Corbyn And His Support For The IRA

Original post by Stewpid

I'm not going to comment on the days of the IRA and the UDF in Ireland- I don't know enough about it, Jeremy Corbyn has form in meeting terrorist organisations- he met the IRA, he met Hamas and defined them as his "friends". If he describes one terrorist organisations as friends then maybe he is also friends with the IRA. During the election campaign Jeremy Corbyn said he never met the IRA and he did, he got exposed by Boris Johnson who is not the brightest

So what if he did meet these people though?

Reply 22

Original post by Napp

So what if he did meet these people though?

I think that conflates two issues. People, especially in politics, have to meet - on occasion - with some right bad'uns. Chamberlain met with Hitler, people from the UK Government spoke with the IRA. You might argue that we should not negotiate with these people in any capacity, but while that's a laudable sentiment it can only go so far in achieving certain ends.

Corbyn met with them, not to negotiate or attempt to build peace, but to strengthen their resolve by giving his support. He handed over what legitimacy he had as a Member of the British Parliament to them, to use as part of their cause.

That Jeremy Corbyn has little problem with violence is one issue: that he is a global tourist, seeking out some of the worst people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with from across the world is another. Someone like him shouldn't be taken seriously as a potential leader of a major Western power, but that is where we are: so his worldview becomes relevant. It is one that is resolutely opposed to the Western Alliance that his own country is a key part of, and one that appears to have no moral compunction about siding with anyone in that cause.

Not only does he consistently back the wrong horse; not only would he - as PM - destroy every alliance the UK is involved in; ultimately his greatest moral failing is that he takes the approach that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to its absolute end. He would literally side with anyone, no matter what they had done - and he would not only work with them, but defend them to hilt.

That's the problem with Jeremy Corbyn. Or, to be more precise, one of them.

Reply 23

Stewpid

10

Original post by Napp

So what if he did meet these people though?

Well he described Hamas as his friends who are a terrorist organisation- this means that he is a terrorist sympathiser. My dad remembers when the Mulberry Bush got bombed- The IRA was the ISIS of the 1970's and 1980'd they used violence and intimidation to further their political aims but the IRA was operational for 20+ years and bombed no end of English cities- him meeting with them is disrespectful to the victims families. He sympathised with the IRA of course he did- he failed to condemn them and praised them. If this does not make you think he's a bit of a ******* i don't know what will, if this would of been any tory who appeared with the IRA then mainstream media wouldn't shut up about it, but they are in love with Corbyn, he is there media darling.

Reply 24

Original post by Stewpid

Well he described Hamas as his friends who are a terrorist organisation- this means that he is a terrorist sympathiser. My dad remembers when the Mulberry Bush got bombed- The IRA was the ISIS of the 1970's and 1980'd they used violence and intimidation to further their political aims but the IRA was operational for 20+ years and bombed no end of English cities- him meeting with them is disrespectful to the victims families. He sympathised with the IRA of course he did- he failed to condemn them and praised them. If this does not make you think he's a bit of a ******* i don't know what will, if this would of been any tory who appeared with the IRA then mainstream media wouldn't shut up about it, but they are in love with Corbyn, he is there media darling.

Arguably Hamas are freedom fighters as opposed to anything else. They're not bent on world domination or the overthrow of some order, they want their country back - which is not an unreasonable request even if they are unpleasant.
Maybe but then again we have had a succession of PMs who have met with and wined and dined Israels leaders who are exponentially worse than Hamas in the scale of their barbarism.

The IRA were bad but to compare them to ISIL is fallacious, in ones view. and again as a counter point to that our current PM is in a coalition with another group of Irish terrorists - you cant single Corbyn out for this without tarring the other party as well.

I dont recall him ever praising them bombing civilians - you'll have to showme a quote for this?

I never said he wasnt a **** but on the scale of dickish things our political overlords have done he is a small fish eating small food in a vast ocean.

'Mainstream media' has nothing to do with this to be honest, it comes across as nothing but a hypocritical smear campaign to further partisan political views.

Reply 25

Original post by L i b

I think that conflates two issues. People, especially in politics, have to meet - on occasion - with some right bad'uns. Chamberlain met with Hitler, people from the UK Government spoke with the IRA. You might argue that we should not negotiate with these people in any capacity, but while that's a laudable sentiment it can only go so far in achieving certain ends.

