading in an on-line Scottish newspaper (http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/) (archive requires registration), that the crowd believes Catholics can't walk on Protestant streets. From an article of 4 September,
At the end of last summer term, the loyalists decided that until their demands were met, the Catholic children would not be allowed to walk Protestant streets to their school.
Imagine a place where even the streets are bigots.
And, someone suggests a solution,
"This is a loyalist area. Why was a Catholic school ever built here in the first place? What the British government should do is build them a new school in the Catholic part of Ardoyne. That would solve this problem."
or
After witnessing the degree of the hatred aimed at the children, Fr Troy decided to ask parents to use a much longer alternative - Catholic - route until the issues have been fully resolved.
weird, wacky stuff.

[Malice]

Actually, I was hoping someone here knew enough about the situation there to answer:

What is the immediate perceived threat or affront that the bomb-throwers feel they are addressing?

(I assume that generally, it is that they want to remain British, but specifically) what's the objection to these little girls going to school that generates such animosity?

Stil, even if there's a "good" rationale... WTF?

[beagledave]

The "Troubles", although often called sectarian violence, arerooted much deeper than mere religious divisions.

A significant portion of the anger comes from economic troubles, past and present, as well.

A good primer on the "Troubles" can be found here (http://www.ireland.com/special/peace/).

(see the historical perspective portion).

I heard a story in passing on the radio that the demographics may be shifting in the North, from a Protestant majority to a slim Catholic majority in the near future. Perhaps someone could confirm or disprove that bit..I didn't get the details?

[Jodi]

BEAGLE, I think what at least some of us are saying is that it's hard to process, as an intellectual or emotional matter, that they can keep fighting and fighting and fighting the same flipping war for thirty years (actively), killing Catholics who dare to marry Protestants (and vice versa), throwing bombs at kids, blowing up funeral processions and basically acting like a bunch of animals. Don't they get tired? Hating is hard work, corrosive and arduous. You'd think they'd want better for their kids, if not themselves, but I see little indication that they do.

Sure, it's the same argument that can be made with the Arabs and Israelis, the Tutsi and the Hutu, the Serbs and the Croats. Maybe it just that those groups have significant cultural differences from the States that, while not serving to excuse their actions, at least don't make me feel like I should understand it. ("Well, it's the Middle East; things are different there.") But the thing is, I don't think of things as being that different, culturally, in Northern Ireland. Maybe its the close affinity of many Americans to their Irish roots, or the fact that Ireland is a developed Western European country, but to me it's like watching people in the next town try to kill each other. People who are just like me. It makes me want to ask "What the fuck is wrong with you people???" It makes me feel like I should understand it, and I don't. I think they're all a bunch of idiots. Bunch of wankers, as RUADH put it in the Pit thread, but I don't know if she meant all of 'em. I do -- both sides.

[tomndebb]

What is the immediate perceived threat or affront that the bomb-throwers feel they are addressing?The specific neighborhood is a like a subdivision of rowhouses of a dozen or twenty streets, each about two blocks long. The northern third of the streets are primarily inhabited by Protestants and the remainder primarily by Catholics. To the East and West of the neighborhood, there are some factories and some open lots. The Catholic school happens to be at the end of the street on the Western boundary of the neighborhood--at the North end of the street.

Over the last several months, the Protestants have been publicly complaining that their side of the neighborhood is under constant harrassment from the Catholic side, including rocks, firecrackers, small, homemade bombs, and gunshots. (Many of the claims are certainly accurate, but it has not been reported whether it constitutes harrassment or threats to life.)

Last Spring, the Protestants in the neighborhood announced that if it was not safe for them to walk their own streets, then the Catholics would not be allowed to walk through the area, either. Some sort of uneasy truce regarding the schoolkids lasted until the end of the school year, after which the Protestants announced that they would no longer allow even the girls through.

