Hate the name but that is what the struggle in the Six Counties (or what I like to call the Artificially Created Loyalist Enclave in Ireland) from the late 60s to the Good Friday Agreement have been popularly called.
My position will be:
the IRA campaign was a legitimate war of self-defense and liberation triggered by a brutal and murderous campaign by the UK and its Loyalist supporters against a peaceful civil rights campaign.
I'll make some subsidiary arguments touching on an individual's right to resist tyranny as well.
It might take me a while to get some material in coherent order, so others can weigh in immediately on how I'm a bloodthirsty, armchair terrorist.
Let's start with a group called the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, a group formed in 1967 to address systemic discrimination and injustice in the Six Counties (ACLEI). Incidentally, the NICRA was not "nationalist" - it did not explicitly support a united Ireland. It goals were:
Achieve one-man one vote (OMOV) for local council elections. If this was introduced, anyone over the age of 18 would be allowed to vote. OMOV would also end the practice of giving multiple votes to business owners.
Ensure that local councils allocated their houses fairly. At this time only those who paid rates were allowed to vote in local council elections. If councils did not give Catholics houses then they could not vote.
Stop the practice of gerrymandering.
Ensure that religion was not used as a factor when allocating government jobs.
End the use of the Special Powers Act.
Disband the B Specials.
Introduce a system that allowed people to report local council violations in any of the above areas.
Some of this is self-explanatory but much of is part of the peculiar practices of repression in the area. For example:
"In the half century of Northern Ireland's existence, the Catholic minority had been subject to various kinds of discrimination as Unionists took steps to protect their power - most notably by manipulating public housing.
Only ratepayers or householders were eligible to vote and successive unionist politicians were reluctant to build houses that would grant suffrage."
And:
"Some of the most obvious examples of "gerrymandering" was found in Londonderry where in the mid 1960s the shape of the council wards deliberately divided the Catholic population to massively exagerate the political representation of the Protestant community."
The "Special Powers Act" was a law allowing the State to arrest and detain those labelled "terrorists" without trial or bail.
The B Specials or Ulster Special Constabulary is a police force of over 9,000 men made up exclusively of Protestants.
OK, all those sound like perfectly reasonable demands, I'm sure the Stormont and UK governments wouldn't have much problem negotiating with such folks and resolving those differences peacefully?
Well .........................................................................
@no1marauder Ok. To be fair, you have made an effort to put this in place.
When I respond more fully tomorrow I will be focussing on the atrocities by the IRA, in particular Warrington and Enniskillen (sorry, we meant to set the bombs somewhere else)
When I respond more fully tomorrow I will be focussing on the atrocities by the IRA, in particular Warrington and Enniskillen (sorry, we meant to set the bombs somewhere else)
Dresden was a German place, mercilessly bombed in WW2
I wasn't born in 1945. If I was to have to answer for all of the 'poor practice' by English/UK armed forces back to God knows when, what sort of an argument is this?
Edward I in Scotland. Henry V in France, dare one say, Oliver Cromwell in ireland. There has to be a limit as to where this debate is centred? Agree?
So the NICRA makes their requests for political reforms and is basically ignored. They decide to follow the lead of the US civil rights movement (and many before and since) and stage a protest:
October 5th, 1968: NICRA and the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) decide to hold a march to protest at housing in the city. The march is banned by the Stormont Government, but goes ahead anyway. The RUC baton charge protesters and the images of police violence are captured on television. Almost 100 protesters are injured.
Surely this is an outlier. Well .....................................
"January 4th, 1969: The People’s Democracy movement organise a march from Belfast to Derry on New Year’s Day 1969. On the fourth day of the march at Burntollet Bridge outside Derry, the protesters are attacked with sticks and stones by a loyalist mob. The RUC stand by and watch.
April 19th, 1969: A rally at Derry’s Guildhall by nationalists is attacked by stone-throwing loyalists. The RUC intervene and follow the nationalist crowd back into the Bogside. RUC officers enter the home of Sammy Devanney in William Street and beat him and his family.
July 14th, 1969: Francis McCloskey dies after being beaten during a melee in Dungiven, Co Derry. Two days later Sammy Devenney dies in hospital of injuries he received from the RUC beating in April. Bogside residents vow not to allow the RUC into the Bogside again."
Violence continues through August 1969, with the RUC and Loyalist paramilitaries repeatedly attacking nationalist areas and with the latter responding with occasional attacks on police stations and the like. Patrick Rooney, a 9 year old (BOTT hasn't mentioned him) is killed by a tracer bullet in his home fired from heavy machine guns mounted on armored cars. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/he-slid-down-the-wall-blood-coming-from-his-head-the-first-child-killed-in-the-troubles-1.3983016
British troops arrive. According to the standard version, the People in nationalist areas are happy to see them considering the violence from the RUC and Loyalist militias. They expect them to be impartial enforcers of the peace.
Well ...............................................................................
Dresden was a German place, mercilessly bombed in WW2
I wasn't born in 1945. If I was to have to answer for all of the 'poor practice' by English/UK armed forces back to God knows when, what sort of an argument is this?
Edward I in Scotland. Henry V in France, dare one say, Oliver Cromwell in ireland. There has to be a limit as to where this debate is centred? Agree?
It's a philosophical argument.
Does the deaths of civilians in a war makes that war immoral and/or unjustified?
Let's assume you're not a pacifist to which any violence is immoral and unjustified (I've marched with Quakers who believe this).
The "Troubles" Debate Thread
06 Jul '20 23:261 edit
Back to Top