I feel this is being used as little more than a get out of jail card - Corbyn meets Hamas and the IRA and gets condemned for it yet May wines and dines the Saudis [far worse than Hamas] and is in an alliance with the DUP. It is little more than hypocrisy.

[quote]Corbyn met with them, not to negotiate or attempt to build peace, but to strengthen their resolve by giving his support. He handed over what legitimacy he had as a Member of the British Parliament to them, to use as part of their cause.p/quote]
In fairness so what? Few politicians do. We are in bed with numerous governments and people who commit the most grievous human rights attrocities and saying that it is okay simply because they buy our weapons or sell us oil is a craven injustice to those they slaughter. To be honest at least Corbyn meets with them out of personal conviction as opposed to simple money grubbing.

That Jeremy Corbyn has little problem with violence is one issue: that he is a global tourist, seeking out some of the worst people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with from across the world is another. Someone like him shouldn't be taken seriously as a potential leader of a major Western power, but that is where we are: so his worldview becomes relevant. It is one that is resolutely opposed to the Western Alliance that his own country is a key part of, and one that appears to have no moral compunction about siding with anyone in that cause.

I'm not sure why bringing up his dislike of NATO is being used to somehow try and smear him here? the 'leader of the free world' is equally, if not more so, skeptical of it..

Not only does he consistently back the wrong horse; not only would he - as PM - destroy every alliance the UK is involved in; ultimately his greatest moral failing is that he takes the approach that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to its absolute end. He would literally side with anyone, no matter what they had done - and he would not only work with them, but defend them to hilt.

Infairness that is exactly what we have always done... That is why we armed the Taliban and every other terror group we nominally hate.

That's the problem with Jeremy Corbyn. Or, to be more precise, one of them.

I'm not saying he's a saint but he is far from the worst..

Reply 26

Stewpid

10

Wouldn't it be lovely if you could read?

Hamas was declared a terrorist organisation by a number of nations. The definition of terrorism is to use violence and intimidation to further political aims, you could argue Hamas does exactly that.

The UDA did not bomb any of our towns or cities the same can't be said about the IRA who's political whig is Sinn Fein.

Now for the bit you taken out of context, I never ever said Corbyn praised the bombings- I said Corbyn praised there bravery

What s the difference between ISIS and IRA in the sense that they both bomb innocent people- the difference is we have 23,000 Islamic terrorists

Reply 27

Trinculo

21

Corbyn has never supported purely peaceful means. He has always supported a United ireland through armed struggle.

As for the IRA- they knocked Isis into a hat. In 73-74 the IRA carried out more than 80 bombings just in London. They once carried out 4 bombings in one day. This is the group that Corbyn supported not with hindsight- but at the time. He was in cahoots with them when they tried to wipe out the British Government.

Reply 28

Original post by Napp

Arguably Hamas are freedom fighters as opposed to anything else. They're not bent on world domination or the overthrow of some order, they want their country back - which is not an unreasonable request even if they are unpleasant.

Hamas are not some sort of organisation seeking the enforcement of UN mandates, they're violent terrorists who want to create an oppressive Islamic state in Israel and Palestine and to kill Jews.

Maybe but then again we have had a succession of PMs who have met with and wined and dined Israels leaders who are exponentially worse than Hamas in the scale of their barbarism.

Israel is a legitimate, democratic state. Comparing them to a terrorist organisation is not reasonable or rational.

The IRA were bad but to compare them to ISIL is fallacious, in ones view. and again as a counter point to that our current PM is in a coalition with another group of Irish terrorists - you cant single Corbyn out for this without tarring the other party as well.

Theresa May isn't "in coalition" with anyone, the Conservatives agreed confidence-and-supply with the DUP in exchange for agreeing on some policies. Political parties make these agreements with other parties all the time, it doesn't imply any sort of support for them.

However to call the DUP "Irish terrorists" is, again, pretty odd. Some of its members had links with short-lived paramilitaries many years ago (the Ulster Resistance, so far as I can see, only ever offended against HM Customs). If someone wants to sit down with Sinn Fein today, that's fine - that's different from supporting the IRA when the IRA were murdering civilians.

I dont recall him ever praising them bombing civilians - you'll have to showme a quote for this?

I'm sure he just admired their administrative abilities and stylish balaclava-wearing.