There is a road leading from the South end of the Neighborhood out to the West and back to the location of the school. The Catholics were encouraged to take this longer route when going to the school. I do not know the distances along the road, so I do not know whether that played a part in the Catholic decision (e.g. choosing to send a six-year-old girl two miles round the neighborhood vs 300 yards up the street--I do not know the actual differences).

The Catholic parents decided to call the Protestants' bluff and call upon the constabulary to do their duty and protect the kids. The Protestants reacted to this "provocation" with rocks, and now more.

A plague on all their houses.

[beagledave]

Originally posted by tomndebb
What is the immediate perceived threat or affront that the bomb-throwers feel they are addressing?The specific neighborhood is a like a subdivision of rowhouses of a dozen or twenty streets, each about two blocks long. The northern third of the streets are primarily inhabited by Protestants and the remainder primarily by Catholics. To the East and West of the neighborhood, there are some factories and some open lots. The Catholic school happens to be at the end of the street on the Western boundary of the neighborhood--at the North end of the street.


There is a map here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Graphic/0,3336,547157,00.html) that shows the Loyalist and Nationalist areas in the Ardoyne neighborhood. It also includes the "alternative" route suggested by Loyalist leaders.

Like Garvaghy Road in Drumcree, the distances are rather small for the amount of violence.

[beagledave]

Keeping in mind that the Guardian is a British newspaper, they have a web page that may answer (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,546780,00.html) some of the above questions about the specifics of this event.

[elucidator]

To whomsoever it may concern:

If you terrorize and injure children as part of some sectarian struggle, you overlook an important theological point: Jesus hates your guts.

[ruadh]

Originally posted by Robb
After witnessing the degree of the hatred aimed at the children, Fr Troy decided to ask parents to use a much longer alternative - Catholic - route until the issues have been fully resolved.
weird, wacky stuff.

Actually, it the alternative route isn't a "Catholic" route either. It passes by the loyalist Hesketh Road. If the Glenbryn loyalists succeed in intimidating the Catholic children off the Ardoyne Road, you can bet it will give the Hesketh loyalists some ideas.

tomndebb:

Some sort of uneasy truce regarding the schoolkids lasted until the end of the school year, after which the Protestants announced that they would no longer allow even the girls through.

They started blocking the girls' path at the end of the last school year.

Jodi:

Bunch of wankers, as RUADH put it in the Pit thread, but I don't know if she meant all of 'em.

There are wankers on both sides, yes. But we clearly have a case here of one side outwankering the other.

beagledave:

I heard a story in passing on the radio that the demographics may be shifting in the North, from a Protestant majority to a slim Catholic majority in the near future. Perhaps someone could confirm or disprove that bit..I didn't get the details?

If the birth rate continues as is, Catholics will outnumber Protestants within the next generation or so. They already do at school-age level. Whether this means there will be a nationalist majority is another question, but the nationalist vote has always increased apace with the Catholic population, and there's no sign of that changing.

[casdave]

Maybe now some American posters will understand why the British are still in NI.
I always get the impression from some of the uninformed among you that we have some great overriding national interest in being there, often some poster will mention industrial capacity.

Can you imagine what would happen if we left ?

Believe me when I say that there is a majority in the UK who would like nothing better than for the idiots who run the violence in NI to piss off so that we can finally move out.

[longjohn]

I don't think sanctimony on anyone's part here helps.

The question should not be what's wrong with them, it should be "what's wrong with us?"

As has been pointed out in threads here before, the vast majority of people on either side of the debate are angry and shamed by what is currently going on in Belfast. Millions of people live in Ireland, most of them get on fine with people on the other side of the religious/ideological debate. Even politicians (not sure about all, but most) on the protestant/loyalist side of the debate are condemning unreservedly the events outside Holy Cross.

Sadly, there are a few people who will do their utmost to keep the troubles going, for their own reasons. Since their utmost includes flinging bombs around kids, the peace process is in trouble.

[TwistofFate]

To address one of the points in the OP-

Violence will not solve violence.

