Posted on 09/06/2004 8:56:40 PM PDT by Murtyo
SINN Fein/IRA, their apologists, the gullible, the wishful thinkers and the pig ignorant may have left some people with the impression that last Tuesday, August 31, was the 10th anniversary of the day - as we are forever being poetically told - when "the IRA guns fell silent".
Quite apart from this being a pathetic fallacy (it wasn't that the guns decided to stop shooting; the IRA leadership finally grasped that murdering unionists was counterproductive), this assertion is simply untrue.
In fairness to Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and their dreadful colleagues, they made it perfectly clear what they were offering that day. It wasn't an end to killing - it was a "complete cessation of military activity" (killing members of the security forces or anyone working for them) for as long as it suited them. Yet in the euphoria that followed this announcement, to point out the absence of the word "permanent" or to ask what exactly "military" meant was to beanti-peace.
It was equally anti-peace to point out that the IRA's commitment to dialogue would have been more impressive had they not deliberately inflamed loyalist paramilitaries by murdering two of their ghastly heroes preciselyone month earlier - a provocation that almost scuppered a loyalist ceasefire.
The Appeasers' Chorus that has been drowning out sceptical voices for a decade was already in fine form when in November, during a robbery in Newry, the IRA killed Frank Kerr, a postal worker. It seemed unperturbed when 17-year old Malachy Clark hanged himself the following month, a few weeks after an IRA gang had broken his nose, burst his eardrums, beaten him and poured glue over his head. But Malachy, like the thousands of others tortured by paramilitaries, didn't attract much outrage, even from the civil liberties crew.
Nor was there much indignation about the six murders (IRA posing as Direct Action Against Drugs) in 1995 of alleged drug dealers. Adams - in vulpine mode - telling a Belfast crowd apropos the IRA that "They haven't gone away, you know", was, we were assured, just placating his hardliners. As the appeasers shouted down the sceptics, and as President Bill Clinton shook hands with Adams on the Falls Road that November, South Armagh murderers were obeying Army Council instructions and working on the bomb that in February 1996 killed John Jeffries, a musician, and his friend Inan Ul-haq Bashir, in their newspaper kiosk near Canary Wharf.
The IRA blamed the British prime minister, John Major, for making unacceptable demands. Appeasers like Eamon Dunphy blamed people like me, for upsetting the IRA by querying theirsincerity.
Wexford-born Edward O'Brien killed himself with his own bomb a week later in central London and in June, Garda Jerry McCabe was shot in Adare. Threats to witnesses reportedly led the prosecution team to drop murder charges infavour of a manslaughter charge.
The death of British Military Warrant Officer James Bradwell, four days after two IRA bombs blew him up in Thiepval barracks near Lisburn, in October 1996, has been forgotten by all but his grieving family and friends. And, maybe, by hismurderers.
The fine fellows who shot dead young UK Army Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, in February 1997, laughed and shouted to friends as they were taken to the cells: they had much to celebrate 16 months later when they were released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The gunmen who murdered Constables Roland Graham and David Johnston in broad daylight in Lurgan in June got off scot-free.
The second "cessation", of July 1997, which followed the decision of the new Blair government to let Sinn Fein into talks without any prior decommissioning, has lasted, and is probably permanent. Because they no longer kill dozens of people every year, it is considered anti-peace to protest about what a Northern Ireland official cynically described as "internal housekeeping" - ie the occasional IRA murder or savage torture of mutinous republicans or petty criminals.
The way nationalists treat Sinn Fein/IRA reminds me of a wife who - used to being half-strangled, stabbed and trashed to within an inch of her life - tells people proudly that her husband now beats her only occasionally, and rarely seriously enough to send her to hospital. Meanwhile, her husband, who should be in jail, appears on television hailed as a role model for the young.
Among the major misfortunes visited upon our country is the ideology of physical-force nationalism and the existence of fundamentalist practitioners cruel enough to kill and maim men, women and children in its name. I am glad that the IRA leadership these days - unlike their successors in the Real and Continuity IRAs - think the smart way to go is the ballot-box and criminality rather than murder. But don't expect me to be grateful.
And please, stop peddling the lie that we've had a decade of peace.
© Irish Independent
A brief history of Northern Ireland - after Irish Nationalists sucessfully brought the United Kingdom govt to the Treaty table in 1921 Ireland was given dominion status within the British Commomwealth - but only 5/6ths of Ireland - the remaining 1/6th stayed part of the United Kingdom - was the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland"; became the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - this happened because about 1 million people out of an All-Ireland population of 5 million consider themselves British (Scottish planter stock from the Elizabethan 1600's plantation of Ulster AKA "Scots-Irish") not Irish. So Northern Ireland was carved out in 1921 and given some "devolved" powers within the UK. Ireland (AKA Eire, the Republic of Ireland) unilaterally broke with the British crown in 1932 when the Irish Constitution of today was adopted and all reference to the crown dropped. Finally in 1948 Ireland left the Commonwealth, ending that association.
Modern day Ireland is divided by into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is still mostly Protestant / British and most people there want to stay part of the UK. The modern division is about 55/45 in terms of protestant to catholic. Young people from Northern Ireland tend to leave and go to Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland.
All terrorists are Muslims, IRA aren't Muslims hence they aren't terrorists. Haven't you caught the new trend man?
Actually there are nine counties in Ulster and three of them are part of the republic.
Demographics do not favor the N. Ireland unionists. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Catholic minority becomes a majority in ten years time or so. Hopefully whatever friction happens will be of the yammering kind and not the shooting or bombing kind. But given recent history, that might be too much to wish for.
I read that article; another fine piece from Ruth Dudley Edwards - she just doesn't stick the knife in; she twists it!!!
Just one point - it was 1937, and 1949 respectivily.
Question is though, do we have the Irish Constitution today?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.