In the last few days Republican terrorists murdered two off duty,unarmed soldiers and a police officer and attempted to murder two pizza delivery men for the crime of delivering pizza to soldiers.
One of the soldiers died throwing himself over the body of one of the pizza deliverers to protect him from the terrorists.
The soldiers involved were having a last treat before going to the airport to fly out to Afghanistan.
The reaction to the cowardly murders has been universal across the N.Irish community whatever their background,Catholic or Protestant in their horror and disgust at the actions of the terrorists.
Even the leaders of Sinn Fein have condemned these actions and have asked anyone who has any information about the perpetrators to help the police catch these people.
So what motivated these men in their actions?
What possible benefit can there be for the Republican cause?
How can they be so out of step with how the Nationalist population thinks?
It has been repeatedly said by politicians and the media that they are attempting to destabalise the peace process but all they seem to have done is draw the two communities closer together then they have ever been.
There were as many Catholics laying flowers at the murder site as there were Protestants.
Do the murderers get some sort of kick out of killing or are they nostalgic for the old days when members of the Nationalist community were isolated from the rest of the N.I. population and had to jump to the killers tune when told to.
I expect they want an independent Ireland and the first step is to reignite the Troubles by provoking the Protestant terrorists to come out of retirement. Once the tit-for-tat killings get underway it’s all downhill back to 1968. And then the British Army will step in and make things worse by appearing to take sides. The odd shot-up demo later and it’s 1974.
And with high unemployment and a general economic shit-storm raging there will be plenty of disaffected youths to call on. This is how the Provisional IRA superceded the IRA back in the sixties.
I wonder if we’re about to see an outbreak of “enforcement” by the Provos/SF against the splinter groups, they’ve got a lot to lose, and cooperating fully with the state is still tricky for them. Maybe even a brief Hamas Vs Fatah style crushing.
When times are bad extremists flourish. Hopefully they’ll run out of steam. A lot of the public support for the PIRA came about from decades of abuse and mis-management by a Stormont Assembly of Unionists. That simply isn’t there this time. They have a much bigger hill to climb this time and also face an incredibly well organised Republican political machine, Sinn Féin.
Not yet. If caught they would be putting their ceasefire and political capital on the line. If it gets worse and the CIRA or RIRA look like they are taking control of nationalist areas it could get ugly fast but that’s a fair bit off.
Ireland, North and South could really do without this shite. Things are bad enough.
Yep. It’s pretty easy to be a terrorist. It is much harder to actually work things out- takes brains, patience and determination. Many blokes don’t have any of that, but love the power they used to have.
This is exactly why Hamas will never be a real government.
That’s an important point. The conditions aren’t there for the nationalist people to get behind the armed struggle any more. There is negligble support for violence and that will make it extremely difficult for the splinter groups to accomplish anything. They simply don’t have the organic connection to the community that the IRA did in the past.
While they’re obviously trying to provoke a reignition of the conflict there is also clearly a strong element of trying to show that Sinn Féin are now on the side of the Brits and unionists so that the splinter groups can claim to be the only remaining true bearers of republicanism. They’ve been arguing this for years without managing to convince more than a small percentage of the population, so now they’re trying to force the issue.
Apart from perhaps helping end the apartheid-light system in the north what did the Troubles and over 3500 dead achieve for Irish Republicans? Power sharing in a Northern Irish statelet, shiny cars for murderers, crumbs from on high. Partition is still there, the British Army and other apparatus of state are still there, the “Planters” haven’t upped sticks and moved back to Scotland and England.
If I were a physical-force Republican (I’m not), I’d have plenty still to murder for.
The end of “apartheid light” was no small thing. The nationalist community also have voted decisively for the GFA. An agreement with puts the faith of NI into the hands of the population of NI and not in the hands of a foreign and outside power(UK or Rep. of Ire. depending on which side you fall)
Only a very small minority still feel the need for an armed struggle. A lot of people fought for civil rights first and a united Ireland second.
The “Planters” are going nowhere as they are now dust in long forgotten graves. Their ancestors have as much right to be in NI and anyone else and the vast majority of nationalists/republicans see the task now is to convince them that it is to their advantage to be a large minority in a united Ireland than a very small one in the UK.
Gaining full, practical Civil Rights was the biggie. All those deaths could have been avoided if the Protestants had just conceded these back in 68.
But you are right - the wider Nationalist demands were not met. Worth remembering though that the Provisional IRA grew out of the failure of the non-violent Civil Rights movement in the face of complete Protestant intransigence.
I completely agree with you and I think you might have taken some of my comments up wrong.
I didn’t say that the end of apartheid-light was a small thing only that the violence perhaps contributed to its ending. This is, however, debatable. With less Unionist intransigence and less cackhandedness on the part of the British administration I think the bloodshed could have been averted for the most part. However, this is not history just supposition.
Again, I’m no republican but the actions of the CIRA and RIRA are consistent with those of the PIRA up until their ceasefire. Their end goals were not met. A civil war was fought in the Free State as you know because end goals of republicans were not met. The Rising of 1916 was fought by a infinitesimal fanatical minority and only later gained popular support. I’m only drawing these historical parallels to explain their mindset, not excuse it. Probably only a small minority ever felt the need for an armed struggle in the 6 counties but I am aware that overall sympathy or support for the latest band of Republican terrorists is less than for previous ones.
I was being satirical (if that’s the word) when I used the term planter. I was highlighting the unrealistic nature of physical-force Republican aspirations (although I’m aware that Republicanism isn’t exclusive about ethnicity or sect in its real sense). One may hate their Protestant/Catholic neighbour but they ain’t going anywhere.
Read the rest of the thread and remind me to put satire tags on things from now on, or just tell me to shut up! In my next post I said:
“I was being satirical (if that’s the word) when I used the term planter. I was highlighting the unrealistic nature of physical-force Republican aspirations (although I’m aware that Republicanism isn’t exclusive about ethnicity or sect in its real sense). One may hate their Protestant/Catholic neighbour but they ain’t going anywhere.”
Most violent Republicanism works on a simplistic “Brits Out” notion.
The Brits in question were the army and pols though. There was never a time when the Republican movement, SF or IRA wanted Unionist/Loyalist locals to get out of Ireland.
From the United Irishmen on the refrain was also that green and orange should come together under the banner of self-determinism(is that even a word).
I’ve long heard from older people and people from NI that there is considerable discrimination in the Republic against Protestants, particularly in the state sector. Is there any foundation to those claims?
I don’t remember black Americans running a similarly futile campaign of violence in the 1960s. All violence did was get Sinn Fein a majority share of Nationalist (i.e. Catholic) vote. Infact, all any violence in Northern Ireland was boost Sinn Fein’s vote, playing the only supporters of victims was a good card to play. One thing that would reconcile me with a united Ireland is seeing main stream Irish parties crush the Sinners come election time.
Taking your line of thought, if Catholics had conceded that it would just take a little more time, we might have no other representative for Catholics than the SDLP and a lot less deaths.
As to the OP, angry young men seem to be the best explanation for all of this. When you’ve no political capital to work on, and you’ve dedicated yourself to killing, what else can you do?