Reply 29

rem110892

9

Whatever Corbyn's true feelings, let's remember that Sinn fein, the IRA's political wing, have risen inexorably since their initial foray into electoral politics in the 1980s (the so-called Armalite and ballot box strategy) to the modern day, where their standing within the nationalist community is utterly dominant. They are currently breathing down the DUP's neck for the position of No 1 party in NI, winning 7/18 seats in last year's general election on an abstensionist ticket. This would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.
Sorry for being long winded but I think this context is important in demonstrating that many people share such IRA-sympathetic views (or at least tolerate them) even if Corbyn in fact doesn't.
I find it incredible that Sinn Fein, who continue to justify the IRA's bloody campaign, being in government in NI (remember an apparently 'integral' part of the UK) hardly warrants a mention by anyone in GB, yet Corbyn meeting Gerry Adams decades ago is a cause for moral outrage. If that's not cognitive dissonance I don't know what is...

Reply 30

Original post by rem110892

Whatever Corbyn's true feelings, let's remember that Sinn fein, the IRA's political wing, have risen inexorably since their initial foray into electoral politics in the 1980s (the so-called Armalite and ballot box strategy) to the modern day, where their standing within the nationalist community is utterly dominant. They are currently breathing down the DUP's neck for the position of No 1 party in NI, winning 7/18 seats in last year's general election on an abstensionist ticket. This would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.
Sorry for being long winded but I think this context is important in demonstrating that many people share such IRA-sympathetic views (or at least tolerate them) even if Corbyn in fact doesn't.
I find it incredible that Sinn Fein, who continue to justify the IRA's bloody campaign, being in government in NI (remember an apparently 'integral' part of the UK) hardly warrants a mention by anyone in GB, yet Corbyn meeting Gerry Adams decades ago is a cause for moral outrage. If that's not cognitive dissonance I don't know what is...

It merited a pretty great deal of comment at the time of the peace process. A lot of people had to hold their noses quite hard in the cause of peace, the cost of which was that reconciliation was priced above punishment for past crimes.

It was, of course, dependent on the political parties in question abiding by peaceful means. No-one went into detail on the rights and wrongs of the past, because that would have stood as an obvious obstacle. What certainly was the case, however, is that Sinn Fein could never have joined that work without condemning violence and the IRA ceasing to be active.

There would have been no sense that this could have happened in the 1970s and 80s, when they were still plying their murderous trade - and when Jeremy Corbyn was standing right behind them.

Reply 31

Original post by L i b

Hamas are not some sort of organisation seeking the enforcement of UN mandates, they're violent terrorists who want to create an oppressive Islamic state in Israel and Palestine and to kill Jews.

And yet theyre quite popular with the locals?
At any rate you cannot tar them with this 'terrorist' brush without calling the Israelis exactly the same. and as far as they go Israel is much much worse - Hamas may have vile political views on religion but they havent been ethnicly cleansing the area, nor carpet bombing civilians.

Israel is a legitimate, democratic state. Comparing them to a terrorist organisation is not reasonable or rational.

Bits of it might be but larger amounts of it arent.
I get the feeling you're too partisan to even bother discussing this with you? The simple facts of the matter are ISrael has turned Gaza into a concentration camp, it arrests,dissapears and tortures civilians in military jails, it deliberately bombs hospitals and civillians blocks of flats etc. etc. etc. This is by every metric worse than Hamas and yet somehow they're just 'defending themselves'. The illusion that ISrael has a purity of arms and morals of battle is simply a lie.
Don't get me wrong Hamas are repellent as well though.
Also this fiction that israel is a democratic state ... it might be in the way apartheid south africa was but its a simple fact that many arabs there are not allowed to vote because they arent 'citizens'.

Theresa May isn't "in coalition" with anyone, the Conservatives agreed confidence-and-supply with the DUP in exchange for agreeing on some policies. Political parties make these agreements with other parties all the time, it doesn't imply any sort of support for them.

You seem to be quibbling over semantics here.
If labour did that with Sinn Fein i imagine you lot would be spitting fire.

However to call the DUP "Irish terrorists" is, again, pretty odd. Some of its members had links with short-lived paramilitaries many years ago (the Ulster Resistance, so far as I can see, only ever offended against HM Customs). If someone wants to sit down with Sinn Fein today, that's fine - that's different from supporting the IRA when the IRA were murdering civilians.

Not especially - they had numerous links to groups such as the UDF which most certainly went around slaughtering civilians.