This isn't just religion. In fact, Religion is a very small part of the situation. Nationalists do not play up catholicism as much as Loyalists promote Protestantism. And suggesting the higher birthrate amongst Catholics is down to not using Contraception is slightly behind the times. We're not a bunch of God-fearing paddies anymore.

You ask why people say "yes, but" when talking about IRA atrocities. This I can answer.

There is sympathy to the cause, but not to their actions. What they have done in the past has appalled Nationalists as much as it has done everyone else. Please note the distinction I am making. It is possible to be Nationalist and not a satans crotchscum thug. Hell, if I can do it, anyone can.

For those of you that don't know, The IRA at times were the only people defending and policing Catholic Neighbourhoods at a time when they very much needed defending. If anyone is in doubt about that, Read up on Bloody Sunday. They couldn't rely on the RUC, and most certainly not the British Army, who murdered Catholics while ignoring Loyalist scumbags.

I do not condone what the IRA do. I believe that talking is the way forward.

And one more thing.

This is a very small minority of people in Northern Ireland. Extremely small. and the troubles are confined noadays to very small areas of the North. In fact, its pretty much confined to North Belfast and Drumcree thesedays.

sorry if I rambled. There just seems to be loads of threads about this subject at the moment.

[TomH]

Originally posted by beagledave
Keeping in mind that the Guardian is a British newspaper ...

If you're intending to imply that a British paper might have a pro-Loyalist bias, it's also worth keeping in mind that, of all the British papers, the Guardian has the most consistently pro-Nationalist stance in relation to Northern Ireland. Ronan Bennett, who writes most of its feature pieces on Northern Ireland, has written at least one (quite good) novel centred aroud Republican terrorists, a ghostwritten autobiography for one of the Guildford Four and one (not very good) TV series about the Easter Rising.

As for the events in Ardoyne, they really do beggar belief, even by the standards of the unlovely bigots of Northern Ireland.

Originally posted by TwistofFate
The IRA at times were the only people defending and policing Catholic Neighbourhoods at a time when they very much needed defending.

I have to say that the RUC appear to have been less zealous than they might have been in this situation. Situations like the Drumcree standoff, involving grown adults (even if they're behaving childishly), are one thing. But if there was ever a case for rounding the participants up and aresting them all for breach of the peace (or worse), this is surely it. And bugger the consequences.

The other solution, I suppose, might be to close both schools down until the situation is resolved, but that would only have the effect of penalising the children.

I agree with what ruadh said in the other thread: they're doing a better recruiting job for the Real IRA than the Real IRA could ever do for itself.

[beagledave]

Originally posted by TomH
Originally posted by beagledave
Keeping in mind that the Guardian is a British newspaper ...

If you're intending to imply that a British paper might have a pro-Loyalist bias, it's also worth keeping in mind that, of all the British papers, the Guardian has the most consistently pro-Nationalist stance in relation to Northern Ireland.

Thanks for the clarification :)

[gavster]

I'm from Ireland and believe me the troubles will never end.

I live in the south and we have all different cultures living in my town(refugees etc.) and we all get along fine but the troubles up in the North are a different story.

It's an eye for an eye,for god only knows how long.If one side decides to stop a simple thing such as a drunken brawl outside a pub some night will start it all over again.

"Did you here they beat up a Catholic 'young fellow' outside the pub last night the Prod bastards" ......and here we go again.

It will never end.....Sad really when life is so short and to live it with such hate.

[yojimbo]

Originally posted by gavster
I live in the south and we have all different cultures living in my town(refugees etc.) and we all get along fine

If only that where true in Dublin. Refugees get a very bad time from a lot of people here and some of the racist comments I hear almost daily make me sick to my stomach :(

[casdave]

For those of you that don't know, The IRA at times were the only people defending and policing Catholic Neighbourhoods at a time when they very much needed defending. If anyone is in doubt about that, Read up on Bloody Sunday. They couldn't rely on the RUC, and most certainly not the British Army, who murdered Catholics while ignoring Loyalist scumbags.