You seem to have a problem of only calling people terrorists when it suits you? You say Corbyn supports them but you forget the Conservatives and New Labour both engaged in terror, both armed and supported terror groups and on. Or are they 'freedom fighters' in your book? :rolleyes:

I'm sorry but I just find this hypocrisy to be nauseating.

I'm sure he just admired their administrative abilities and stylish balaclava-wearing.

Well in fairness...

Reply 32

SaucissonSecCy

16

The British establishment can't ignore theirs.

I will digress here because this really pertains to the whole English predicament more widely.

I'm so tired of listening to historically illiterate, jingoistic, revisionist, morally hypocritical crap. These are the people that carved up the whole planet and rewrote history.

Not one of the little Englander Tories (And NuLab smearers-who of course offer such a political alternative) ever shows a cursory amount of curiosity about history before you spout this crap.

Once again, a country was carved up, brutalised, divided, information manipulated, and then lectured about morality in a sickening, hypocritical bullying way- it's what they do best.

Maybe go and find out about 13 innocent civilians murdered, guns placed on their bodies afterward to incriminate them. or MI5 planting bomb in loyalist pubs and blaming the IRA.

England has been THE global ****-stirrer, the most deceptive, voracious, tyrannical, morally hypocritical and evil nation on earth.

I've lived its lies myself, experienced the hypocrites first hand.

Getting really sick of the convinced moralizing complete with the usual trademark ignorance, false assumptions of moral superiority, and inbuilt (but not stated)chauvinism towards other peoples here.

I've just seen it a million times from the English, it's such a distillation of everything that is wrong with the place and everything holding the politics of the British isles back.

Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, Corbyn and his wing of
Labour, Lib Dems, no -one else wants this crap in our politics, they are all progressives. It's a combo of Tories, NuLabour and vile newspapers which NuLab have claimed they dislike (not when a few lies and smears are required...so much integrity once again, and never expected them to pander to such bigoted little Englandism, GOD!)

With every passing day of this crap, and seeing how there are progressive politics across the British Isles and elsewhere, I am convinced that Britain and the conservative end of the spectrum in Britain, especially England, is THE political problem.

Time to shed the post-imperial stupor, massive classism, revisionist nonsense, jingoism and chauvinism..and join humanity.

That won't happen of course, they will carry on living with their heads up their pompous arses rejecting the prospect of not living a silly delusion of grandeur forever.

But Northern Ireland will probably go and Scotland too. England is such an utterly lost and arrogant, misinformed nation.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 33

Original post by Napp

And yet theyre quite popular with the locals?
At any rate you cannot tar them with this 'terrorist' brush without calling the Israelis exactly the same. and as far as they go Israel is much much worse - Hamas may have vile political views on religion but they havent been ethnicly cleansing the area, nor carpet bombing civilians.

I have no idea how popular Hamas are in Gaza, since there's not been a democratic election in over a decade. Unfortunately, all terrorist groups to some extent rely on a degree of popular support.

I certainly can object to any equivalency between a terrorist group and Israel, a liberal democracy. The idea that they have "ethnically cleansed" or carpet-bombed Gaza is nonsense. Indeed, as they've demonstrated, they want nothing more than disentanglement from it.

Bits of it might be but larger amounts of it arent.
I get the feeling you're too partisan to even bother discussing this with you? The simple facts of the matter are ISrael has turned Gaza into a concentration camp, it arrests,dissapears and tortures civilians in military jails, it deliberately bombs hospitals and civillians blocks of flats etc. etc. etc. This is by every metric worse than Hamas and yet somehow they're just 'defending themselves'. The illusion that ISrael has a purity of arms and morals of battle is simply a lie.
Don't get me wrong Hamas are repellent as well though.
Also this fiction that israel is a democratic state ... it might be in the way apartheid south africa was but its a simple fact that many arabs there are not allowed to vote because they arent 'citizens'.

I've got no particular dog in this fight: I hold no great affection for the Israeli state. However I will not justify terrorism or give its supporters and apologists a free pass.

Israel does not target civilians, Israel does not operate a reign of terror within Gaza (Hamas manages that just fine by itself). Israel has broken certain tenants of international law and, in some cases - but I emphasise only some - has used disproportionate force. That is quite different to the bombers, antisemites and murderers of Hamas. False moral equivalency is no better than justification.

Israel does not discriminate between people on the basis of race. Some Arabs cannot vote: chiefly those who don't actually live in Israel, but live in the occupied territories, who of course can vote for the Palestinian Authority if it actually functioned. These people are not, and never have been, citizens of Israel: if you want to find wider political institutions that have withdrawn their democratic rights, look to Jordan and Egypt.

You seem to be quibbling over semantics here.
If labour did that with Sinn Fein i imagine you lot would be spitting fire.

The nationalist SDLP already coordinate voting with the Labour Party and take their whip in the Commons.

Not especially - they had numerous links to groups such as the UDF which most certainly went around slaughtering civilians.

I'm not sure what the UDF is...

If you mean the UDA, let's take an example. Arlene Foster met with a senior UDA man following a Loyalist murder. She absolutely condemned that murder both before and after. She said clearly that--

"Jackie McDonald knows my views very, very clearly. If people want to move away from criminality, from terrorism, we will help them to do that, but anyone who is engaged in this sort of activity should stop, should desist, and if they don't they should be open to the full rigour of the law."

Jeremy Corbyn certainly didn't say anything of the sort of the IRA. Indeed, he gave them support rather than condemnation.

You seem to have a problem of only calling people terrorists when it suits you? You say Corbyn supports them but you forget the Conservatives and New Labour both engaged in terror, both armed and supported terror groups and on. Or are they 'freedom fighters' in your book? :rolleyes:

I'm sorry but I just find this hypocrisy to be nauseating.

Except of course this is fiction. To accuse the last two UK Governments of terrorism is really quite something. It seems in your book that Jeremy Corbyn is fine to associate with terrorists because, at heart, we're all terrorists really.

That, however, is the very worst sort of bull-****.

Reply 34

Original post by L i b

I have no idea how popular Hamas are in Gaza, since there's not been a democratic election in over a decade. Unfortunately, all terrorist groups to some extent rely on a degree of popular support.

can't say I do either i'm afraid. However they are vastly more popular than Fatah which maintains a rather unenviable reputation there.

I certainly can object to any equivalency between a terrorist group and Israel, a liberal democracy. The idea that they have "ethnically cleansed" or carpet-bombed Gaza is nonsense. Indeed, as they've demonstrated, they want nothing more than disentanglement from it.

It might be a liberal democracy compared to its neighbours but compared to a European state it is positively medieval. Using military courts to detain civillians, torture camps, depriving arab palestinians of citizenship and all the benefits that entails. Not to mention bulldozing and burning Palestinian lands in the west bank. To call them liberal is a grotesque lie in ones opinion - especially given that the Likud are being accused of being far right to bordering on fascism these days.

I should have been more clear there - I was reffering to their actions in Lebanon more than Gaza when i made reference to carpet bombing.

I've got no particular dog in this fight: I hold no great affection for the Israeli state. However I will not justify terrorism or give its supporters and apologists a free pass.

Then why are you excusing the actions of Israel which by EVERY metric amount to the rankest of state terrorism? The fact they aided and abetted the slaughter of 3000+ refugees speaks volumes.

Israel does not target civilians, Israel does not operate a reign of terror within Gaza (Hamas manages that just fine by itself). Israel has broken certain tenants of international law and, in some cases - but I emphasise only some - has used disproportionate force. That is quite different to the bombers, antisemites and murderers of Hamas. False moral equivalency is no better than justification.

This is patently untrue. If you start firing artillery into a densely populated area such as Gaza that is de facto, if not de jure, targeting civilians. Trying to excuse this sort of behavior, with all due respect, is obscene.
Dropping bombs on apartment buildings, firing cluster bombs into cities, shelling hospitals, arming terrorists - the list goes on. I'm not sure what you think you know on this but you appear to either be willfully ignorant of Israeli crimes or are simply glossing over them?
Erm Hamas and Hizbullah are both semites... At any rate I really do wish you lot would stop simply dismissing everyone who disagrees - be it violently or politically - with Israel as antisemites, its a ridiculously reductionist argument.

Israel does not discriminate between people on the basis of race. Some Arabs cannot vote: chiefly those who don't actually live in Israel, but live in the occupied territories, who of course can vote for the Palestinian Authority if it actually functioned. These people are not, and never have been, citizens of Israel: if you want to find wider political institutions that have withdrawn their democratic rights, look to Jordan and Egypt.

You seem to be trying to excuse Israeli actions again..under Israels occupation Palestine is for all intents and purposes part of Israel - to deny the people there basic rights under the pretext that the land isnt now Israeli is ridiculous.
What have Jordan and Egypt got to do with this sorry?