Fact is that the British Army were originally sent in to NI to protect the Catholics from the excessess of the Protestants(and that did include the RUC) and were welcomed with open arms being seen as more neutral in the various disputes.

This did not suit individuals on both sides and the whole thing was badly mismanaged by the UK government resulting in serious incidents that were a godsend to the propagandists and terrorist recruiters.

UK politicians really did not understand the scale of how the loyalists were supressing Catholics and took only one side of the 'debate' and so were seriously ill-informed.

[TwistofFate]

it is also good to remember that the Unionist parties had an influence over the Conservatives during the 80's because of the seats they had in Parlament.


not thqat they have any sway anymore, really.

[APB]

Originally posted by TwistofFate
it is also good to remember that the Unionist parties had an influence over the Conservatives during the 80's because of the seats they had in Parlament.

Er, the Conservatives had a comfortable majority in the Commons throughout the 1980s. Their tendency to side with the Unionists had more to do with disapproval of the IRA bombing campaigns on the mainland. Older Tory sympathies with Unionism also played a part.

[TomH]

The Major Government was almost entirely dependent on Unionist votes from about 1994 to 1997, after losing a few by-elections and withdrawing the whip from the Maastricht rebels, but even that didn't stop Mayhew starting the direct negotiations with the IRA which ultimately led to the GFA.

[ryoushi]

But surely it beats having them eaten to prevent a famine? :confused:

And now I must depart, lest someone find the joke horrendously un-funny...

[casdave]

That joke is horrendously unfunny

[everton]

Originally posted by APB
...the Conservatives had a comfortable majority in the Commons throughout the 1980s. Their tendency to side with the Unionists had more to do with disapproval of the IRA bombing campaigns on the mainland. Older Tory sympathies with Unionism also played a part. The official name of the Tory party (http://www.conservatives.com/party_history.cfm) was at one time The Conservative and Unionist Party, and although their web site doesn't use that title any more, you'll still see it over the door of many Conservative Clubs.

Both UK government parties relied on support from "independent" politicians throughout the 1970s, when the troubles really started kicking off, and that's one reason why this situation became mired in quicksand from the start.

Although the Conservatives held an unassailable majority throughout the '80s, I'm reminded of a comment that was attributed to Margaret Thatcher in the BBC's recent documentary series Endgame in Ireland. Apparently when she was first shown a map of Northern Ireland her response was "I don't like the shape of that border - it'll be hard to police. Could we not make it a straight line?"

Very bloody helpful.

[APB]

Originally posted by everton
Originally posted by APB
...the Conservatives had a comfortable majority in the Commons throughout the 1980s. Their tendency to side with the Unionists had more to do with disapproval of the IRA bombing campaigns on the mainland. Older Tory sympathies with Unionism also played a part. The official name of the Tory party (http://www.conservatives.com/party_history.cfm) was at one time The Conservative and Unionist Party, and although their web site doesn't use that title any more, you'll still see it over the door of many Conservative Clubs.

Hence my comment about 'older Tory sympathies'.

Originally posted by everton
Both UK government parties relied on support from "independent" politicians throughout the 1970s, when the troubles really started kicking off, and that's one reason why this situation became mired in quicksand from the start.

Yes, there was a brief period in the late 1970s, by which time the 'Troubles' were already well under way, when the Conversative opposition benefitted from the fact that the Unionists saw tactical advantages in voting against the incumbant Labour government. That however is not what TwistofFate, who ought to know better, claimed. The statement that 'the Unionist parties had an influence over the Conservatives during the 80's because of the seats they had in Parlament' is just the sort of sloppy, half-remembered nonsense that we are all here to discourage.

On the main issue, DDG has said it all.

[TomH]

Originally posted by everton
The official name of the Tory party was at one time The Conservative and Unionist Party

It still is.

Apparently when she [Thatcher] first shown a map of Northern Ireland her response was "I don't like the shape of that border - it'll be hard to police. Could we not make it a straight line?"

This pretty much sums up her attitude to everything, not just Northern Ireland. (Unless she was a closet advocate of repartition.)