The nationalist SDLP already coordinate voting with the Labour Party and take their whip in the Commons.

I'm not sure what the UDF is...

Ulster Defense Force. But yes i believe I meant to type, UDA - my apologies.

If you mean the UDA, let's take an example. Arlene Foster met with a senior UDA man following a Loyalist murder. She absolutely condemned that murder both before and after. She said clearly that--

"Jackie McDonald knows my views very, very clearly. If people want to move away from criminality, from terrorism, we will help them to do that, but anyone who is engaged in this sort of activity should stop, should desist, and if they don't they should be open to the full rigour of the law."

Jeremy Corbyn certainly didn't say anything of the sort of the IRA. Indeed, he gave them support rather than condemnation.

I'm sorry when did Corbyn give support to IRA terror attacks?

Except of course this is fiction. To accuse the last two UK Governments of terrorism is really quite something. It seems in your book that Jeremy Corbyn is fine to associate with terrorists because, at heart, we're all terrorists really.

That, however, is the very worst sort of bull-****.

You're going to have to indulge me here - how havent successive UK governments been engaged in terror? I would point to our actions in the Middle East as a case in point...
No my point is that the truism of o'ne mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter' holds true here. You only call Hamas and Hizbullah terrorist groups because of their fight against the Israelis - when by most metrics they more count as guerrilla fronts - I am simply pointing out your apparent hypocrisy anyway, you cannot lambast Corbyn for his wheelings and dealings without coming down just as hard on near enough every other politician.

Reply 35

TCFactor

12

I think the mere concept of socialism(and social Democracy) is enough proof that any Labour government or any Leftist government in general will fail. Fail terribly.

Reply 36

username1799249

Original post by PilgrimOfTruth

I'm curious.

Do the younger students here know anything about the terrorism suffered through the 80s with the IRA?

Do people realise how Corbyn sympathised and supported the IRA, attended the funerals of IRA members and so on?

Some useful info here:

Jeremy Corbyn can’t rewrite his reprehensible IRA history

http://www.cityam.com/265655/jeremy-...le-ira-history

I find the Corbyn sympathiser argument rather strange. If you are a human being I find it difficult to understand how you can't sympathise with Catholics in NI who were systematically discriminated against, victimised by the RUC and intimidated by the Loyalist population whilst the authorities turned a blind eye.

If you keep kicking an angry dog, it will eventually bite back.

I'm not justifying the troubles but when you understand the way people were treated, it was entirely predictable.

Reply 37

Original post by ByEeek

I find the Corbyn sympathiser argument rather strange. If you are a human being I find it difficult to understand how you can't sympathise with Catholics in NI who were systematically discriminated against, victimised by the RUC and intimidated by the Loyalist population whilst the authorities turned a blind eye.

If you keep kicking an angry dog, it will eventually bite back.

I'm not justifying the troubles but when you understand the way people were treated, it was entirely predictable.

Again, this horrendous glamorising myth of the IRA as some sort of protector of NI's Roman Catholic population is *******s, as I said in a post above--

"Incidentally, what I found most objectionable was your assertion that the IRA were some sort of "defender to the Catholics". The IRA killed literally hundreds of Catholics: not just in its indiscriminate bombings against the entirety of the people of Northern Ireland, but worse yet in the gangsterism it attempted to enforce over people it disgustingly saw an entitlement to "rule" over.

This included not people it considered minor nuisances - who often found themselves at the wrong end of a gun - but also people going about their business. Mothers who objected that their children had been murdered, women who had done their civic duty and reported crimes to the police, Catholic members of the police, people who tried to stop violence, Catholics who tried to stand up to what the IRA was doing to their communities - and on many occasions, people who were murdered for reasons that defy any sort of explanation. Elderly people, women and children; people subject not only to being kidnapped or murdered, but beatings, torture and deliberate maiming.

So please don't try to pretend that they were some sort of force for good: if anything, Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland suffered disproportionately from their actions."

I see you criticising the RUC, yet it was pretty difficult to build a diverse and inclusive police force when Roman Catholics who may have sought to join were threatened with death for doing so. The RUC, of course, remained very open to Catholic officers: in the 90s prior to the GFA, 8% of officers were Catholic - but Catholics represented 17% of promoted ranks.

Reply 38

username1799249